Snippet #2018446

Eli had reached the hall first, ahead of the many recruits, but they were quick behind him. Soon the hall was slowly filling as crew mates picked seats in an overwhelmingly vacant hall. Eli approached the admiral, who was still locked in his posture as he stared out the view port. At this point the Admiral turned to meet the oncoming soldier.

“You know, I expected better from recruits…” the admiral shifted his head towards the bare, with the exception of a few crew members, meeting hall.

Eli’s brow furrowed, he was unsure as to what Aronimus meant and how he would reply. To which Aronimus replied,

“The hall should’ve been filled to the brim as of now,” he looked back at the timekeeper on his wrist. It had barely been two minutes since boarding commenced.

Eli realized his meaning and had laughed a bit inside upon discernment.

“I suppose we could wait a little longer…sir?” Eli wondered.

“Perhaps…Captain…perhaps…” The Admiral paused a bit and glanced at Eli.

“An old dog can get tired of this sometimes…” he returned to observing the outside.

“I’m sure you’ve been through many of these, an experienced ship captain and Admiral such as yourself.” Eli reminded him.

“Don’t get me started…” the admiral paused and glanced at Eli again.

“Anyways, the rest of these tenderfeet need to get here immediately. Go look around for stragglers who are lost, Captain.”

“Understood sir.” The captain gave Aronimus a fairly formal salute before heading out through the opened metal blast doors that sealed off the hall.

The Admiral turned around once more to look at the rows of seats lacking people. He noticed a familiar face, one he saw on the roster. Lieutenant Commander Alice Chen, she was seated in the front row. He could see that she was a prompt and sedulous individual. She had gotten to her rank with those qualities, Aronimus could tell. Her position, in his opinion, was well deserved. Then he noted another woman who had a fairly large smile that was shot at almost all the new recruits who came in after her; she was going to be a character no doubt. The admiral’s neural interface registered her as Jessica MacPhearson, also known as “Hyena.” The label was perhaps given to her by fellow crew mates out of affection or otherwise. She had the look of someone awaiting good news, perhaps a last minute re-assignment from this ship. The admiral doubted he had news of any kind to deliver; this was merely going to be an introduction and then straight to the bridge with the command crew to send the Salient to its objective.

By now the hall was halfway full with more recruits pouring in. The admiral went to re-adjusting the see-through screens hovering behind him in mid-air for the presentation. Such technology was a spectacle to the Admiral who knew that innovation was a constant in this day and age. Ingenuity was a prized attribute to the Federation. He wondered beyond his death whether technology would race so fast as to overwhelm man’s capacity to control them for the betterment of his fellow people. Such were the thoughts of an aging Admiral.