The trip through the Gateway had been rather uneventful. Morven had no idea just how long it took. Safety precautions had had them all in stasis both for the trip itself and for a short while prior to and afterwards, so for all she knew, anything from minutes to days, weeks or even years could have gone by without them noticing anything. It quickly became apparent that it was closer to the first than to the latter, though. She did not have much contact with any of her family while training for the job, nor did she see any reason to seek them out. They wouldn’t. or couldn’t, understand the reasons she had for joining the EEE. She did not mind overmuch.

~| Several weeks prior, supply shipments and berthing selections |~

Jason had been lugging his duffel bag aboard the vessel not long after he’d completed the training required to join the crew. Upon his acceptance, he’d been so eager to set up his workspace and claim his stateroom that he’d hardly seen the shorter being. His duffel bag, a long ancient leather-made thing of more sentimental value than of great use, had blocked most of his vision when he’d nearly bowled whoever over. Setting aside his bag, he was a bit peeved about the unforeseen obstacle. 

“I’ll need you to make way, important crew trying to get on board this fine vessel,” Jason drawled in a tone identifying him as one of the many pace-side aristocratic. entitled. Some of his tone was prideful of the vessel, but there was a hard underlining of impatience to it. He was interested in seeing the inside and wanted to get around whoever’d been in the middle of the p-way (passageway).; so far he’d only seen holographic vids and pics of the vessel which might only give illusion of spacious quarters. 

It was only in a double take that he realized the person was a female though given her clothes he couldn’t make sense why another scientist might be lingering about the entrance to the vessel. [He’d actually bumped into her.]

Morven didn’t much think for people trying to make her get out of their path. She never had. That was at least part of the reasons she’d joined the MWEC back in the day, to stay away from most of the more pushy folks. When the stranger spoke to her, she turned around, her pale lavender eyes rapidly taking in the scene, instantly calculating the width of the corridor and how much she had been using. “There is ample space for you to get by here.” Morven saw that he was probably a few years older than her, but not many. He was also somewhat taller and more heavily built. The occupation tag on his flight suit read that he was a cartographer, communications specialist & a programmer, so she just as quickly figured out his worth to the mission.

“You are not as critical to the mission as you think. Useful, but not critical. Without knowing what to put on the maps or to report back, you won’t have much to do. I will be taking care of telling you that.” Her voice was pretty smarting when she said this, but not really overflowing with emotion. Probably because several of her hormonal glands had long since evolved to be radically different from human glands. She still felt the same emotions, she just didn’t express them the same way.

Huh. A female as part of the crew? Clearly they’d drawn the short straw for this one. [i]It’ll just gum up the works with some feminine presence aboard. [/i] “Everyone’s expendable including the middle man who might think they’re in charge of my position. Now if you’ll get out of my way I’ve things to take care of for prep,” he had an equally bored tone comparable to hers, but his was fashioned of years of cultural levity. Of course he’d comprehended her response - she apparently thought she’d be telling him what to include hereby asserting herself as part of the crew, but he seriously doubted this. Likely she was just trying to rub off some of his self-importance onto herself. Perhaps she wanted to rub elbows with him to feel important as well. Whatever the cause, he knew his importance and didn’t need some slip of a girl to tell him. 

Heaving a put-upon sigh, he tried to move past her, uncaring if he physically jostled her as he did so. His vision was clearly obstructed and he’d made clear his intentions. Be it far from him if she would rather chatter about her position aboard the ship rather than heed his succinct message.

Morven pondered whether to react to his apparent indications of personal overestimation, but she fairly quickly realized that would be pointless. His kind, while fairly rare, would not easily be shaken loose from their outdated opinions. Especially not after a single conversation. She had encountered his kind in the past and had found the only reliable way to change their views, other than brainwashing (which was the province of the military), was to prove them wrong. In other words, it’d take time. When he pressed past, she was somewhat tempted to do something to embarrass him, but managed (barely) to restrain that urge. Besides, she herself had work to do too. Less than half the sensor packages she wanted had been loaded so far. Whomever had loaded them had no real experience in exoplanet processing & identification.

~| Several weeks later |~

By this time, Morven had met most of the crew. Other than the pesky attitudes of the communications officer, in which she showed her irritation through discoloration of the scales on her stomach (which was invisible to others), they were a nice enough bunch. Despite the massive size of the vessel compared the the typical MWEC ships, it would only hold a crew of five people. Should a target galaxy not hold sufficient planets of worth, that would mean less lives sacrificed, a decision she had no problem accepting. But then, Morven knew well how unlikely it would be for their target galaxy to be unprofitable. The biggest issue would be the massive effort for building a gateway on the other end and linking it to the Milky Way Gateway (MWG). 

She slipped through storage section seven, marvelling at how the Government had chosen to build parts of the ship without artificial gravity, a feat she considered particularly impressive. Of all the ships she had been on, they were either ancient freighters without any gravitic generators or equipped with a gravitic generator array that engaged gravity for the whole ship at once, never just for parts of a ship. It did make sense to have it that way for the storage section, for it eliminated a lot of the need for extra powerful machinery in there. Even a child could move a crate in Zero-G that would in normal gravity weigh several tons. Though it was years in the past, she could still vividly recall a demonstration of just that.

Because she could, Morven elected to take a few somersaults in her journey through the massive chamber, which was still fairly empty. Later she knew it would be filled up with raw materials for the food fabricators and several other systems. Till that was loaded, the chamber was a nice place to practice ZG maneuvering.