LSDF Val'ta, Deck Two, Bridge
"Captain on deck!" Was the first thing Porrim heard as the chair ascended through the floor into the center of agloriously white, and clean room with control panels everywhere, with the captain sitting in the middle of it all, surveying what everyone was doing. In front of her leapt hardlight controls, projected from the arms of her throne.
She looked around, drumming her fingers against the armrest and examining everything, grinning. "Let's get our visual set up," Porrim commanding, "engage immersive view."
"Yes captain!" came the crisp reply as fingers were heard against the keyboards. The walls, floors, and ceiling shimmered for a moment, appearing to dissolve and give way to the void. The stars could be seen straight ahead, towards the bow, with an indicator for the Val'ta's movement overlaid. Meanwhile, the space station encapsulating the Val'ta could be seen behind them.
"Waaah!~" cried one of the crew in surprise as the floor seemed to disappear from under them. Only to sheepishly return one of their feet to the ground and stand meekly to the side. Indeed, the floor remained there under the bridge crew's feet, as well as the consoles; a pair of constants to give some sense of space and scale. The doors out of the bridge were outlined too.
The door facing the stern of the Val'ta opened.
Er'red entered confidently, blue eyes glaring from underneath his long swept fringe, and then tumbled over as he realized parts of the floor and walls were gone. Long boots on shapely legs flying into the air dramatically.
"Ow, ow, ow!" Er'red exclaimed as he regained his footing uneasily on the non-space part of the floor. "Why is it bigger on the inside!? Nothing in this place makes sense. Who designed this thing?!"
Porrim swivelled around in her chair. "Oh, the Nepleslian named Michael made my chair, I believe he's on Deck Five helping with the preflight," she looked around, attempting to look through the floor but clicking her tongue, "not sure where Dr. Kalopsia disappeared to though."
"O-Oh, Captain, sir." Er'red saluted rather stiffly, a mixture of discomfort and unpractised.
"Ma'am." Porrim corrected as she waggled a finger.
"Ma'am." Er'red replied diplomatically.
I hope that's not going to change too often around here. Er'red thought to himself, thinking of the rumors about their captain and the changes they made routinely.
He scanned the bridge with his eyes, staggering a little at the scale of the room itself and the intricate illusion within it. The bridge crew were sitting at chairs and consoles with extensive and secure seating and hardlight displays. The captain was sitting in the middle with her legs apart, looking towards Er'red. "What can I do for you, Cadet?" she asked.
Conspicuously, the Chief Medical Officer's chair was unoccupied.
"Uh, sorry, Captain. I was looking for Doctor Kal..." He bent his knees and bent down to retrieve his dataslate. "Uh, Kalop-"
"Kalopsia. Yes, she seems to be absent," she looked over to her spot and sighed. "Not sure what her deal is, given how stretched thin the poor thing is. She helped design this ship too, and she's keeping an eye on science and medicine." Her head didn't stop facing Aiesu's spot, but her gaze looked sidelong at Er'red. "I bet she'd appreciate a secretary, Cadet."
"She's, uh, listed here as Chief Medical Officer aboard, Ma'am, but she wasn't in the medbay so after inspecting it myself I came up here to see if she was on station here. It didn't say she was running proving and science too." Er'red replied, looking around the room for an empty station.
"Uh, in her absence, permission to take her station on the bridge as CMO, Ma'am?"
She gazed at him, sizing him up. Perhaps, in her absence, he would make a good substitute. The nurse cadet saw Porrim bringing his file up and examining it. "Seeing you'll be overseeing the ward more, and getting your hands dirtier than the doctor does," after all, doctors only did the diagnosis and left the rest all the way to recovery to the nurses, "take a seat and get comfortable, Nurse Nnyu'ust."
As if on cue, the empty seat for CMO lit up, glowing faintly and beckoning him towards it.
"Uh, yes, Ma'am." He replied with a salute again, he'd only meant for the launch until the CMO deigned to show herself, but kept silent as the small promotion. He walked away, still slightly unsure of his footing as he took to the chair and gratefully sat. Turning his chair to the front and while he thought the captain wasn't looking he rubbed the back of his head with a small whinge of pain before looking at his console.
He had two screens available to him displaying medical records of the crew, and monitoring the ship's various medical supplies, any patients, and any ongoing treatment both automated and nurse-assisted. It was just as glitzy and perhaps confusing as the ones he saw back in the medical bay with how much information there was, but he could detail and isolate separate rooms, machines, and even patients. It would take only a few moments to get proficient with it. He nodded confidently and looked up into space.
His eyes shifted nervously and he turned to the crewman next to him. "That's not glass or anything is it? No. Okay..."
Now that the pieces were assembled, Porrim grinned, and under her breath she whispered, "its time to launch this puppy~." She could be heard tapping her feet against the edge of her chair, wiggling in excitement. The bridgeperson sitting next to Er'red could hear her boots tapping and turned around for a moment.
"At least she loves her job..." she whispered to him, a lmanel woman, lagomorph aspected, bit droopy in the eyes, and ears pointing a little lower than usual. "You're the doctor's replacement?"
"Apparently I am." Er'red said, tipping his head humbling, but curtly speaking. "Yourself?"
"Oh. I'm just doing avionics," she said, lazily as her gaze looked back at her coordinates, typing in a couple of commands, "the plot to Tange's all set up, Captain," she said into her headset, grabbing the microphone.
"Excellent! How's the preflight?"
"Preflight's green, captain." The avionics officer said. "Michael's got the engines fine tuned, route's good, we just need to contact station."
Er'red looked around and discovered his own heatset on the desk and hastily put it on, trying to at least appear professional for this first day. It fitted well onto his head, with stereo, and an adjustable microphone to the left of his mouth. It felt comfortable to wear, and the sound was crisp, letting Er'red hear his own voice just a little in his ear while all other input came in.
Porrim then opened a line with the flight control tower, a rectangle appearing in space at the bow-facing side of the bridge with a line from one corner to the other. Soon, the image of the space station's control tower appeared, busy individuals.
"This is control tower. LSDF Val'ta what is your query?" the man on the other side of the line replied, long Fyunnen ears poking out of their headset as they looked at Porrim. They blinked for a moment as they looked at the interior of the bridge from their camera feed, eyes searching around for a moment.
"Control Tower, this is LSDF Val'ta, requesting permission to take off on maiden voyage for Tange for assessment of liveability, and commence space exploration mission."
"LSDF Val'ta, off the record, are you in space already or has space leaked into the bridge?"
"Just our visuals, Control Tower," Porrim replied calmly, looking about herself before focussing attention. "Do we have authorisation, Control Tower?"
"Just a sec." The operator on the other side of the line looked down at something and typed some commands, moving something, a card of some sort around, and juggling someone else's incoming order on their line. Things certainly were busy. "Aaaaaand there we go. All green from the board. Good luck, LSDF Val'ta. Make the Matriarchy proud."
The line cut out. As soon as the line was confirmed cut, Porrim let out a "YES!", pumping her fist like a Nepleslian would upon finding out they weren't the father. She grabbed the intercom's attention with a manic grin on her face. She could finally start
moving! The simulated sounds of the ship's docking mechanisms coming free and letting the ship float could be heard.
It's going to be a long trip. Er'red thought to himself.
♫ Elder - Spirit at Aphelion ♫
The ship was lazily taxiing out into space, but to have motion at all was sending Porrim over the moon. "Attention crew of the LSDF Val'ta!" She called out over intercom. Everyone could hear her not-so-stellar Trade thanks to an accent thick enough to build with, and more importantly, her enthusiasm. "Prepare for takeoff, everybody! We're currently moving away from the Space Station until we can safely FTL. We have the blessings, and best of wishes of the station for our maiden voyage. Let's go make our mothers proud!"
The woman sitting next to Er'red looked over to him, and blinked. "So," she asked flatly, "you got anyone to make proud, or just expectations to fill?"
"Uh, more like trying to get away from. Older sister. Terrible things..." Er'red murmured, exhausting his supply of words for that particular topic. "Uh, what makes the captain so excited about going into space?"
"It's the aspectation." The woman explained. "Stamina, means to move, loves open plains. See the wings?"
Porrim's wings would've well and truly fluttered to full breadth, but they were contained by her seat. "If she stripped naked she could glide with those."
"L'manel are weird." Er'red replied, before his eyes flicked back to the woman next to him. "But you seem alright, I guess." With a pouty sniff.
"It's the aspectation." She repeated, looking down at the console again and watching the ship's main sequence start going, and the faster than light systems get working. Something about the woman, well, the aspectation wasn't a common one because it was frowned upon due to the hedonism inherent in the breed. Hopefully there was no pollen in space. "What's your name, anyway?"
"Nurse Er'red Nny'ust Fyunnen. I, uh, well I was meant to be working in the medbay, but it seems I'm up here today." He said, looking around and gulping loudly before returning to his console. "Um, you haven't been running a temperature lately, have you? Uncontrollable urge to loaf?"
"Aviator Jil'ha Zoya Lmanel," she replied. "Granted, one of the more atheltic ones but hey, pollen, bad. Could be worse, could've been part Poe'tis like-"
Porrim had a big red button materialise in front of her. There were other ways to activate the ship's FTL but for the maiden voyage, and mostly for Porrim's and Michael's amusement, a big red button would do the trick. "
HAWLD AWN TOYAWER BAAAAHTS!!" She cried out as she slammed her fist down on the button hard enough to shatter glass.
This was accompanied by Er'red's head hitting the hardlight console in disbelief with a loud smack as Jil'ha adjusted her headset a little, cricking her neck.
