The Epic Misadventures of Sidenti Taalo - New Horizons
02 Nov 2015Calteru Taalo
The station manager let his datapad fall to the desk with a soft clutter before slumping into his chair. He pinched the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger, exasperation on his face. Job fairs were never a pleasant affair on these frontier expansion gigs, but today had proven particularly problematic. Six ex-cons barred from civilized space, another three with active warrants, and - the icing on the cake - a malevolent AI posing just long enough as an applicant to get in the hangar and nearly take out Pad 35.The burly, balding man leaned back in his chair, stroking his bushy flame-colored beard thoughtfully as he pondered how long it would take to retire. Too long to avoid the next interview, it seemed. With a sigh of resignation, he picked up the datapad and scrolled through the list to the next applicant.
A video link popped up alongside the applicant's credentials and background check as the he located the file. A smiling, freckled woman with short, spiked hair the color of the station manager's greeted him. "Are you ready for the next applicant now?" she asked cheerily.
The station manager offered a pained smile. "I'm never ready for these things, Andi," he said with a mirthless chuckle. "But yes, send him in."
The woman beamed him a lighthearted smile in return. "Right away, Mr. Anders!"
A few seconds passed, then the door to the office opened with a soft schiss. Just on the other side was a thinnish, tallish, smooth-skinned male - kinda young-looking, save for the complete baldness.
The man stepped inside the station manager's office, looking around as he did with an eyebrow upturned. "Man, they sure don't go nuts on decorating these frontier stations, do they?" the newcomer remarked as he took in the sparsity. "They didn't even get you a window? Sucks."
The station manager remained professionally stoic. "And a pleasure to meet you as well, Mr... I'm sorry, how do you pronounce your last name?"
The thinner man grinned. "TAY-loh", he replied. "Sidenti Taalo, but you can call me Sid." He offered his hand. "I assume you must be Morris?"
Morris smiled thinly, briefly shaking hands. "Morris Anders, station manager here at New Horizons," he said, gesturing toward the empty chair in front of his desk. "Have a seat, please - life's busy out here, so I need to try and get this out of the way as soon as possible."
The applicant smiled, nodded, and quickly took his seat, making sure to sit up straight. Anders smirked slightly, then returned his attention to Taalo's resume while taking his own chair. Silence competed for dominance with an antique analog clock on the sole bookcase in the room, its rhythmic "tick-tick-tick" a steady distraction.
"You've got quite an extensive work history here, Mr. Taalo," the manager said finally, his eyes not leaving the datapad. "Says here you're... wow, only 28?"
Taalo grinned. "Yeah, I know, it's the lack of hair," he said with a small laugh. "It's a genetic thing."
Anders looked up at the applicant, a pensive expression on his face. "No, I mean you've had 17 jobs in about 13 years of work history - less than a year on average at each job," he replied. The applicant's grin quickly faded. "It looks like here in the last year alone, you actually had and lost THREE jobs." The manager set the datapad down on his desk, rested his elbows on either side of the screen, and folded his hands under his chin. "Tell me about those."
A bit of color drained from Taalo's face, his posture slumping just a touch defensively. "Now, I can explain -"
Anders held up a hand to pause the response, his chin still resting on the other. "I know you can," the manager replied. "Everyone can explain every bad thing that's ever happened to 'em. I don't need a novel here. Just tell me why you took the job, and how you left the job. Okay?"
The applicant nodded silently.
Morris smiled. "Good," he said, glancing down at the datapad without picking it up. He scrolled lazily through the file on his screen until he got to the last three jobs. "Okay, tell me about your time with Winters' Wolves. That's a political gig if I'm not mistaken, isn't it?"
Taalo nodded. "Yes sir," he replied, doing his best to make eye contact with the manager and largely succeeding. "For 'love of country', I guess. My home system of Giguen was swept up in Federal patriotic fever, and it was kind of a dream of a lot of us to bring the system under their official influence."
Anders pursed his lips in thought, nodding slightly. "Okay, I can understand that," he replied. "But why Winters and not Hudson? One's as good as the other, right?"
The applicant froze for a second before sighing and answering plainly. "Look, to be honest, I'm just not that interested in revisiting the past," he said, looking down and away. "And that's all Hudson wants to do. To 'fix' the Awakening, he wants to bring back the concept of war and we just don't need that as a species." He looked back up to see the station manager smiling and nodding softly.
"I'm just happy you answered me frankly and honestly," Anders said. "I don't need people trying to tell me what they THINK I want to hear out here. I need people who will speak their minds on the spot. Doing so out here often means preventing a disaster." He smirked. "Or that we're just being assholes."
The applicant smiled uneasily. "Well, I guess I can be kind of an asshole at times too," he offered.
Anders raised his eyebrows. "Bit of an understatement, isn't it?" he replied, the thin professional smile returning to his lips as the smile left Taalo's. "Says here you quit by 'antagonizing an entire squadron of outlaws into chasing you into Winters' home system, taunting both them AND your co-workers' to the point that they chased you out of the system and patrolled looking for you for a week? Is that an accurate summary?"
The look on the applicant's face fell quite a bit. "W-well, it was really more like six and a half days or so... but yeah, I guess."
The station manager nodded. "Right," he said, returning his attention to the datapad on his desk. "And here, it looks like you were actually part of the Close Quarters Championship league for a few matches? That's an interesting turnaround from delivering Federal aid packages."
Taalo's face fell the rest of the way, now fully realizing how badly this interview was going. "Yes, sir, I was," he answered almost robotically, staring at a point just in front of Anders' desk. "Left the league after my team took a bounty out on me."
"Several, apparently," Anders corrected, scrolling down a bit further on the file. "And then there's you're most recent gig with Avikarli Corporation - now, by all accounts that seemed to have ended favorably. What happened there?"
The applicant smiled mirthlessly, his gaze not leaving the desk. "The OFFICIAL reason is mutual termination of contract, but the reality is that the dockmaster at Normand Hub tried to set me up with a delivery of a half-ton of Onionhead mixed in with some food supplies - never even told me. Damn well near got me killed when some jackass outlaws attacked." Taalo chuckled. "So I took the Onionhead and a corporate exploration vessel and bombed around the Oochorrs quadrant for a few months while the dockmaster covered for me, since telling corporate where I was would have blown his cover."
Morris remained expressionless as he looked over the applicant. "Wait a minute - you mean to tell me you got bombed in the Oochorrs quadrant, flew around for a substantial period, and DIDN'T get lost."
Taalo finally looked up and met the station manager's gaze. "Yes, sir, I did," he replied with conviction. "And I still have all the data to prove it."
"Reeeeeeeeeeally?" Morris said, looking slightly impressed. The applicant perked up a bit at the station manager's response. "Do you happen to have that data with you?"
Taalo's face brightened a bit more. "Yes sir, they're in my ship's navcom. I'd be happy to show you the logs as well as the ship herself - it's a Python."
Morris blinked. "You know what?" he replied to the hopeful applicant. "If I like the look of those logs and you agree to use your ships and ONLY your ships in the course of working for us... you just might have another job."
The applicant's face brightened to class A intensity. "I think you'll like what you see!" Taalo replied happily.
The station manager smirked in return. "I've seen six ex-murderers, two current murderers and one hopeful murderer today," he quipped. "Frankly, you're still the sanest applicant I've had."
Taalo blinked. "I'm... not really sure how to respond to that?"
Morris laughed. "If you're gonna live out here, son," he snickered, "you're gonna have to come up with one at some point." He stood, motioning toward the door as moved toward it. "What pad are you parked on?"
"Thirty-five, sir," Taalo said as he rose.
The station manager rolled his eyes. "Of course it'd be thirty-five." The door schissed open as he approached. "All right then," he said, beckoning for the applicant to follow. "Let's go see if you're the kind of crazy I can use."
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