The Captain's Chair

First Officer's Log

"First Officer's Log: Stardate... Uh... RIN, what's the stardate?"

"It is the 50th day of the Third Cycle of the 150th year, First Officer Henley."

"OK, so stardate 50.3.150. Today we're-" shit, what was I gonna say? "RIN what was I gonna say?"

"I'm unsure what you were abou-"

"I know RIN, it was a joke." I didn't even say it that loud. Fuck. "The Union put me on the exploratory ship, the Starship Watanabe. We left the port off of Pluto about 10 days ago, I think. " I'm pretty sure they ran out of names if they've resorted to classic artists, like how many people on this crew actually know who he is? I do but that's cause I spent my training years skipping class and watching ancient anime. At least I'm not the only nerd in the Corps.

"We're to go find new planets, in the Milky way, that they think we can terraform and don't have horrible aliens or weird bacteria that will eat your ass or something. We're actually reaching our first planet, today too. Nobody listens to the First Officer's log! Why am I recording this?"

Beep-beep. "Yes, Captain Taggart?"

"Hey, Clark. Get down to the bridge. We're close to the new Planet. We're gonna go down with a small team."

"Alright... Wait, who's on the team? God, please tell me we're not taking Brenda."

"Clark, she's head of the science division. I don't really have a choice in this! Also..."

"Don't tell me..."
"Hi Clark!" Her voice is like an injection of sodium into my veins. "You know it's been three years, right? Are you still angry about me breaking up with you?"

"I don't know? Are you still a frigid bit-"

"Clark. Just get to the bridge." I wish the Captain would've let me finish that sentence. Too late now, I hung up anyways. I should probably get dressed before visiting an alien planet though... Probably...

"Don't worry, folks! I'm here!" The ship's swishing doors allow for a wonderful grand entrance.

"Clark, you're a loser."

"Fuck you too, Lance!" The head engineer and I shoot a quick set of finger guns at each other before he turns back to his station. The ship's deck is your standard affair. Various touch screen displays, of all sorts, dot the sides and rear of the room. Two arbitrarily large chairs sit in the center with the the pilot's consoles a few feet in front of them. I honestly wish ship design would have branched out a little more than this, but I guess if it ain't broke: don't fix it.

As for the crew: Lance, our head engineer and my best friend, is a tall and lanky black man. He stays fit enough by climbing and squeezing through all the nooks and crannies of the ship. I've never once seen his green uniform this clean, either. Then came our three security officers in the classic red attire - I'm convinced it's so we don't see them bleed more than tradition. Simon (our resident cyborg on the deck) is our head of security. The cybernetics have taken almost all the color from his skin, leaving him a pale grey. The right section of his face, down to his cheekbone, and his all four of his limbs were all replaced with top of the line cybernetics. He was placed on assignment with us after his short period in the military section of the Corps ended in a heroic blast. Terry, the pilot, is a scrawny white boy with short blond hair. He's supposed to be a crack pilot but he can be pretty jumpy sometimes, I'm not so sure yet. Shauna's next to him running the weapons and tractor beam. Let me tell you, there is no one I'd rather have there. We met in the academy and became quick friends. A relatively tall black woman, she's easily one of the toughest mother fuckers in the Corps. A disgusting whore is our head of science. Tall, blond, and with emerald eyes, her white uniform is pressed to a disgusting perfection. Her looks can kill and if you're not careful they will. Finally, Yuki on comms. She's got long jet black hair and a smile that will melt your heart. She's rather shy but we're hoping working in comms will help her with that. She's even gone to the effort of putting little cat ears on her headset. I think our purple get-up looks infinitely better on her than it does on me or Taggart.