First day at work

Posted on Wednesday February 10th, 2021 @ 20:57 hours by Kari Pahlmihr

Mission: Safe Passage
Location: Cargo bay 4, Deck 3, S.S. Fawkes
Timeline: Somewhere during the first days of the passenger transport
954 words - 1.9 OF Standard Post Measure

Being back out in the black of space, with the warp core humming its high pitched song of sorrow, Kari slowly started to remember why she had signed up to the Fawkes in the first place. They got into all sorts of trouble, but most of the time was spent ferrying unimportant packages from one end of Federation space to the other. The best thing about the job, though, was getting to meet all these new people and with the passengers on board now there were even more fresh faces to meet and mingle with. Work on a freighter could get terribly lonely otherwise, "Hey, New guy, you missed a spot," She pointed at a patch of some sort of sawdust on the floor in the corner of the cargo bay, she wondered how it got there.

Clark jolts from day dreaming out the porthole. "Uh.. Yes sir," he croaks out through a dry throat. Clark quickly runs to a small pile of sawdust where he knew he had cleaned. "Sorry 'bout that Captain. So uh, where are we off to?" he nervously says as he loads the sawdust into the reclamation unit to be broken down.

Kari frowned a bit, "Eh, no. I'm Kari Pahlmihr, I'm just a deck hand, like you." She then gave him a comforting smile, "Just a friendly heads up in case the Bosun comes in and saw," She leaned back against the crates for a moment, it was actually nice to be called Captain, is that why some people got into that line of work? "We're heading for core territory, I think Risa is on the docket, and Earth perhaps, but first stop is Betazed. And things change around here rather quickly, so who knows where we'll end up."

"Oh. Uh, you guys don't call everyone Captain?" Clark says with a nervous chuckle. He checks behind him looking for a crate and tries to imitate Kari's lean."Ah, then I can't wait to get some Uttaberries while we dock at Betazed. By the way, are these even safe to lean on," he asks while pointing to the crate behind him.

Stretching her neck to look over his shoulder she looked at the crate behind him, "Yeah, should be good. Probably some sort of food." She gave a smile, "Uttaberries are pretty good. It would be good to get some fresh food in here, the old timey replicators on this rustbucket don't really do it for me, to be honest."

"Ah," Clark sighs as he adds more weight to his lean,"Yeah, I love Uttaberries. Mom used to grow them." Clark turns; now looking out the Cargo Bay window. "If the replicators aren't great and there's no holodeck, what do the rest of the crew do for fun on board?"

Kari shrugged a bit, "long work days, we squared away a small corner of a cargobay with gym equipment, a hold-over from a previous Master-at-Arms." Another shrug, "Reading I guess?" Then a devious smirk appeared on her features, "some of the deckhands find ways to entertain each other" She added a wink. Then realising that they were both deck hands, and that it could've come off as her trying to find a bunkmate, she immediately added, "Not that I'm offering."

Clark giggled a bit awkwardly, he hadn't really interpreted it in that way but now that she had put so much emphasis on it he started to wonder why exactly she felt the need to specify. Feeling uncertainties creep up about his appearance, wondering if perhaps he should've dressed nicer on his first day of work, "It's alright. I guess I'll be pumping iron then." He tried to distract the attention away from the hypothetical getting together between the two of them.

Turning away and focussing her attention on the crates around them Kari simply nodded, hoping this topic would quickly go away, "I mean, we have passengers now, I guess we could organise a movie night or something in the mess hall. I'm sure the Engineer could cobble something together with some of the supplies we have and the replicator system."

"A movie night?" Clark couldn't even remember the last time his entertainment wasn't fully holographic and immersive, "we better get someone to make us some good popcorn then." He added with a smile, hoping to get on the good side of this young deckhand, she was clearly experienced on the vessel and it seemed that she had the attention of the Bosun and the Captain from what he had heard from some of the others.

Kari nodded, "alright, awesome, I'm sure we can make that happen. Maybe we can pick up some needed stuff, and a movie or two, from Betazed when we get there. Have the movies for the second leg of our journey." She knew getting all of this set up would take some time.

Clark simply nodded at the enthusiasm from Kari, he had no idea what he should expect from that but was more than happy to let her take the lead on that one, "So, do you think we're done here?" He looked around the bay one more time to make sure they had inspected and cleaned all the containers inside the cargo bay.

"Yep, on to the next one." Kari made her way over to the exit already, assuming he'd follow her without question.

"How many of these are there?" Clark couldn't quite remember how many bays there were on a Groumal class, he had only ever seen them fly by when he was in port, never really bothering to fly on one before.

Kari gave a bit of an exhausted smile, "At least one more, rookie, at least one more..."