drei
Recruit
Posts: 25
|
Post by drei on Jun 28, 2018 23:56:43 GMT
[ Lt. Squawk McCall | Maytalon Shuttle | Docking Port | Crew Module | Augustus Station] Attn: Absinthe & Union PersonnelSquawk McCall straightened his shoulders and stretched his arms. He turned his head left and right - not quite doing an impression of an Owl, but near enough. He was a bit excited. He felt like he either needed to relax or he had been relaxing way too long. Either way, he worked out a crick in his neck and resisted the urge to crack his knuckles and make a video log. He did not know the man piloting the Maytalon shuttle that was ferrying him onto Augustus Station. Squawk did not want to make the poor lad unsure about how to react to Squawk's casual 'vlogging.' Besides, his recording drone was somewhere in his luggage. He had come from Maytalon to finalize some things and was advised not to make any recordings of his meetings there. "Making final approach, Your -" the young pilot, Ensign Pliny Floccosus, said "Sir." " Thank you, Ensign." Squawk said. The shuttle landed on the Docking port platform. From the view screen, Squawk saw what he surmised were the Captain and - judging from her coat - a medical officer. "We'd look like quite a team," Squawk thought, reconsidering his straightened shoulders. Perhaps, he should try not to look so tall when doing a nursing rotation. He made a note to see if he could pull off a tactical slouch when working with the diminutive doctor. Squawk unstrapped himself and stood. The pilot, sensing this, hurriedly pushed a few more buttons and stood as well to face Squawk at attention. Pliny's face a mask of nervous self-enforced calmness under the pilot's beak. "Really," Squawk said through his own, more ornate, Eagle beak "Right now, I am just a lieutenant on a Union vessel. At ease, Ensign."The pilot did not speak, but did assume the more relaxed position as ordered. "Well then," Squawk said. He reached for his mask and proceeded to remove it from his face. He could see slight unease flash over the poor pilot's face, uncomfortable at the near scandalous prospect of seeing someone, much less an Eagle, much less Squawk, without the customary headgear. Fortunately for him, the holographic projectors immediately turned on and an eagle beak made of hard light replaced the physical mask. "I shall leave this box here. It is a box of cookies. It is yours as a gesture of gratitude. Baked them myself. Extra crispy grub worms."
"Uh - yes, Sir." the pilot said momentarily losing composure "Thank you, Sure, I - uh, sir." Squawk placed stashed his mask into his luggage and turned to face the shuttle door. He stepped out and onto the docking port of the station itself. He was almost sure this part of the ancient station wasn't here when he left. He walked toward the man he saw was wearing the Captain's uniform. He assumed it was the Captain there to welcome his crew. Squawk's luggage followed him at a comfortable distance. The Captain had dismissed the medical officer and so, when Squawk judged he was near enough the Captain, he stopped, stood at attention and announced himself. " Lt. Squawk McCall reporting for duty, Captain." he said. He might have even looked the very model of an officer and gentleman in his well-tailored, new uniform except he was holding in his hands a homemade rabbit pie with a receipt peeking from underneath. " I heard about the matter synthesizers." he explained. Squawk's luggage did, in fact, include a crate of ingredients. Prominently on top of the crate was a box clearly labeled " Wines & Spirits." " The customs receipt is under the pie. It's all kosher. Except for the bacon. And the shellfish. Permission to come aboard, sir!" The last sentence was punctuated by the sound of the Maytalon shuttle launching off and departing the station.
|
|
|
Post by Absinthe on Jul 4, 2018 5:21:27 GMT
[ Cpt. Roland Locke | Crew Docking Port | Crew Module | Augustus Station] Attn: Triage To say that Roland was somewhat taken aback by the appearance and demeanor of this man would have to put things mildly, but he was a professional and as such he did not let it show. If anything there was a faint raise in his eyebrows and a shift in his stance. " Permission granted, welcome to Augustus Station Mr. McCall," Roland said and did his best to remember if it was considered appropriate to shake hands in the culture of the man. In the absence of any clear memory of ever being told he held out his hand. His eyes fell upon the pie after that and the slip with it. " I am certain if you're bringing any food or vegetables of any sort to the station our dockmaster is gonna wanna know about it. We have to keep track of things like that due to the natural ecosystem in some of the restricted areas of the station," he said calmly and smoothly, a rehearsed line. It was something he was going to have to say to a nearly endless stream of freighter captains and those visiting the station. He hoped that soon enough he'd have a full crew and not have to do as much personally, but these were early days.
|
|
drei
Recruit
Posts: 25
|
Post by drei on Jul 4, 2018 22:11:47 GMT
[ Lt. Squawk McCall | Crew Docking Port | Crew Module | Augustus Station]
Squawk, whose eyes were very keen, saw the subtle shift in the Captain's stance. He grew up learning the importance of understanding how others communicate in more than just words. It was a necessary part of life in his family. He realized he was dealing with one of the more serious members of the Union fleet. Humans could be unpredictable - they were just as diverse and varied as everyone else but their groups weren't as easy to profile and categorize very quickly.
"Don't judge the book by its cover." he heard once while on Earth. On Maytalon, part of the work was done for you just by looking at beaks. If you see an Owl, you know he or she is going to try to act wise. If you want to win a war, you recruit a lot of Emus. He was surprised how many of these stereotypes seemed to be reflected in human lore.
Squawk, as an eagle, was used to being very large when he entered a room but he understood differences in culture. He thought he had a grasp of humans from the friends he made at the academy. Even the people he knew of higher rank like teachers were kind of informal.
He realized that perhaps, those were Science and Medical officers. And they more or less accepted him as a colleague even while he was technically a cadet. This was a Command officer standing on his place of command. Captain Locke appeared to be regarding the pie like a hawk. Until the ice was broken - if it ever was - he would have to act like a dutiful officer around the captain.
Squawk straightened his posture a little and tightened his expression.
"Thank you, Captain. The pie is a sort of housewarming present." he said "The slip is for the dockmaster, it says everything's been inspected but of course he must inspect everything again if that's protocol, Captain! Unnecessarily upsetting the health of anything or anybody on this station would be the last thing I'd want to do."
He, of course, would be making work for himself if he caused anybody to get ill. But he had a vague idea about how much outside food and matter had already been in the station. He thought about the toasted nori sheet snacks and caviar in the boxes.
Squawk realized that by holding the pie, he was preventing what was known as a "handshake." His biggest clue was that the captain held out his hand.
"I'll ask for the pie to be sent to your quarters once they've cleared it." Squawk said setting it down onto the piece of hovering luggage that had come closer to them. It proceeded to hover away again. "I made it myself. It is a common custom, I find, to give people knick-knacks or food items upon arriving somewhere. I hope you don't think bird key chains and shortbread cookies would be bribing the dockmaster and his crew. I don't know if you like wine but it pairs well with a partially oaked, dry Chardonnay."
Squawk took the Captain's hand and shook it as firmly as he thought was appropriate. Humans seemed to have different preferences for handshake doneness and he tried for "medium well" as humans rarely preferred a "rare" handshake. When he first encountered the custom, he found the concept of offering to encumber a wing on purpose puzzling. However, he learned its origins and understood the gesture. He later learned that there were informal versions of the handshake and so far, his favorite was the "feed the birds" variation.
The alien ritual reminded him that he could now turn off his beak projection and the light construct deactivated, leaving his fleshy face exposed and generally unbirdlike.
"Should I report to the Science office or the infirmary, captain?" Squawk asked. He wondered if he could unpack his non-food belongings and see what his room would be like in this part of the extended and renewed station. He hoped it was very similar to other Union designs as the original architecture, while fascinating to him as an archaeologist, was obviously the very opposite of modern. Sleeping in something that looks like it belonged in a museum was something he only sometimes liked to do and right then he was not wearing the hat for it. "And may I know who appoints the quarters, please?"
The nose studs on his face, no longer covered by its projection of a predatory beak, seemed to emit a very faint, almost imperceptible glow. While it did not project a new eagle mask, in the distance the Lieutenant's cargo separated into food items that need to be declared and inspected and personal items. The pie and the customs inspection slip along with the rest of the food crates hovered in the direction of the dockmaster's office - whose rather smallish sign Squawk could easily read.
"Perhaps I should say hello to the dock personnel. After all, you can't not hand-deliver key chains." Squawk said completely seriously. He kept his back straight, his expression neutral, and his brows tight. His eyes, eagle-like, his tone almost Moclan. Yes, he knew perfectly well how to appear serious around commanders.
|
|
|
Post by Absinthe on Jul 7, 2018 5:27:17 GMT
[ Cpt. Roland Locke | Crew Docking Port | Crew Module | Augustus Station] Attn: Triage It was continuously interesting to Locke the variety of species and cultures he was confronted by while working within the Union, both in terms of member species and those who were not. He was human and as such had his own biases and had gone through a number of training sessions to address them, but much of that was just the ability to recognize them and to control them. For his own part, this usually meant treating every officer he meant with a sort of professional distance, a cold detachment that allowed him to assess things in a more nuanced manner. Some officers thrived with his more hands-off method, some did not. " Well, once you have had whatever you've brought with you in terms of produce and organic material cleared by our dockmaster, you can get quarters from our quartermaster, quite likely you already have some assigned to you, so it should not take much more than a simple visit to them to find out which room you will be stationed in," Locke said in a smooth sort of voice. " As for your assignment, for now, I am going to place you under Kharris, our Chief Science Officer. His research team is being cut down and I am certain he will want new recruits as soon as possible." In truth Lock knew that Kharris had lost about three-quarters of his team in the last couple of weeks and that the Union was pushing to claim more of the restricted area as usable space. Though Kharris had sent in several official letters of complaint about this and seemed to hold any member of the Union of higher rank than him personally responsible for any setback, there was very little Locke could do about it yet. He was still in the process of getting all of the authorization forms complete to take complete command of the station. As a result, he was spending much of his own on-duty time in a mountain of paperwork. And though he was sympathetic to Kharris's cause, he did not have time to fight the Union over that stuff at the moment. " As for the pie, perhaps we should have some sort of get together later tonight? A welcome aboard for the new crew, you can bring the pie to that and we can all try a piece?" Locke offered. He was loath to attend a social gathering, but it was good for crew morale and he wanted to see how the crew interacted with each other.
|
|
drei
Recruit
Posts: 25
|
Post by drei on Jul 17, 2018 10:39:53 GMT
[ Lt. Squawk McCall | Crew Docking Port | Crew Module | Augustus Station] "Thank you, Captain. I'll get settled and get right on that." Squawk said "I'll make this really exotic dish called 'beef stew' and perhaps some 'cauliflower cheese' I discovered in a really old Earth book I found while antiquing. If they're anything like 'yams with marshmallows' I think we're all in for a party!"
Squawk looked at the direction of his luggage. "I guess I'll get going then, you must have other people to meet!" Squawk said "Plus, I should probably see if I could help with those poor crew members that are at risk of being cut down. I have some training re-potting plant based species - way less fatal!"Squawk thought about some of the other species in the several planets under the Maytalon crown. Of the other species that were subjects of the Aquila, the plant based ones tended to be the ones they formed the best relationships with. Squawk saw in the distance that someone with an electronic clipboard was eyeing the crates, looking slightly confused. "Well, I should go meet those guys. I think these key chains will impress them a lot!" Squawk said to the captain as he began walking toward his autonomous luggage. "I'd have gotten some keys, too - I saw them in those antique shops I went to - but I wasn't sure you'd approve. I read in a Ye Olde Timey Book that keys were often used against Lockes! Making my commanding officer feel attacked would be very tactless!"Squawk saw the crewman with the clipboard kicking the sides of what might have been a sack full of vegetables. Alarmed, Squawk broke into a jog. "Er, please don't kick that! There may be an entirely pre-approved cabbage in there!" Squawk exclaimed.
|
|
|
Post by Absinthe on Jul 19, 2018 7:05:43 GMT
[ Cpt. Roland Locke | Crew Docking Port | Crew Module | Augustus Station] Attn: all As he watched the man hurry off to nobly defend his cabbages from an overly aggressive baggage handler, Roland could not help but smile silently to himself. It was interesting to see the dishes of his own world be seen as so alien to those not from it and he was curious as to how an alien would make them. The culinary skills and traditions of planets were as varied and colorful as the people from them, meaning there was no lack of new ways to make 'beef stew' a more alien dish than the one he knew. He hoped that it would make things much easier on the crew to have an impromptu social gathering. With another glance at his datapad and after briefly greeting a few more members of the crew he turned and made his way back to his office. He expected that day was going to be just as busy as the day before and he had found the day before very tiring. But there was very little he could do to change it. He may have been in command, but at that moment it felt as if he were in command in title only. The ball was already rolling and it would be near impossible to do anything to change it's course it, much less stop it. ~FIN
|
|