Early Start

Posted on Sun Jun 15th, 2014 @ 12:49pm by Commander Leo Carpegiani PhD

Mission: Begin with a Bang
Location: Discovery NX-04, Earth Orbit Drydock
Timeline: May 11th, 2155 - 0536 hours

It was early in the morning and nobody was around but the night shift security staff. One of them, a fierce-looking pacific island ensign with a shaved head and arms that could probably break him, inspected the pad Leo fished out of one of the pockets of his jumpsuit. To get at it, the science officer had had to set down the hard plastic box he carried with his right hand.

"You're a little early, Commander," the ensign said as he flicked through the information.

Leo shrugged and shifted the duffel bag he had hanging over his shoulder, "Just eager to get aboard and get settled, Ensign."

The security officer raised an eyebrow and sized him up. Leo couldn't help but smile at the irony of this man sizing him up as if there was even a remote possibility that he could overpower him.

It seemed the ensign came to the same conclusion because his expression relaxed and he handed the pad back over. "Do you know where you're going, sir?"

Leo replaced the pad in the breast pocket of his jumpsuit and zipped it back up as he said, "Sì, Deck E. Portside officers' quarters."

The security officer nodded and gestured to his right, "Just down this corridor, sir," he said. "Only a couple of compartments down."

"Grazi," Leo smiled and picked up his box, nodding to the ensign as he squeezed past him and headed down the corridor.

The ensign wasn't wrong, Leo had gone maybe ten metres down the corridor when he saw the hatch to his quarters on his left. "Here we are," he said in his native Italian, seemingly to nobody. The plain, grey door was adorned with no heraldry other than the compartment code that told him that this was his cabin. He reached out and tapped the door control and the door hummed aside.

The cabin was cramped, Spartan and seemingly missing a computer terminal. The desk bolted to the outer bulkhead was bare of any computer terminal. That must be a mistake," Leo thought to himself as he placed his duffel and the box onto the bunk. "Don't worry," he said, still in Italian, "I'll get somebody to fix it up."

He turned his attention away from the desk and the porthole that gave him a spectacular view of the spacedock and knelt down beside the bed to examine the box. He slid a panel aside to reveal hidden controls and tapped in a code. There was a loud double click followed by a low hum and a whispered hiss. Then one end of the box opened and swung down, forming a ramp onto the mattress. For a moment nothing happened, but then he came lumbering down the ramp, hesitantly surveying his new surroundings.

"Ciao, Lorenzo," Leo said, a wide smile crossing his face as he watched his old friend step out onto the bed.

The cat had a dark grey (known as blue) coat across his back with white fur down his belly and covering his paws. Lorenzo was ten years old and was the one possession Leo managed to salvage from the wreck of his marriage nine years ago. The cat had been with him on every off-world assignment he had had since.

He petted Lorenzo's head and stood up, leaving the cat to get acclimatised to his new home. Leo breathed in the processed air of the ship and smiled. He looked out of the porthole and through ribs of spacedock to the blue planet spinning silently beyond. It was entirely possible that he wouldn't see that planet for years to come after Discovery launched, and that suited him just fine.

The day was here; he had arrived aboard an NX starship. This was a good day and he couldn't wait to play his part in the great adventure still to come.

"Bene."