Skitter Popping the Jigging Frog pt1
Posted on Fri 2nd Feb, 2024 @ 3:21pm by Izwyx 'Lo
1,484 words; about a 7 minute read
Mission: O' the Cardiff Rose
OOC: Stephen- Hi Everyone, this is an introductory post to the character, but her first dayand official role on SB109 is TBD. Hope you enjoy!
-Start-
1st officers Log: Tk Haneda 24589.62
Captain Sollig feels like Starfleet has wasted its time assigning me here. Like his time is even capable of being wasted, the man supervises for a living. The Tellarites have a saying I've begun to really appreciate, "The type with soft hairs still on the knuckle." Let it be known I’m looking forward to the end of this punishment. I regret nothing, I'd do it again… Let the punishment fit the crime I guess is the lesson here. Overseeing a White Star mining operation is child’s play yet these children managed twice now to nearly lose the ship prior to my arrival. Now they chafe as I give them the answers they don't want to the problems they want even less. … … Children.
-End- Log-
Acting Captain’s Log: TK Haneda 24677.31
I have been given command of the Haneda pending what will certainly be a final review for Sollig Verdal. The man threatened me with violence, showing brazen incompetence during a crisis. He lost the respect of the crew, and let a man die rather than admit defeat out of stubborn pride. I got put here for insisting my Captain on the Charity was not fit, and now I wonder what genius of a staffing officer placed me here in another arrogant mans shadow. I’ve learned what it means to be a bad captain, trim that away and all I’ve got left surely, is the good stuff?
-End Log-
Captain’s Log: TK Haneda 24691.09
It’s Official. I have fourteen months to go on this assignment and they will be spent in the Captain’s chair. Tellarites are great crewmates with humans, if you reply to the barbs and constant shade in kind. I’ve had to learn how to be their leader, by berating them with just that little touch of love to let them know I am only speaking their name to say we are friends. Human platitudes are also great, “Bless Your Heart” continues to offend as it is finally understood by a people for its true intent. So with a heavy heart I reluctantly resume my miserable slog with these boar toothed cretins. May the Haneda suffer in mediocrity under her atonal Captain. Shut up computer.
-End Log-
Rasspar Star system- White Dwarf
-Gaseous Harvester Combine, WhiteStar Extraction Co-Op-
A pace away from doom, the orbital ring of the White Star Co-Op had been built to extract molecular gold from Ethereal quantum foams glowing just before final dissolution. Whorling plasmatic arcs channeled cosmic horror in the squelch of substance into the stuff of dreams. Dangerous work, counter intuitive physics constantly presenting themselves like the materials transmuting through anything but the strongest plasma screen contaminant filters, variable weights depending on gravity changes… the container became more heavy as it off loaded materials and wanted to expand so violently it was essentially a condensed matter bomb. Four deaths over the last year meant to continue its operation, oversight was needed.
The bridge of the Haneda had become a familial ground where everyone was at ease, but maintained a work ethic up to Captain Izwyx standards. Her impeccable ways had strained confidence but the results had shown even the most slovenly among them dressing for the job they wanted. Despite the rude ways in which she had at first found their communications to be the underlying nuances were indelibly sweet. Their bickering was the same as the cadence on a Starfleet Bridge, at times more efficient as intolerable ideas were excised or never spoken. Peer review was done internally first, lest the group pounce on the ill formed phrase or deed.
Over the din her engineer cried out, “Haneda is ready-”
Her Second Officer, a Sepp who usually had the calmest demeanor bolted to his feet and cried out, “Hey! Chouncho! Pull those grappler mounts!”
Tellarite command structures were always built around a central podium so the debate could be carried equally to anyone at the table. A captain held no higher position, but did get to decide the matter was an emergency and override. Abuse of this power was often met with dismissal or worse. One of the first things “Captain Izzy” had done, was install a three chair array where the Podium had once been, leaving an operations master console in front of her. The triple redundant hull layers left little space internally for much more than a single access pathway along the Starboard side everyone had to take to leave the bridge.
Far to her left, deep in the belly of the ruby red tinge lighting the bridge, she heard his panic. The change in cadence announced the problem right away, and her ear sourced the one talking out of twenty who said it.
“Sepp Agandar, report!” She called to him in a stern voice and the rest cut their chatter immediately.
“Problem Captain, Load was launched from the event horizon with grappler mounts 4, 9 still attached.”
The revelations poured through her mind, even without intimate knowledge of the how, her briefings and Engineering brain filled in what was about to happen. That Gondola was carrying too much weight, even a few grams was too much weight variance for the gravity fields and the two plates bolted to the payload were forty kilos each. Even its meager ascent just now couldn't be controlled if allowed to fall. Strain on the tether was measured by its tendency to spiral inwards into a wireframe light grid. The vectored bands of gravity allowed small slips between them offering a tunnel their Gondola could traverse without suffering unduly from the effects of such intense pressure, as well as their changes. The tether to their stable end was already showing strain from inwards pressures.
”What’s their weight ratio in the gravity well?” She asked the load specialist who was in fact a gravitic mining expert.
His lack of action or feeling of urgency was seriously angering the captain. ”Vectors change by the minute captain-“
He looked bug eyed in repose, trying to set up his equations for the computer to tell him what she needed to know.
Internally she commented, “This one snivels.”
Outwardly she hit the ground running, ”Start with the closest ones then! Program Tractor Beams for intermittently variable changes, lock onto the Gondola to assist its rise-“
Another voice from behind her announced, “The connection of the gondola to the payload would sustain the tug.” Her crew knew by now to provide receipts so she looked at her console delighted to see specs sit in front of her.
“Yes! The Gondola will survive, carry out my orders-”
”Captain Isswyxz!” An obstinate young man called out, the investors nephew and shareholder in part held a bridge position purely to be a pain in the ass. He was tallying the loss of the load coming up the strand to them.
”Izzy or nothing Yiott its not a good time.” she had no time for his petty mind games.
”Oh, Captain then, Millions of people expect that payload to arrive safely, we can’t wait another month for-”
She rolled her eyes a small amount, already coming to the conclusion he was not going to be any help. She quipped, “Over your whining I'd prefer the nothing, Yiott.”
He tried to sputter over her, but her attention was on the lives of the crew in the gondola hauling the load. “Emergency Stations, prepare the shuttles, Alert Starfleet and sound distress.”
They were going to go through changes in their mass and would at time be pulled back into the gravity well with as much force as a black hole. A magnetic confinement ring lattice descending like a cyclone defied gravity well enough to allow the Gondola to travel like a seriously burdened spider up a long curved strand. The curves were dynamic and the spiral changed shape, but the only way to safely transit was within the maelstrom. Without measurements every minute, you could get crushed with a band of high gravity.
She willed answers to the problems by demanding them, ”Hokall Gru, I need those vectored ratios! I want a tractor lock right now!”
“Then get out there and tell me you're working on it!”
“Do your job man, or is an incompetent doddard the best WhiteStar can give me?”
Iron weighted tones gave the load master his tongue back. ”First plots up on screen now!”
About ten percent of the path beginning from the Gondolas ascent had been mapped, the tractor beam confirmed configurations were updating.
“Captain, target lock confirmed.”
Izzy sat forward, considering the board with its holo display. “Ok good, this gets us started, they aren't in trouble yet we have four minutes until they are.”
-TBC-
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