Chapter Text
The USS Orville is a massive starship, one that needs regular maintenance and crew shifts to maintain it daily. So it’s only natural that the crew that primarily does ship maintenance would need shore leave breaks. But seeing as the ship never stops flying, it’s necessary for new crews to rotate in once the older ones move out. This standard rotation has to happen at least twice a year for everyone involved to get enough rest for once they switch back. That’s where I come in.
My name is Eva, and i’m apart of the second rotation at the end of the year where I, along with two hundred other workers, become official crewmen for the Orville. I specialize in the ship's smaller technology programming and troubleshooting. It’s mainly just debugging food synthesizers, climate control panels in crewman's quarters, and such other smaller technology models. It is fair work, a little under-appreciated, but the profession has treated me well.
So far I've only been stationed on smaller vessels that had less than one thousand people on them. My first day on the Orville will definitely be a big upgrade from that. It’s a little daunting, especially because a majority of the crew members are human, but I am definitely excited for it. Even though I don't really have any friends, and don't recognize anyone in the loading dock with me, I am relieved that there are a few other Valkyries here that I can see.
While Valkyries are not known to be overly social or overly introverted, I’m still comforted by the fact that there are others like me that will be boarding the Orville today. Although it does make me wonder where they’ll be stationed, and if we’ll cross paths later on as I tend to be more social than the norm for our race. You see, I’m a part of a race of humanoid type creatures. Our main differences from humans are our shorter stature, most of us don't reach six feet tall at all, our longer life spans, we live until to hundred fifties and two hundred, and of course our wings being the main difference.
Mine for instance are as tall and long as I am tall and are a shimmering black on the outside, and a more cream white on the inside. The individual flight feathers also have some specks of black and white spots on the tips. Besides that, we also have a prehensile tail that normally reaches about half as long as our own height. It’s plated with hardened but flexible sheaths that run the length of it with a tipped spear on the end. The spear isn't sharp naturally, so it's not considered a danger, although some people do choose to sharpen them themselves. Also, simply for the need to steer when in flight, we all have additional tail flight feathers that protrude from the base of our tails. They have the same colors and patterns as our wings in most instances.
There's a few other differences between us and humans, but the point is, we are quite alien to them, just as they are alien to us. I guess that's another reason why I’m grateful that the Orville is interspecies and has many other different races aboard. In fact, one of the first things I noticed when entering into one of the main atriums of the Orville, when we all started to board, was that the captain and his first officers included several races of aliens. I saw the head of security, in her red uniform, had pointed ears and groves along her face that showed that she was clearly a Xelayan, and another officer in a blue uniform that was a Moclan. Then my gaze shifted over to the most unusual of the bunch, a Kaylon.
Kaylon’s are known for having a dislike for organics like us, despite them claiming to not feel emotion. This one was standing up on the podium where the captain was giving a welcome speech to all of us newcomers and introducing the head officers of each division. He introduced the Xelayan girl as Alara, the Moclan as Boras, a few other humans, and then the Kaylon as Isaac. Isaac sounded like a more traditionally human name for him. I assume that Kaylon exists as a male considering that his name is traditionally male, and that his appearance was made to look masculine rather than feminine.
I ended up missing the first half of captain Mercer’s speech, which is what he had introduced himself as, because my gaze was drawn to Isaac. I was just so enraptured by him. He was an inorganic, so he wore no clothes, but his construction did look like he was wearing an exosuit, and his form was fully silver aside from his slightly blue eye lights. Besides his unique appearance, was his unique nature. He was a real life Kaylon. I had never seen one before, just as many others hadn’t. Kaylons mostly stuck to their side of the galaxy and rarely were seen outside in such a populated area such as the Orville. His presence likely wasn’t noticed anymore than the other nonhumans on stage, but he stuck out to me. I’ve just heard so many interesting things about them that i’ve wanted to see for myself. The Kaylons are just so mysterious and that makes them so much more interesting to me. I’ll definitely have to talk to him sometime when I see him again.
Orientation was overall boring and repetitive. After captain Mercer released us to get on with his schedule, we were all directed into our different sections of the ship. I was in the engineering section due to my job dealing with technology and fixing it. There were only about thirty of us that were led into the engineering department for our orientation there. Imagine my surprise when of all people, Isaac was there standing behind one of the main consoles in the large room.
When we entered, I was able to see his head lift and turn to side side slightly to look all of us over. Mostly it seemed that everyone else in the room didn’t want to knowledge our presence there as we were likely only crowding their workspaces, but Isaac spent several moments looking over us. I couldn’t tell who exactly he was looking at at any moment because it seemed that his eye lights never moved from their central position on his face. They also never blinked from what I could tell.
I tried my best to not seem too interrupted by his appearance here, and to listen fully to the instructor who was briefing us on our duties and assigned sections of the ship, even thought most of this was already gone over in the job description and handbook we were all issued the week prior. Unlucky for me that he seemed to be one of those people, beings in his case, that could command attention or blend in at will. I could tell because I could practically feel his gaze on me at one point. His gaze felt light and made some of my hair and down feathers stand on end. It passed after a couple of seconds, but it was enough to notify my brain of his place in the room with me.
After the instructor was done giving us all a general debriefing of the schedules, equipment in the engineering room, and such other things, she moved to call all of our names one by one to receive our own personalized schedules and shifts of when and where we would work. By now Isaac had gone back to typing on the console he was standing at and seemed to join the other crewmen in the room who were still adamantly ignoring us. At least that was until my name was called. I don’t think he noticed me because of my name being called, because how or why would he already know me by name, but because of my movement. Just like before, I felt his gaze on me when I broke from the crowd of trainees to get my schedule. I made a conscious effort not to seem to startled or to look over at him, but I still could feel his shifting. It made me wonder why I was the only trainee he looked at like that.
Whenever everyone got everything they needed from engineering, we were let go to have the rest of the afternoon to ourselves. I overheard some other trainees say that they were going to check out the observation deck or the mess hall, but I decided that my time would be better spent in my own quarters. Someone from the crew had already taken my bags at the entry way with the promise that they would be delivered to my room later. I was delighted to see that in the hour or so that orientation took they had already been delivered and were now sitting in the center of my bedroom floor. I took a quick glance around the room first, and seeing that it was in perfect order, I went over to my bags and checked that everything was there.
There was one bag for bedding and pillows, one for personal clothes and toiletries, and one for personal items. That was all I had brought with me aboard the Orville for my at least half a year rotation here. I spent the next twenty or so minutes putting some clothes onto hangers and into the closet, which already had my personal, tailored uniforms, and put my toiletries away in the half bathroom that I apparently shared with some other lower class crew member through a connecting door on the other side of the room. The last things to get settled were the things that went onto the bed. It already had some sheets on it that were medium quality at best, but that’s why I had brought my own. I took off the preexisting sheets and put on the one weighted blanket I had and stuffed extra, thinner blankets along the edges of the bed. Then of course I had to add and situate my pillow, and one stuffed animal I had brought, at the head of the bed. The one I had was of an Okapi, my favorite animal. I’ve heard that it’s a rare earth animal that only lives in the rainforests, but now is only in captivity. I’ve even been able to see pictures of them on several other planets within zoos and animal shelters. They’re just so big and gentle and cute and spooky, cool and…
Enough with my rambling now. I had stepped back to appreciate the setup I had made in my own cozy corner of the ship. It still had some decorating to do because I still had synthetic vines and my own personal, dimmer styled lights to put up too. But for now, with some of my homey touches added into the standard issues room, it really set in that this would be my home for the next few months if not longer. I was happy to call this my home for now.
I had looked over my schedule earlier when in the hallways and transportation tunnels, so I knew that I’d have it pretty easy for the first week or so. I was to patrol the corridors in Lv C and B in the southward areas, and look for anything that was out of place, or needed repairing, with any of the electronics. I was also apparently an on call technician if anyone called in a specific problem with anything tech related in my areas. Yeah, for now I’d be plenty happy to live here and just get used to life aboard the Orville. I’ll definitely have to try to make friends with the other Valkyries I saw earlier and try to introduce myself to Isaac sometime if I get the chance.
Won’t this be fun…