Intergalactic Summit

SS DENVONNE (ANTARES-CLASS SOLAR SAILER)
LOCATION: MOORING HARBOR, ORVOLLE IV LOW ORBIT
DATE: 114.07.06
FIRST DAY

They asked me to be one of the two supervising adults onboard this solar sailer, which belongs to the girls' yacht club of the Orvolle School of Sports and Performing Arts. Apparently, if they're going to teach kids the basics of spaceflight, they don't want to stick them with icky boys. But hunks are okay, or something.

I thought it over, and said yes. Why? Because this is going to be hilariously aggravating. And I get to have my ego inflated without even trying. All I gotta do is stare at a bugged console with an intense gaze, pretending that I know what I'm doing, and bam! A good friend of mine, Lieutenant Kamsine Henneque GFN, is the other supervising adult. We decided to go with the school's get-up instead of our military uniforms.

Anyway, I got this egone that transposes my thoughts directly to datalog. Rather ha-

Sorry, I blacked out there a second.

The SS Denvonne, an Antares-class solar sailer, is the ship in question, registered to the school. It's one of the myriad civilian vessels that most capsuleers don't get access to, so this is rather exciting. It's also rather old. Standard Gallente civilian green-and-grey. Very straightforward in design, sleek and streamlined. Tube-shaped, with three primary bulkheads towards the stern, which deploy the solar sails. Just rear of the midsection are the crew quarters, nestled in some gravity centrifuges. Yeah, the whole ship is zero-g outside the crew quarters. Oh, and in the event I suck and we all fail miserably, the centrifuge modules can be ejected and we will all totally not go flying off into the sun. I mean, we'll get rescued, I'm sure.

There's an observation area located in a glass dome at the very bow of t-...wait a ******* minute...

Good grief. Anyway...

There's some ion thrusters as well, but the idea is to teach these kids the most complicated methods of space travel first, and then tell them it'll ultimately just come down to pressing a few buttons. Most of the basic principles of spaceship command applies, however. Same core systems, even a very slow warp drive that'll probably break the entire ship if we use it. I'm still looking over the charted course, and making some adjustments. This planet has a very eccentric orbit, so we'll be looking to fly around the moon to the local sun, then make a shot for the navy base around the first planet.

The club president is the captain, a Miba Landel, in charge of around thirty or so girls. She's eighteen, and a final year student. It seems the eldest get assigned as the bridge officers, with a few midyears as station operators. The youngsters (starting at eleven) seem to get stuck in stewardship and custodian roles. No drones, so lots of cleaning for them, but the novelty of being in a spaceship with only two adults watching over them is enough. Anette was going to come but...she has other commitments, unfortunately. Oh well, I guess it'll still be fun even without her...

We're all wearing uniform hoodies and matching skirts. The seniors wear soft pink hoodies, the midyears wear soft greens, and the little ones wear soft blue. Wait, obviously I don't wear a skirt. I wear an orange hoodie, by the way. If anyone cares. Kamsine wears black, because she's badass or something.

Oh, I forgot, three adults. The third is the chief engineer. Some weirdo called Bary. He's unkempt and has a greasy jumpsuit. Aha, I get it now. I'm supposed to protect the girls from him as much as I'm supposed to protect them from the dangers of space...

At least one other capsuleer said this whole thing sounded "creepy". I'm not sure I see an issue; I guess other empires are still backwards enough to not have adults teach or supervise children of the opposite gender. Ha-ha, yeaaaah. Jokes aside, this is quite a serious job. It's a good thing we'll be far from any capsuleer lanes. I guess the emerald-sleeves think this is a good outreach from service folk, in order to remind the populace that soldiers of a democracy are more than just warriors.

We leave tomorrow, assuming there's no hiccups.

Oh, my word, could it actually be?

Could it actually be that our Seri has picked up on the art of self-deprecating ironic humour?

By God/spirits/elders/whatever, there's hope for this one yet!

It is amusing to imagine what sort of silliness a bunch of young girls will subject the poor General to.

SS DENVONNE (ANTARES-CLASS SOLAR SAILER)
LOCATION: ORVOLLE IV LOW ORBIT
DATE: 114.07.07
SECOND DAY

Well, as the Denvonne sets off, I've noticed that we have some support from a few capsuleers, which is nice. A couple have offered support, too, which I think I'll be calling them up on. I think one wants to sponsor the purchase of some more vessels, which is double nice.

Everything is smooth going so far. Miba is very capable and extremely mature; even Kamsine was surprised. The three of us have sat down and discussed the plan that we've committed to. I'll lead a few mini-classes for the youngsters on mechanics, astronomy, and basic navigation, but overall I think I'll be reserved to a supervising and advising role. I'll intervene in any emergencies.

Katrina Oniseki mirthfully mused about what sort of silliness the girls may subject me to during this voyage. The first, ah, 'incident' wasn't quite silly in the typical regard.

One of the seniors, a REDACTED (wtf! are you trying to get us sued? - kam), buzzed my quarters earlier this evening. Seventeen or eighteen, I think. With impish gazes and various attempts at feminine wiles, she explained to me how she had finished for the day and wouldn't be on duty til tomorrow. She said she wanted to 'relax', and by that point, I clocked on to what she was trying to do. Smiling widely at her, I said a cup of aromatic herbal tea would be a fantastic idea. Her face subsequently lit up, but then was just as quickly destroyed when I decided to invite the Lieutenant up to join us.

Oh man, she was shattered. Heartbroken, even. The three of us sat in my quarters, drinking tea, and she looked dejected the whole time, offering short sentences as replies as a complete contrast to her giddy rambling minutes earlier. Okay, I feel terrible now. I'll have to make it up to her in a professional and friendly manner at some point later on during this voyage.

Oh, young love! This does bring up a key point that you may want to touch on however...

A young woman has emotions... lots of them. Every egger knows that emotions can cause issues in operation and get people killed... while I endorse expression and pursuing your feelings, you have to make sure you put that all aside and focus on the task at hand no matter how casual an opperation.

I learned the hard way how your emotions can affect your work and I'm still repairing my security status.

Oh wow, a guy with a need to have his ego stroked left in charge of a group barley legal teen girls, isolated on a ship with only one other adult around and plenty of time on his hands. I think you should do yourself and your criminal record a favor right now, dock, get the hell offa that ship and resume duties in the navy before that line of revenue is barred from you for..mistakes made.

Did you know you have rather beautiful eyes, Mademoiselle... ah, Madame Hanaya?

SS DENVONNE (ANTARES-CLASS SOLAR SAILER)
LOCATION: ORVOLLE IV EXOSPHERE
DATE: 114.07.08
THIRD DAY

Well, it took a few days, but we finally came up against some naysayers. One of them had the audacity to call the girls under my charge "barely legal". Never mind the fact most of them aren't "legal", but I have to wonder who is the real culprit in making an issue here...should we start segregating teenage boys from girls because of hormones? Wait, some places in the Federation do. Anyway, one correctly pointed out a potentially unfair 'naming and shaming', but I've had this log's universal settings tweaked so only capsuleers can access it. I edited that second log entry, idiot - kam

I know other cultures are a bit more stringent on cross-gender interaction, but really, we all have near-identical definitions of professionalism. Oh, well, I won't let it bother me. They're out killing folks by the hundreds, and I like to think I'm doing something good for a change. I think one misunderstood my intention with the senior that failed at seduction, though...

We deployed the solar sails today to expedite our transition to the moon. One of the bulkheads failed to open, so I took all the non-duty girls out into EVA. Some of them even painted their space suits! There was a girl who had her space suit's colours resemble a dragonette from Five Rings of the Southern Fortress XVIII, though most just had various patterns of their choosing. With a collective push, we opened the bulkhead. I could have done it single-handedly, but I felt it was important they get a feel for what space really is like.

Later on, however, there were some power issues. The capacitor for one of the main sails was being continuously drained. Even I couldn't find out why, after giving the girls about half an hour to figure it out for themselves. Turns out one of the youngsters had somehow mistaken one of the power outlets for one where you could charge a laptop. The freaking thing had melted, and that entire compartment was full of poisonous fumes. Me and chief engineer Bary spent the next two hours in our space suits scraping melted polyplastic off the wall, after having vented the air out of the compartment.

Had to redo the health & safety check for that entire compartment once we'd finished. Goddess, that was tedious. Having no drones to do the exact same thing is a pain-in-the-arse.

The poor girl wouldn't stop crying after, especially after a bollocking from the captain. She's the smallest one, bloody tiny in fact. Intaki, I think, with one of those blue Intaki bobs that curl outwards at the end. Has a trio of those bindis, too, that she seems to always wear. Anyway, she lost a lot of personal media like diary entries and images. I couldn't help but frown sadly as the much, much taller captain had a tough word with her in front of everyone else, fists on her hips as the little one just looked at her feet with sniffles.

In time, she'll learn that that's the least of what can happen to you in space, unfortunately. Punishment is cleaning the entire kitchen after dinner tonight. I may offer some company and conversation halfway through. With her small hands and poor reach, she may very well be up all night cleaning...oh man, I'm way too weak-willed with these things.

What?! Have children become so impatient to grow up that they accept... I did not get my center one until I was married and the other two until I became a mother! Shame culture is so hell bent on defining adult by such an arbitrary line in the sand as date of birth. It is one's life path that defines when they are an adult - not their 18th birthday.

She likely always wears them because why would one want to become a child again after being recognized as an adult. Sometime I should sit you down and explain a few cultural things to you.

I laud the General's effort to show the human face of soldiering.