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Post by Ilana Logan on May 31, 2023 20:52:29 GMT -5
Space, 26 hours from Georgia system
July 17th, 2518
AST 2:30 PM
Ilana stood from the Captain's chair on the bridge and stretched, yawning wide. She didn't realize how tired she'd been until she woke up on the bridge after falling asleep sitting up. She gave a nod to Jace and headed for the engine room. Winding through the corridors lazily, she had time to wonder whether Rina would accept her proposition.
On one hand, Rina was a bit newer to the ship than the others, but on the other she'd been with us long enough to have proven both her capability and her loyalty. Ilana wasn't sure if she'd been here long enough to feel comfortable with it, though. That, of course, wouldn't stop her from asking.
She found Rina on the mezzanine, where Ilana had had the machine shop added for them. She knocked on the bulkhead as she entered the room, leaning against the workbench, her loud, colorful (as per usual) hawaiian style shirt squishing in a small smear of grease.
Oh well. It'll wash out or it'll be a grease stain, Ilana thought.
"Hey Rina, got a few? Got somethin' I want to talk to you about. Couple somethin's actually," she asked casually. Despite not knowing the answer, she wasn't particularly nervous.
Freedom lies in being bold, right?
"Freedom lies in being bold"
-Robert Frost
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Post by Marina Kseniya Sebastien on May 31, 2023 21:34:05 GMT -5
Rina felt the subtle vibration of Ilana's knock add its dissonance to the more powerful vibrations of the shop lathe on which she was currently machining a spare part. Risking a glance up through her face shield, she saw rather than heard her captain say something, and she brightened her expression to let the other woman know she'd noticed.
But it was exactly the wrong point in the process to stop what she was doing.
Rina worked the wheel with a delicate touch, guiding the carriage down the length of the bed, and then bearing down on the cross slide just shy of cutting the part free of the stock. SShe pulled the cross slide back, cut the power, got a sling round the part, and snugged it tight. Then, with an expert tap of her hammer, she snapped the part off the tail piece, released it from the chuck, and winched the new part away from the lathe. She swung it onto a waiting cart in two shakes and strapped it down.
Done!
Rina bent forward at the waist to shake out stray metal chips from her cap and hair before removing her face shield. The shield went on a hook and her cap went right back on her head. Rina pulled two bottles of water from a little shop fridge and tossed one to Ilana with a grin.
"Sorry, Cap'n. Had to carry through." She cracked the seal on her bottle and took a swig. "What's up?"
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Post by Ilana Logan on May 31, 2023 21:59:35 GMT -5
Rina looked up from her work for a moment, loud work, and her expression brightened for a moment before she set back to what she was doing. Ilana watched as the other woman worked carefully on the piece. When finished, she shook herself mostly clean of debris, and removed her face shield, balancing it carefully on the hook. Everything in it's place, Ilana thought.
Rina took two bottles of water from the fridge and tossed one to Ilana. She snatched it out of the air and tipped it toward the woman in thanks.
"Sorry, Cap'n. Had to carry through." Rina cracked the seal on her bottle and took a swig. "What's up?"
"I've got no complaints. I'd have finished first too. Stop in the middle and you'll likely muck it up trying to restart later," Ilana said, taking a sip of cold, cold water. She smiled a little. She'd always preferred her drinks to be cold, no matter the weather. She didn't even mind cold coffee.
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Post by Marina Kseniya Sebastien on May 31, 2023 22:22:11 GMT -5
"Yeah. No joke," Rina agreed, running a hand over the new part like soothing a baby in its bassinet. More than just a loving gesture, it gave Rina a chance to think. Because Ilana had been an engineer herself, Rina instinctively understood that her captain wouldn't have interrupted her mid-task unless it was something important. Not GQ-level important, of course. The alarms would sound for that. But important enough that Ilana lingered on the threshold instead of ducking back out she second she saw Rina working the lathe.
So, level 3 to 5 on a scale of 1 t 10.
She gave the new part a final pat, took another swig of water, and raised a brow at her Captain.. "What's on your mind?"
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Post by Ilana Logan on May 31, 2023 22:30:31 GMT -5
"Yeah. No joke," Rina agreed, carefully stroking the newly machined part. After another drink of water, Rina raised a brow at Ilana. "What's on your mind?"
"Well, now that I'm in here, there's three things. First, thank you for keeping the shop and engine room in such a state that I can actually find what I need. It drives me crazy to come behind an engineer that leaves things dirty and strewn everywhere," she said sincerely.
"But that's not what brought me down here either. Which brings me to the second thing I wanted to talk to you about, and that's Jace. He's being promoted to co-Captain. We're getting a fairly sizeable crew plus passengers, and having a formal chain of command seems prudent. He's been my first mate for a long time, and barring that time that he shot Helios, he's usually pretty level-headed, if a little paranoid. Honestly though, who among us isn't at this point?"
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Post by Marina Kseniya Sebastien on Jun 1, 2023 0:01:27 GMT -5
"Is that a trick question?" Rina asked, smiling around the bottle as she took another sip. As she felt the water cooling her insides, the lightbulb went off … finally.
Slow, girl. Slow.
"You said 'three'." She nodded forward and to port. "How about we have the rest of the conversation in my quarters? It's got a locking door."
Because if Ilana was going to say what Rina suspected, she wanted to hear it in private.
Paranoid? Perhaps. Discreet? Hell, yes!
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Post by Ilana Logan on Jun 1, 2023 8:24:39 GMT -5
"Is that a trick question?" Rina asked with a smile and Ilana chuckled a little
Ilana had started to ramble, and Rina gently led her back to the conversation. The other woman helped her focus, likely because they were similar in a lot of ways, so she knew just how to coax her back down from whatever cloud she'd floated up to.
"You said 'three'," Rina reminded her with a nod toward the port side of the ship. "How about we have the rest of the conversation in my quarters? It's got a locking door."
A little confused, Ilana cocked her head to the side slightly. Unsure why Rina had suddenly wanted privacy, but happy to accommodate if that helped somehow, Ilana said, "Sure, we can head to your bunk if you'd be more comfortable there."
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Post by Marina Kseniya Sebastien on Jun 3, 2023 17:49:08 GMT -5
"I would, thank you." Rina pushed the cart to a protected corner near the lathe and locked its wheels, then led the way to her quarters. She let Ilana enter first and closed the door once they were both inside. Rina's quarters were ruthlessly organized and neat. Nothing rattled round loose. Everything was contained in drawers or her locker, or attached firmly to bulkhead and hull by clip, elastic, or hook. Even the throw rug underfoot was anchored by magnets to the metal deck and the blanket on her bunk was tucked tight enough to bounce a rifle on. This wasn't to say her quarters were devoid of comfort or style. The rug underfoot had a thick pile that invited bare toes to dig into it and was a vivid red-and-gold abstract print. Her bed linens were good quality and the pillows soft and thick. Though there were plenty of prints on the walls, they were almost all sketches and schematics of her ongoing projects with some captures of green wilderness or vivid nebulas. It all reflected her personal idiom: everything was either useful or beautiful, without the friction of clutter. The particularly observant would notice there were no pictures of family or friends, nothing pointing to clan, culture, or world. "Please, have a seat," she said, indicating a choice of her desk chair or the bed.
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Post by Ilana Logan on Jun 3, 2023 19:17:51 GMT -5
Rina set the shop to rights before heading toward her bunk, making way for Ilana to enter the room first. It was a stark contrast to Ilana's quarters, that's for sure. Ilana's room wasn't messy, but she had personal objects. Rina's room had none of that. It was well decorated, sure, but it was a little cold despite the vibrant colors and photos.
No photos of people, Ilana thought. If you didn't know who the room belonged to, there was nothing there to give any indication.
"Please, have a seat," Rina said, gesturing to the options.
Ilana took a seat on the bed, noting it's springy feeling. "I swear if I tossed my pistol on this it would rocket right through the hull," she laughed.
She gave the woman a moment to take a seat and settle in. "So, the second thing out there, Jace being co-captain now, was just to let you know of a minor shift in structure. However, it does lead us straight into the third thing."
Ilana, suddenly unsure what to do with her hands with the abrupt change in location, crossed her arms protectively over her chest, but gave no other indication of her sudden disquiet. "Since Jace will be co-Captain, that leaves an opening for first mate. I think you've proven well more than capable of the job. Not to mention, you speak up when you see an injustice, and not just when it will benefit the crew or yourself, and that's important to me." She paused for a moment, "What do you say?"
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Post by Marina Kseniya Sebastien on Jun 3, 2023 20:24:07 GMT -5
Rina settled in her desk chair and stretched her legs out, crossing her ankles and lacing her fingers in her lap. She watched Ilana keenly while the other woman finally got around to that item number three, fastening on her body language, her words, and most profoundly, her pause. "Yes." She could have been discussing the weather, were it not for the warm empathy in her eyes. " Da i spaciba." |
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Post by Ilana Logan on Jun 3, 2023 23:15:50 GMT -5
All at once, she realized why she was so off center. Rina's room is very distracting. Beautiful photos of far off destinations, bright colors, and abstract patterns. Everything drew her eye all at once. While her bunk was very subdued in color and decor, Rina's had bright pops of color and beautiful photographs. Not to mention the schematics that Ilana was dying to check out; she'd already been drawn to them several times. The room wasn't cluttered, not even visually. There were just too many pretty things that she wanted to look at. Now that she understood it, she could account for it. She reached into her pocket and pulled out a coin, letting it dance over her knuckles, between her fingers, and back so she could focus on a singular thing: the woman in front of her.
Ilana nodded, recognizing the empathy in Rina's expression. Pity, that traitorous part of her mind interjected.
She ignored the unbidden thought. Feeling a bit more at ease with something to do with her hands, she said, "Glad to hear it. I'll make sure the rest of the crew is made aware. I don't expect much will change in the day to day of things. We don't really have a lot of conflict when the pilot and the navigator aren't shooting each other. Mostly it'll be so things can continue running smoothly if any one becomes incapacitated or otherwise unavailable."
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