Always Keep Your Typist Occupied

It all started Saturday afternoon while Imrhien, Belize and I were doing a little weapons training amongst ourselves on Hale’s Moon. Podwangler Zapedzki joined us in conversation, mentioning that he had found what he thought was a pirate stash built into an asteroid and was looking for a small crew to salvage whatever we can find there, and we agreed.

We suit up because of the lack of an atmosphere in the asteroid, fly up to the coordinates that Podwangler had provided to us, find it, and board. While scouting we run into one of those warbots which had an Alliance ship. A firefight ensues and Belize has something else to do besides salvage medical supplies. Tdstraitjacket and Duncan come as reinforcements and when the warbot tries to escape, Podwangler shows up in the stolen Alliance Destroyer and blasts that warbot’s ship.

We re-board our ships when the asteroid starts coming apart on us, taking whatever salvage we had found. We all fly off and meet Podwangler at the coordinates that he had suggested. Once there, we all board the destroyer and meet in the crew debriefing room to discuss several things.

Ok, so far, everything has been going along fairly normally, but I now need to step back a little bit and explain a few things. Immy’s typist had come and visited my typist this day and so they were sitting in chairs side by side. This had been working well, as not only could Immy and I talk and discuss the situations during the day, but so could our respective typists, which really improved our teamwork, kind of like four heads were better than two, if you know what I mean.

Anyway, I was adding a few things into the conversation in the debriefing room, but for the most part was keeping quiet, which resulted in my typist getting a bit bored. When she gets bored, she starts wandering around because the silly bitch is just nosey. I should have known better and kept her occupied more, but it had slipped my mind with all the recent events. Now, don’t get me wrong. I allow my typist this latitude because she can be very helpful at times.

Earlier today in fact my typist had been helpful twice, ok, maybe only once, the other time ended up being a bit embarrassing to me, but let me show you why I try to accept her behavior. While Immy was trying to land first on the asteroid, and also later to dock with the destroyer, my typist was helpful by adjusting her view screen to the exterior ship hull’s so that Immy’s typist could see and relay the information to Immy making both landings much smoother. I guess I’ll have to tell you the other time, now that I’ve brought it up. When it was mentioned that there were 4 turrets, my typist again adjusted her view to outside the hull, counted the turrets, and told Immy’s typist that there were indeed 5, one also being aft.

Now, I should have had forewarning in that, let’s face it, when two girls are together, and if one gets a bit silly, it is contagious, and I had already heard both typists going into giggling fits earlier through my comlink. Now after my typist had helped me by counting the ship’s seating, and so knew the minimum crew to run her, I had again added to the debriefing conversation that it would need a crew of 7 minimum. After Belize had asked me if I was putting in an application, without thinking, I allowed my typist to reply; “Of all positions ... I’d want to man the aft cannon ... covering our asses.” This made me the butt of several jokes.

Podwangler smiles
Imrhien: The rear admiral?
AlisonLynn giggles
Podwangler chuckles
Imrhien smirks. "That just sounds dirty."
Podwangler: *chuckles
Duncan: *laughs*
AlisonLynn shakes her head
Belize whispers to Immi and grins.
Imrhien’s typist falls out of her chair and dies from laughter.
AlisonLynn overhears the whisper, shaking her head again at Belize
Belize chuckles as she looks all innocent.
Podwangler raises an eyebrow
Belize smiles. "Um... I just asked if that was the name of a Sly Club."
Podwangler bursts out laughing
AlisonLynn: As one of my bosses always said, 1. Safety First 2. Production second 3. Cover Your Ass
Imrhien’s typist snorts with laughter and tries to climb back up into her chair.
Belize smiles as she hunkers down in her seat.
Imrhien covers her ass with her hands.

So later, while we are again deep in conversation, and Immy is keeping her typist busy with plenty of input, she doesn’t see that mine had decided to wander around the ship. I realize what motivation my typist had, since the current conversation had been about modifying the destroyer to suit our purposes more, my typist had thought that if she saw the layout she might be better able to inform me of any changes that she came up with, and so keep me more engaged in the conversation.

So off my typist goes, back out into the main corridor, sees the doors to the engine room and the “High Voltage” warning sign, and of course since my typist’s main profession is being an electrician, down into the engine room she wanders. After the engine room tour, my typist wonders, and then finds her way topside towards the control rooms, and she is looking over the displays in one room.

All this time, I am deep into listening to the briefing room conversations and fail to notice how quiet my typist has gotten which should have warned me that trouble is brewing, when next we all hear through the ships main intercom blaring all throughout the ship:
MOO Cannon: FIRING SEQUENCE INITIATED...
MOO Cannon: Main generators coming online...
My typist turns to Immy’s typist and says: “Umm, is AlisonLynn still in her briefing room seat?”
MOO Cannon: Pod-03 coming online...
Immy’s typist looks closely at her viewscreen and replies: “No, where the hell did she go?”
MOO Cannon: Pod-02 coming online...
My typist replies: “Oh shit, where am I?”
My typist panics and starts pounding on her ESC key punctuating it by saying: “Oh shit! … OH Shit!! … OH SHIT!!! *while bouncing in her seat*
MOO Cannon: Pod-01 coming online...
Both Immy’s typist and mine now are looking on my typist’s viewscreen and see me frozen in horror sitting at the main plasma cannon’s control console
Podwangler Zapedzki: What the hell?
MOO Cannon: Generators online ready to engage charging sequence...
My typist tries to yell at me through the viewscreen: “Ummm, HIDE!!!”
Belize Carver blinks.
MOO Cannon: Generators now charging...
Somehow, I hear her yelling though it is really distorted coming through the comlink, and jump up out of the seat, and start running down a ramp while thinking: “What a silly bitch, where the hell am I supposed to hide … I’m in a fucking spaceship!”
MOO Cannon: Pod-03 charging...
I can hear through my comlink that Immy’s typist is laughing so hard she is snorting, and mine sounds like she is laughing so hard she is crying and realize that I’m on my own now, as they’ll be of no further help to me …
MOO Cannon: Pod-02 charging...
MOO Cannon: Pod-01 charging...
MOO Cannon: Generators fully charged, engage auxiliary units...
I continue to run, not knowing which way to go, except down, and when I finally reach the main passageway I run into Podwangler running towards the control room
Podwangler Zapedzki: What happened?
AlisonLynn Haystack: what happened to what? *at a loss for words, I try to act like I have no idea anything is happening …*
AlisonLynn Haystack: i was looking for the...umm, … powder room *first excuse that came into my mind*
Podwangler Zapedzki: The ship just started charging to fire the cannon
Duncan Cooperstone: Looks like we're firing
AlisonLynn Haystack: oh, didn’t I flush the toilet right?
Duncan Cooperstone: let’s hope there's no one out there to catch it

The following is Immy’s typist’s testimony:
[2009/03/07 15:32] Imrhien Fargis: ((*is laughing so hard she's crying*))
[2009/03/07 15:32] Imrhien Fargis: ((and then every time one of us starts laughing, the other one starts, and it doesn't stop))
[2009/03/07 15:34] Imrhien Fargis: ((*will never forget Alison going "Oh shit, where am I?" as she gets moved up to the gun console... then she's all "OH SHIT OH SHIT OH SHIT" as it started up the firing sequence, then she gets up and walks away very quickly going "Um, HIDE!"))
[2009/03/07 15:35] Imrhien Fargis: ((and she was HOPPING around in her seat))
[2009/03/07 15:35] Imrhien Fargis: ((ohdeargod, funniest shit EVER!))
[2009/03/07 15:35] AlisonLynn Haystack had to hand out the tissues...
[2009/03/07 15:35] Imrhien Fargis: ((she totally did. I snorted like 10 times, too))

So, the moral of the story is to always keep your typist busy and then she won’t get you in trouble, nor into embarrassing situations.