A Late Attempt To A Greeting

Posted on Sat Aug 22nd, 2026 @ 3:53pm by Captain Abigail Laurens & Lieutenant Celestiana Aetherwyn

Mission: Chasing Ghosts
Location: Captain's Ready Room

Celestiana flushed red as she rode the turbolift to the bridge, not because she wasn't comfortable being up there, but because of the reprimand that she'd been given by Ichika. Yes, she'd waited far too long to greet the Captain, but she'd genuinely just lost track of time. Still, if her guess was right, she'd be reprimanded again, this time by someone with an even higher authority.

Of course, if she just waited until the Captain came to her, then things would just get worse and she'd be better off transferring off the ship. She stood straight and tugged at her uniform, sealing it completely in a move not typical of her before she stepped out of the turbolift and onto the bridge. The Captain wasn't there. Okay, that wasn't abnormal, because the standard watch WAS there, so.... Her eyes flickered to the door to the ready room and she steeled her nerves as she moved fluidly over to it and pressed the admittance chime.

"Enter."

Abigail sat at her desk, the commbadge still in her hand as she turned it over and over, pausing momentarily to trace her thumb over the engraved name and serial number before turning it again.

Her mind was racing, full of thoughts, none of which were particularly good thoughts, just flights of not so fancy stemming from the untimely discovery of the commbadge and what it possibly/probably meant.

She glanced at the console next to her, watching status reports coming in as the ship prepared for rapid departure on her orders, then turned her attention toward the doors as they closed behind her visitor.

"Yes?"

The engineer walked in with the grace of a dancer, steps flowing and making her look like she was almost hovering across the ground as she approached the desk, "Good morning, ma'am, I know I'm really late in coming to see you and the Exec really let me know about it, but I'm here now and.." She exhaled, "Lieutenant Celestiana Aetherwyn, ma'am, your Chief Engineer, replacing Commander Rozia."

Abigail glanced back at the commbadge. "Welcome aboard Lieutenant," she said warmly. "Do you have a status update for me? How close is Engineering to being ready for launch?"

"We can head out at any point, Captain," Celly said with a weeble wobble of a hand, "I've got a couple minor things I'm working with, but they aren't going to affect the ship functions right now. Just some damage control issues from the starbase engineers, really, I don't trust them to reprogram a toilet, much less replace everything in engineering that they did without screwing half of it up."

"Liase with spacedock for expedited departure. I've made them aware I want to be out within the hour, that was a good twenty minutes ago. Make sure you're aware of any slack you will need to pick up for what they haven't completed and have plans in place to deal with it." She paused for a moment, finally looking up at the Engineering officer momentarily before turning her attention back to the commbadge turning in her fingers.

"Of course, honey," Celestiana replied, then froze, continuing quickly, "I've already gotten the primary systems debugged and back up to spec, I'm at the point of backups and redundant systems, Captain. We should have all systems fully checked out within the week."

Abigail looked up and raised an eyebrow at the term of endearment. "I think you mean 'Captain'," she said pointedly. "And you have 72 hours," she finished. "That's our expected travel time once we depart, all systems need to be ready for anything and everything before we get to our destination."

"Yes, Captain, of course." Celly nodded once, "It'll be tough, but we can do it, I'll make sure we get it all done." She knew she was going to be working really long days for the next three, "I'll get started right away, Captain." She started to withdraw from the room.

"Please make sure any progress reports are delivered to Commander Gail," she said calmly, looking up, noticing the woman already starting to retreat. "You're dismissed Lieutenant."

"Yes, Captain, thank you Captain, will do Captain." Celestiana turned and the only thing she could think of was that she fled the room. But there was a little bit of good news, now: She'd reported in to the Captain, so the Exec would be happier with her... Maybe. Now, there was just a lot of work to do and not enough time to do it in. But, the difficult could get done today, the impossible? Would just take a little longer.