Sailing in the Stars: The Beginning

[four]

Berth 32-C, Deck twelve, 2650. The Belarus.

Somewhere in the many corridors that connect the parts of the remarkable ship was this much less remarkable humaniod creature, scurrying her way down those corridors and trying her best to make her way to the particular part of the ship that she needed to be in.

The old pair of flat boots made unhappy, muffled thudding sounds with each of her footsteps and, once in a while, a slightly even more unhappy sound as she would change directions, halt for a moment to decide whether to change directions, or halt an ask someone nearby to help her determine whether to change directions.

"Excuse me, do you kn-"

The tripedal species from the grassland planet of Krueyhelm grew to an average height of fourteen feet and had sensory organs mounted on several stalks that extended another two. That allowed them an advantage of a wider range of sight and made available several otherwise unreachable food sources, and, at the same time, made them one of the worst choices for a member of a human subspecies with a height barely exceeding five and a half feet to ask directions from.

So Erin Lovell could only twitch her gill covers in frustration as the Krueyhelmite carried on with its swinging diagonal stride in the opposite direction, while the Huygenian medical officer searched desperately for the one door among the many nearly identical ones that bore the symbol that indicated it was in fact the door she was looking for.

_________


Half of the door of the medical quarters slid to the side, sheathing itself neatly into the adjacent wall panel. Erin, her briefcase in hand, and a piece of luggage staggered through.

"- Oh dear that was very confusing and exciting at the same time."

She said, leaving the luggage against the wall near the door, and swinging the briefcase such that it rested on the nearby table before it began its way down from the highest point of the swing. Going on to peel the coat off herself and hanging it on the edge of the same table, she carried on:

"..Voouguns. Handful of Mutrarians, and Zhakinons on the security team too. And two or three Strakreqi I think. And a Krueyhelmite - a Krueyhelmite! Can you -"

Erin recounted just about as much as she could remember on her way there. Half because there was a lot of staff and passengers aboard, of many different species and subspecies which implied different physiologies, and it would be of help to have information on which variations exactly that would have to be dealt with organized as soon and clearly as possible - and half because she forgot for a moment that this was the Belarus and not her old office at the spaceport.

And while she would have carried on into an lengthy expression of her appreciation towards in how interesting a way the Krueyhelmite circulatory system worked, the fact that the place behind the desk where her best liked colleague usually sat was now occupied by a large rotating chair with an As'storian sitting on it, as well as the lack of the presence at all of the desk that the seat was supposed to be behind, reminded Erin of the fact that she had neglected.

In a mixture of confusion, surprise, and awkwardness, an "Oh, it's you" of unspecified connotation escaped her lips as she took a moment to collect an understanding of the scenario. The specificness of that notion concerned the fact that she did remember Dutch from the line of people in front of her that had just finished their interviews back at the port.

Despite it possibly being a little too late for an attempt at a proper first impression (that was bound to be demolished later on anyway), she decided still for a formal introduction for it was only polite. Patting her hair - a curly mass of dark turquoise that was combed to one side and rested to the left of her collar - as if it wouldn't stay in place if she didn't, Erin straightened her stance, looked away for a moment and cleared her throat.

"Eh, hello. Erin Lovell." She said. "Great to meet you, mister - ?"

 

[Sofa King Fancy]

Dutch had organized his quaint workspace. There were no family photos because quite frankly he did not have a family. It was an as'storian custom not to care too much about the immediacy of relationships. One always had to serve the good of all—not just oneself. What he did have, though, was a massive amount of digital and VR ledgers along with his medeck. It wasn't a large piece of machinery, but its holographic projections were downright space consuming.

He was currently engaged in flipping through various species and tagging them as future patients. The sound of the door opening didn't derail his thought process. Amino-acids, dextrose supplements, oxygenated chloride tablets, daily glucose injections, and... ah… what? The holographic projections were not obvious to those on the other side of the medeck—doctor/patient confidentiality and what not. So, there was no way that the woman before him could know that he was trying to wrap his mind around what his tasks aboard the ship would entail.

A quick swipe of the hand, and Dutch banished the screen. He closed the medeck and looked at the woman before him. She was a huygenian. There was a base similarity between them and as'storians, and that was the humanoid nature of their build. Beyond that the similarities stopped. She introduced herself in an informal manner. He looked at her over his glasses before he returned to what he was doing, bringing the medeck screen up again.

"Dœrtých Ïmiiækyn," he said. "And it is 'doctor' not 'mister.'" He clicked on a few things, and resumed what he had previously been doing. "If you are not one of the other doctors, I suggest you find someone else to annoy. If you are, I suggest you find someone else to annoy on the other side of the medbay."

 

[Drone]

Feng sat on his bed looking over the virtual hand-out on the ship, what was to be expected on the job as a member of the security team, blah blah blah he'd end up doing things his own way regardless despite knowing better. He scrolled through a lot of it quickly, pretty standard stuff-then in big letters and with several exclamation points it read: ALL SECURITY TEAM MEMBERS ARE REQUIRED TO HAVE A PHYSICAL AND MENTAL EVALUATION BEFORE WORK!!! "Oh gross, fuck, damnit!" Feng uttered words that came to his head to show his clear distaste for any kind of evaluation. Unfortunately that was something he couldn't avoid or do his own way as pretty much every employer that needed this, wanted it.

Feng begrudgingly got up from his bed and left his room, after a few moments of getting lost on the massive ship he had somehow made his way to the med bay wherein stood an attractive Alien whose species he was unfamiliar with and- God dammit an As'storian doctor is this joke?- Feng shouted in his head, this one looked particularly grumpy too, but he was already here turning back would be awkward.

"Hey, Doc, New security team member. I'm required a physical and mental evaluation and yadda yadda, you know the whole game." Feng said quickly, hoping he would respond just as quickly. Feng stretched his arms out and tilted his head back slightly showing a neat little puncture wound under his chin that was now a scaly little scar and in a melodramatic tone said "Be gentle."

 

[four]

"...Sorry, I suppose?"

Erin narrowed her eyes and looked to the side - a held-back expression of slight disapproval, but also intended to be a glance over the shoulder just to confirm that there was in fact no-one on the other side of the medbay.

Her confirmation didn't return affirmative results because someone else arrived through the doors of the medbay within the duration of their conversation. There was then the characteristic hiss the gates made as they closed, and her sight followed as a Slalin dressed in a ridiculous shirt marched into the medbay.

"Oh."

The Slalin were one of the species that had a relatively easily comprehended anatomies and most trained in the field in a humanoid system would be very familiar with. She had seen few of them herself, however, since the Slalin invariably hated the climate of Huygens IV, and indeed anywhere else from the equator the temperature variations alone posed a significant threat to their hearts.

The gesture he made was impossible not to notice - particularly after seeing a large enough number of combat veterans. The Slalin needed not worry because any examiner would, by procedure, be obliged to ask about that scar without the patient requesting it.

"Mind taking care of that for a moment, doctor?" She said, "I haven't..." followed by some vague gesturing at herself and at her briefcase on the table, hopefully sufficiently successful in conveying the latter half of the sentence what was along the lines of "...had my stuff set up and changed."

The "doctor" in that sentence came off nothing more than normal, the same as she had used to refer to the doctors back at her old position. Had her noticed that earlier she may have intentionally uttered the word in a more dramatic fashion - in that it seemed that Dutch viewed with great importance the fact that he should be referred to as such. In retrospect, however, she did understand that it was possibly better she didn't.

"Thanks." She added.

She placed in piles the items that she removed from the briefcase - clothing, tools, smaller containers, and documents. She still carried a lot that was written down - she had always found operating the projected screens placing quite some strain on her hands and her eyes, which she considered unpleasant. Removed from the bookcase was also an old book with an illustrated cover, the title overlaid with white letters in one of those elongated fonts that had long gone out of fashion. The folded white uniform was the bottommost of the contents - she removed it from the case and hung it on the edge of the table.

In the mean time, her sight was cast over the edge of the upright edge of the briefcase, and towards the Slalin standing on the other side of her desk.

"Let me guess. ...likely not gunfire. Uh. Zahkinian Stiletto? ...Harpoon? Chuorb tooth?"

She told the first part of those guesses was most likely correct because a anything fired from a half-decent firearm would have penetrated all the way, in which case the Slalin wouldn't be standing now. The second guess was a bet on the safe side because it was standard issue and, as a reuslt, what saw the most widespread use out of all the similar weapons that might have caused the wound. The third and fourth really were just blind jabs of guesses intended as fillers - besides, a harpoon and a Chuorb tooth were more or less the same thing.

She would really want to play up the part of the knowledgeable, interested doctor; if not for the fact that there really was just that much you could tell from a scaly scar on the bottom of a chin. So she resumed piling the rectangular containers onto the nearby shelf, and waited.