Regan Altink
Aug 11th, 2017, 02:29:21 AM
For most officers, a starship coming into dock was a welcome reprieve. Particularly on a ship as small - but perfectly formed - as the Novgorod, it was a welcome opportunity to experience space, fresh air, and a change of scenery. Even when that port of call was a space station, where you were breathing the same kind of bottled air just in a slightly different flavour, an escape from the same familiar corridors provided enough variety for the novelty value to kick in. Jovan Station certainly had the novelty market cornered, too: an appropriated Imperial station, patchworked back together after the whole Cizerack terrorist incident, and teeming with a population so diverse that it read like the guest list for an Alliance equal opportunities seminar. Most officers were excited, practically stampeding off the ship as soon as the airlocks finished cycling.
Regan Altink was not most people, however. To him, the prospect of departing the Novgorod to skip merrily across the deck plates of Jovan Station seemed more like a prospect of doom and danger than any kind of vacation a person in their right mind would blindly enjoy. It wasn't that the Novgorod was statistically safer: on the contrary, the incidents of getting shot at, blown up, injured, and almost abducted by extragalactic lizard creatures was already several times too many, and at any given moment the Novgorod was usually about a role of mesh tape and a pair of crossed fingers away from flying apart at the seams.
The Novgorod however was his lady, and that extended beyond blind fondness, and the geography of his personal comfort zone. He knew the Novgorod: inside and out, backwards and forwards. He spoke her language, understood what her clanks and groans and odd fluctuations translated to. If she was hurt, he could heal her. If she was just having one of those days, he knew exactly which mix of chocolate, caf, and replacement coil brackets would get her feeling like herself again. He knew his team as well, the chosen few to whom he delegated her care and maintenance. It was all well and good for someone on the bridge or the pilot's lounge to say they trusted a fellow officer with their life, but when it came to the engineers that was literally true: one mechanic on an off day, and suddenly everyone was breathing reactor fumes and lukewarm shyte was pumping out of all the taps. Tink had a reputation as a stern and unrelenting taskmaster, but it all came from an understanding of just how vital his people were; and he only asked and expected so much of them because he knew each and every one of them was capable.
Regan could not say the same for Jovan Station. No doubt the engineering team was perfectly competent, but he didn't have the first hand opportunity to know that. No doubt the station would be able to hold together just fine for the few days the Novgorod was expected to be here this time around, but if something went catastrophically wrong, he'd be left lost and useless with no opportunity to do anything to save his own ass. Given how frequently these patrol intermissions brought the Novgorod and her crew to Jovan, he supposed perhaps now was the time to remidy that, to get in good with the local engineers so that they'd recognise his usefulness if a crisis happened to roll around; but frankly he couldn't be bothered, and exploiting the vacancy of the Novgorod to get some much needed tweaks and overhauls done seemed like a far better use of his time.
Unfortunately, there had been a complication. Some irredeemable assclown had plundered his alcohol reserves, and while Regan hadn't been issued with the standard alcoholism that seemed to be part and parcel of the Alliance's senior ranks, the pervasive concern that Jovan Station might spontaneously explode again and break his lady - or worse, strand him alone with no engineering team to help stave off the Novgorod's decline from starship to sarcophagus - required a medicinal application of something brown and fermented. Not for the first time, Regan contemplated rigging up some sort of rudimentary still amongst the engine assembly; but his current requirement felt too urgent for that kind of mechanical undertaking, and so Regan had reluctantly ventured beyond the relative safety of his lady's hull.
There were still blaster scorches here and there, easy to spot if you had an eye for noticing that sort of thing. It was a big station, and a low priority, Regan supposed - better that they'd invested their time in fixing the structural damage and ensuring the station was habitable, rather than roaming the corridors looking for black smudges that needed to be painted over - but it was enough to keep Regan on edge, eyes peeled and studying the daunting crowds for anything that seemed even mildly suspicious. That turned out to be a problematically low threshold, especially given how shifty or menacing much of the Alliance's nonhuman population could look to human eyes. If this was the kind of paranoia that turned Imperial's into xenophobic nutjobs, he suddenly had the uncomfortable experience of finding the Empire ever so slightly more relatable.
He pushed that thought aside as best he could, letting the flow of pedestrians down the station's main corridors carry him along like an undercurrent towards the parts of the station intended for civilians. Causeways eventually transitioned into a broad commercial promenade, and the cacophony of a dozen different languages slammed into him like a wave. Garishly vibrant signs in incomprehensible scripts loomed at him from all directions, never visible for long enough to decipher as the shuffling advance of the crowd urged him onwards. It wasn't just the sound either, but the smell, the humid pressure of the air around him, the bumps and jostles of the pedestrians around him - it was all too much. He felt the gravity fluctuate beneath his boots, organs shifting uncomfortably inside him. He didn't belong in a place like this. He didn't belong around people he didn't know. He should go back; should have stayed; should have found someone to run his errand for him. But the undercurrent was too strong. There was no way back, no way out -
Tink's fidgeting hands rummaged into the innards of his jacket, fingers wrapping around a tool that he'd stashed in an inner pocket and forgotten about hours before. He tugged the sonic oscillator free, letting the surprising weight of it carry his hand back to his side, retreating slightly into the sleeve of his jacket. He fidgeted and fiddled, fingers twisting the device, intermittently triggering the sonic output, fixating on that subtle point of noise and sensation amid the surrounding maelstrom of people. He reached for that tiny point of clarity and focused on it, using it like a rope to drag himself back to rational thought. He'd done crowds before, and they'd been no problem. This was nothing compared to the flight deck back on the Challenger. All those ships, all those people, all that noise; he'd thrived in that environment. Basked in it. A few murderous lizard creatures and their technologically impossible star sphere weren't about to turn Regan Altink into a useless hermit. This wasn't the him he was meant to be.
The sonic oscillator drummed against Tink's leg, the steady rhythm contributing to his focus. He ignored the surroundings, and for a moment just focused on the crowd, charting a course through them as if he was trying to reroute a circuit around damaged conduits. His mind mapped a path, and he launched himself along it, dodging between a pair of Rodians and a little too close to an unbathed Wookiee towards one of the promenade edges, and a tranquil pool of relative calm outside one of the myriad establishments. Tink hadn't noticed the signage, and didn't bother to check; right now it didn't matter, as long as it gave him an opportunity to drift into a more comfortable and enclosed space. He drew in a breath to steel himself as he stepped over the threshold, muttering under his breath.
"Whatever y' are, y'd better be selling bloody booze."
Regan Altink was not most people, however. To him, the prospect of departing the Novgorod to skip merrily across the deck plates of Jovan Station seemed more like a prospect of doom and danger than any kind of vacation a person in their right mind would blindly enjoy. It wasn't that the Novgorod was statistically safer: on the contrary, the incidents of getting shot at, blown up, injured, and almost abducted by extragalactic lizard creatures was already several times too many, and at any given moment the Novgorod was usually about a role of mesh tape and a pair of crossed fingers away from flying apart at the seams.
The Novgorod however was his lady, and that extended beyond blind fondness, and the geography of his personal comfort zone. He knew the Novgorod: inside and out, backwards and forwards. He spoke her language, understood what her clanks and groans and odd fluctuations translated to. If she was hurt, he could heal her. If she was just having one of those days, he knew exactly which mix of chocolate, caf, and replacement coil brackets would get her feeling like herself again. He knew his team as well, the chosen few to whom he delegated her care and maintenance. It was all well and good for someone on the bridge or the pilot's lounge to say they trusted a fellow officer with their life, but when it came to the engineers that was literally true: one mechanic on an off day, and suddenly everyone was breathing reactor fumes and lukewarm shyte was pumping out of all the taps. Tink had a reputation as a stern and unrelenting taskmaster, but it all came from an understanding of just how vital his people were; and he only asked and expected so much of them because he knew each and every one of them was capable.
Regan could not say the same for Jovan Station. No doubt the engineering team was perfectly competent, but he didn't have the first hand opportunity to know that. No doubt the station would be able to hold together just fine for the few days the Novgorod was expected to be here this time around, but if something went catastrophically wrong, he'd be left lost and useless with no opportunity to do anything to save his own ass. Given how frequently these patrol intermissions brought the Novgorod and her crew to Jovan, he supposed perhaps now was the time to remidy that, to get in good with the local engineers so that they'd recognise his usefulness if a crisis happened to roll around; but frankly he couldn't be bothered, and exploiting the vacancy of the Novgorod to get some much needed tweaks and overhauls done seemed like a far better use of his time.
Unfortunately, there had been a complication. Some irredeemable assclown had plundered his alcohol reserves, and while Regan hadn't been issued with the standard alcoholism that seemed to be part and parcel of the Alliance's senior ranks, the pervasive concern that Jovan Station might spontaneously explode again and break his lady - or worse, strand him alone with no engineering team to help stave off the Novgorod's decline from starship to sarcophagus - required a medicinal application of something brown and fermented. Not for the first time, Regan contemplated rigging up some sort of rudimentary still amongst the engine assembly; but his current requirement felt too urgent for that kind of mechanical undertaking, and so Regan had reluctantly ventured beyond the relative safety of his lady's hull.
There were still blaster scorches here and there, easy to spot if you had an eye for noticing that sort of thing. It was a big station, and a low priority, Regan supposed - better that they'd invested their time in fixing the structural damage and ensuring the station was habitable, rather than roaming the corridors looking for black smudges that needed to be painted over - but it was enough to keep Regan on edge, eyes peeled and studying the daunting crowds for anything that seemed even mildly suspicious. That turned out to be a problematically low threshold, especially given how shifty or menacing much of the Alliance's nonhuman population could look to human eyes. If this was the kind of paranoia that turned Imperial's into xenophobic nutjobs, he suddenly had the uncomfortable experience of finding the Empire ever so slightly more relatable.
He pushed that thought aside as best he could, letting the flow of pedestrians down the station's main corridors carry him along like an undercurrent towards the parts of the station intended for civilians. Causeways eventually transitioned into a broad commercial promenade, and the cacophony of a dozen different languages slammed into him like a wave. Garishly vibrant signs in incomprehensible scripts loomed at him from all directions, never visible for long enough to decipher as the shuffling advance of the crowd urged him onwards. It wasn't just the sound either, but the smell, the humid pressure of the air around him, the bumps and jostles of the pedestrians around him - it was all too much. He felt the gravity fluctuate beneath his boots, organs shifting uncomfortably inside him. He didn't belong in a place like this. He didn't belong around people he didn't know. He should go back; should have stayed; should have found someone to run his errand for him. But the undercurrent was too strong. There was no way back, no way out -
Tink's fidgeting hands rummaged into the innards of his jacket, fingers wrapping around a tool that he'd stashed in an inner pocket and forgotten about hours before. He tugged the sonic oscillator free, letting the surprising weight of it carry his hand back to his side, retreating slightly into the sleeve of his jacket. He fidgeted and fiddled, fingers twisting the device, intermittently triggering the sonic output, fixating on that subtle point of noise and sensation amid the surrounding maelstrom of people. He reached for that tiny point of clarity and focused on it, using it like a rope to drag himself back to rational thought. He'd done crowds before, and they'd been no problem. This was nothing compared to the flight deck back on the Challenger. All those ships, all those people, all that noise; he'd thrived in that environment. Basked in it. A few murderous lizard creatures and their technologically impossible star sphere weren't about to turn Regan Altink into a useless hermit. This wasn't the him he was meant to be.
The sonic oscillator drummed against Tink's leg, the steady rhythm contributing to his focus. He ignored the surroundings, and for a moment just focused on the crowd, charting a course through them as if he was trying to reroute a circuit around damaged conduits. His mind mapped a path, and he launched himself along it, dodging between a pair of Rodians and a little too close to an unbathed Wookiee towards one of the promenade edges, and a tranquil pool of relative calm outside one of the myriad establishments. Tink hadn't noticed the signage, and didn't bother to check; right now it didn't matter, as long as it gave him an opportunity to drift into a more comfortable and enclosed space. He drew in a breath to steel himself as he stepped over the threshold, muttering under his breath.
"Whatever y' are, y'd better be selling bloody booze."