Down at the Dockyard

Who: Mark McJohn, Elian Sandoval
When: Alternate 2104
Where: Galveston, Texas
Mark McJohn buttoned up his dress shirt
and started fiddling with the tie he had grabbed from the closet. He
spent a half-minute fumbling with it before he felt two hands
reaching over his shoulders.
"Honestly Mark," his wife Renee said, "I don't understand how a chief
engineering supervisor can't tie his own tie." She took hold of the
tie and quickly tied it in a perfect Windsor knot.
"Because," he said, spinning around and embracing her, "I spent my
career in a stained jumpsuit fixing leaks and getting covered in
grease. I'm not used to anything more formal than combing the alloy
shavings out of my hair before I come home."
He kissed her and pulled her tightly to him. "I'm so happy," he said.
Renee giggled in a way that Mark had always found to be one of the
many things which made her utterly adorable. Another was her
remarkable resemblence to 1940s actress Ann Southern. She had
beautiful shoulder-length blonde hair and a smile that put the women
in the toothpaste advertisments to shame.
They had met in middle school in Nebraska, but had lost touch. Mark
had counted it as wonderfully good fortune that they met again by
chance on the campus of CalTech during his freshman year while he was
considering dropping out and joining the Space Corps. She had
encouraged him to stay and as a result he'd quickly completed a
double major in astro-engineering and electrical systems design in
just under two years, instead of the usual six. In the end, he'd
joined the Space Corps anyway, but as a senior engineer instead of as
the technician he would have been had he dropped out. He had Renee
to thank for that, and he thanked her by proposing to her the day of
his induction into the Space Corps. She'd accepted immediately. Now
it was three years later, and Mark was about to leave for his second
week of work as the youngest Chief Engineering Supervisor at the
Space Corps' Melvill Aerospace Dockyard in Galveston, Texas.
It was a wonderful job compared to his last one, Chief Engineer of
the battlecruiser SCV Warspite, mostly because he was able to spend
more time with Renee. Not that he hadn't enjoyed being a chief
engineer, since it was an important and responsible job, and Warspite
had been one of the most desired postings in the entire Space Corps.
To be given a command like that upon entry was an almost unheard of
occurance. It was so uncommon, that Mark had never really felt
comfortable there, since he felt that he'd unfairly passed over many
senior officers. He'd told Captain Hendricks of these feelings, and
he had advised Mark to put in for an early job transfer after two
years. McJohn had done this, and had ended up assigned to the
Galevston dockyard the previous year. He'd started as a construction
supervisor, but when his boss had taken early retirement he'd been
promoted. The only problem was the suit and tie that he had to wear
since chief engineering supervisor was more of a desk job than his
previous one.
*********
An hour later he was at the yard talking to one of the chief
technicians, Elian Sandoval, about a problem with the work on the new
planetary exploration ship the yard was building.
"Ms. de Felice, she said our blueprints are muy mal." Sandoval said.
"We'll see about that," Mark replied. Victoria de Felice was the new
ship's chief geologist and executive officer. She was here to
oversee the counstruction work and make sure everything was
alright. "Where is she now?"
"In your office, senor McJohn."
"Thanks, I'll get this sorted out," Mark replied. "Meanwhile, your
team can take a long lunch. If those blueprints are actually wrong,
you'll get that longer holliday I've been trying to get you guys
while design sorts this out."
Sandoval smiled as he watched Mark rush off towards his office.
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