Late Night Musings

Posted on Tue Aug 10th, 2010 @ 2:54pm by Captain Alexander Gunning & Captain Liarra Von
Edited on on Tue Aug 10th, 2010 @ 3:02pm

Mission: Welcome to Archa IV
Location: USS Jackal Bridge

[ON]

Liarra leaned back in the command chair as far as she could, her arms stretching far above her head. She had just spent the last several hours reading over report after report on the activity in the Archa sector. She'd be lying if she said whe didn't find it at least a little interesting, but it was still a lot to read in one night. There was still the matter of sleep before she changed into her new uniform in the morning.

With the Jackal safely docked at Starbase 332, the bridge was empty, probably one of the few times a starship bridge would ever be left unattended. With the senior staff taking command of the starbase in the morning, most of them were getting settled in to their new quarters on the station. Liarra, however, was intent on getting through these reports tonight, hopefully so there wouldn't be any surprises in the morning. She tried reading in her quarters, but Mara's hurry to get packed and moved was causing a bit of a commotion, making it hard for Von to concentrate. Instead, she retreated to the bridge, where it was nice and quiet.

"Up late, aren't you?" Gunning said as he stepped through the port egress. "Even if you're awake then shouldn't you be settling into your new quarters?"

"I should be asking you the same question, you know," Liarra answered with a grin. "I just wanted to get through these reports tonight, and the bridge seemed to be the quietest place to do that. What are you doing up?"

"Unfortunately I'm not really blessed with the time to be able to sleep. Plus I don't even know which quarters I should be sleeping in." He dropped into one of the chairs at the tactical station and sighed. "I thought I'd come up and write a few words for tomorrow morning."

"Worried about your speech, huh?"

"More worried about tripping halfway across the stage and knocking Commodore Tae into the crowd. I fell asleep for about twenty minutes earlier and had that particular dream about five times."

Liarra chuckled a little. "I'm sure you'll do fine. Just make sure you wear comfortable shoes. One of my previous hosts, Jazeera, had a similar dream when she had to give a big speech. She just made sure that she wore shoes that she was used to walking in, and she was fine. Of course, she had terrible stage fright and stumbled though the whole speech, but she didn't fall."

Alex put his boot up on the command console which flanked the chair in which Liarra sat. "These are my most comfortable and only boots. They're barely passable as duty boots let alone with dress uniform. Unfortunately I'm going to have to replicate a new pair."

The trill took a look at her commander's boots. They certainly looked like they had seen better days. "Yeah, you might not want to wear those tomorrow. I would look into a new pair. It's too bad it's so late. I saw a shop on the promenade that had some really nice shoes. You may be better off making a pair tonight and getting used to them though." Liarra leaned back in her seat, staring at the viewscreen. It had been left on, showing the inside of the spacedock. "Do you think we're crazy, taking on an assignment like this?"

Gunning looked out at the inside of the station. Its size was almost incomprehensible. The gleaming hulls of ships both active and inactive hung silently within its protective shell and through long viewing ports, they could see people going about their lives believing that nothing in their lives would change with the change of command.

"We'd have been mad not to." He said quietly.

[OFF]

Commander Alex Gunning
Commanding Officer

Lieutenant Liarra Von
Chief Strategic Operations Officer