09-03-2024, 10:50 PM
==About an hour after the briefing==
Jaein sat in the chief engineer's office, rubbing the bridge of his nose with his eyes closed as he leaned back in the chair and fighting a headache.
Despite having just finished up a meeting with his shift leaders, it wasn't the engineers that were giving him a headache. No, this was definitely a class 7 headache by his own classification - a generalized situational anxiety, when something was very wrong and he couldn't do anything about it. He'd first classified it when he was serving on the Shakaar when he was still with the militia, usually in regards to the captain or first officer doing something particularly stupid and he was often unsure what exactly was going on, being stuck down in the retrofit Oberth's engineering bay. Here, of course, he could easily identify what was wrong.
He had signed on to a ship of fools for a mission, drama oozing out of every single panel of the hallways, and he was getting too old for this bullshit.
Between the antics of the chief of security - Mara Calleja, he now knew after familiarizing himself with the crew roster again - as she nearly punched her way through several of the command staff, and then the young science lieutenant Devereaux suggesting probably the most inappropriate icebreaker ever, he was wondering if he should just say "No thanks, actually," and head back to Vulcan. And that doesn't even include the ever-changing command team, which looked to be in flux all the way until launch.
As tempting as the prospect was, though, he discarded it almost as soon as he had it. It may have provided a momentarily attractive escape from his headache, but he knew he couldn't do that. He was a man of his word; he'd learned that early on in his life, from his parents foremost but then from mentors in his early career as well. You don't lie to people - unless it's on a time estimate - and once you've agreed to do something, you do it unless you are physically unable to do so anymore.
He sighed, took an asprin out of his toolbag, and took it dry. He stuck the container in the top drawer of the desk before stowing the bag and heading out to dinner; he had a feeling he was going to need it quite a bit here on the Artemis.
Jaein sat in the chief engineer's office, rubbing the bridge of his nose with his eyes closed as he leaned back in the chair and fighting a headache.
Despite having just finished up a meeting with his shift leaders, it wasn't the engineers that were giving him a headache. No, this was definitely a class 7 headache by his own classification - a generalized situational anxiety, when something was very wrong and he couldn't do anything about it. He'd first classified it when he was serving on the Shakaar when he was still with the militia, usually in regards to the captain or first officer doing something particularly stupid and he was often unsure what exactly was going on, being stuck down in the retrofit Oberth's engineering bay. Here, of course, he could easily identify what was wrong.
He had signed on to a ship of fools for a mission, drama oozing out of every single panel of the hallways, and he was getting too old for this bullshit.
Between the antics of the chief of security - Mara Calleja, he now knew after familiarizing himself with the crew roster again - as she nearly punched her way through several of the command staff, and then the young science lieutenant Devereaux suggesting probably the most inappropriate icebreaker ever, he was wondering if he should just say "No thanks, actually," and head back to Vulcan. And that doesn't even include the ever-changing command team, which looked to be in flux all the way until launch.
As tempting as the prospect was, though, he discarded it almost as soon as he had it. It may have provided a momentarily attractive escape from his headache, but he knew he couldn't do that. He was a man of his word; he'd learned that early on in his life, from his parents foremost but then from mentors in his early career as well. You don't lie to people - unless it's on a time estimate - and once you've agreed to do something, you do it unless you are physically unable to do so anymore.
He sighed, took an asprin out of his toolbag, and took it dry. He stuck the container in the top drawer of the desk before stowing the bag and heading out to dinner; he had a feeling he was going to need it quite a bit here on the Artemis.