Character Perspective: Plum

“So then the whole, ‘Go choose your captain’ thing was bullshit?” Ty complained. “Why tell us that was a big deal if we only got one Command specialized guy in the whole crew?”

“Hey! I said I was Command specialized too,” Mendez shot back but Ty just laughed.

“Please, you told us we’d be calling you Doc and we have no other Medics here.”

“Hermanas got a point,” Mendez laughed back with a shrug. “But I can be the Doc and the Captain, this hombre is gonna surprised yah.”

“Well that might be the case, but you’re both misremembering what the Commander said,” I said, dropping into another mismatched armchair. It seemed odd that they didn’t have these common rooms perfectly organized the way they had the dorms back at Ground School, but it did give the place a far homier feel to it.

“Well don’t keep us in suspense Vicky,” Curtis said, though the smug, knowing look in his eyes told me I knew he just didn’t want to be the one to point it out and I laughed.

“He said, ‘figure out who your Captain is’, not to choose. Part of understanding the bridge is understanding where everyone’s specialties lie, it was a key component to the Second training course,” I explained. “If you know where everyone’s talents are, then you can improvise on the go in the event of a W.C.S.”

Worst Case Scenarios didn’t happen often, at least not according to the simulations I had taken part in, but they could and did happen according to the logs sent out by other Star Launch ships. Hull breaches, non-intelligent life, even Space Madness (which I still think is a joke), they happened, and it meant needing to know who and where you could go to in those events.

“All things considered, my life just got a bit easier since we just ran it down so quickly, otherwise I woulda been flat out busy trying to get you each to talk about yourselves,” I wished I had a notepad on hand, but that was really my own fault for not thinking ahead. I couldn’t let that happen again, I had an image to uphold, and the others would have to at the very least believe I always knew what was going on, it was a core tenant of the specialty after all.

“I never did get any of y’all Seconds, like, why not just go for the Command chair?” Ty asked and it was the genuine curiosity I could hear in her voice that kept me from being too offended.

“A good Second is far more valuable than a good Command, without the Second, the communication between the Bridge and the Crew can completely breakdown,” Curtis spoke up this time, “Think of us as big picture versus small details, you can’t have one without the other and with a good Command and Second structure you get the best lead you can get.”

“Dios Mio, I was hoping for more infighting dangit,” Mendez complained, “Where’s the action, where’s the college rivalry?!”

“We’ve been over this Julio,” the quiet science specialist sitting next to him sighed, “Like, did you just think the Professors were lying about the seriousness of life up here?”

“Kill, Hermano, yah gotta put it in perspective, call this place what you want, it’s still basically a college,” Mendez complained.

“It is so not college dude,” Killian replied, “Yes, we still got classes, but we still are prepping to go into friggin deep space man!”

“You two were in Ground School together, eh? Anyone else from the same schools, I mean, I don’t recognize any of you guys from Sydney but no real surprises there,” I laughed, “Most of the folks at my ground school preferred to stay Ground Command for whatever reason.”

“It takes a special kind of crazy to want to come up here,” Sera piped up, “Like, we all got to have at least a few screws loose.”

“Spaceflys got it,” Ty chirped, and I saw as Sera visibly huff as she prepared to complain but before she could even start, Ty continued, “So then the whole point was to put together a team with everything yah need for the Bridge? Or did I miss something else? Why did the Commander phrase it like that then?”

“Several reasons I’d assume. Probably was partially just his style for getting us to take care of our initial work. But it was probably primarily to get us to talk instead of all bolting from our rooms to take naps or just seclude ourselves. I think we can all agree that after the last week, the idea of having free time for just a few hours means the desperate desire to just take a good nap, but maybe that’s just me,” Curtis explained. The more I heard from him the more I could tell why he was in Command, and I was already sure this was going to be a good fit. “It’s actually kind of Command 101, if you give a motivated crew a task, regardless of how much they might want to do something personal, they will see it done before anything else. This could have very easily been the Commanders first test to see our discipline to follow orders,” he added.

“Plus, the way the Commander put it, it basically ensured we would go over our specialties and take time to talk like this,” I added already feeling the natural rhythm that Curtis seemed to work with. He didn’t like to spell things out for the others and as Command he had the right to lead that way, it just meant I had to fill in the gaps. “To the best of my knowledge and Curtis here already validated it, but this is probably the quietest bit of time we’re gonna have for a few weeks while we get through Orientation and First Flight, so that means this is the best time for us to bond and get to know each other so that when we do step into the Bridge Simulation for the first time, we are ready to go and work as a single unit.”

“That too,” Curtis replied. “So with that in mind, is that a no for other schoolmates here? How do you two know each other?” he asked looking over to Killian and Mendez.

While the rest of us shook our heads, Killian let out a resigned sigh, “Julio and I shared a lot of classes and were lab partners throughout Ground School. Since we always aced our work together, far faster than other groups, Ground Command decided we had good enough give-and-take that they wanted us to continue the partnership. Science and Medical generally share a lab onboard so you have to have the sort of camaraderie that let’s you not want to strangle each other over test scheduling, so when a pair is willing, they transfer it right from Ground to Space.”

“I think Kill’s more likely to strangle me than vice versa, but hey, least I got an amigo up here from the start, right?” Mendez laughed.

“Please, we are gonna be together for a long, looooong time, let’s just assume we are all gonna be pals and get to the part where we start treating each other like it,” Ty said as a wide, almost Cheshire like grin spread over her face. “So let’s break it down,” she started pointing to us one by one. “We got Doc and Kill, not sure about the nickname but we will workshop it. Then Sixteen or I guess maybe Captain, I don’t think the Commander would be happy with us if we didn’t call you that would he? Spaceflys the easy one of course, that one’s basically already been signed off on.”

“Hey!” Sera finally spoke up, “How about we call you Spacefly since you’re so attached to the name!”

“I’m obviously Guns, Spacefly, let’s keep up,” Ty smirked. “Which leaves you two.”

Novarod seemed to squirm in his seat, almost having disappeared into the background as the conversation went on. “Chester is really just fine for me, I promise,” he said.

“Hermano. You got a badass last name like Novarod, and you want us to call you Chester of all things… Really?” Mendez complained. “There’s more Mendez than mice back in San Antonio, I’d kill for a name like yours.”

“Not to mention the absolute bonkers amount of Flight hours you already got,” Ty added, “No offense dude, but Chester does not sound like the name for the badass pilot of Zeta flight.”

“Why don’t we just let them happen naturally Ty,” Curtis offered. “I get what you’re going for, I really do, but I’ve seen people try to force names and it just never works out well.”

​

Ty stuck her tongue out at him and leaned back with a huff, “Y’all are just less fun than a skunk at a picnic.”

“Is that… Is that just something you guys have to put up with often?” I couldn’t help but ask, though I felt like the answer was obvious.

“No, that’s just gotta be a metaphor, right Ty?” Sera offered up as she eyed Ty curiously.

“Well I’ve seen it happen more than once, so yeah,” Ty responded. “You do not wanna be on the receiving end of one of their sprays,” she added with an uncomfortable shudder.

“I’ll take your word for it,” I said and looked back over to Curtis. “Well then Captain, we got that task out of the way, what’s next? Don’t you gotta go pickup some forms or somethin’ like that?”

“Yeah, I’ll head out that way here shortly,” Curtis said as he stood and stretched. “But don’t forget, let’s take some time and all brainstorm a ship name. When I get back from Admin, we can each pitch our ideas and see if we can pick one out.”