Living in a Shuttlecraft Down By The River

Posted on Tue Oct 11th, 2016 @ 3:35pm by Captain Landon Mabrade & Lieutenant JG Terry Wu & Commander Billy Jo Rhodes

1,396 words; about a 7 minute read

Mission: Celebrate Culture
Location: Talon Scout Boobrie
Timeline: TBD

ON

"Course set to two-eleven mark forty three. Speed currently at Warp one. Nothing on the scanners yet. Captain.' Terry announced. A merchant freighter passing through the sector they were currently flying through had reported encountering patches of highly-condensed dark matter; a danger to navigation that needed to be investigated and, if necessary, mapped and surrounded with sensor buoys to keep civilians from running into it. The only problem was that dark matter was so hard to detect that you almost had to be on top of it before it registered on your sensors. Not something you could really map out with a Nova class surveyor, unless you really liked taking risks with the lives of the crew under your command. And while a Danube-class runabout pimped out with a sensor package might be a better choice, they were in a Talon instead. The craft was a lot more nimble than a Danube and the sensors were easily reconfigured for the job.

Terry had taken the job of flying the assignment himself, rather than entrust someone in his department with it. Not that he didn't trust anyone. It was just more interesting than manning his console back at the station. Traffic control was dull, rote work of sending and receiving hails for approach vectors and manning the tractor beams to drag ships to their proper berths. If Terry had his way, he'd shirk that duty entirely and spend more time gadding about in the non-classified embarked ships. At least he had the opportunity. If he'd been given a non-flying position so soon after his change of MOS, he would probably have said something career-ending right on the spot. Maybe that was their intention. In which case, Terry was happy to keep being an unsightly mole on the Fleet's chin, complete with a hair thick enough to serve as a cat's whisker in a pinch.

"Flight Control to Boobrie... urgent message from Typhon Command. "Base under Lockdown ; red alert from Shipyards of stolen vessel. Your presence needed back at station, mission scrubbed; return at once." Was the message. "Confirm your receipt of message."

Terry half smirked when the station hailed the Boobrie, because, despite the fact that it was named after a mythological bird (He'd looked it up), it was an entirely ridiculous name, and part of him still had the sense of humor of a twelve year old. But then his relief officer got to the point of the hail, and his jaw tightened, his brow knitting. Part of Terry had always feared someday being forced to butt heads with his brother. Could Tim be the thief? Was that why they were calling him back to the station? Did they think he was complicit? "Boobrie to Typhon. Message received. Stay tuned." He said, glancing back to the Boobrie's other occupant. 'How do you wish to proceed, sir?" Because orders were orders, but orders were orders in an order of magnitude greater than orderly orders.

Another hail came in. "Pussycat to Boobrie," came a female voice in a Southern drawl.

Interrupted, Terry flashed an apologetic look to his superior officer. "Sorry." Then he returned the hail. "Boobrie here. What's new, Pussycat?" Ok, it wasn't exactly protocol to answer in such a fashion, but who could resist? Not Terry, of course, because of that damned inner twelve year old. Boobrie and Pussycat. If he wasn't on duty, and there wasn't a stolen starship somewhere hereabouts, he'd be wondering if they were going to be talking about asteroids and Uranus.

The voice laughed. "I always did like Tom Jones. This is Commander Billy Jo Rhodes. Hi. I'm currently chasing down the polecats that stole my baby. It might be a good idea for you to swing around Typhon and approach from the rear so someone doesn't accidentally shoot you." She wouldn't put it past Captain Cayne. He was a bit too trigger-happy at the moment. "And I have a mind to do some calf-roping of my own."

"Hello, Commander." Terry sent back. "Terry Wu on the Boobrie. And I could swing around..." Terry said, checking over his control panel. Was this some sort of test that the captain of Typhon had devised to test Terry? It was entirely possible. Terry's first captain was the kind of lady who liked to pull that sort of thing -- constant readiness drills. And, no matter how well you did, you never managed to quite measure up to her metric. "Thing is, I've got a cloaking device in this hunk of junk. Or I'm fairly sure I do. I've never used one. What sort of baby are we talking about? Does it bite, and if so, how hard? The weapons on this crate are about a step over peashooter, but I might be able to lend a hand."

"It's a Marine Transport ship prototype called the Gohira. It'll hold a platoon and their gear," Billy Jo said. "Those yellow-bellied gators just snatched her and ran. The Arthurian is coming up behind me to take care of the crew, but I don't want you getting caught in the middle."

"Marine transport?" Terry was a bit of a punk, but self-preservation was high on his list of priorities. And a cursory look to his "passenger" revealed no clues about how he should to proceed. "I'll cloak and remove myself from their flight path -- keep myself in reserve in case I need to intervene. They've got me curious as to who's got the gāowán and the skills to be boosting ships on my watch." And, yet again, Terry felt a slight pang of fear in his stomach that it might be his brother, even though Tim's M.O. was way different than what Billy Jo described.

"I'd appreciate that," Billy Jo said. "The Gohira is going to be the big brother to the Goanna. Or it will be when I get my baby back. Right now, I don't want you caught in the middle like a nut between two squirrels. Wouldn't be a good way to start out your time on Typhon."

"Oh, it would be par for the course." Terry said almost merrily. He'd already had a career that some folks would term as 'interesting.' Although parts of his personnel file weren't readily accessible to anyone below a section class, there was enough word of mouth out that he assumed Billy Jo's statement was premised on something she might have heard rumored about him. Which was fine with Terry, because it provided him with confirmation bias.

"I don't know about that," Billy Jo said, laughing over the comms. "You haven't been to Typhon before. Let's just say that we tend to live in interesting times."

"That's only a curse if you want to lead a dull, predictable, contented existence." Terry replied. The 'Chinese Curse,' as it was called, was about as authentically Chinese as fortune cookies, and Terry regarded it as an exhortation to live uninteresting lives. Something he refused to do. The Boobrie shimmered into convenient non-existence and moved out of the Gohira's path, but not too far away. Although it was next to useless in a fight, Terry had survived more than a few scrapes, some even before he'd reached his teens. "Just think of me as a little devil, looking for a shoulder to roost on."

"Oh, sugar, I think you've met your match with Typhon," Billy Jo replied, laughing. "I'll leave you to Captain Mabrade. I've got me a little steer to wrangle."

"Good hunting, Commander." Terry said with a grin, shutting down the comm and transmitting his new heading and speed to the station on an encrypted channel. Until they managed to bring the Gohira to bay, he was content to stay cloaked and unobtrusive, but that might not be what the Captain wanted. "Orders, sir?"

=^= Well since you like being what Humans call a Cowboy, get back to Typhon and play wrangler and help with the flow of traffic around the station while we get this situation under control.=^= Mabrade's voice said. =^= Coordinate with Operations to keep the jam-up down to a minimum, you are my sheep dog keeping the flock in order, Mabrade Out.=^=

OFF

Captain Mabrade
Commanding Officer

Billy Jo Rhodes
Shipyard Commanding Officer; Ship Wrangler


Lt. JG Terry Wu
Chief Flight Officer

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