And we will hold this fort...

[dino_zarf]

CHARACTERS: Wash and OPEN
LOCATION: SHuttlebay
WARNINGS: Are unlikely
SUMMARY: Wash makes good on his promise to help the kids build a pillowfort in the shuttlebay
NOTES: Characters interested in joining Flight are free to use this as an excuse to meet the CFO in the most dignified manner imaginable


It's been a rough few weeks before the jump. Not that they seemed to have another kind these days. And there are too damn many kids here stuck going through all of it. So Wash is doing what he can to make sure they have something fun and normal to distract them.

And besides, he'd promised Takeshi and Muscovy a pillow fort, and he wasn't inclined to break a promise. So he's gone up to the upper decks to retrieve pillows and blankets and is setting about building a fort out of them. In the end, he's a big kid at heart. So it's a fairly impressive fort.

Ladies and gentlemen, this is your chief flight officer.

Comments

[dino_zarf]

"Newt and Gavvers are both on the flight crew. They wanted to learn to fix shuttles." And who was he to refuse to teach kids something like that? If things had been different, he would have loved to teach Emma these things.

"Gavvers has an older sister here, but Newt's been on her own since her friend from home vanished." She's pretty independent, but she's also seven. So he keeps a quiet eye on her. "They've all managed to find someone to look out for them."

[mikangirl]

"That's... something." If Nami sounds preoccupied, it's because she's glancing around at the rest of the place. It's not the biggest place she's seen for this kind of thing-- some of the marine yards are huge, back home-- but she's beginning to get an idea just how far out of depth she is in a place like this.

"I came down here because I wanted to see where we were. Space isn't really, ah. A thing where I'm from. Unless you're crazy. I've worked pretty high up in the sky, but nothing this far."

[dino_zarf]

"It's pretty amazing, isn't it?" Sharing his love of space is one of the best parts of working in the shuttlebay. Sharing it with people who didn't even know it was out there. "It's the whole reason he learned to fly."

Not to mention the reason he teaches other people to.

[mikangirl]

"I'd swap it for my ocean, no offense," she says dryly. "But I can't deny it's kind of fascinating to see it up close. Is it hard to navigate?"

[dino_zarf]

"Not if you know what you're doing." THat was always the trick, wasn't it? "If the stories I've heard about the ocean is true, it's not so different. It's all about knowing your stars."

Probably why it was so troubling that they never knew the stars here.

[mikangirl]

"Really?" She brightens at that. "I'm a navigator, back home. If that's the case, I bet I could pick it up--"

Wait. Her brow furrows.

"You've never seen the ocean?"

[dino_zarf]

"I bet you could." He nods vaguely in the direction of a young boy in the pillow fort. "Gavvers had never even seen electricity before and he's picked up a lot."

"Most planets have oceans. But I've never had to sail on them. Mostly just swimming. Or just using it as an excuse to get Zoe in a bikini." Man did he ever miss her.

[mikangirl]

Oh. That makes more sense. She watches the boy in the pillow fort a moment, flashing him a smile, before turning back to Wash. And sticks her hand out with a grin.

"Nami. Navigator and pirate. Nice to meet you."

[dino_zarf]

Wash shakes the hand firmly. "I'm Wash. Actually a pilot by trade." Which was one of the major reasons he'd wound up in the job. Most people here didn't have such direct correspondence between their work at home and what they did here.

[mikangirl]

"Handy skill to have when you turn up in a place like this." Her smile grows warmer. "So I guess this is where I'd ask if there's any way to learn to fly down here."

[dino_zarf]

"There definitely is, and I encourage people to learn. We have simulators you can start out in. Sooner or later, we're going to need as many people flying as we can get." He suspects sooner. He really suspects sooner. "Most of the flight crew actually learned here."

[mikangirl]

"What's a simulator?"

Not that she doesn't know what simulation means technically, but she's not sure what he means here. It's the problem with coming from backwater ocean worlds.

[dino_zarf]

"It's a machine that makes it look and feel like you're really flying so you can learn without the risk of getting hurt." Wash likes any plan that involves people not getting hurt. That's just the sort of guy he is.

[mikangirl]

Not getting hurt? Nami is so there.

"This ship really has wonders, huh. Well-- I'd love to try one, then. See if I can get the hang of an entirely different ocean." She says it dryly enough, because she's pretty sure what's out there doesn't remotely feel like water and waves. But hey, she won't know until she tries.