Stardate 42310.5
“Are you looking forward to leaving Earth, Sir?” she asked, her fingers moving with practice over the shuttle’s controls. She had red hair, freckles and an ensign’s pip on her collar. After entering a minor course adjustment she looked up at Thomas Walker’s reflection in the shuttle’s forward viewport and smiled.
Walker was standing in the entrance between the shuttle’s cockpit and its passenger cabin. His neck felt off, like there was additional weight. It was silly because a third full gold pip weighed exactly the same amount as a black one. He smiled back as he sat down in the co-pilot’s seat. “Actually, Ensign,” he says. “I haven’t been on Earth long enough to get tired of it. Just a couple of days, visiting and catching up.”
“Ah,” she says. “I still live there. I joined Starfleet to get off planet but… still there. Command needed qualified pilots in the system and my Grandmother is getting older… and I’m sorry, Commander.”
Walker glanced at her with an understanding smile and then resumed studying the readouts. There was nothing out of the ordinary in the Sol system, the cradle of the United Federation of Planets. “You’re fine, Ensign,” he assured her. “I don’t mind a little small talk, and I’m sorry to hear about your Grandmother. I’m sure she appreciates having you nearby.”
“Thank you, Sir,” she says sheepishly.
“You’re welcome,” he says, looking up and out through the forward viewports. Luna lay behind them and head, a still distant but growing dot lay Mars. The shuttle made another minor course correction at the direction of traffic control to give an approaching starship a wide berth. The shuttlecraft grew quiet and he found he missed the genuine, friendly small talk.
The starship, a prototype Nebula performing initial engine trials, passed and gradually fell behind them while the red disc that was a colonized Mars grew closer. The lights of her settlements were visible as were the lights, some moving, some not, that made up the drydock frameworks and other support structures of the Utopia Planitia Fleet Yards. He glanced at the young woman as she keyed a control.
“Mars Orbital Control this is the shuttlecraft Tucker, inbound to the USS Sagan with personnel. Request clearance to approach,” she announced.
Answering her across the open channel was a Vulcan voice, monotone to the point it could easily put one to sleep. “Shuttlecraft Tucker, this is Mars Orbital Control. Acknowledge your request. You are clear to approach Utopia Planitia Fleet Yards. Adjust course to heading zero-one-one mark one-five for drydock eight. Slow to thrusters within five kilometers.”
“Acknowledged Control, thank you,” she replied. The channel was terminated promptly from the other end and she smiles to herself. “Oh Taurik, one day we’ll get a different mood out of you.”
“I find that unlikely,” Walker commented, smiling to himself.
The Ensign’s head shot up and she again looked sheepish, almost as if she had forgotten in that moment that she had a passenger on board. Her sheepishness became a little smile and she glanced ahead again as the shipyard drifted into greater view. “She’s an old ship, isn’t she, sir? The Sagan, I mean.”
“She’s… historic,” Walker replies, choosing his description with purpose. “There’s sixty-six years of history in that hull, Ensign. She’s brought home a lot of crews over the decades. A lot is owed to those crews, the engineers especially, but can you imagine being the engineers responsible for her construction? To have made something that’s still serviceable over half your lifetime later. It’s quite an achievement.”
“When you put it that way sir, the ship has a lot of character,” she says with a smile, slowing to thrusters within the prescribed distance least Taurik’s voice turn from placcid monotone to stern monotone.
“That she does.”
Drydock structures fell away at a steady pace as the shuttlecraft maneuvered through the shipyards. “Coming up now, sir,” the ensign informed him as they cleared the empty spaceframe of a Galaxy-class starship in the early stages of construction. Ahead of the shuttlecraft, and its ultimate destination, lays another skeletal drydock structure this one cradling the thick saucer and four nacelles of a Constellation-class starship.
The starship had a rugged appearance. A casual observer might even consider it stocky as the ship was a simple saucer design with a slightly elongated, blocky stern that housed her impulse drives. The saucer was thicker than most and crammed with everything the ship’s crew would need to survive in the depths of space. Currently all of the lights save those lit viewports along her decks were out, including that illumination of her forward deflector array which gave the saucer a snubnose appearance. She was a bulldog among starships.
As the ship drew closer and the shuttle drifted overhead the finer details of the ship’s hull became visible. The pale gray plating had seen the wear and tear of space but was in good condition, teams from the Starfleet Corps of Engineers had seen to it. Beside him the ensign tapped a control to open another channel.
“USS Sagan, this is the shuttlecraft Tucker with Commander Walker aboard. Requesting permission to dock.”
“Tucker this is Sagan,” came the reply. “Permission granted. Please proceed to shuttlebay one.”
“Acknowledged. Tucker out,” she said, closing the channel shortly after. The shuttle adjusted course to the right and overshot the Sagan on purpose to come about and line up with the port side shuttlebay. The doors, bearing a large numeral one, had begun to open. His traveling companion would gradually bring the shuttle closer until the tractor beam being projected from the shuttlebay locked on and she relinquished controls to neutral. Walker turned to her as he stood to gather his things from the crew cabin; he offered her another warm smile.
“Thank you for your company, Ensign Harrington,” he says. “Take care of your grandmother.”
Ensign Harrington smiled and waved as he departed, calling back, “Thank you, sir!”
A Pen & Paper Jawa 