Chapter 4 - Meeting the Crew

GM:
As the questions end, Auren and Hendrix depart, leaving the group to their own devices for a while. After about twenty minutes, the Darkening Star gets underway and the Crystal Marble is but another cargo pod on her side. As the crew has nothing to do during the ferry ride, Hendrix announces over the communications system that a general get-together will be held in the crew mess to introduce the rest of the crew. Auren reappears shortly after, and leads the group up to the top deck, along the starboard side and back down into the crew lounge area. Introductions are made and a good time is had by all. Hendrix circulates among everybody, ensuring that the conversations never lull and everybody gets a change to mingle.

Hendrix introduces the crew on his watch ('A'):

The pilot is Phillipe Antillon, who appears to be the youngest member of the whole crew. Filled with overwhelming enthusiasm, he listens intently to the tales of others, and asks Jack numerous questions about his experiences and the story behind the flight cap of the SV Botany Bay.

Two others sit quietly off to the side, talking mostly to each other in German. Hendrix introduces them as Doron and Lisa Mulhofer. Quiet friendly and easy to talk to, it becomes obvious after a while that the two are brother and sister. Doron is the navigator while Lisa runs the auxiliary station on the bridge. She is also the ship's doctor when necessary and invites any of the group to see her when necessary for medical treatment. Extremely tall, she comes a close second in height to Jack. Lisa seeks out Vladomir, somersaulting over to him. Grabbing his hand in a surprisingly powerful grip, she engages him in a conversation of broken Ukrainian and German. She had visited the Ukrainian colony on Aurore in the early 2290s and tries to get Vladomir to talk about it. When that fails, she talks a bit about the occupation of her own homeworld, Dunkelheim, and the hatred she feels towards the Kafers. She goes at a slow pace, trying to develop a rapport with Vladomir.

Hendrix introduces Gunter to his communications officer, Van Hoang. Van talks at great length with Gunter about their mutual interests in martial arts. Van also chats up Sali, interested in her consultancy and prodding her to continue when she says its only boring computer work of no interest to others. Having served as a crewer in the Chinese Arm, he also chats with Karl sharing stories about various ports of call.

Auren follows Hendrix and introduces the members of 'B' watch. Once done, he tends to float from conversation to conversation, periodically disappearing from the lounge and returning after several minutes.

Saad contrasts his cross-shift in almost every way. Where Phillipe is the youngest, Saad is the oldest; Phillipe is still in his acne covered youth while Saad is a very dapper and distinguished gentleman. He quickly develops a rapport with Anton, much like that of a master and student. The conversation turns very technical as the principles of interface and stutterwarp flight get intermixed with stories shared with the others.

Auren introduces Erika Beery, a massive, dark skinned, woman who is a navigator. She talks with most everybody, but the conversations are often abrupt and tend to pause a lot. She talks briefly with Sali, pleased that someone else can speak here native Portuguese.

A young man with a distinctive southern accent introduces himself to Sali as Kevin Countnuman, the other communications officer. He engages Sali in a funny game of 'what language was that phrase in' and causes everyone to roar with laughter when he wrongly translates something Sali said in Farsi into 'the cows butt tastes like cake'.

Stuart Wong runs the auxiliary station on Auren's watch and primarily watches the environmental engineering aspects. He converses with people, but always seems to be speaking as if he was an expert on everything. He is slightly more massive than Erika, and speaks only English. At times, he looks lost when the conversations are in other languages.

Hendrix introduces the watch engineers, Valerie and Lisette. The Chief, Ben Parker is still in engineering, monitoring the drive coils and power couplings.

Valerie hits it off quiet well with Karl, and listens intently to his stories. She also spends time with Stuart and translates a lot of the other conversations into English for him.

Lisette, Valerie's counterpart circulates through the conversations, and spends time with all of the groups, chatting a lot with Jack and Karl. She speaks briefly with Vladomir and then moves on.

Several of the crew have gotten together and prepared a large meal, covering a variety of cultures. Beverage and food is freely available though no one drinks more that socially. Some, like Phillipe, appear to have never eaten before, eating like a black hole.

Jack:
Jack is happy to meet new people and goes around yacking his head off. He doesn't waste time talking to people who think they're better than him though and has an unfortunate habit of forming snap-judgements, it is very hard for him to change his mind once it is made up. It soon becomes obvious that Jack is accustomed to drinking red wine in large amounts all day and especially expects it at meals. He doesn't complain if it's not there but he's obviously unhappy if it isn't. "[French] Where's the Pinard?"

Vladomir:
Vladomir converses with Lisa when she talks to him first. Besides short greetings, he never actually engages in conversations, but seems to enjoy when she strikes one up as time goes on. And though he usually only speaks in one or two sentence replies, he remains interested in them. He is a bit more taciturn if others are involved at the same time. Lisa cannot draw Vladomir to speak much of Aurore after the initial landings, but mostly talks of exploring the wastelands in search of possible mining sites. He does listen intently to her stories of Dunkelheim. Vladomir has never really talked to anyone from another occupied planet or knew much of what was happening. The very few times he speaks of the Kafer, it is with more of a hollow tone than one of anger. And when he does, Vladomir usually rubs something under his flight suit that's on a cord about his neck.

GM:
The days pass by fairly quickly as everyone gets into a routine. The Darkening Star stops three times to discharge its warp drive. During each of these stops, the Crystal Marble must also discharge her drive, as it remains on-line and builds charge even though it is not being used for travel. At the second discharge, things didn't go so well.

'B' watch was on shift during the discharge operations. Lisette was monitoring the drive while instructing Jack about the drive operating parameters. The reduction in build-up on the coils became skewed and a segment of the coils burnt out, resulting in a loss of 1.2% warp efficiency. Jack noticed the problem, but by then it was too late. Chief Engineer Parker spent most of that day trying to repair the coils, but to no avail. New parts would be needed, and there just wasn't any time to stop and get some. Tango-7 should have the parts, and they can be installed by the engineering crew in about a day... once the Crystal Marble gets there.

And the others?

Vladomir seems to be getting a little better at handling zero-G as well. Lisa has been putting him through considerable training in that area.

Anton has been busy with Saad, who has been giving him time at the helm station, piloting the 'Marble in a simulator. He's getting better, but still needs real time behind the stick to get Saad's nod of approval.

Karl has also been busy in engineering with Valerie. They seem to have developed a close bond. However, his relationship with Chief Parker has been rocky at best. A Texan from Heidelsheimat, Parker seems to be very pro-Bavarian, and that has become a source of differences in opinions between Parker and Karl. Parker does acknowledge Karl's engineering skills, but he seems to ride him harder than Jack. Stuart's nose seems to be out of place since Karl came on board, and he seems to spend a great deal of time wandering into engineering, checking up on the two of them. He seems to think that something is going on between the two of them.

Gunter spends his time working with Van, learning about communications protocols and shipboard life. He leads daily classes in martial arts and finds that Van is also well versed in the same skills, abet a different form. They both agree to a proper match once they get gravity under their feet again.

Gunter:
Van and Gunter's conversations involve the sort of conversations that have onlookers amazed that two people can talk so much about the same subject in such detail.

Sali works with Kevin on the communications workstations and seems to ask a lot of questions about military life. She does seem to spend a fair amount of time alone in her stateroom.

Anton: 
Anton plays his part well as the apprentice of Saad. Treating the old gentleman with due respect, but not so much respect so that it limit him in asking question. He further tries so learn as much as possible in the field of space piloting and navigation. Anton also tries to befriend his comrades and socialises with everyone he meets. He tries to be _very_ polite when talking to Vladomir and respects his privacy. He also joins Jack in his humorous adventures as long as they are not to disrespective of the other members aboard.