RRS Odessa
Relative Space
Subjective Time Passed: One week
Objective Time Passed: Unknown

As she traveled down the mobile walkway, Liu Yuling smiled at two of the American data technicians passing the opposite way, and they smiled broadly back. She smiled at everyone. It was her nature to be cheerful, warm, and sunny, and in a place where there was no sun, these attributes became much more important. Congeniality in a closed system was a necessity, after all. As professional as everyone onboard was and had to be about their jobs, they also needed to feel comfortable and relaxed when they had nothing to do. As of yet, nothing had needed to be done outside of regular checks of the ship and equipment, so Liu did her best to make sure everyone was happy and carefree while there was the luxury for such things. That was her job, after all.

"Officer Yuling."

She'd heard the voice behind her and turned around to see a Russian walking up toward her. When he got within arm's reach, he stopped and leaned toward her slightly, grinning expectantly. Liu recognized him as one of the late-arriving ventilation technicians from the shuttle, and she knew she had been introduced to him at some point but couldn't clearly remember his name. She risked a guess.

"How are you doing this morning, Anatoly?" Liu said with a confident smile that hid all traces of her doubt. His own grin didn't falter, so she knew she had guessed right.

"Is it morning? I can't tell at all. I'm about to go to sleep, actually. I've been up nearly twenty hours, I think."

"Now you know that you can't make a habit of that," she chided, perhaps a little too motheringly, "If there's a crisis, we'll need everyone operating at their best and on their recommended time schedule otherwise who knows what could happen?"

"Yeah, yeah," he muttered and rolled his eyes, perhaps too childishly. He opened his mouth as if to say something but hesitated a moment. From experience, she knew what was coming next, and cringed inwardly as he finally said it, "But, uh, anyway the reason I wanted to see you is that I'm about to go to bed and I wondered if you were busy at the moment. To join me."

Liu Yuling smiled, but with a subtle change of the shape of her mouth turned her usual congenial expression into one of gentle, but firm, denial.

"Anatoly, I'd love to but right now I'm on my way to see the captain. Maybe some other time?"

Anatoly looked very disappointed but just nodded. He stepped onto the mobile walkway going in the opposite direction and was carried quickly away. Liu hated to have to do that to him but she really did have to see the captain and besides, she couldn't just agree to an informal request like that; there were regulations.

She had turned thirty-one in April, but she looked younger, kept herself in good shape naturally and had only required a few artificial enhancements to get this position. She was an attractive female, of course, so it was only natural that these situations would occur, but there was a system in place for conduct with morale officers. Once people began to bend the system, there was no reason to have a system at all. Really. If he would just go through the proper channels he wouldn't even have to ask.

A few minutes and smiles later, she reached the captain's room and waited to be let in. Liu hadn't seen the inside since the captain had actually moved in and she wondered what he'd done with the place. It might give her some kind of clue to the type of man he was. He still hadn't attempted any kind of social behavior with the rest of the crew yet, probably not a good idea considering how long they'd have to be together. But it was his decision.

Finally the doors opened, and she stepped inside. She took a brief moment to look over the room and found it looking much like it had before his arrival. His closet had some uniforms hanging, there was a bag of something sitting next to the bed, and a picture on the nearby stand, though Liu couldn't see what it was of. No other changes seemed to have been made, except for some clutter on the desk. Related to his job, most likely. Well that didn't give her much help in to who he was. Captain Telander himself sat at the desk looking back and forth between some of the papers and a computer monitor.

He looked to be close to forty, although she wasn't really sure how old he was, and fit, if a bit underfed. Handsome, but severe — that was the word she was looking for.

"Morale Officer Yuling," he said without looking up, "I was told you wanted to talk to me about something."

"Actually sir, I was under the impression you wanted to talk to me… That is why you called me down here, isn't it, sir?" she said, allowing an occupational tone to come through that she immediately realized to be improper.

This time he did look up, wearing a particularly scathing expression as he did.

"No. I called you here because I heard that you had some complaints about the way I was conducting things on the ship. Since I had to hear this from other people and not from you, I wanted to give you the opportunity to vocalize to my face what exactly you think I'm doing wrong."

"Sir, I don't know who you talked to, but I fully support you and your authority," Liu said. "My only real question of your procedure is that you're working the crew so hard. A lot of people are griping about the hours they have to put in and we're just a week in on what promises to be a very long mission."

"A lot of people are griping, this is true. But," he held that word for moment as he pulled a sheet of paper off a stack, "as far as I know, you're the only one who suggested that I could stand to use a few sessions with one of the male morale officers in the hopes that he could 'loosen up my ass and pull out whatever is stuck up there'. I didn't misquote you by chance, did I?"

Caught, Liu kept her voice completely neutral.

"No sir, that's basically what I said, sir."

"What you or the rest of the crew think of me as a person doesn't matter. You don't have to agree with me or even like me. I do not care." He looked at her like he expected her to argue that he did. "But watch what you say to others, especially considering the influence you have over so much of my crew. You're a Moral Officer. You're supposed to keep them happy no matter what the circumstances and nothing has even happened yet. Gripe now about nothing, and what's going to happen when we actually face a crisis? Keep your criticisms to yourself and keep people happy. In short, do your job. Is that understood?"

"Yes sir," she answered, remaining as dispassionate as possible. "Am I dismissed, sir?"

"Not yet," the captain said, obviously still perturbed, "You're scheduled to have a Morale Session with Lieutenant DeSalle in," he checked his watch, "twenty minutes, correct?"

"That's right sir."

"While you have his ear, be sure to remind him to get his team to clean up their work. They've been sloppy the past few days but I haven't had a chance to speak to him about it. Tell him that they need to check everything twice as well as they normally do. No, make that twice as well as they normally should."

"But sir," her mouth protested, even as her brain realized she should just stay quiet, "the ship's in working order. No one has even reported a problem yet."

"That's exactly what worries me. We're overdue for some kind of malfunction. I was hoping for something to come up before we launched, but now we're traveling in relative space, and we can't afford to make any mistakes."

"Sir, that seems somewhat… superstitious, doesn't it?"

"Only if you mistake super vigilance for superstition. I want this mission to go smoothly, but I'm preparing for just the opposite. Do you have any objection to that, Morale Officer Yuling?"

"None sir."

"Wonderful. Now you're dismissed."