The Ratchet Man
Posted on Sun Oct 27th, 2013 @ 7:05pm by Commander Brian Ratchford & Commander Jordan Gunning
Mission:
Picking Up the Pieces
Location: Station Operations Centre
[ON]
"Look, I know you've not done this before but if you keep twisting flight paths around one another then you're going to give me one hell of a headache when you cause two freighters to crash into one another." Gunning had the ensign on the brink of tears. "It's no use getting upset. I understand that you're two minutes on the job and are being asked to guide traffic across an entire sector but the situation is what it is. If you don't pull yourself up by your bootlaces, no-one's going to do it for you."
The Ensign had failed to notice an incoming Rilirian freighter which had almost collided with another ship as it approached the secondary hangar. This didn't surprise Jordan as he had just been seconded in from the only department who had an abundance of personnel: Science.
The console bleeped to alert its operator of the near-collision just as Brian stepped off the turbolift. Pausing to change his route from heading towards his office to file his patrol report from the Jackal to take him towards the two men who he didn't recognise, he hoped that he wasn't going to have to preside over them dealing with the wreckage of a collision off the station. "Is everything all right?" he asked pointedly as he approached.
"Quite all right." Gunning replied without breaking his stare at the Ensign. "I'm just informing the Ensign here that it might be a good idea not to run two ships together like they're a Newton's Cradle."
"Yeah, that would be bad," Brian responded, as he stood with his arms crossed and looked over the two men's shoulders to watch the screens for a little while. Satisfied that they weren't going to blow any ships up for the moment, he turned his attention towards the man standing over the Ensign, and noticed he had the same three pips of a commander that he now had on his own neck, and he searched his mind for any personnel transfers recently. There was only one he knew of who had come aboard with such a rank, so he made his next assumption with relative confidence. "Commander Gunning, I assume? Our new strategic operations officer?"
"Guilty as charged." He said flippantly, dismissing the Ensign with a flourish of his hand. "Commander Brian Ratchford of the Good Ship Jackal?"
"And newly-minted first officer of this fine station," Brian responded, holding out his hand to be shaken. "I've heard good things about you. And..." he paused, knowing he was broaching a potentially awkward conversation topic, and also lowering his voice to keep from broadcasting his comment to the rest of the operations staff. "My condolences about your brother. Everybody here has spoken very highly of him."
"Ahh, then congratulations are in order." Gunning boomed, reciprocating the handshake. "I've heard rumours of your prowess with a saxophone. I have a fantastic holosuite programme of New Orleans."
"Really?" Brian answered. He was surprised that the commander had a holoprogramme to suit his style of music, which seemed to be a much rarer taste than the classical tunes, which had been having quite a revival for the past half a century, but equally surprised that word had gotten to him of his own musical skills. "I like to play a bit, here and there. Do you like jazz music at all?"
"Not really, but I do like wearing suits and pretending to smoke." Jordan raised a grin.
Brian chuckled. "You know, from what I hear, there's someone on the station who probably joins you in those hobbies," he said, thinking of the talk he had heard of a private detective that Captain Gunning apparently used to go and see when he needed something done outside of the usual process. "If he's still around, that is." He honestly had no idea if the man was even still on the station, though he hadn't seen him on any casualty lists.
"Well it's settled then. We'll have to make a night of it and invite this... other hobbyist along for the ride." The other Commander's face had lit up at the thought of something which wasn't him being shouted at by people who'd had their fill of stress. To see another, fresher face was uplifting after a difficult few days.
"You're on," Brian answered, grinning at the prospect of doing something with his off-time other than catch up with work. Without moving his gaze, he leant over past the ensign formerly at the receipt of Jordan's ire and hit the control that would open a channel to one of the ship's on the screen. "Starbase Three-Three-Two to the Koromah. Hold position and await new docking instructions." As he let go of the control, he looked at the ensign, and said calmly, "Try to make sure that its flight path isn't going to make it collide with the Beliskner, Ensign."
[OFF]
Commander Brian Ratchford
First Officer
&
Commander Jordan Gunning
Chief Strategic Operations Officer
Starbase 332
