Posted by Vice Admiral CockRoach (GM) in Main Sim - Bridge
[snip]

Green checked his chrono. Inwardly he was seething with even the broken up message that he had heard. That was damning, at least to him, though he had to admit that what was missing could make his assumptions invalid. Still he was irked with these people and their attitude. They had space savvy. He had to admit that as he saw them shift position. The Lt should be up soon now. He could see a potential chief engineer position in his future. It was not today. As much as that disappointed him Green was a career sailor and knew promotions didn’t always go according to one’s wishes. He was sure it would come. So too he was torn between wanting to stay on the bridge and gain more experience here and being in engineering where he was most familiar. In his 16 years in space he had been around and knew a great deal and tried to push the other engineers to excellence. Where he was now he could be in the thick of it, be where the action was and get his hands dirty. As a Chief there was other things that took one’s attention. Less doing and more administration and other bits. He had done some of that when they were between chief’s this year. Was it possible that he didn’t do a well enough job at it and so was passed over?

But back to the present .. these three. What were they doing? He checked sensor readings on the skin of the ship to see whether they were being scanned and for the fourth time looked at the power EPS relays. This was a new ship and had not exactly been pushed yet beyond cruising speed to this new star. He tapped out a message for Bekele Send out an alert to all hands to stations among the engineers. For now treat it as a drill. Time it for all hands to stations. Situation here pending.

• Green, NL Eng

Less than a minute later the notification beeped on his comms and he checked the message. Good. The follow up call came quickly. =^= Orders sir? =^=
Green replied back. =^= Freighters are acting suspicious. Skipper is challenging them. I don’t expect trouble but keep alert. Prepare power distribution to hull polarization. =^=
=^= Acknowledged. =^= There, that was it. He would check the logs later to see how they did and what they did and make his report to the Chief for improvements. They really had not done much ‘drilling’ like this along the way here. He would make sure at least the engineers were well drilled for any emergency.

Shortly another call came to him, this time from Gagarin. He had to lean in to catch each of the accented words. =^= Gagarin to Lt Green. General Quarters complete. EPS Alpha 9 ready. Damage and Fire crews moving to station. =^=
=^= Very good Mr Gagarin. Carry on. =^=

=^= Green to Armory. Ensign Serinde report. =^=
=^= Rigging up a communicator here Lt. The Armory boys say they can listen in and target as the orders are confirmed from the bridge with only a small loss of time. Having this on an open channel, frequency 387.3, encrypted. =^= There was the sound of tearing duct tape in the background.
=^= Confirm 387.3 Encrypted.=^= He looked over. At the moment there wasn’t a matching communicator at tactical. He would fix that. =^= I will get one set up here. Stand by for a test. =^=

With that Green stood. “Engineering reports systems green standing by,” he reported before moving to the equipment locker to pull out a communicator from the emergency kit used in the event of the built in communications failing. The roll of duct tape followed. So much for high tech solutions.

GM CockRoach

Aiden opened a hail to the freighters as the rest of the crew began to relocate to more combat-oriented stations. =/\= “Cargo ships, please report your reason for being distinctly off your registered course,” =/\= he stated firmly, the neutral, unemotional tone in stark contrast to his normally cheerful demeanor. He fiddled with the comm settings as he asked, trying to amplify any background noise in addition to the main reply.

Ensign Conlon, Comms

Heather tried not to roll her eyes. She may be a simple scientist but she could only see two out comes. Either they were going to deny it, or they were going to just start shooting. Neither would be a useful outcome.

Cmdr. Grace - XO/CSO

• Green, NL Eng

The snarky Captain from the 1st ship they had just talked too soon replied on audio. =/\= Off course? Not sure what you’re talking about Sojourner, we got no cargo run at present just spending some time with R&R here. Before and after that we go were the cargo missions take us, had nothing filed though with Earth for about 9 months though.=/\= he said. This time Conlon in focusing on background noise could pick up someone maybe a woman saying, “Frank! They have to know what’s’ going on, we can’t let them leak this back to Earth! We and Mr Morgan’s company would be ruined!

GM CockRoach

While this was happening Green affixed the communicator to the console close to where the tactical officer sat. Turning it on with a chirp he set the channel to 387.3 and saw on the small display that the connection was green, signal strong and the slash indicating encrypted.
=^= Green to Serinde. Comms check. =^=
=^= Serinde here. Loud and clear Lt. =^= There was some background speaking then =^= Confirmed all good with the armory people, sir. =^=
=^= Have them stand by and you remain there. There might be come trouble. =^=
There was a lightly longer pause. =^= Yes, Lt =^= she said. Was there an undertone of her wanting to be somewhere else? Hmmm. He would have to chat with her on that. A report might be needed with this as Serinde has not worked quite to his expectations.

To the tactical officer Green said, “You are likely aware but will remind you that the auto transfer of tactical data from the bridge to the armory firing control is down thanks to the creature’s attack earlier. When the commands are spoken through here .. ” he tapped the open communicator .. “they will target from there. You’re their information source for targeting information.” He clapped the officer on the shoulder before moving to his console.
- Green, NL Eng