Ensign RunningBear stepped into the ops deck, looking up from his PADD. The deck officer was not standing at his ordinary position in front of the starbase map, but was hovering over the comm officer's chair. The screen in front of them showed an approaching freighter ship.
Jacob was expecting an intel delivery from K-7 and hoped this was the ship that the delivering officer was sent on. He nodded at the screen. "Is that the USS Constantinople."
Neither the comm officer, nor the deck officer looked up, but the deck officer shook his head. "It's the Istanbul, not Constantinople."
Jacob looked confused. "Istanbul, not Constantinople?"
The deck officer looked up for a moment and nodded. "Yes. The Istanbul, not Constantinople."
Jacob looked back at the screen. "From K-7, though?"
The deck officer nodded, again.
Jacob didn't really care, but felt like asking anyway. "Did it change, recently?"
The deck officer stared at Jacob for a second before standing up straight and looking at his own PADD. "Looks like it changed... at least a few days ago. It's been a long time gone since it was the Constantinople."
Jacob nodded. "Why didn't the Constantinople get the work?"
The deck officer just shrugged. "That's the business of Commander Terks, at K-7." He let out a sigh. "I just receive them, Ensign."
"Ah, right, Sir. Okay." Jacob responded, recognizing that his inquiries were starting to irritate the deck officer.
"I was expecting someone on the Constantinople. Do you know if -"
The deck officer cut him off. "The manifest is the same. If you had a date on the Constantinople, she'll be waiting on the Istanbul."
Jacob seemed a bit confused by the deck officers implications. "Not a date... just an intel delivery..." He let his sentence trail off as he looked back at the screen.
Jacob felt the need to try and smooth the conversation a bit with the deck officer. He looked for something else to discuss, more casually. His eyes locked on the view of the large freighter. "These new freighters are huge."
This seemed to disarm the deck officer a bit. "Yeah. They might be giants... but they don't have the maneuvering thrusters to make docking procedures easy."
Jacob was pleased they had returned to a more normal conversation. "They don't have the new mark VI thrusters?"
The deck officer shook his head, his eyes turning back to the screen. "They were suppose to get them but then at the ship yards, they all got mark Vs."
Jacob just arched an eyebrow. "Huh.... Why'd they change it?"
The deck officer shrugged. "I can't say."
The comm officer, finally spoke to them and not the ship for once. "Maybe people just liked it..." He paused, as if suddenly realizing what he was about to say was either wrong or completely absurd. "Uhhhh, never mind." He spun back around to face the screen.
The deck officer just shook his head, obviously perturbed at the comm officer, now.
A moment of silence passed and Jacob felt comfortable leaving the conversation where it was. As he walked away he felt the uncontrollable urge to just hum a toon he had heard playing in the admins offices earlier that day.
"Hum hum hum... hum hum, badum-a-dum. Hum hum hum... hum hum, badum-a-dum."
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