Bad Start to the Day (Open)

[Luke Martin]

Having a farewell booze up the night before going on a new mission definitely hadn’t been the best idea that Luke had ever had. As fun as drunk karaoke singing and twister was before hitting the town, it didn’t make for a good recipe in the morning. Having got back to his apartment at 5am, his first plan had been to stay awake until he had to set off at 8am to get the shuttle, but then he’d realised it might not be the best idea to turn up still drunk on his first day. So, instead, he’d chosen to go to sleep for a couple of hours to sleep it off then he’d be right and ready to go when his alarm went off at seven. Only, he hadn’t set his alarm, and rapidly, 2 hours became 10.

He was woken up by a thud, probably his upstairs neighbour tripping over their cat again, and reached out for his clock. He pulled it in front of his face and let out a shout, bolting out of bed. Tossing some clothes on, he threw everything he could think that he would need into a duffel bag and brushed his teeth before diving out of the door. He just about made the next shuttle, pushing the speed limit through the city, and arrived on the ship just more than 6 hours late. Bad, bad start. Luckily, the ship couldn’t set off without him, so he was lucky. If he’d been an engineer or a grunt or something, he might have been left behind.

Quickly stopping to leave his bag in his room (it was a nice room, better than he’d ever had, even at home), he made his way to the flight deck to set all the computers up and make sure everything was running properly. When he got there, it looked like the Captain or someone else had already done quite a bit, but had left the navigation and pilots consoles untouched. His fingers moved across the screens like a blur, making sure everything was set up just as he liked it. He heard the faint sound of the engines grumble into life, which was good. He wasn’t going to set off yet, not until he’d checked in with the Captain, but it was good knowing everything was working. This is was going to be an interesting adventure.

[Natalie Blake]

Natalie sighed as she pulled on her leather jacket and left engineering, heading for the flight deck. She wasn't sure where William Blake, the Chief Engineer, had gotten to, and so she had yet to get him to check and see if she was right, but she was fairly certain that the ship's couplings could be upgraded, and in doing so it would lengthen the time between alignments, reducing the engineers' maintenance workload.

Last she'd heard, he'd gone up to the mess hall with that Tactical Officer Anna. She didn't want to bother him while he ate, so instead she decided she'd go up to the flight deck and see what the captain thought if he was there. She didn't really want to pester the captain, either, but sitting around down in engineering and waiting for William to return (whenever that would be) didn't exactly appeal to her.

Natalie made her way swiftly through the halls, not meeting many people on her way. Coming to the flight deck, she stepped inside quietly and glanced around, finding that there was only one other person there. It was a man who seemed to be around her age, though he was several inches taller than her. He wasn't familiar to her, but from how comfortable he appeared to be at the console, she was guessing he was the Venia's pilot.

"Oh, um, hi," she said lamely, realizing with a start that she'd been standing there for several seconds now without saying a thing. She then noted that she probably could have left without alerting him, and began backing towards the door in embarrassment. "Sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt anything. I'll just, uh, be on my way then..."

Way to go, Nate, you've succeeding in making yourself look like a total moron within five seconds of meeting someone new. You broke your reccord, she thought peevishly.

[Luke Martin]

Luke didn't know why he was surprised to hear someone's voice. He supposed it was because the flight deck, and the whole ship in fact, had been so quiet, he was beginning to think that there was no one else there. When he turned round and saw Natalie, he faltered for a moment. He knew there were going to be female crew members, obviously, be he hadn't entertained the fact that they would be good looking. Were all the female crew members like that?

His next thought went to how much of a mess he had to look after diving out of his apartment like that, his hair probably looked like he'd been poked with a live wire. Not that that was possible anymore with today's tech and architecture. As she backed away, and held up his hands, and wondered whether the crazy haired man had frightened her off.

"No, no," he said, his Aussie accent thick as this was the first time he'd used his voice today other than screaming at the alarm clock (and he was probably still a bit hungover), "you're not interrupting anything, no worries." The console started bleeping at him and he frowned, quickly pressing something to sort that out. He walked over to her, holding out his hand, "Luke Martin," he said, "ship's pilot or chauffeur, whichever you prefer," he added with a smile.

[Natalie Blake]

Natalie's lips quirked up in a small smile as Luke spoke. Growing up in a saloon, she'd heard accents from all across the States, even a couple of Canadians once, but Australian was new to her. She liked it. Almost as much as she liked his hair. It was a mess, and it clearly didn't normally look like that, but she'd seen enough bedheaded men to know that his case was actually quite mild.

Tentatively she stepped away from the door and took his outheld hand, shaking it. "Chauffeur, huh?" she chuckled, smiling a little wider. "I'm Natalie Fairholm, one of the ship's engineers," she added in way of introduction.

Pushing a strand of hair behind her ear impetuously, she took her hand back and glanced around the room, crossing her arms as she searched aimlessly for something to say. She wandered over to one of the consoles and looked it over, taking in the flashing lights and scrolling texts. To her, it didn't make much sense, but then again she'd never been trained to understand them.

"So..." she started, pursing her lips as she thought of what to say next. She normally didn't talk to people much beyond an introduction, but just walking out on Luke would seem rude, and she didn't want to insult him. "I take it you're from somewhere in Australia?" she finally resorted to saying, looking up at him for a moment before dropping her eyes back to the console she was studying. "I lived in Duluth, Minnesota before I was recruited."

[Luke Martin]

Luke was so very used to American accents by now having lived in America for ten years. He found his accent had been muted a bit by hearing the American accent day in day out, and sometimes he even completely tuned it out in favour of an American one so that people could understand him. Some people really weren't good at understanding him with his home accent, to them it sounded like he was speaking a foreign language, which was kind of amusing sometimes, but not really all that great when actually trying to communicate something important.

"Engineer? Awesome," he said, shaking her hand firmly but gently. He hadn't met many female engineers but he imagined they were probably just as good as guys, if not better. "Yeah," he said about the chauffeur thing, "except, I bet no real chauffeur has even driven anything as cool as this before." It was a nice looking ship. He was used to military ships which were built to be good at defense and offense and that was it. This ship was for exploring, so it had a different feel. He didn't know how it would run yet, he'd find that out later, whether there's any kinks he'd need to work out.

He smiled when she asked if he was from Australia, "yep, Brisbane," he said, "but figuring I'm from Aus is further than most people get." He paused, "Australia, not the magical land of Oz." He chuckled slightly at himself. He was always quick to notice when he'd said something wrong, and would make a joke out of it before someone else could. "Duluth? Nice. So, you were an engineer before you came on board?" He figured it'd be best to keep up the conversation. He watched her watch the screens and smiled. He was a quick learner, so picked up how to use them quickly, they must look completely crazy to people who didn't know how to use them.

[Natalie Blake]

Natalie nodded in answer to Luke's question, examining the console for a moment longer before giving up and turning away to talk with him properly. He seemed to be a pretty laid-back fellow, easy to talk to. To someone as introverted as she was, this made things easier. She perched herself on the edge of the console, careful not to disturb anything, and looked back up at him.

"Yeah, my dad was a mechanic," she told him, elaborating her nod so it made sense. "He got me into it at an early age. I spent a lot of my childhood tinkering old on vintage cars." She laughed and an amazed smile flashed across her face. "We actually got our hands on an authentic 1967 Chevy Impala. It took me almost three years, but I managed to fix her up. When I was through with her, I'd replaced almost everything, but she looked like she would've in the height of her time."

Natalie smiled, losing herself in memories. The car was centuries old, but she'd managed to salvage the right kind of parts to get her up and purring again. That had been her first solo project. Normally her father would have helped her, but she'd insisted on fixing the Impala herself, and she'd succeeded. Pulling herself out of her reminiscing and smiled apologetically at Luke.

"Anyway, I liked it so much that when I was old enough I decided to take the work on as my profession. Went to school to learn how to work with more than just cars, got good, and next I knew UGAP was after me." She shrugged, flashing Luke another smile. "Pretty boring story, I know. So what about yourself? You always want to be a pilot?"

[Luke Martin]

Luke had been more interested in aircraft when he was a kid, but he could still understand why she liked what she did, and that fixing up a near 500 year old car was pretty amazing. "Impressive," he said with a nod and a grin, "certainly don't have a claim like that to my name. Shows a good understanding of mechanics, probably why the UGAP chose you." It also showed she would be able to think outside the box when it came to fixing the ship, she might see something which the other engineers didn't.

"Not boring at all," he said with a smile, he could appreciate what it was like to have a love for building or fixing things. She then asked about then, and he smiled. "Not always," he said, "but it was a pretty logical conclusion when you have colouring books full of airplanes at the age of three." He swivelled his seat round, and sat down beside her, "at first I thought I was going to be an engineer like you, studied Mechanics and Aerospace Engineering at Uni and everything. But, I wasn't getting the same thrill from the mechanics as I had in the past from doing hover-cart races and stuff, so I trained to become a pilot instead."

"It was pretty straight forward from there, UGAP approached me and here I am," he scratched his forehead and chuckled, "late and a little hungover, but still." He wasn't sure whether he should have admitted that, but Natalie seemed pretty cool, he didn't think she'd rat him out or anything. There was so much more to his life than he let on, probably the same with her, but they were keeping it light for now. "Excited about getting going then?" he asked, "what do you think about these anomalies?" He had speculations, but they all seemed ridiculous.

[Natalie Blake]

Natalie snorted, a grin sneaking its way onto her face as Luke admitted to being a little hungover. "Celebrating before you left, I take it?" she chuckled, shaking her head in amusement. Not that she could really blame him. Catching a few drinks with your friends before you leave on a mission that could take you away for years made perfect sense to her. He then asked her what she thought of the anomalies, and she paused, thinking.

"Well, I'm no scientist," she sighed, shrugging. "Most of my thoughts on the matter don't make much sense. Sometimes I wonder if it's something we humans have done," she admitted, crossing her arms again. "But really, how could we be causing all the fluxes and rifts? So then I wonder if maybe this is like some sort of galaxy wide earthquake. An unstoppable force of nature that we have no control over. For all we know this has happened before, centuries ago, before we'd managed space-travel."

Natalie looked back at Luke, only then realizing that she'd even looked away. Her expression was a little chagrinned as she said, "Well, as you can see, my theories almost never make sense." She shifted on the console, making herself more comfortable. She had been surprisingly open with him, and now she felt it only proper that he be just as open to her. "What do you think about them?"

[Luke Martin]

”Of course,” he grinned right back at her, ”probably the last time I’m going to see my family and friends for a good few years, I figured why not have one last blow out? That was until I over slept,” she shook his head and himself, ”then it didn’t seem like such a good idea.” Well, he’d made it, which was all that mattered. They’d be setting off soon, and as far as he saw it, he’d already made a friend, so all was good.

He listened to her theories and nodded. Those were things that had crossed his mind before. Not so much the second one, maybe a variation of it. ”I’d imagine it’s more likely to be something that we’ve done, although, we’re a relatively small force in a gigantic universe, how much force or power could we really have over that which is already established and has been since before we even existed?” He figured he was getting a bit philosophical now, but if it was humanity’s fault, then maybe they were ultimately paying for a mistake they’d made.

”Me?” he said, pointing at himself, swivelling his chair a little, ”well, there’s a fine balance of energy in the Universe, and I think it’s likely that disturbances in that flow of energy are more than likely causing these things. Whether it’s man made or otherwise though, I’ve got no clue. Guess we’re just going to have to wait to find out.” He gave her a smile, ”not that it concerns me anyway, I just have to make sure this thing stays in the air long enough for the others to find out about it. Guess that’s your job too in a way.”

[Natalie Blake]

Luke's words reminded Natalie of why she had come up here in the first place, but with only a moment of hesitation she shrugged it off, deciding that the couplings could wait. She hadn't been sure she was right, anyway, so what was the point on rushing off in the middle of a conversation to check something that could, in fact, be completely wrong?

"You could say that," she laughed lightly, shrugging. "I don't do much, really. Just repairs and modifications. Whenever something goes terribly wrong, it's usually up to Will to either fix it himself or tell me what to do." Then, remembering that Luke probably didn't know who Will was, she added, "William Blake is our Chief Engineer."

Natalie offered Luke a shy smile before looking down at the consoles again. This was one of those times she wished she had better conversation skills. Luke seemed to be nice and funny, and admittedly he was fairly attractive, but she had no idea what to say to him. Maybe if she prodded him in the right direction, she could get him talking so she wouldn't have to.

Sadly, the next words out of her mouth weren't very successful in getting him monologuing. "So... have you met any of the other crew members yet?"

[Luke Martin]

Luke nodded to what Natalie said, "I don't know, I still think keeping this thing up to scratch is still a big job." The ship was full of all sorts of high tech equipment that needed constant maintenence. It would be a big job making sure everything worked all right. "I haven't met any of the other crew yet," he said, "you literally walked in just after I arrived." He had expected to bump into more people before getting to the flight deck, but it didn't matter really. At least he knew one person.

"How about you?" he asked, "I haven't seen that many people around, is anyone actually here?" He smiled slightly. He wasn't being serious, of course there would be other people on board. Apparently they were all hiding away in their rooms or something - or getting on with their jobs maybe. He wasn't sure how large the crew was going to be exactly, whether he was going to have a co-pilot, or whether he was flying this thing solo. He hoped that everyone wasn't uptight either. He knew what it was like to be that way, and it wasn't any fun.

[Natalie Blake]

Natalie chortled, grinning. "I've spent most of my time down in engineering, to be honest. Though I have met a few of the crew. I've met the Venia's captain, Michael Clarke, the Chief Tactical Officer, Annabelle McAdam, and our Observer, Idina Petrov. And of course I've met my superior, William Blake. Aside from them, though, I don't know who else is here. Hanging out down below isn't exactly the most common place to meet people."

Maybe that's part of the reason I like it so much, she noted, scowling at herself. She didn't like how true that thought was. Forcefully she decided to try and be more social. She knew she was a closed-off person, but she needed some contact with others if she wanted to stay sane during the length of this expedition. Making friends with Luke would be a start.

"So far, the people I've met have been polite and nice, and all of us seem driven to figure out what's going on. With all of us working to acheive a common goal, I'm pretty sure the Venia's crew will feel like family in no time." That sentence made her think of home, making her smile a little. It would be nice to feel at home here, and she hoped that what she'd said would be true.

[Luke Martin]

"What's the Captain like?" he asked. The Captain was his superior really, him and the first mate, and he wanted to know beforehand how contained he would have to be with his personality. Most of the time, he could be as jokey or witty as he wanted, but you had to be cautious around superiors. If you give them the wrong first impression, then they can be very unforgiving. He'd learnt this in the past.

It also sort of surprised him that the chief tactical officer was a woman - or a man with a very feminine name. Usually they put a man with more muscles than brains in the role, it might be different here.

"Yeah, I'm sure," Luke said with a smile. He was enjoying their conversation, she'd certainly opened a lot more since she first walked into the room, but then, he did try to put people at ease. "I'm sure we'll become a cliche, the Captain will become the Dad of the ship, the first mate his close brother..." he smirked, "maybe the ship's doctor or psychologist will be the mother, the rest of us bratty siblings who all get on, or want to tear each other's hair out." He grinned.

[Natalie Blake]

"I haven't actually spent much time with the man, to be honest," Natalie said, shrugging. "He seemed nice enough when I met him, though." She smirked a little as she recalled that he'd been in uniform at the time. She listened to his next comment with amusement, snickering when he'd finished. "Oh joy, the big family I've always wanted, just never very much."

In truth, she had enjoyed her small, simple life back in Duluth. But this was an important mission, and it was going to be a long one on top of that, and feeling comfortable and at ease with the crew certainly would help. Sure, crowds made her uncomfortable, but if she spent enough time in them perhaps that would change. On that note, she wondered how Luke felt about crowds. Maybe he had a big family and was used to them?

"You looking forward to living with all the 'best and brightest' in the galaxy?" she asked, slipping her hands into her pockets.

[Luke Martin]

Luke chuckled. "Count yourself lucky," he said, "this family would be nothing compared to the one I have at home." His parents and their siblings certainly had loved having kids. He was the oldest of three, and at last count, he had around 20 cousins. Maybe there had been one on the way. Or maybe that was one of his cousins kids. Either way, keeping an eye on 20 young kids at a party at the age of 16 had been interesting.

"What, you mean like, having in depth discussions about the inner workings of a particle accelerator over the dinner table, and discussing politics in different languages," he smirked, "I'm kidding by the way, if you catch me doing that, you have full permission to slap some sense into me."

"Seriously, it's going to be an interesting journey," he said, they'd certainly be keeping him on his toes, that was for sure, "how about you?"