Work in progress Sci-Fi draft

part 1

A long time ago, mankind used to fight with itself for power and money. Killing, stealing, sabotaging each other out of greed or other reasons. In fact, this led to 2 millenniums of war, 3 world wars, and numerous proxy wars. We got away from that in the mid 3000's, but that didn't stop the arguments and squabbles that happened constantly; they just happened in boardrooms, at conference tables, and etcetera. You would think that after 6000 years, we would have finally learned to get along and work towards a better world for all of humanity.

You would be dead wrong. Because there was I, sitting at the navigational controls of our scout corvette listening to an argument that had been going for nearly 30 minutes. My name is Benjamin Harkin, Navigational Officer of this ship, a glorified name of a pilot and navigator in one. When we need to adjust our heading without an autopilot and observe our current route for complications like space rocks, planets, and any other nonsense you can find out in the cold void of space, I take the helm.

Behind me is our lovely second in command, Alena Petrov arguing with Lukas Quinn, Chief of Engineering. Meanwhile, I did my best to ignore the shouting match and focus on the empty space on the viewscreen, chewing my candy stick with barely contained frustration.

"I told you! Your route took us through a nebula of some bullshit that fucked with our instruments down in the reactor! As a result, the reactor's readings are off, and your route is scuffed!" So yelled the ever irritable engineer Lukas; our engineering chief is honest to a fault with a foul temper and enough tours on corvettes our size to know what he's talking about even if he can't always find the right words.

"And I told you that we just checked, and the route is acceptable! We adjusted for the slight loss in power to the engines on our way through the nebula; it was too big to go around without wasting time!" Alena fired back, her cheeks red and her voice getting a bit hoarse. "Let me plot the course, and you just make sure the engines keep working!" Alena, the XO, is forceful, controlling, and hates being challenged. She runs a tight ship when she's in command on the bridge, making sure everything is fine and micromanaging everyone on deck. Unfortunately, that led to some of the crew getting easily irritated with her hence the currently heated conversation.

"I'm telling you, if you keep doing this shit, the reactor is going to burn out or something and delay us even longer! you can't run the ship this hard just because of the captain's tight flight plan!" Lukas shouted as he slammed his hand onto the monitoring table.

"Hey! careful! that monitors the ship! You break anything on my bridge, and I will break you!" Alena threatened with a pointed finger. The table displayed all the decks on the ship and its parts, such as the reactor and other areas; it showed a lovely hologram of the ship that made it easy to pinpoint problems and send the crew to fix them. Alena is protective of it because it's her position when the captains on the bridge. Monitoring the decks and dispatching personnel to various tasks.

"It's not your bridge Officer Petrov; it's mine." spoke the commanding voice of the captain; he walked in slowly as he looked at his two fighting officers with a stoic frown and a furrowed brow. Captain James Jessop was a hard man to work under; he ran a tight ship with a loud voice and iron hand. He ran it harder than Alena does and wasn't afraid to lay down the law.

"Captain!" Alena said, quickly turning and saluting her superior in a hurry. She was desperate to please her captain, which made her look like a brown noser to most of us. The captain held his hand up to silence his XO and continued speaking.

"Now, what the hell is this fighting about on the bridge?!" The captain asked in a loud voice. "I do not tolerate shouting on the command deck; our navigational officer needs concentration in case we need to make emergency alterations to the course we set!" Hearing him mention me, I looked over at the center of the bridge, a candy stick hanging from my mouth lazily.