Fire lily

Chapter 1

The day is sunny and hot, with only a few wispy clouds in the sky. "It's the same as yesterday," Talia thought. Talia is a diver on the S.S spirit but her primary job on the spirit of the sea is as a manned or unmanned exploration sub pilot. She is proud to be one of the five sub pilots on board. The S.S spirit as the ship is often called is an exploratory ship crewed by people from around the globe. Luckily for the crew everyone aboard can speak at least a bit of English. The S.S spirit is currently searching the less explored areas of the ocean for new discoveries. At the time they are making their way to the Mariana trench, the deepest point in the ocean where they will explore as much of it as possible. The ship itself has a crew of forty-two to care for and manage the ship and work on completing the expedition. There are twenty-five operations personnel and seventeen mission personnel(including the personnel on land). There are eight main officers aboard the commanding officer, executive officer, medical officer, operations officer, environmental compliance officer, safety officer, junior officer, and third mate. There are also five engineers in the operations personnel: the chief engineer, first assistant engineer, second assistant engineer, engine utilityman, and junior unlicensed engineer. The only engineer in the mission personnel group is the underwater systems engineer. There is also the deck crew which is the people who captain and care for the ship, the chief boatswain, four able-bodied seamen, and the general vessel assistant. The senior survey technician handles the specifics of the scientific survey. There are two cooks, the chief steward, head cook, and second cook. There are two chief electronics technicians. The mission has a program manager, expedition manager, and operations coordinator. There are also four physical scientists whose job is to map the seafloor more precisely. There are three people aboard to manage the data: the data management leader, data manager, and data systems engineer. There are three people to handle the website, the website manager, web multimedia/technical lead, and web developer/graphic designer. There are two public affairs officers, one education program manager, and five sub pilots. The crew overall provides a very well-rounded skill set for the expedition.They may not know it yet, but they are about to make the discovery of a lifetime. The day might have been warm and sunny at first, but not for long. By ten in the morning, the storm had already started to rage like a ferocious beast and the ocean had begun to toss their ship around like a toy. Luckily, the ship is strong enough to withstand the monster storms. They had almost all gone below decks. But they wouldn't be safe above decks so, as soon as they finished their assigned tasks to prep the ship for the storm, they went below decks but, not everyone can be below decks during the storm. The helm is above decks and is an enclosed raised area that has covered stairs leading inside. It is nicely heated on days such as this, where the icy wind and freezing rain would numb your hands and drench you with both ocean water and rain. Their commanding officer Gareth Arcturian would guarantee that they completed the expedition and always does his best to make it as safe as possible. He is a capable officer and is still above decks checking that everything is secure and everyone is safe. Now while they waited in their bunks to avoid being thrown about by the waves. Talia was secure in her bunk, her tasks already completed. With nothing else to do she decided to finish the plan for their survey finalizing the details while her bunkmate Arianna Vortan chatted with their other roommates. The bunks were set up so there is one bunk above the other on one wall and one over the other on the opposite wall. Her other bunkmates are Janet Diflon and Beatrice Yuata. Arianna's job aboard the ship is as the chief cook, Janet's is as the medical officer, and Beatrice's is as the senior survey technician. When Talia finally started paying attention to their conversation they were talking about how the storm had practically come out of nowhere (it hadn't really, they just hadn't been paying attention to it and so didn't notice)."Have you been paying any attention to the conversation Talia" Beatrice inquired?"No why" Talia replied"Because we've been talking about you of course" Arianna stated."Precisely what about me have you been talking about," Talia asked."The fact that you get to pilot the new and most advanced sub" Janet replied factually."And the fact that it's awesome!" Arianna added excitedly."I guess you could say that," Talia replied nonchalantly."Oh, come on you know that it's pretty cool," Beatrice stated excitedly."Yeah I guess so," Talia said softly and calmly."This is so boring how much longer is this storm going to rage" Beatrice inquired in a bored voice."Who knows" Janet answered.Then the COMM unit in their room turned on. Then the captain told the whole ship that they were nearing the eye of the storm and they could leave their bunks but that they should keep a hand on something attached to the ship and stay below decks. Then Arianna's COMM turned on and the captain asked her to make warm food and drink for the ship and told her she could get some of the other crew members to help. So, Arianna got all three of her bunkmates to help and commed her assistant to do the same and bring them to the kitchen. Her assistant's actual title is the second cook. They all headed to the galley to meet up with Arianna's assistant Alexander Cortano and his bunkmates. Alexander wasn't there yet when they got there. They began to lay out the ingredients as Arianna ordered they had just started when Alexander got there. First, he introduced his bunkmates the chief engineer Joshua Lartono, the operations coordinator Cody Elltor, and the underwater systems engineer Hilton Simelo. Once they had finished the introductions they began to prepare a meal for the entire shipThey finished the meal just in time just moments before almost the entire crew came down to the galley to eat. "Whew, that was a lot of work, how do you two do it all, by yourselves," Beatrice asked.You may at this point be thinking it doesn't take much to cook for so few but on a ship lurching about in a fierce storm needing your hands both to cook and hold on to the ship so as not to constantly fall on your butt plus the fact that the galley(kitchen on a ship) is not the best place to find handholds and so they kept on falling down also they were trying on to drop the food."Well usually it's in shifts and while one group eats we prep the food for the next it's not usually some many people eating in here at once" Alexander replied with an odd look on his face."Hey, earth to Alexander, calm down the food's delicious like always. Now let's clean up and then eat some" Arianna told them all joyfully."Yes ma'am!" they all replied with laughter showing in their voices and the mirth in their eyes.Then they all got to work cleaning up the now messy kitchen and laughing and joking the whole time. Eventually, they just ended up in tears from laughing so hard and this just made them laugh harder. Then when all was done and they had all eaten they went about the ship putting things back to rights checking on the delicate machines and essentially going over every inch of the ship to see if anything was broken. Eventually, they finished their inspection by this time the storm was far behind them, and most chose to hang out above decks in the sunshine. Since so many decided to head above decks for the rest of the afternoon they brought up towels (since the deck was still wet), drinks and snacks, and somebody put on music. All in all, it was a very relaxing afternoon. The clear bright blue sky above with just a few wispy clouds and the fact that it was warm outside but not too hot. They talked and laughed and sang along to the music for the whole afternoon. This whole thing showed them all that though they hadn't known each other for long they were already a close-knit family."This is nice," Beatrice sighed contentedly."Agreed," Talia answered calmly."I think we can all agree that it's pretty great on this ship," Janet pointed out sleepily."Yeah," Arianna replied lazily."I hope that we all manage to stay in contact after the expedition and hopefully get onto some more expeditions together," Beatrice told them."Yeah, me too I'll miss you guys when this is over, you're all like sisters to me and best friends," Talia murmured happily."I'm just glad that they chose to let me be part of the group too," Talia thought inwardly, glowing with hope and happiness.