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Started January 23, 2023 by @EldritchHorror-Davadio health_and_safety emoji_events

tune

Alaina stole a glance over at Rom, wondering what was on his mind. There was so much going on on the ship and barely anytime to rest and relax anymore. That, along with the intense loneliness that came and left, was beginning to weigh on the shoulders of everyone on the ship. Alaina figured it especially was this way with the young captain. He was barely a few years older than her, but he had loads of more responsibility.

“Mm, he asks often? Go figure.” Alaina smirked faintly at Rom. “You know, if you’re ever lonely, you can come talk to me. I’m probably just as good of a listener as Heph is.”

Alaina walked over to Rom’s side and sat down, her eyes focused on the expanse stretched out before them. It was strange to her how fast her desires could change. For hours, she had been thinking only about home and how much she missed her father and her siblings. But, as soon as she saw the beautiful sight of the universe again, she wanted to stay on this ship for as long as possible.

“It’s all just so… massive.” She laughed softly and rested her cheek against her knuckles. “Makes you feel kinda small, huh?”

Romulus chuckled. "I do ask a lot, because Hephaestus can't get tired of me." The AI gave a low beep just then, similar to a rude gesture, and Romulus smirked.
He glanced over at Alaina. "I do appreciate it though. And you're human, which makes you immediately a better listener."
When they'd all first met, Romulus had intimidated everyone with relative ease. He was taller, stronger, more muscular, louder, and he'd walked into their first meeting in full armor with his voice modulator on. It hadn't occurred to him to tone it down.
They had all warmed up to him eventually, but he was keenly aware of how much space he took up, physically and mentally. He was extremely friendly, and in the interest of not driving the rest of the crew crazy with his pestering, he often went to the AI.
Alaina sat down, and Rom glanced at her again. The look of wonder on her face highlighted how pretty she was, and he had to remind himself to focus.
He chuckled again at her question. "Yes, it does make me feel small, and not much does that."
They cleared the minor asteroid belt at the edge of every solar system, and Rom keyed the ship-wide communications. "Mica, Tristan, you guys getting this? We good? No hostile aliens or hidden black holes?"

Tristan was used to his new life on the ship. Day in and day out, make sure there wasn't any life on the planets they passed by. Or maybe It was needed for there to be life. What ever it was, Tristan was doing it. He had been on the ship for six months on the ship and luckily everything was decently well on the ship. The constant beep of the radar was an annoying sound to say the least, but he never seemed to notice it much. He was always occupied with running tests and such.
When the com's went off, Tristan pressed the button to answer but his mind instantly blanked out. All that could be heard from the side of Rom was the beeping and nothing else. Tristan shook his head, not knowing why he spaced out. "Everything looking alright on my side Rom. Nothing to interesting a always. Though I will be on the look out if the radar'll catch anything. Hopefully we'll have something soon." He yawned.
Tristan rarely came out of his laboratory due to the fact that if there was ever a sign of life, the crew would need do hear about it as soon as possible.

Mica Katz sat hunched in their bed in their private room, surrounded by tools and scraping parts of the rock they were holding into a petri dish that sat beside them. The particular investigation they were conducting at the moment was really in no way part of their job, but, until they got bored of it, it was Mica's personal mission to find the first macroscopic alien fossils, and they had picked up a particularly fascinating batch of samples recently.
Their room was dead silent, other than the hum of the ship, the regular beeping of their monitors, and Mica's quiet scraping, and they startled violently as they heard their name coming over the comms, nearly upsetting the entire lab they had set up on their mattress. After righting a few tools they had tipped, they quickly hopped on their chair and slid back over to their desk to pull up a display, checking the area around them and adjusting magnetic and gravitational inputs, just in case. This part of their job was fairly boring, as sneaky black holes were an extremely rare occurrence. As soon as Mica was satisfied that they were safe to move on, they pressed a button on the device around their wrist, connecting to Romulus.
"Coast is clear, Rom. Looks like smooth sailing, long as you don't forget how to pilot." They popped some leftover lunch in their mouth, and adjusted their display so they could watch a stream on one side and keep on eye on the ship's surroundings on the other. God, Mica loved their job.

Romulus chuckled to himself as the reports came in. Mica and Tristan both tended to bury themselves in their work, and they were both very good at their jobs.
They also tended to hide till it was time to actually get on-planet. Not an issue, they weren't anti-social or anything, but it was part of the reason Rom talked to Heph so often.
"If I've forgotten, we've got bigger problems than rough sailing." he joked back at Mica.
In system, they couldn't move at light speed safely. Too much danger of overshooting and either warping through a planet, or accidentally throwing themselves into the star. Which meant that it would be another 8 hours, moving at about half the speed of light, before they were in orbit over the planet and were able to land and check it out. These 8 hours were critical, because if at any point they caught signs that something was wrong, Romulus would need to be the one to make the call, turn them around, and get them out of there.
"8 hours, guys. We'll be in orbit over the target planet in 8 hours. Sleep in shifts and forward your diagnostics to me when you rest."