Fresh Eyes, #2

A Uncategorized story, by tycho garen
on 30th September 2008. (commentary)

Welcome to the 8th installment of the ongoing Station Keeping story. This installment will air in two parts. The first first part was entitled “Working Overtime,” and the second part is called “Evening Stroll,” and appears below. Thanks for reading.

Evening Stroll

Josh always imagined that the common spaces on the station would be more occupied then they were. Even though the station was mostly completed, it would still be a while before there was any regular traffic simply because of the way space travel worked. Josh tried to be more optimistic, but at the moment the station looked mighty dreary. “How do you are you liking this posting?” Josh asked when they stepped out of the lift.

“Oh, it’s alright. I’m a bit of a perfectionist with these computers,” she paused for a moment and looked at her left arm, on which, Josh realized, Julia was caring a mini-computer terminal. “So it’s nice to be able to organize a system basically from the get go. And besides all this gear is pretty high-tech–for the rim worlds–so that’s a plus.”

“Yeah, I felt the same about the construction management when I came aboard, but it kind of lost it’s glean after a while.”

“How long were you out here before the rest of us got here?”

“Few years, three and a half I think. I was on assignment a few worlds over, and being young and unattached, they moved me out here, because apparently I was the closest. Go figure.”

“And here you are. Spend a lot of time on the rim, then?”

“A little. I grew up core-side, but figured there was more to see. And Hanm has really grown on me.” Josh said.

“I grew up on ships, moving about every so often, we saw a lot of rim worlds, I can’t say they did much for me. Is Hanm really that special?”

“Particularly with this station, you bet. Most important rim world, the way I figure it.” Josh was almost baffled that she didn’t know Hanm.

“Everything’s so far apart, I totally don’t buy what the news people are saying about the Hanmists. The league’ll hold.”

“You know as well as anyone that core and rim are all relative terms, star-density is about the same, we just got to the ‘core’ first.”

“–that’s what I meant.” she cut him off.

“How familiar are you with the Hanmists, anyway?” Josh continued.

“Not much, just what I grazed in the reports.” she said, sounding a bit embarrassed. Hanm Centre was just a job for her, she was so used to moving around almost constantly that she had grown a thick skin for “settling in.”

“Look harder,” Josh said, stopping to turn to Julia “See what’s on the nets, I the Commander would like anything he can get on the subject”

“Do you think it’s a threat? Otherwise I don’t see the harm in letting people talk about whatever they want, didn’t the league learn that lesson the hard way a few centuries ago.” Julia spoke of the past as if it were only a few months ago, which it might not have been far off, Josh realized. He never checked to see when her objective birthday was: relativity screwed things up so bad. It gave him a headache, and he convinced himself that it didn’t really matter.

“I don’t know that I’d say ‘threat,’ but it’s worth keeping an eye on, and whatever happens this place,” he said, tapping his foot gently for emphasis, “is going to care.”

“I’ll say.”

“And what happens there,” Josh pointed to the mini-terminal screen strapped to her forearm, “is just as important as what happens out here.”

“You mean in ‘reality‘?” she said with mock amazement and horror. They laughed.

“Yeah,” he took a deep breath, “but, just one officer to another: keep your eyes open. Someone here needs to know what’s going on,” he pleaded.

“The nets are pretty cool, I’ll give myself–and them–that, but they’re not that good.” She said, hoping that she hadn’t overcommitted herself.

“It’s something. Anyway, lets keep walking, it’s a big station after all.”

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Fresh Eyes, #1

A Uncategorized story, by tycho garen
on 29th September 2008. (commentary)

Welcome to the 8th installment of the ongoing Station Keeping story. This installment will air in two parts. The first first part is entitled “Working Overtime,” and the second part will appear tomorrow. Thanks for reading.

Working Overtime

Josh undid the collar of his uniform jacket, he was supposed to feel grateful that the Navy permitted Hanm Centre officers wear the, only slightly, more comfortable field variant, but he didn’t. Josh sighed with relief at the idea that his shift was over. “Hey, Julia, are you going to work late, you should be done for today,”

There was a pause before she responded, and she didn’t look up from what she was doing when she said “um yeah, I’ll be right there, almost done with this file tree.”

Josh laughed. File tree, Josh thought that was an interesting way to conceptualize the data. He almost left the command center then but thought better of it. Though Hanm Centre was important in the grand scheme of things–which he had to keep reminding himself–and he loved interacting with so many different people, it wasn’t like there was all that much to do in the day-to-day, or that they were in the danger of running into anything in a space station.

“No really, you’re done for today. Come with me,” he said mustering as much authority in his voice as he could. He couldn’t, however, keep a straight face.

She snapped out of her haze just in time to process what she had heard and she chuckled. “I suppose you’re right.” She shut off her computer and slowly moved out of her chair. It took her a moment to stretch out to her full height. “I need to not get lost in work so much,” she pondered, “well whatever, I have priority to the computer core here, and what else is there to do?”

“Well, let’s see,” Josh herded the on-staff databases administrator and computer whiz into the elevator headed for the station’s poorly named, “common space.”

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“Guard Changing,” 3.2

A Station Keeping story, by tycho garen
on 13th August 2008. (commentary)

This is the second installment of the third Station Keeping episode. Read part one first.

Location: Docking Bay 3

“At least you’re not late this time,” David Conrad said to Josh as he jogged up to the hatch where Eli Banner was about to disembark.

“Once they step onto this deck, and people stop thinking that I’m in charge, I resolve to never run anywhere.” Joshua said taking a deep breath. Josh was surprised to see David here, but almost more surprised that he spoke so freely.

“Don’t say that, we might hold you to that.” David chuckled, and looked toward the unmoving hatch.

“So what brings you around these parts?”

“I hear there’s a ship docking.”

“Yep.”

“But I didn’t–”

“It’s alright, I have my ways, and without the pub open to distract me, I get bored. Besides, Eli’s an old friend,”

“Eli?”

“The commander.”

“Oh. Right.”

Before the silence settled again, the hatch hissed, and opened.

“Well, hello!” Commander Eli Banner said to David sounding surprised, as he stepped on to the station. The men hugged for a moment, and Talia Garn stepped out behind the commander and looked awkwardly at Joshua Sian.

“Talia Garn.”

“Joshua Sian.” Their introductions were soft and understated, as they were both more interested and surprised by the interaction between the commander and David Conrad.

“Talia, this is David Conrad; the David Conrad,” the commander interrupted, sending Sain back into silence.

“A pleasure, sir,” Talia said, extending her hand.

“What are you doing here?” Eli asked.

“I’m just the bar keep, watching and listening like always. Marc’s doctoring… as usual.”

“That’s great,” Eli smiled. “I hadn’t gotten word, but we’ll have to get a drink sometime.”

“Bar isn’t finished yet, but indeed we will.”

“I suppose we have a job to do here?” Eli said, turning his attention to the young lieutenant. He motioned toward the corridor, to make room for the rest of the crew and passengers to disembark.

“Indeed, I have crew on the docking procedure of the convoy, and there’s nothing else to report that I haven’t already filed with you, sir.”

“That’s probably true,” Banners response was as quick as it was dry.

Sian squirmed, he was unprepared to be the butt of all the new commander’s jokes. “I actually have some paperwork for you, to transfer command and what not.” Sain produced a tablet

“Sure, I’m sorry. We’ve been cooped up on the ships for so long, it’s just good to get out.” The commander took the tablet and began to confirm the transfer of authority. “I actually have heard that you’ve been doing a great job here.” He looked toward Talia and David and offered a curt smile.

“Thank you, sir. It’s good to have you aboard,” Joshua said and indicated that they should talk the elevator at the end of the corridor.

As the others turned to enter the elevator car David recused himself; “I actually have an appointment, that I have to tend to, but I trust I’ll see all of you soon.”

“Thanks for stopping by,” Eli said: the others just smiled kindly.

Joshua Sian inputed the code for the command center on the elevator’s keypad once the doors closed and everyone was aboard. “That was so incredibly strange,” he thought as the lift moved in silence.

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“Guard Changing,” 3.1

A Station Keeping story, by tycho garen
on 12th August 2008. (commentary)

This is the first installment of the third Station Keeping episode. Part two will drop tomorrow.

Location: Command Deck.

Joshua Sian jogged into the command center, it was like he’d spent the past two weeks running and always 10 minutes late. The space station shouldn’t have been that big yet anyway. Before the door closed he called out “Status?” as he walked over to an open station.

“The first three ships are, within range, for docking, several are queueing up–and the rest will be here–in an hour or two.” The crewmen’s stilted response was punctuated as he worked furiously to pass messages along to the dock crew.

“As we expected,” Sian noted as he began to adjust his own preliminary calculations. “Crewman?” Sain asked without looking up, his voice wavered slightly with concern. Thankfully, he managed to mostly stifle a wince at being unable to recall a name.

The entire command center crew responded, but their responses weren’t synchronized.

“Where’s the docking arm?” he asked, finally looking up at one of the displays. “We’re going to need it really soon…”

There was no response.

“Well, bring it about! and inform the commander’s ship that they might not have as much help as we promised.” The error, though not inexcusable, was as much Joshua’s fault as it was anyone else’s: they were over worked and understaffed, and Joshua had planned on being in command half an hour earlier, until one of the construction teams demanded his attention. Thankfully the docking arm would probably extend (even in the right direction!) when it was needed, but it was still frustrating.

“We have space for the first two ships in bay 3, and the second ship in…” he paused to look up the docking plan again. “bay 6.”

No one responded, there was no need.

“I’ll take in the first two ships, then I need to get down to meet the commander, you can manage the rest,” Josh proposed. It was good that he was about to be done with being in charge of things like space stations: proposals didn’t command in the same way that orders did. “So get ready for it,” he added.

“Should I call in Jacobs and Qunicy to help out with this?” One of the crew asked.

“Please do, It would be–” Sian trailed off, his concentration captured by the docking procedure, but everyone else was to busy to care what “would be.”

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Station Keeping #2: Arrival (Part 2)

A Station Keeping story, by tycho garen
on 28th July 2008. (commentary)

This is the second and final part of the second episode of the Station Keeping serial. You can read Part 1 here.

Docking

David Conrad and Marc Perrin stepped off the shuttle they owned onto the docking ramp to find the entire cavernous bay devoid of people. They stood on the other side of their air lock in silence, waiting for something to happen.

Marc rubbed his eyes, which had begun to tear from exhaustion: “Aren’t we supposed to have a landing party, here? or something?” Marc whispered, leaning slightly toward David.

“I guess not, we’re just normal folk now, I guess.”

“Speak for yourself, I actually have a job here,” Marc said, pinching his shirt where the rank pin would have been, had he been wearing a uniform. Actually, given that he was in civvies he almost hoped that there wouldn’t be a welcoming party.

David chuckled. A uniformed figure trotted briskly across the far side of the docking bay and he waved. “I guess that’s your welcoming party,” David said as they began to walk down the ramp.

“Sirs, sorry. We’re still a bit short staffed: the real crew doesn’t get here till the beginning of the week after next–our time.” Joshua was still a bit out of breath from his heroic run down from the command center. “I’m Joshua Sian, Lieutenant. I’ve been keeping the lights on, and organizing the last construction details before the crew gets here. Is there anything I can do to help you move in? A tour?”

“It’s David,” David responded looking distracted by the wall behind Sian.

“Sir?” Sian asked, looking quickly over his shoulder.

“It’s just David these days, none of this sir stuff.”

“Oh, right, sir–Daivd.” Sian corrected himself, and suppressed a squirm. There was silence.

“We have some crates that should probably be unloaded before we move the shuttle out of this bay, if you could arrange for that it would be great.” Marc said, taking charge of the conversation. “The deceleration was a bit longer than we expected and I for one am a bit too tired for a tour right now. Can we schedule one for tomorrow?”

“Sure, that would be great, s-” Sian stopped and looked puzzled for a moment.

David, was by now far more interested in inspecting the facilitates–albeit from a distance–than just about anything, including awkward young commissioned officers.

“Are the crates marked?” Sian asked.

“Should be.” Marc confirmed, before swallowing a yawn.

“I’ll get someone down here to take care of that right away.” Sian made a note on a micro-tablet that he seemed to produce from thin air. “Can I show you to your quarters now?” He offered.

“That would be great,” Marc said. When Sian turned around, Marc glared at David and mouthed “Way to be the strange one, fix it would you.”

David looked quizzically at Marc, and then getting a clue stepped up next to Joshua; “What’s the construction schedule looking like at this point?” he asked.

“We’re doing pretty good, but nothing is really fast enough. Ever.” Sian was caught off guard by the sudden interest, but as David asked more questions about the station and the Lieutenant fell more into his comfort zone, he relaxed.

Marc smiled, and yawned again as they made their way to their quarters. He watched the two men talk, and tried to track the conversion, but he quickly admitted to himself that he no interest in keeping up with the discussion. He could hardly think about anything except the amount of time between the present and the soonest opportunity to sleep.

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Station Keeping #2: Arrival (Part 1)

A Station Keeping story, by tycho garen
on 25th July 2008. (commentary)

This is part one of the second episode of the Station Keeping serial. The second and final part will be posted on Monday.

Office Space

“Damnit!” Taila exclaimed throwing her notes on the desk. She had sent a message to Joshua Sian on Hanm Centre, without attaching the crew rotation that she had promised. Normally such an error wouldn’t have caused much of a problem, but the time delay between her ship and the station for messages was still too long for comfort. She had to wait for the response before she could go off duty, so Talia’s shift just got a little bit longer: “it’s not like there’s anything worth doing, cooped up on the ship like this anyway,” she said to no one in particular and leaned back in the chair.

The doors opened to the skipper’s office with out warning and Talia sat up with a start.

“Skippers’ office, eh?” Eli Banner said, surprised. Though he attempted to act as if he was expecting to find Talia in his office.

“Sorry, sir.” Talia moved to vacate the chair in a rush, but when the skipper sat down in one of the other chairs, she relaxed and stayed in the chair. “I was just coordinating our arrival with Joshua Sian on the station, and wanted some quiet to write the messages–because we’re still text-only. Besides, the computer and crew don’t need me to watch over them while they slow down… so slowly” she reported, still somewhat uncomfortable sitting on this side of the desk.

“It’s fine, don’t worry about it, it’s just a room,” Eli said. Had there been actual business for the day, he might have been more interested in reclaiming his office, but it was just as well, the entire crew was engaged of tedious game of appearing busy while trying to hide the fact that they were all bored out of their minds. “What did Sian have to say for himself? Keeping the station in one piece I trust?”

“It’s not fin–” Talia began, but of course Banner knew that already. “More or less, I suppose: I have to resend some data to the station before I can go off duty, but I think we’ve made all the necessary arrangements for docking,” she said, offering a printout report of the docking plan.

“The other ships aren’t going to be happy about having to wait so long to disembark.” He commented and handed the paper back.

“It happens, they’ll deal.”

Eli chuckled, “We’ll make a station governor of you yet.” Talia didn’t quite manage to stifle a glare. Eli continued “relax, get some sleep: I don’t have anything scheduled for this shift so I can I’ll send the message.”

“It’s alright, really, my mistake.” Talia paused, but before Eli could agree “I can’t decide what’s worse, the thought of staying on this ship for another instant, or the thought of spending the next several years of my life on a station in orbit of Hanm.”

“Easy; this ship is worse than the station. Now give me that paper, before I put a mark on your record for sitting in my chair,” he joked. They stood and he grew serious for a moment “It all different, it always is, but you’ll do fine.” He punctuated his sentence with a smile, as he took her stack of files.

“You’re probably right. Good shift, sir,” she said, before turning to leave the office. “Lets avoid doing that again, shall we?” she thought after the door shut.

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