Welcome Aboard [Space, ISD Irresistible ]

The lift was almost empty. As it happened, few of the crew were scabrous enough to waylay the Captain with their own deck calls. In fact the only culprit was a junior officer who kept staring ahead and wouldn't look too readily. The officer in question was a head shorter, blonde, and had the ineffably bubbly quality about her. Except for the fact that she looked either petrified or in an active state of attention, she was probably a pleasant sort. The whole fearful or intimidated aspect of things was probably due to the damnable eye patch.

Seyda resisted the urge to sigh, lest the tiny officer fall into cardiac arrest. It was the eye patch surely, it had the side-effect of intimidation. People were always fussy over eye injuries, and there was something that seemed vaguely angry about them. Scarcely a soul looked jolly in an eye patch. And Seyda made it a policy to not even attempt looks of joy in uniform. It was somewhat unbecoming. Of course she'd thought about a prosthetic eye. It seemed somehow unreal. Besides, she'd grown used to the limited field of view. It wasn't as if she particularly needed it either.

No, maybe the solution to the long and awkward silence was soft music in the lift. That was something to make a mental note of for further perusal.

After the young woman stepped out, Seyda's journey was uninterrupted, and she arrived at the hangar just in time to see the shuttle touching down on the deck. It hissed, letting off the usual steam, and slowly the ramp descended. If the occupant expected some kind of fancy reception, he would be sorely disappointed. Seyda and the stormtrooper on duty were the only people present aside from the maintenance crew. The white-armored figure was silent, and Seyda didn't bother talking with him either. He was there, doing his job, and she had nothing to add. Presumably if cunningly-disguised Jedi-Pirate-Terrorist-Smugglers rolled out guns-blazing he'd leap into action.

Far more likely this was some kind of completely unnecessary personnel transfer or administrative foolishness. It wouldn't surprise her at all to receive some bean-counter from Coruscant to nitpick their power-usage statistics or complicate their resupply efforts. Imperial bureaucrats seemed to have the dubious honor of being among the worst in the galaxy, consistently at that. If the Imperial and Sluissi bureaucracies were ever to go to war, surely the result would be the apocalyptic devastation of the entire galaxy. Tatooine would probably be the center of galactic civilization.

The man who walked down the ramp appeared young. He looked around the hangar rather often, staring at the TIE fighters anchored above them. He had that general kind of aura about him of someone who wasn't completely in love with being bored. That ruled out some sort of bean counter. They always had a particularly dead look about them, particularly in the eyes. As he approached, Seyda had a good look at them. Blue. Rather alive. Distinctly not the eyes of a bureaucratic paper-pusher sent to bother her over their inventory of paperclips or what not.

Most interestingly, near his rank insignia he was wearing the unmistakable Medal of Honor. Now that was indeed a surprise. Her thick eyebrow rose slowly, the only expression of surprise she was about to let loose.

He dropped the bag and saluted. Seyda returned it in the swift and subdued method most senior officers had cultivated, to cast the formality hurriedly out of the way.

"As you were Major," Seyda replied. If they were to insist on full decorum it would take a while. Possibly quite a while in fact. The Captain looked him over for a while, not quite long enough to be utterly remarkable, but more than a simple glance. "Your transfer orders please, Major. I won't stand on much more formality than that. Should I assume you've been briefed on the Irresistible?"

The order was polite, delivered in diction of a firm request, but the regal authority of her tone made it something more. Despite that, what she followed with was careful calculation, to make him at ease and to see how much information he'd been armed with. Chances were it hadn't been much. The sudden drop to attention seemed to imply he didn't know his commanding office would be so... swiftly recognizable. What was dramatically 'more' than that was her crew. They weren't the greatest. They were not the elite, not heroes, not the cream of Imperial society. Why a young senior officer with such a high decoration would be arriving to command such a small formation of fighters was beyond her ability to guess.

The few prospects that did come to mind twirled about absently. They ranged from the dubiously good, to the annoyingly believable bad.

Still, there was absolutely no reason to be anything but professional and courteous. After all he hadn't actually done anything yet.

Captain Seyda took the proffered datapad in her gloved hand, and she examined it carefully. As the man did apologize for, there was a Sabacc application running. He seemed to have racked up a rather high score, which resulted only in the mental notation to not become involved in any officer card games he might try to establish. The fact it was labeled 'official use only' didn't particularly concern her, she'd seen far worse come across company electronic devices in her time.

The orders were what she was most concerned about. The authentication symbols and coding were all there, the chain was proper. He was genuinely being posted to the Irresistible, and quite suddenly at that.

She handed it back.

"From Eriadu, yes. I'm sure it was a long flight. I'll see to it you're assigned quarters. You're probably quite tired, I won't bother to brief you until 0900 tomorrow, unless you particularly wish to learn anything before then. Copies of the standing orders will be in your quarters. I always allow a period of adjustment and observation, you can't rightly be expected to fit in here right away. But in advance I'll tell you this much."

Seyda paused, to properly set the tone and emphasis for what she wanted, it was advisable to give a little space from the heavy business.

"Don't stand on ceremony with me outside of special occasions. This is the Outer Rim, Coruscant is far away, morale is often low. Outside of combat situations, ask questions, make suggestions. I don't need mindless yes-men, nor does the fleet. I'd rather have your honest opinions."

He handled it well, Seyda decided. The officer quietly weighed what she said and listened fully. Not interrupting. And then he relaxed visibly at the end of it. Hardly surprising, as similar patterns usually followed when someone was transferred to her ship. Bullshitting was a standard fleet skill by now. It was tedious and bothered Seyda, more than she usually let on.

Fortunately everyone else felt similarly to her it seemed.

He also secured some bonus points by wanting to merge briefing and tour. It'd save a lot of effort certainly to clear most of the issues before the officer's meeting. Also it showed he wasn't the type to take the easy way out. Sometimes commendable, sometimes pigheaded, but tentatively a positive.

"Certainly, I'll have your bag sent to quarters, we'll start with the bridge."

The Captain held out an arm and gestured for the deck officer to come forward. He did, and paused expectantly. "See to it someone takes the Major's bag to quarters. Whatever is suitable and closest to this hangar. You can delegate it, but make sure it's logged properly."

He nodded, and Seyda turned and motioned for the Major to follow her.

"The Irresistible is Victory II class, configured for deep space missions and pursuit tasks. We have a class 1.0 hyperdrive. I'll spare you additional technical details. This ship is the command for Task Force Belsavis, explaining the mission is best done not on the move. In fact it's probably best for you to ask any questions that come to mind."

Her steps finished very precisely at the lift, and she tapped the call button once, waiting patiently for the door to open.

The question he asked was certainly to the point. Seyda wasn't the sort to place all her esteem on combat records, particularly given the state of the galaxy since the end of the Clone Wars. Namely there were limits on conflict to go around, without large scale incidents and occurrences.

"I've been in command for five years, since launch. During that time there have been a number of combat incidents, few on any scale truly worth noting. I'm not aware of the precise details of squadron experience, that will be something for you to evaluate on your own. You may have your work cut out for you I'm afraid."

She hadn't been planning on addressing the mission so early, but it seemed prudent.

"I'll see to it you're provided with full information shortly, but Command has tasked us with locating and apprehending a nomadic organization of Twi'leks, the Miki Boska. They maintain a fleet of their own, and are known for possessing numerous fighter craft. I wouldn't underestimate them, as some of our organization do."

That was Seyda's polite, subdued way of decrying the popular racism that suggested nonhumans were not real threats, or were somehow incapable. Of course the Empire was known for slighting other groups as well. Pity.

The lift slowed, and hissed to a stop, the doors sliding open onto the bridge.

The bridge of an Imperial Star Destroyer was always more or less the same. It was composed of an aft area by the door with communications bays, doors to offices, and then a large walkway heading to the windows, wrapping around two pits full of crewmen with headsets, busily at work. There was a quiet sort of chatter always about. The precise click of her boots still managed to cut through the air.

(It was a little known fact she'd put heel plates on them to achieve that particular effect, command was a mystery that required effort to promote.)

Pike's question was delayed, as the deck officer approached dutifully. He had a datapad tucked under his arm, and looked at it for the few points there were to make clear.

"Signals from the Arbiter and the Stormcloud, their patrols have yielded no intelligence. The Swift has yet to signal. Our own pickets haven't detected anything either."

"Recall them. As soon as they are secure, jump to hyperspace. The next set of coordinates may be better. I'll be accompanying our new addition on a tour of the ship. You have the conn, notify me if anything presents itself."

Before he could acknowledge, Seyda headed aft, and produced an innocuous black mug with the Imperial cog. She filled it from a large vat of caf, and added a spoon of sugar, stirring it about. She sipped it for taste before turning back to her new pilot.

"Our organization is currently shaken up. Ordinarily the answer would be Commander Brand, however he's been incapacitated with some health considerations. Behind him is Lieutenant Commander Evek, who is now on detached duty with the Swift. So... The answer would be yourself. I assume you're certified for command duty?"

Seyda's even strides took her back to the lift, which she called. Her weight was evenly distributed as she stood, with the general impression that she was content to stand in that same position until the galaxy ceased to exist, the lift came, or she finished her caf.