RP: YSS Destiny Searching for Someone

[Alex]

Space.

It was endless, wonderful, and quiet. Even as the soft, constant thrum of the engines echoed through the little gopher-shuttle's hull, Koji marveled at it through the windows of the small spacecraft. He couldn't see the end of it and he did not expect to, though he did see many other little shuttles streaking to and fro from larger personnel carriers to the YSS Destiny - his new assignment. The new Sub-Lieutenant appeared apprehensive at best as he stared out at the hull of the large ship. At worst he was nervous - almost scared by the sheer size of the thing. If other vessels did not accompany it, he would deem the ship completely unworthy for military purposes, but he knew better than that even though he had not been briefed.

It was a well-known fact that this ship, which was still in construction, would be the home of an entire city as well as some seventy-five-thousand crewmembers. As such, it needed officers, and the newly promoted Koji was signed on as a strategist. Indeed, he was just getting the feel for his new, crisp gray-paneled uniform; having been more used to the blues of an enlisted soldier. Beside him, the waterproof rucksack sat quietly, holding his only change of clothes (Yet another military uniform) and his laptop, the item that he sent and received most of his orders with. It was arranged neatly and correctly and that said a lot about his character - neat, correct, sometimes almost painfully so - but it was all just his job anyway. One screw up and they were all dead. He cut his cherry-colored hair in the ‘traditional' military fashion, keeping it low-maintenance and out of his way for the most part. As to his clothing - the uniform - he was rarely seen out of some sort of military fatigue, which quite suited his strong build and frame. His mother said he was the spitting image of his father, with searching blue eyes and a handsome look about him - but of course she was just his mother. They'd put him through the Academy, encouraged him, and given him some money to live off of afterwards.

Well, he didn't need their help now. He had been granted a substantial bonus for accepting this mission, and he had so much money that he did not know what to do with it all. A high-powered rifle would have been on the agenda had he still been enlisted as an infantryman, but now he was not so sure. GP-12a rifles with mounted Grenade launchers looked pretty tempting, but where would he ever use it if not on the front lines or in boarding missions? A dilemma indeed. He also didn't want to spend the money on Psionic-blocking equipment or some sort of artificial enhancement. Perhaps start a business, settle down. It was a good idea, in retrospect. Once he got his rank and a good retirement fund up, he'd get married and drop the service. He could see himself, standing upon a wooden deck and watching his children play, his wife beside him - though he never quite had a clear picture of her. He closed his eyes and tried to envision her, but he failed and only succeeded in dozing off for the remainder of the short trip.

He was jarred awake by the pilot's voice. "We're here, Sir,â€

 

[Alex]

After a good long bit of searching, Koji was profusely annoyed at having found absolutely nobody. When he exited the bay area he was not even challenged by security. He was therefore disturbed. Koji had been taught from an early age that to operate correctly a body of people had to have two things - structure, and a leader for that structure. Without either of them, the engineers would be running around like chickens with their heads cut off and the officers, soldiers, and specialists would have absolutely no idea who to report to or what they were going to do.

By this time Koji had covered a good bit of ground, walked to a glass-tube elevator, pressed the ‘up' button, and had boarded almost immediately. He was going to the main floor to see some of the city and a bit more of the ship. The doors slid closed behind him and the little elevator shot upward towards the level with the city on it. He was very curious about the city - Koji had never seen an entire city in a ship before and that was part of the reason he had decided to take this mission. There were so many new things being done that he didn't dare miss out on lest he chastise himself for the idiocy. Level after level passed as the little room shot upward, observed casually by the single passenger up until it broke the surface level and stopped.

Koji lost his breath.

Never had he seen so much in one place before - even in the cities upon the ground. The place had parks, residential areas, commercial areas, and even an industrial sector on the far edge of his vision. Even though a lot of it was still under construction one can only imagine what thoughts had flashed through the Lieutenant's mind as he gazed in silent amazement out of that glass elevator. He had himself envisioned this city to be more of a military bunker, with strict regiments to ensure that nobody got on anyone else's nerves, but this was a metropolis that would soon become a thriving community all in its own right. It was even homey, in its own sort of way - the artificial lighting and weather systems aside. He wondered if they occasionally dimmed the lights to have ‘night' in the ship. An interesting thought.

Stepping from the elevator, he took to wandering the streets for a little bit and looking for somewhere to sit down or eat, or drink, or do anything - he was sure they had everything and anything known to man in this city. It actually took him a bit of wandering to find a bench, but eventually he sat himself down in front of one of the completed buildings and looked up at the hull of the ship far, far above. Hard to believe he was actually in a spaceship out in the middle of the galaxy. For a fleeting moment he almost felt at home - not the Academy that he had attended, but his real home on Yamatai with his parents. He didn't see them much anymore, and that reminded him to check his messages. They might have sent him mail, and he usually replied to their mail. Taking his laptop out of his pack, he opened it and activated it. A series of numbers flashed across the screen before it took him to a loading screen, then his desktop. It only took a few keys to get him to his messages. He took a few moments to sift through them before actually replying to any of them - A few messages from the Star Army Personnel people, a couple from the academy confirming what he already knew (his records having been forwarded to Star Army, thus the speedy promotion), and a letter from the YSS Destiny's Electronic Message Distribution center. He opened it and an enthusiastic girlish voice blared suddenly out of his laptop, surprising the hell out of him so that he almost dropped it.

Welcome to the YSS Destiny, Acting Sub-Lieutenant Kagawa Kojiro! the voice piped cheerily and loudly, signifying that his computer was at full volume capacity.

He quickly turned the volume down, his hand shaking and ears ringing. Thankfully nobody was specifically around to hear anyway, so he wasn't too embarrassed. Just surprised.

With the Electronic Message Distribution Center you can send and receive messages five times faster inside Destiny City, more so than you could ever hope to do with simple radio waves! This allows speedier and more reliable communication from location to location within our wonderful city! For more information, say 'Information‘.

Kojiro remained silent.

For information on how we may help you, say ‘How can you help me?'.

Kojiro was about to close and delete the message when a thought struck him. Looking behind him to the new three-story building, the beginnings of a smile tugged at the edges of his mouth.

He quickly opened a word processor and began typing out his message. He would organize this place into something useful - something that someone might do something with when the YSS Destiny actually began its mission. They had no chain of command, no serious list of officers or personnel, and probably no steady police force either. It didn't take him long to peck out the initial message. It was going to be from ‘Destiny Fleet Personnel HQ', and the pristine building behind him was going to be the HQ. A few more keystrokes and he had pulled up a window on the building's history, pecked in his Identification number, and effectively took hold of the new HQ. The next thing on the agenda was the personnel in question - these were hard to find.

Koji spent hours punching in key codes, searching for anything relating to ‘YSS Destiny' along with ‘Reassignment', and bringing up standard personal files. In the end he had added a good few files to the little laptop on most of the people he could find. Adding the list to the message, he signed it ‘Temporary Chief of Staff' and sent it to the distribution center to be sent to each and every person that the system deemed of importance. By this time he really wasn't in the mood for anything more so he powered down the laptop and closed it, slipping it back into his bag before standing and walking to his new HQ to check out what he had to work with. By sliding his I.D. Card through the security device and punching in the numbers, Koji unlocked the door and stepped into what would probably land him something big - his new office building.

It wasn't much, but it was pretty good all things considered. It came mostly furnished, with a couple desks and chairs scattered here and there. It didn't have an elevator, giving up the ease of use for a set of stairs that led up to the other two stories. Passing through the rooms he found a meeting table (which would be perfect for one of the orders he had issued via the mail system) and a few actual offices, both of which suited his needs just fine - he wasn't much for pomp and circumstance anyway. He sat down at the desk and tossed his bag off to the side, making himself comfortable.

He suddenly yawned - he was sleepy. It was not from the task itself that he was tired, but he had not slept in the last forty-eight hours or so because of this assignment. Catching the shuttle over to this place hadn't been at a convenient time either; he didn't know how to pilot a shuttle himself so he always had to find other people to do it for him.

Speaking of other people, seventy-five-thousand workers were not going to be processed by a single man - he would need some serious help to pull this off and there was no computer here, but there was always communications within the starship (or so he assumed) so it would not be all that difficult to set up a networking system. Not that he knew about networking other than simply being able to send out messages and order forms, but he knew something about work and also knew that he was not going to be able to do this job alone.

Anticipating his work load was dismal, so instead he took to the more immediate concerns - Food and Lodging. Would the only officer superior to himself know where he could find it? He could only hope. As he leaned back in the chair he let his mind return to his fantasy world, thinking about what was going to happen in the future and how great his life would be if only he could just take one step more, get enough to support himself and retire. Ah - that'd be good.

In this method he fell asleep again, but this time would probably be for a bit longer.

 

[Alex]

He awoke slowly, allowing the light from outside of the small office building to gradually seep into his conciousness. Koji groaned. The chair had given him a cramp, and it was hurting rather badly. As he rubbed his leg, he looked around the office he was in. Exactly as he left it; good. He didn't need more trouble on his hands.

Taking his laptop out of his pack again, he set himself up at the desk and began working. If he was going to be 'Tempoarary Chief of Staff', then he was going to have to live up to that standard. People would need to be assigned, jobs issued, and things done. To this end his fingers and mind worked diligantly, looking through the crew's files for possible skills and training. He was sorely dissappointed - none of the crew besides himself had even gone through a training session, and he was being stuck with some people who were rather fresh. Ah well, better to start with. A few more keystrokes brought up his superior officer.

He was not too surprised to find that she was first a woman, second a Neko. Some of the words on the report were rather small, so he had to rub his eyes and peer closer just to get some of it. At least she wasn't as unskilled as many of the other crewmembers. Bringing up her history was easy enough, and he soon found that she had commanded a ship or two in her own right and had more experiance than he had at first given her. He was surprised, she was doing well for a neko. He frowned a little bit, but that was all the thought he was able to give to it, for as he moved to bring up the other files he was interrupted by a sudden 'Ping'.

A message flashed onto the screen, and he only had to read over it once before taking immediate action. Through his computer he ordered the building locked to all but officers and implimented a message system that, once activated by the presence of an officer, would inform said officer of the status of the Chief of Staff - out at the moment, be back soon!

The Destiny mission finally had a Commander, and Koji didn't want the commander to have a horrible outlook on the ship's personnel, like he had originally when he had came, so he left the building posthaste and proceeded down to the shuttle bay to greet the new commander.