December 9th, 8251

You lean back in the captain's chair and watch the bridge view screens. On display is the cargo holds as the crew assists the unloading of the test weight containers back to warehouse Victor Nine Alpha. The Eggheads standing around not really helping look all the world like supervisors and middle managers much to the bemusement of the humans operating in the same role. The human workers of course are bitching as is their long-established right. Doubly so at the 'crew' androids working in near silence and with (by definition) inhuman efficiency. You are glad to see the bulk of the cargo containers leave your ship just to have the cargo space back if nothing else. You are also glad for the memo on your tablet. Not because you got it, or because it means more paperwork, but for what it is promising you.

“Date: December 8th, 8251

TO: CAPT Lawrence Warde, HMNS Night Horse.

Congratulations on successful completion of your space trials. Repairs and material replacements are being staged to your location as your reports have indicated you require. The Office of Ship Manning indicates that two additional human crew are also en route (see attached dossiers). They also send their regrets that additional crew are unlikely to be available before the turn of the year.

Expect movement orders in the near future for extended system trials of the Klienova Drive.

Signed,

RADM Simon Hancock Sr., Navy Lord, Surveyor's Corps.”

It's not the first official acknowledgment of your new rank of Captain, that would be the paperwork appointing you to the rank, but it is the first time a senior flag officer has sent you congratulations. As heart-warming (and career enhancing) as that may be the promise of two additional crew members is vastly more welcome. Having people to talk with will go a long way to staving off boredom on longer trips. Having the extra hands and extra people to stand watches instead of having to rely purely on the ships sensors and alarms is an immense psychological weight off of your shoulders.

Familiar as you are with Navy movement orders you don't expect them to report aboard for at least a day or two. You settle back to pour over the attached dossiers eager to see who will be joining your new crew. Skipping and skimming you are surprised to discover that both members of your new crew are fresh from the Navy Cadet School system. Being made a 'department head' directly after graduation is one heck of a promotion. Too much to actually stay on their records. You suspect that when you check over their actual posting orders on arrival you will find that they are simply midshipmen assigned to a department and will have command of the department on the ad-hoc basis of being the only officer in that department.

Midshipman Bryn Engel is earmarked for your Supply department. You sigh in relief at the prospect of delegating the mammoth task of managing the logistics for the Night Horse onto the shoulders of someone else. It'll be a bit of sink-or-swim for Midshipman Engel, but not nearly as bad as it could be. The Night Horse's automation makes the monitoring and re-ordering of routine consumables more a matter of paperwork then anything else.

You flip back through his service history. Midshipman Engel is, to your surprise, one of the ground-born: a former resident of the garden world of Dholma. He was recruited in 8247 directly into the Navy Cadet School on Dholma where then-Cadet Engel performed adequately enough to graduate in the middle of his class with commendations on his track and field record and history concentration. The Night Horse is to be Midshipman Engel's first assignment after graduation. You shake your head in bemusement, wondering what he said, and to whom, that resulted in immediate assignment to the Surveyor's Corps and to the Night Horse in particular. Satisfied that you have the general shape of Midshipman Engel's career thus far you flip to the other dossier.

Midshipman Douglass Huckle's Dossier is a few pages longer but not my much. Glancing through you can tell that he is earmarked for either your Engineering or Repair departments. You shrug and mentally assign him to both sets of duties as needed and until a second crewman is assigned into one of those roles. As with the Supply department you expects the automation and automaton crew of the Night Horse will handle the bulk of the workload for Midshipman Huckle. Satisfied with the various certifications you see listed off you flip to the service history section.

Midshipman Huckle was born and raised aboard Orbital Warehouse Sierra Two Charlie in the Tempestwatch system. You nod in recognition of the system, a rimward supply station upgraded into a watch post to ward against marauding pirates. Reading further you discover that Huckle enlisted with His Majesties Royal Marines along with most of his school cadre. You roll your eyes at the poaching tactics of the recruiters but you suppose that a life of adventure beats mopping deck plates for the rest of your life.

Seven years of service later Rifleman First Class Huckle returned home on leave. While on leave Sierra Two Charlie was raided by pirates and he was caught in the area of effect of a pirate breaching charge while defending the station. The pirates were driven off and RFC Huckle received medical attention and extensive cybernetic repairs. Adjustment and physical therapy took up his remaining term of service in the Royal Marines but also left RFC Huckle ill-suited for purely civilian life. Offered another term of service as a mere rifleman in light of his extended medical leave, RFC Huckle opted to accept an inter service transfer to become Cadet Huckle of the Surveyor's Corps and attend Naval Cadet School in the nearby sky-city of Aviacairn.

From there his school record is largely unremarkable. What notes are available as part of Midshipman Huckle's record indicate that his strength is below average, though still within accepted margins for the Royal Marines, Navy, and Surveyor's Corps. You shrug this off as a side effect of growing up on a low gravity 'home world'. The other notes indicate a general ability to get along with other people, despite the stigma associated with being void born and visibly extensive cybernetics. You find Midshipman Huckle's choice of specialization a bit odd until you consider that he probably already had reasonably extensive knowledge of ship- and station-board systems having grown up on one, so why not leverage that to ease his own passage through Naval Cadet School.