Who: PEOPLE (specific starters and OTA) When: Oct 15th-20th Where: The Patrick Moira What: A big bad catch-all for pre-event and beyond Warnings: Update if needed
Uhhh, well, it should be on the radar. At least it is here. Somewhere dead ahead, but it's hard to tell how big it or what it is, or what it's made of so I'm not sure if you can get a visual.
[There's a pause.]
Do you...know how to use the radar?
[He didn't like to make assumptions, but her response hadn't exactly inspired him with confidence. She must have some sort of qualifications, or she wouldn't have been assigned what she'd been assigned (or so he likes to think) but there was a lot to be unfamiliar with on this ship, no matter where you were from.]
[Jacky did pay attention during her short training program. It just...didn't make much sense. But she was game and she can at least bring up the right lenses for the glass...after a few false starts.]
You look for shapes to appear in the reticle, aye?
[Watching the screen closely, she watched the line sweep around three full times before announcing with surety:] Looks like there's a spot at our one to starboard. Gotten a mite bigger, too. Any ideas what it could be? [She's started to take it for granted that nearly-if-not-EVERYONE on this ship knows more than her about EVERYTHING.]
[It takes Ratchet a moment to parse ‘one to starboard’ (and even then he’s not one hundred percent certain he's on the same page) and he furrows his brow. If it was getting bigger on the radar, it had to be close…very close. He taps the screen, transitioning to an outside view. Nothing but black space.] Well….my guess would be an asteroid. Maybe a comet? There’s not really a lot else it could be out here. Especially something that small.
[Which, by ‘small’ he means, not planet sized. It could still be miles across.]
I’m just worried about wasting fuel on a course correction if we don’t have to. We need to get a better idea of how big this thing is...or what’s it made of, at least. What do they have for instruments up there? Holo-disdrometer? Remote spectrophotometer? I’m sure we can make do with a tacheometer if we have to...
...Being completely honest with you, mate, about the only thing I understood there was 'comet'.
[Tentatively, she cycled through the various lenses for the glass (and at some point, someone's really going to have to explain 'computers and programs' to the poor girl), trying to figure out if any of the lens labels matched that list of goobletygook that Ratchet rattled off.]
Orright, I've got something that looks like 'Tacheometer'. [Whatever that is.] What you want I should do?
[There’s an impossibly long silence as what she says sinks in. Really sinks in.]
...comet… [He repeats the word back in a disbelieving tone, rubbing a temple. ] You only know...ehah….okay. Okay okay.
[Ratchet was starting to get a bad feeling about just how much - or how little - Jacky knew. At least when it came to navigational equipment on a spaceship. Most of the humans he'd met had come from a pre-space-travel world but...well, this was different. He opens up a chart of their course, shaking his head as he maps out coordinates between them and the unknown object.]
Uhm, okay. Listen, I’m sending the coordinates to your station...you just need to input them into the tacheometer’s interfa- ah, you know. Type ‘em in? As long as you get that right, it’s should be pretty simple...
I just looked up watch the pieces of moveable type were called ugh
[When the numbers flashed up on the glass, Jacky's eyes only widened a little bit. Maybe she was getting used to this weird future stuff after all! Carefully, she pressed each number sort, entering in the numbers exactly as Ratchet had sent her.]
Done. ...It looks like a potato. With a face.
[Tapping the data, she selected Ratchet's name out of the listed destinations and hoped for the best.]
You know, I never thought I'd say this, but I miss hurricanes and cyclones. At least they made sense.
A potato with….a face…..[The data pops on the screen and Ratchet tilts his head, squinting.] Huh. It actually does.
[At least it’s not too big - this asteroid would only warrant a small course correction; nothing that would lose them too much time or waste too much fuel. Honestly if they had good shielding...no. He punches in the corrected course, taking them just past the asteroid. As he does, he thinks about what she’d said; hurricanes and cyclones he knew. Or at least, he knew what they were...from holo-vids and things like that.]
You must be from somewhere with a lot of water, then. [He hesitates.] Earth?
[Earth had had a lot of water when he’d been there.]
[Jacky grinned as she shut away the lenses (take that, future!) and moved back to her spot against the wall.]
Oh, aye. 've spent near half my life on the blue. [She sighed.] I miss my ships, yanno. None of them hold a candle to my Emerald, but they're all mine, and as nice as this ship is, it doesn't compare to sailing the Caribbean in my Nancy B.
[Shaking off her doldrums, she asked,] How about you, Mister Ratchet? What were you doing before waking up here?
[Ratchet falls silent. Somehow, getting ready to help destroy the Earth didn't feel like an ideal answer. Even if it wasn't her Earth. He really didn't feel like explaining to anyone what it took to put their world on the chopping block.]
Part of another crew. Similar to this one...just...different. [He laughs humorlessly.] Do you believe this isn't the first crew I've been inter-dimensionally recruited to?
[Maybe someday, sitting in front of the fire and playing with her grandbabies, she can think of this as a wacky fun adventure, but as it stands right now she can't see how ending up on a ship like this isn't bad luck.]
[Bad luck. Ratchet was pretty sure that the only that the people on this crew - on any of these crews - had in common was their phenomenally, almost cosmically bad luck. So naturally he answers with sarcasm.]
You kidding? It's great here. It's like that vacation I keep saying I'm going to take, only...really long. And with work.
[She sighed.] I keep promising meself, 'No more adventures, Jacky me girl, just the quiet life for you, running things from one place that's got too much stuff to another that don't have that stuff, living all peaceful-like on the Farm with my Jaimy and all me friends and my dear sweet boy, not getting into anymore trouble, no siree.' And I was so close, too! But I just had to go out for a quick trip out on the bay afore getting hitched, and now. Well.
But! At least this whole mess will be a fun tale to tell someday! And I've gotten to meet such good friends, like you, and Miss DeWitt. So it's not all bad.
Right?
Edited (missed a closing quote mark) 2015-11-03 02:53 (UTC)
[Her optimism is infectious, for all that his tone doesn't sound entirely convinced. Ratchet did like a lot of the people here. But it was hard to use people as an anchor point when it was people he was most worried about disappearing. He'd had friends who'd made things with the CDC not so bad...but for all he knew they were dead now. Or on something other dimensionally-displaced crew. Or worse: still with the CDC.
He sighs, shrugging although she can't see it.]
Well, here's to hoping this trip's a short one, and we all end up back home at the end.
[Sighing, her face fell, fogging the glass that looked out onto that strange and lonesome sight of the heavens moving around them.] God, I will drink to that.
As long as it's not on the job, you'll hear no complaints from me.
[A sharp beeping from the navigation console pulls Ratchet's attention back to their original conversation. This time is was just an alert informing them of the nearby asteroid as their newly plotted course took them past it. Of course "near" was in relative space terms because realistically the asteroid was probably miles to their starboard.]
Congratulations, Miss Jacky Faber...you have successfully aided in your first intergalactic obstacle avoidance. Should be smooth flying for awhile, according to the instruments.
the number of times i spelled it 'leftenant', you don't even know
So, tell me Mister Ratchet, does the Navy still exist? In my time, I served in the Royal Navy of His Majesty George the Third; reached Lieutenant, even though I was a girl. [And even though Scroggs only promoted her to rid himself of frat rules in his odious desire to bed her; she earned her commission, and she'd fight any man who implied she hadn't!]
Have you served, Mister Ratchet? [Not that serving is the only way to be a competent sailor, but Jacky's found that naval men do, in the end, perform better than their civilian counterparts. And Ratchet is good; she might not know this tech, but she knows a competent sailor when she sees one. Or, rather, hears one, as the case may be.]
The ‘navy’? [He says the word uncertainly, like he doesn’t know what she’s referring to. Because he doesn’t. In fact most of what she’d said doesn’t make any sense; although he does recognize lieutenant, and is instantly impressed. It’s a pretty high rank for someone who at least sounded very young.] I don’t know. We don’t have anything by that name where I’m from...military, I’m guessing?
[He takes a moment to close out the navigation map, dimming the monitor, while he considers her question.]
Now and again, I guess. I work for my galaxy’s defense force, which is....kind of like military. I’m no Lieutenant though. [Ratchet preferred to leave the high rankings to people like Talwyn. Too much public speaking. Way too much paperwork.]
That is almost exactly like what I mean! Excepting in my time, we sailed the waters around our countries, or out in the free oceans, protecting our lands from opposing navies, or merchants from pirates. [Or robbing other country's merchant ships--for the good of King and Country, of course.] It was tough work, but I was good at it.
[She smiled, that old sin of pride fluffing her metaphorical feathers as she shifted her stance.] In any case, Mister Ratchet, I've known a great many men who might've been only rated Able who were more capable than many Captains I've known or in one case had the misfortune to serve under. A good mate of mine, Joseph Jared, he made his way all the way up to Captain during our acquaintance! Granted, there was a war on at the time...
[Ratchet cant help but smile at the parallels. The ships might be different, and the obstacles different, but he could recognize the similiarities...if not in the literal sense, then in the way she talked about it.]
Now that I'll drink to. Maybe our times aren't so different, after all, Jacky.
[And Ratchet definitely knew and thing or two about incapable Captains.]
Would you know it, I think that's the most reassuring thing I've heard since waking up here? For that alone, I feel like the first round should be on me!
Ah, god's teeth, don't remind me! I've some coinage, but like. Is a gold dollar still worth a dollar? Is gold worth anything? I tell ya, it drives the merchant in me mad!
Well, even if your money's useless here, it might be worth something off the ship...one of the trading outposts, something like that. Gold isn't exactly a hot commodity in most places though...don't suppose you have anything made out of palladium or platinum? Those would get you a lot further.
[Although who knew? Maybe they'd find themselves on a planet where gold was a rarity, and palladium common as dirt. The universe was a big place.]
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Uhhh, well, it should be on the radar. At least it is here. Somewhere dead ahead, but it's hard to tell how big it or what it is, or what it's made of so I'm not sure if you can get a visual.
[There's a pause.]
Do you...know how to use the radar?
[He didn't like to make assumptions, but her response hadn't exactly inspired him with confidence. She must have some sort of qualifications, or she wouldn't have been assigned what she'd been assigned (or so he likes to think) but there was a lot to be unfamiliar with on this ship, no matter where you were from.]
enjoy the new icon
You look for shapes to appear in the reticle, aye?
[Watching the screen closely, she watched the line sweep around three full times before announcing with surety:] Looks like there's a spot at our one to starboard. Gotten a mite bigger, too. Any ideas what it could be? [She's started to take it for granted that nearly-if-not-EVERYONE on this ship knows more than her about EVERYTHING.]
these are all real things, i will have you know.
[It takes Ratchet a moment to parse ‘one to starboard’ (and even then he’s not one hundred percent certain he's on the same page) and he furrows his brow. If it was getting bigger on the radar, it had to be close…very close. He taps the screen, transitioning to an outside view. Nothing but black space.] Well….my guess would be an asteroid. Maybe a comet? There’s not really a lot else it could be out here. Especially something that small.
[Which, by ‘small’ he means, not planet sized. It could still be miles across.]
I’m just worried about wasting fuel on a course correction if we don’t have to. We need to get a better idea of how big this thing is...or what’s it made of, at least. What do they have for instruments up there? Holo-disdrometer? Remote spectrophotometer? I’m sure we can make do with a tacheometer if we have to...
i am sceptically side-eyeing you rn
[Tentatively, she cycled through the various lenses for the glass (and at some point, someone's really going to have to explain 'computers and programs' to the poor girl), trying to figure out if any of the lens labels matched that list of goobletygook that Ratchet rattled off.]
Orright, I've got something that looks like 'Tacheometer'. [Whatever that is.] What you want I should do?
ye of little faith
...comet… [He repeats the word back in a disbelieving tone, rubbing a temple. ] You only know...ehah….okay. Okay okay.
[Ratchet was starting to get a bad feeling about just how much - or how little - Jacky knew. At least when it came to navigational equipment on a spaceship. Most of the humans he'd met had come from a pre-space-travel world but...well, this was different. He opens up a chart of their course, shaking his head as he maps out coordinates between them and the unknown object.]
Uhm, okay. Listen, I’m sending the coordinates to your station...you just need to input them into the tacheometer’s interfa- ah, you know. Type ‘em in? As long as you get that right, it’s should be pretty simple...
I just looked up watch the pieces of moveable type were called ugh
Done. ...It looks like a potato. With a face.
[Tapping the data, she selected Ratchet's name out of the listed destinations and hoped for the best.]
You know, I never thought I'd say this, but I miss hurricanes and cyclones. At least they made sense.
no subject
[At least it’s not too big - this asteroid would only warrant a small course correction; nothing that would lose them too much time or waste too much fuel. Honestly if they had good shielding...no. He punches in the corrected course, taking them just past the asteroid. As he does, he thinks about what she’d said; hurricanes and cyclones he knew. Or at least, he knew what they were...from holo-vids and things like that.]
You must be from somewhere with a lot of water, then. [He hesitates.] Earth?
[Earth had had a lot of water when he’d been there.]
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Oh, aye. 've spent near half my life on the blue. [She sighed.] I miss my ships, yanno. None of them hold a candle to my Emerald, but they're all mine, and as nice as this ship is, it doesn't compare to sailing the Caribbean in my Nancy B.
[Shaking off her doldrums, she asked,] How about you, Mister Ratchet? What were you doing before waking up here?
no subject
Part of another crew. Similar to this one...just...different. [He laughs humorlessly.] Do you believe this isn't the first crew I've been inter-dimensionally recruited to?
no subject
[Maybe someday, sitting in front of the fire and playing with her grandbabies, she can think of this as a wacky fun adventure, but as it stands right now she can't see how ending up on a ship like this isn't bad luck.]
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You kidding? It's great here. It's like that vacation I keep saying I'm going to take, only...really long. And with work.
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Aye, and I know how that feels!
[She sighed.] I keep promising meself, 'No more adventures, Jacky me girl, just the quiet life for you, running things from one place that's got too much stuff to another that don't have that stuff, living all peaceful-like on the Farm with my Jaimy and all me friends and my dear sweet boy, not getting into anymore trouble, no siree.' And I was so close, too! But I just had to go out for a quick trip out on the bay afore getting hitched, and now. Well.
But! At least this whole mess will be a fun tale to tell someday! And I've gotten to meet such good friends, like you, and Miss DeWitt. So it's not all bad.
Right?
no subject
[Her optimism is infectious, for all that his tone doesn't sound entirely convinced. Ratchet did like a lot of the people here. But it was hard to use people as an anchor point when it was people he was most worried about disappearing. He'd had friends who'd made things with the CDC not so bad...but for all he knew they were dead now. Or on something other dimensionally-displaced crew. Or worse: still with the CDC.
He sighs, shrugging although she can't see it.]
Well, here's to hoping this trip's a short one, and we all end up back home at the end.
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Hah, I'll drink to that!
[Sighing, her face fell, fogging the glass that looked out onto that strange and lonesome sight of the heavens moving around them.] God, I will drink to that.
no subject
As long as it's not on the job, you'll hear no complaints from me.
[A sharp beeping from the navigation console pulls Ratchet's attention back to their original conversation. This time is was just an alert informing them of the nearby asteroid as their newly plotted course took them past it. Of course "near" was in relative space terms because realistically the asteroid was probably miles to their starboard.]
Congratulations, Miss Jacky Faber...you have successfully aided in your first intergalactic obstacle avoidance. Should be smooth flying for awhile, according to the instruments.
the number of times i spelled it 'leftenant', you don't even know
So, tell me Mister Ratchet, does the Navy still exist? In my time, I served in the Royal Navy of His Majesty George the Third; reached Lieutenant, even though I was a girl. [And even though Scroggs only promoted her to rid himself of frat rules in his odious desire to bed her; she earned her commission, and she'd fight any man who implied she hadn't!]
Have you served, Mister Ratchet? [Not that serving is the only way to be a competent sailor, but Jacky's found that naval men do, in the end, perform better than their civilian counterparts. And Ratchet is good; she might not know this tech, but she knows a competent sailor when she sees one. Or, rather, hears one, as the case may be.]
i can imagine, though
[He takes a moment to close out the navigation map, dimming the monitor, while he considers her question.]
Now and again, I guess. I work for my galaxy’s defense force, which is....kind of like military. I’m no Lieutenant though. [Ratchet preferred to leave the high rankings to people like Talwyn. Too much public speaking. Way too much paperwork.]
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[She smiled, that old sin of pride fluffing her metaphorical feathers as she shifted her stance.] In any case, Mister Ratchet, I've known a great many men who might've been only rated Able who were more capable than many Captains I've known or in one case had the misfortune to serve under. A good mate of mine, Joseph Jared, he made his way all the way up to Captain during our acquaintance! Granted, there was a war on at the time...
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Now that I'll drink to. Maybe our times aren't so different, after all, Jacky.
[And Ratchet definitely knew and thing or two about incapable Captains.]
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Don't think I won't take you up on that...even if I'm still not really sure what the currency on this ship is.
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Well, even if your money's useless here, it might be worth something off the ship...one of the trading outposts, something like that. Gold isn't exactly a hot commodity in most places though...don't suppose you have anything made out of palladium or platinum? Those would get you a lot further.
[Although who knew? Maybe they'd find themselves on a planet where gold was a rarity, and palladium common as dirt. The universe was a big place.]
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But, yanno, just give me an audience and my fiddle, and I'm sure I can scrape together enough for a treat!