Orbit Admiral JonathanCrazyJ sighed. And to be able to sigh underwater, in zero gravity, with 8 gills, you have to
really need to sigh. Unfortunately protocol stated that at the end of every voyage, Orbit Admirals had to take an exam about Blistermarch's social, geological, political and scientific-religious past, to prove he, she or it hadn't
forgotten where they came from.
You'd think he wouldn't forget in a 6 week voyage, but the trouble was, it was a decade since his last voyage, which, incidentally, was the last time he needed to know any of this useless information.
He threw his bundle of scrolls aside deftly, so they floated into a neat pile on his desk, the page he was on, visible on top of the stack.
What he was more concerned about was the crew that The Great Council had bestowed upon him.
Thankfully they had given him a Mapper he was used to and trusted in Espithel. Unfortunately is seemed that during Espithel's 10 year hiatus since their last voyage, he had spent it as a lonely, hermit-like creature in the BlisterRim, mapping the nigh-uninhabitable volcanic regions of the planet. For an amphibious sentient who had been born in the deepest parts of the Marsh Trench, this was a big step, and he seemed to be calling himself 'Brightdeep' and had started trying to set his bed-shell on fire, despite it being submerged.
Mechanic Solaris was known to the Orbit Admiral too, but more as a drinking buddy than an actual Mechanic. Honestly, JonathanCrazyJ hadn't expected the Great Council to take him seriously when he submitted a Crew-Request for the maverick mechanic, Solaris had a reputation more for mechanizing Sea-Cider pumps to shoot directly into punters' gills than for making rocket parts. He also had a reputation for trying to drown passing fish, which was usually ineffective. All the same, it was nice to have some company on board.
Then there was Russian. JonathanCrazyJ
liked Russian. Everybody
liked Russian. He was a fantastic Space Trooper. Brave, ingenious, ruthless in battle. There was just something strange about him. Nobody knew where he came from, and he was always very cagey about it. "The sea, where do you think?" was his usual answer, but the Orbit Admiral still didn't know the truth. And he always seemed very
interested in the Admiral's Log.
The Orbit Admiral shrugged his shoulder fins and grabbed the Blistermarsh Chronicles begrudgingly. Time to read about some horny invertebrates.
