The young ensign sat at his comm station on board the Republic Hammerhead Unity monitoring the incoming, non-priority messages. He'd scan them, and then distribute them as needed, if they even needed distributing. Most messages weren't even for his ship, and he just logged them into the ship's computers, keeping them on file in case they should ever become important.
In reality, the ship's computer did most of the work, filtering the endless stream using keyword and image recognition programs, and would alert him when it came across something requiring human attention or anything sent specifically to the ship. During a war mission, he was usually quite busy, but at the moment, on routine sector patrol, he spent a lot of time just browsing the holonet.
He was killing time toward the end of his shift, checking scores and news updates from the recent games played in the GSL, the Galactic Smashball League, when his console 'dinged' at him, indicating a message needed attention.
He hit the acknowledge button so it would stop making noise, but let it sit for a moment while he finished reading the box scores and stats from the Den Var Rancors game before opening the message, assuming it was probably just some technical update for the Engineering section. When he finally got around to reading the message, he nearly broke his comm button as he pounded the button for his superior on the bridge.
"This is Lieutenant Hoff, what is it?" said the voice on the other end of the line.
"This is Ensign Klacks, sir, in Routine Communications. I've got something that Captain Moklam is going to want to see," the young man replied, still staring at his screen.
"Very well. Send it through," Hoff said on the other end in a patronizing tone that clearly indicated he didn't think anything coming through RootCom was important enough to warrant the Captain's attention.
"Yes, sir. Sending it now."
He leaned back in his seat on the bridge and watched his screen, silently waiting for the copy of the transmission to appear in front of him. It only took a moment or two, and when it appeared, he scanned it quickly. His mood changed abruptly and he sat upright. "Excellent work, Ensign," he said earnestly, then disconnected without waiting for the young man on the other end to reply.
He jumped out of his seat and looked toward the ship's Captain, seated in the command chair on the bridge. "Captain!" he said in a raised voice. "I've got something I think you may want to see. It was just sent up from RootComm."
Captain Wash Moklam looked over at his Communications Officer, pulling his attention away from the reports he had been viewing on his console. "From RootComm?" he asked, a bit confused. In his seven years as Captain, he couldn't ever remember receiving something requiring his immediate attention which came from Routine Communications. "Go ahead and give it to me, Lieutenant."
Lieutenant Hoff punched the buttons that would send the communique to the command console at the Captain's chair.
Moklam read the message, then re-read it. It was a routine wanted message, regarding an incident at a casino on Balmorra. Not something that warranted the attention of a Republic Capital ship, but what caught his attention was the description, and name of the escape ship, a light freighter called the Wasted Rancor. The very craft that had escaped his clutches and put the Unity out of commission for so long. He had vowed then, that he'd get revenge on them.
He stood up from his chair and clasped his hands behind his back. "Helm, course change. Make for Balmorra in the Nevoota System, with all speed possible. Hoff, contact my staff and have them meet me in the War Room, on the double."
No comments:
Post a Comment