[Log] "We take the jobs we get offered..."

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Bridge, Grace O'Malley [Sihnon - Ariel]
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The bridge is a picture of sleek, efficient design, even if it is a bit worn and faded in places. A raised, semi-circular platform to the aft of the room contains a large, highbacked captain's chair of brushed steel and black patent leather that has faded more to a midnight hue, along with the requisite backlit display screens.

The deck plating slopes down around the platform to create a crescent shaped indentation where the rest of the control stations can be found. The helm and auxilliary controls are housed in man-sized hollows sunk below the deck with lounge seating in the same theme as the captain's chair, and the handling panels folded over the legs for easy reach. The foremost edge of the bridge is a single open viewport that curves along the edge of the deck providing amazing visibility ahead and above, and is flanked by additional control stations for communications and other ship functions. Hanging from the main console is an old medallion that may be recognizable to some as depicting Saint Christopher, the patron saint of travelers.
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Aradia's attention is focused through the viewports as the ship lifts through atmo, the planet falling away behind them as it slips into orbit. Leaning forward, she lifts a hand from the steering column, her finger tracking across a row of data on one of the screens before she flicks a switch and taps several buttons alongside it.

Saienne doesn't interrupt Aradia's concentration as she guides the Grace smoothly into orbit around Sihnon. Rather, she waits at the threshhold to the bridge, one hand gripping onto the hatchway tightly in case of sudden movement. She makes enough noise, however, that her presence should not come as much of a surprise to anyone - unless that someone's focus has gone past mere concentration to something a little more transcendental. There's the gentle humming under her breath, for a start, and the familiar scritch of long fingers in stubbly hair.


Maneuvering through the mildly heavy traffic and bypassing the Federal patrols, Grace is set in the direction of Ariel before Aradia leans back in her seat, exhaling with a quiet sigh. Sitting for a moment, she leans forward again, studying the sensor display as she asks with a faint smile, "Going out or coming in?"


"Loiterin' with ill intent, I reckon," Saienne answers, with a smile of her own. "Unless you don't mind me joinin' you." She pauses to look through the viewport at the swiftly receding planet. "Ain't often a body gets to see Sihnon from this angle," she muses, "An' it ain't an opportunity I'm eager to waste." She takes a step forward, committing fully to entering the bridge, and says: "Don't reckon I saw you at the party, Captain. Did you make it there later?"


"You're always welcome to join me up here," Aradia says with a chuckle, gesturing to the seat at the console alongside her before she glances back to look to Saienne with a shake of her head. "No, didn't make it at all," she replies as her gaze turns forward through the viewports again. "I really, really needed a bath," she offers by way of explanation.


Hatch's figure comes down the hall and through the bulkhead door in relative silence, tendrils of conversation reach him as he walks but he's really not up for leaping into that conversation at the given moment if judged by the mild scowl resting on his features. He settles himself down into the comm/sensor console and starts to power it up as he usualy does in flight, spending his time tracking movement and stray radio chatter for anything intresting.


Saienne grins crookedly at Aradia. "Don't reckon there's a better reason for missin' a shindig," she says, nodding. "An' I must confess I didn't stay too long, neither. Got myself nicely caught up with Robin. Ain't seen her since before Christmas, I do believe." A pause, and she turns to watch Hatch as he settles down at the comms console. She regards him for a quiet moment, then resumes: "Nearly died of shame when Bishop arrived - although, to be fair to the man, he was at least wearin' trousers, an' I reckon the conversation was too loud for his comments to cause too much offense."


"It was rather nice," Aradia says, turning her hand palm up to study her fingertips as she adds with a grin, "I think I'm still a bit wrinkly from soaking for so long." Tilting her head to look to Hatch, she greets him with a cheery, "Good morning to you too, Hatch!" before she turns back to Saienne with a quirk of her brow. "He did at least put on his fancy duds, didn't he? I didn't waste my gorram time getting them for him so's he can waltz around in his underpants."


As the console headphones settle half around his neck, the other perched at an ear so he can listen to both goings on at the same time. "Morning Princess." Hatch responds with as much warmth he can manage, even going so far as to offer up a half smile before turning his attention back to the console before him.


"He was wearin' clothes, certainly," Saienne says with an impish smile. "I don't reckon I would have described them as fancy, exactly..." She looks down at her own slightly shabby and travel-stained attire. "Mind, I ain't the best judge of fashion there ever was, ain't it so." The smiles shifts from mischevious to wry, and Saienne finds herself a seat somewhere out of the way for the landing. "Saw Lucinda havin' an' interestin' time an' all, an' Josephine dancin' the evenin' away. An' Sirah seemed entirely in her element." A pause. "Sander, on the other hand, entirely out of his."


"Sounds like it was a right grand time y'all had," Aradia says with a faint smile still on her lips, the conversation tapering off as she turns to concentrating on bringing the ship into orbit around Ariel, navigating through all the proverbial red tape of identification, authorization, manifest codes and finally docking assignment. The landing by comparison is uneventful as the ship touches down.


Hatch has his portion of the joy with the comms, helping out Ara with the stranglehold of landing window position and red tape from ground side that allows them to land. He's relatively efficent at what he's doing as usual, but is not nearly as talkative at the given moment.


Saienne twists the silver ring on her right hand absently as the surface of Ariel comes up fast to meet them. She watches through the viewport as they skim over the city's surface to find their assigned berth, staying quite silent until Hatch and Aradia have negotiated the maze of bureaucracy and the Grace has settled gently on the dirt. "Grand time'd be right," she says, finally, picking up the thread of the conversation. "No drama or shootin', neither, just music, wine an' good company." A pause. "Mostly good company, anyhow."


"Mostly good? Sounds like there's a story there you ain't telling," Aradia asks with a small grin as she shuts down the power to her console and then turns to look toward Saienne expectantly, her elbows propped on the armrests of her chair and her fingers lacing together in front of her.


"Really there ain't," Sai says, a little regretfully if anything. "Just Bishop's hookah comments, Lucinda an' her Companion gettin' a mite friendly, an' a few folk stumblin' a little on account of too much of the weed an' the wine." She grins. "Truth be told, I wish there were more of a story - it'd give me somethin' more substantial to witter about than the state of my toes after wearin' those gorram shoes again."


"Go barefoot or wear somethin' long enough no one'll know you got boots on underneath," Aradia suggests with a chuckle, letting her disappointment at no fantastical tale to be told slip away with the shrugging of her shoulders. "Count your blessings I didn't find you when I was on the Apollo," she goes on to say, "Where there were Companions crawling out o' the woodwork and rich and fancy folk for as far as the eye could see."


"You, Captain, are a veritable fount of wisdom, ain't you? No one'd ever notice boots pokin' out from under that dress." A beat. "Make it easier to run, an' all - last party, back on Persephone, Robin an' me developed the theory that dresses an' skirts were invented by men who didn't want their women runnin' off." At Ara's comment about the Apollo and her Companions, her grin broadens. "Good gorram, could you see me hitchin' a ride on that floatin' palace? Fish out of gorram water, don't you reckon?"


Laughing, Aradia says, "My theory is that skirts were invented because they're easier to hitch up than pants are to pull down." Shrugging, she looks down to herself and then up to Saienne as she asks, "'n you figure as I was belonging there anymore 'n you?" Shaking her head as her laughter subsides to a quiet chuckle, she says, "I still curse Gabe out for ropin' me into it."


At long last Hatch clicks and powers down the console, hanging the headset nearby. He reaches out for his coffee mug with a sigh, "I'm pretty fond of skirts myself." He adds in on the side as he starts to walk over to the front of the bridge to look out over the bow.


Saienne looks at Aradia with serious dark eyes. "True enough," she concedes. "It does seem somewhat incongruous now I think on it." She smiles lop-sidedly. "Mind, we take the jobs we get offered, ain't it so? Sometimes it ain't wise to decline an opportunity." She glances over at Hatch. "That would be the liftin' of not the wearin' of, I'm guessin'?"


With a wry smile, Aradia glances over to Hatch and then back to Saienne as she says, "He was told, with rather no room for argument that he didn't have the legs to pull off wearin' a dress, which I guess technically includes skirts."


Hatch's only reply to the conversation is a mild smile and a rather non commital shrug as his coffee cup comes up to his lips, and he finds a place to lean upon the back of the comms chair. Though after a moment he does lean down to pull up a pantleg to display a calf.


"Is that so?" Saienne asks Aradia. "Ain't that interestin'." As Hatch reveals his calf, Saienne raises a hand to her eyes to shield them. "Good gorram," she says in mock-horror. "Ain't we got enough flashin' of flesh on our hands with Bishop?" She peers through her fingers. "Although they ain't entirely unattrative, Hatch." A pause. "Must be your knees." She looks at Ara. "It's his knees?"


"Ain't takin my pants off." Hatch states arather clearly as the mug comes down again, "You missed your shot at a that some time ago Sai." The big fell states walking forward to make a shot at giving the womans shoulder a squeeze, "Anyhoo not like your missin all that much ask Ara."


Saienne peers at Hatch again, frowning a little so that her crowsfeet wrinkle deeply. "My shot at what? At your knees?" She shakes her head. "Ain't no bother to me, honestly. An' besides, I wouldn't dream of crossin' Josephine." A pause, and she grins up at him crookedly as he squeezes her shoulder. "Not even for your knees."


"I dunno, they are some pretty nice knees.. it's the legs that I was told." He pauses near the exit to the bridge and lights against the door frame for the time being, "Ohh what was it, he's got legs like a beagle? I hardly recall really but it was damn funny at the time."


Saienne chuckles a little at the thought of Hatch's legs being at all beagle-like. "If it's any consolation, I ain't got the most elegant of legs neither." She looks down at her trousers. "Best to keep such things hidden, ain't it?"


His shoulders come up slowly, "I am the wrong person to ask... as appreciation of the female form is one of the stronger points of my existance, sadly my perspective is more artistic in some respects." He looks out the window as he contines to consider things, "Still personality has alot to do with the situation.." In the end he shrugs, "Comes down to each there own."


"It really ain't somethin' I think much on," Saienne says, easily, twisting her silver ring. "But I expect you ain't wrong." She glances out of the viewport also. "Ariel," she says in an exhalation of breath. "Not my most favourite of locations. Always feels too..." A pause, while she thinks for the best word. "Clean. That's it. It's too gorram clean."


"Honestly Sai, ain't much that really feels like home to me aside from the deck under my feet here. Why do you think on those long trips you catch me sitting out outside of the OB window making Ara craze now and again that I'm using my suit for recreation. I just like to sit and look at the black, look out over Grace, think." Hatch nods to his friend and smiles a shade, "Thats home."


Saienne listens thoughtfully to Hatch's comments about the nature of home. "Ain't you got somethin' there, an' all." She says, nodding. "I don't expect I ever thought I'd think on any place but the farm as home, but the solid truth of it is I ain't even seen the pile of sticks an' mud in... well, a long time." A slightly sad smile is offered back at Hatch. "Since before the war, anyhow, an' that might as well be a lifetime." She wrinkles her nose. "Most like there ain't nothin' familiar left." She waves her hand in a vague gesture of dismissal. "Oh, there's Maire an' all, but she's more likely to bawl me out for forgettin' Josua's birthday or not sendin' enough credits back to cover Camille's schoolin' than she is to tell me she's missin' me." She leans back against the bulkhead, the metal cool through the thin cloth of her shirt. "So I reckon I can understand a little of what you're sayin' about our Grace." A beat. "Although I also reckon you can keep your habit of sittin' outside the hull for yourself. I ain't quite that much at peace with the nature of the Black." She grins crookedly.


"Eh, I been spacing for along time myself Sai. Just as comfortable here standing inside the ship as I am walking across it or floating on my own out there.." Hatch's crooked grin warms a bit, "I really don't expect anyone to be joining me in that, but it is awful pretty. There is a whole lot to see out there, it's diffrent when your looking at it from a bay window and being out there.. you know?"


"Ain't never got used to the cold of it, Hatch," Saienne says, evenly. "Quite content to be zippin' through it in any kind of tin can I have to - but that close to my skin? It ain't somethin' I'd go out of my way to do." She watches him, listening as he explains why he enjoys it so. "I expect it's peaceful, an' all. Nothin' to keep you company but your breathin'."


Hatch chuckles, dipping his head as he stands upright and starts to walk about the bridge slowly. "Well unless I bring someone with me, it's me. Grace, and everything.. not a whole lot of nothing, a whole lot of all that there is to look at, and you realise your part of that." His eyes drift to the roof of the cabin, "Puts things in perspective sometimes, other times makes me feel like a tiny little speck.. either way your right, alot of quiet and time to think."


Finished with some paperwork or what not that she had to tend to, Aradia glances up, having listened in on the conversation with half an ear, looking toward Saienne as she asks, "Do you reckon on Grace as a home, even if y'know, you were just kind of along for the ride so's you could do your couriering when we first met?"


Saienne looks up as Aradia speaks, meeting her eyes and frowning just a little. "I surely didn't mean to," Sai says, unsmiling. "Hell, I been skippin' footloose an' fancy free across the 'Verse for nearly a decade now. I didn't plan on settlin'." She looks around at the bridge, familiar shapes and spaces, and sniffs. "Only you folk reminded me of what I was missin', I reckon. What I lost in choosin' the path I chose." A pause, and her frown deepens. "An' I suppose I started movin' forwards again, instead of standin' still." The frown breaks into a crooked grin, and she glances at Hatch. "Figuratively speakin', of course." A beat. "An'... if you're startin' to think Captain, that I ain't movin' forward in an actual enough manner, then you should just say so. Cargo hands ain't exactly hard to replace, after all."


"Well I reckon we stopped moving forward for a wee bit, then were gonna move up.. and forward again as thats the back of the ship." Hatch motions stern before he peers into his empty coffee mug with a shade of annoyance crossing his features, his mouth twists in dusgust before he sighs. "You know, all those scifi holos where they had ships with thingies that could just whip up coffee and poof there it is.. rubbush."


Blinking at Saienne, Aradia then looks to Hatch brings a hand up to rub her brow as she shakes her head at his comment. Looking back to Saienne, she says, "No, no I was kind o' hoping the opposite. That you'd be inclined to want to stick around more." Drawing a breath, she says, "You're already doin' more than a cargo hand 'n you're as much family to me as anyone else on Grace, Saienne." She pauses a moment, thinking before she starts to speak again, "Truthfully, I ain't never had enough money to know what to do with it or how to handle it and when I did, I had someone else to handle it, and Hatch don't have much of a mind or care for that side o' things either." She glances toward the man in question and then back to Saienne, exhaling with vexed exasperation at herself, "Oh bloody hell. What I'm trying to say is if you're willin', I'd like to have you as umm..." Looking back to Hatch, she asks, "What do you call it? Next in line o' command? Second Mate? Is that right?"


Hatch settles his mug aside and slips his hands into his pockets, "No I'm not much buisness inclined she's right." He shrugs his shoulders a bit, and walks around over to stand beside his captain. "I can't really think of anyone better, you've got a level head on you and have alot more years in then most here..hell, I'd trust you at my back and thats why Ara hired me on. It sure ain't as I'm pretty."


"Future ain't ever easy to predict, but I expect those holo directors din't have in mind our grubby little 'Verse when they were thinkin' on how folk from the future might make coffee." She waves her hand in the air. "Bet it wouldn't taste no good anyhow, coffee brewed from a rearrangement of atoms an' the like. Surely ain't goin' to be anywhere near the tar we got settlin' down in the Commons." She starts to listen to Aradia again then, nodding as she mentions sticking around. "Well, it was my notion that I'd do just that, if you weren't against it..." At the family comment, she falls abruptly silent, closing her mouth and, for once, just listening. Her mouth drops open again, though, when the job offer comes. "Good gorram..." is all she says to begin with, as Ara finishes. Then a frown and a long pause. "That's... a real fine offer..." She begins, then stops, her crooked grin breaking out full force. "No it ain't. It's a fong luh offer. You sure you din't sit a little too long in the bath...?" She looks sideways at Aradia. "If you ain't pullin' my leg, Captain, I reckon just about nothin' would make me happier." She looks up to Hatch now. "That's real good of you to say, an' all." A pause, and she regains her composure somewhat. "An' I don't know - you ain't entirely awful lookin', Hatch."


Smiling, Aradia shakes her head and says, "No, well yeah, maybe I was a little long in the bath but that didn't have nothing to do with what I'm asking you." Looking to Hatch at her side and then back over to Saienne, "I just reckon as you do a damn fine job o' filling in where Hatch 'n I ain't." Clearing her throat as she grins, she adds, "There's a twenty percent pay raise," which is amusing in and of itself because no one gets paid anything really and if Saienne finds she wants to drink extra coffee and eat a second helping of dinner, who's going to argue?


Hatch rolls his eyes a bit as Sai comments but just has to chime in as Ara speaks of a raise, "Yeah Ara, me and the rest of the parliment voted to double our pay rate and benifits package last week, figured we should tell the royals sooner or later. Whats double of, nothing, plus whatever comes down the road that I'm happy with?" Yep he is making a bit of a joke again yet his eyes remain upon Sai waiting for her answer to it over all.


"For once in my gorram life I ain't entirely sure what to say. I really appreciate... everythin', I reckon." She looks between Aradia and Hatch. "An' I'd be proud to work with you both - proud an' pleased as punch an' all." She leans forward then, holding out her hand for Aradia to shake, looking a little embarrassed at the whole thing. "An' I expect there's somethin' useful I could be doin' right about now..." She says.


Smirking, Aradia looks to Saienne's hand and then up to her as she gets up out of her chair, holding her arms out to either side of her. "We do have that contract to finalize with Lady Pearle," she says with a grin, waiting for her hug and not letting Saienne get to work until she gets it.


Hatch raises a hand to his brow, indeed waiting his turn as it may be along side Ara. He continues to grin, "Aye, a contract and I've got a crew to pester.. a couple of tasks I still need doing also. Hey this means I can go on vacation... someday when I feel like it."


"Oh, hell," says Sai, reading Aradia's gesture for what it is and standing to meet her, letting the offered hand fall to her side. "Family's right, ain't it?" She hugs them both, then, and shakes her head at Hatch. "I may be half-decent at runnin' a business, but I ain't never looked after a ship, so I don't reckon vacation would be wise..."