Post by Black_Sails » Mon, 18. Nov 13, 09:00

Part Three- Hiring Employees

A few hours later, Ren had arrived outside the station that Yisha had directed him to.



"There! Dock right up ahead. You should be able to find a suitable Captain for the freighter here!".



Ren swooped the Skunk in to land on the landing pad. He exited the ship, glad for another break from the creature he was stuck next to. Stretching his legs, he walked briskly down the ramp and into the carnivorous hanger. A bright neon sign displaying the word "BAR" hovered over a short bridge connecting the docking platform to the station. I could use a good drink anyways.. he mused to himself as he entered through the blastdoors into the station.



As he entered, he was rudely bumped into by a cleaning robot. "Hey!" he shouted, as the device pushed into him. Ren fought against the device, kicking at it and shouting, but there was noone to be seen in the hallway. "Ahhhhh" he groaned, as the robot shoved him up against the wall, trapping him there. Ren swore, pushing with all his might against the robot, as the device's cleaning arms rubbed up and down against him in its cleaning routine. "Get the...off me!". Finally, Ren managed to break free from the machine, edging out from behind it, and moving at a trot to the next set of blast doors. Off to a great start already.. he thought to himself, as the next set of doors whisked open.



In the distance, Ren could hear the faint thumping of what sounded like some type of club music. He approached a set of stairs in front of them, noticing a picture of a rather attractive woman's backside on a sign as he moved up the stairs. Maybe there is hope for this galaxy after all, and the old woman syndrome was just a problem at the last station. If only my co-pilot- his musing cut short as he exited from the staircase, a hideous old woman standing next to the staircase crouched down and stood up again. "Let me show you my WARES" she said, in the same distinctly younger sounding voice then her appearance led on to.



Ren shuddered, walking away from the woman, and headed towards the club entrance. Standing outside the club, he noticed a woman who didn't look to be in her early hundred's, standing next to some simulation of flowing blue lines. Perhaps I should ask for directions for this Captain-I don't even know what I am looking for . He approached the woman and before he could open his mouth, he was rudely cut off.



"What could you possibly want" the woman snarled at him.



"I was just..looking to ask directions-I'm trying to find a Captain for hire", Ren replied, slightly offput at the woman's rudeness.



The woman's face remained in a rather blank expression, and she crouched down in front of Ren and stood up, replying "Sorry, no time to chat!". She turned around again, staring into the blue screen.



Ren mouthed the words "Sorry no time to chat" in an annoyed manner and walked off, heading towards the bar's entrance. Sorry no time to chat, let me go back to staring off into oblivion at this mind numbing wall decor . Perhaps here he could find some directions to this Captain.



He covered his ears slightly as he walked in, the thumping music distinctively echoing...off time from the three pairs of speakers. What screwed up universe have I landed in? They can't even play the damn club music correctly . His expression turned to outright horror as a lady behind him shouted in a high pitched voice "Ew! Slimy green lizard things are everywhere!"



Ren whirled around-spotting no such slimy green lizard things. He did, however see, a table at the club filled with old women again. I am in some type of nightmare. I will wake up. I will wake up. he continued chanting this in his mind as he looked about the bar, trying to find this damned captain. Trying his luck again with the directions, he approached the bartender.



"Hey..I'm looking to hire a Captain?" he tried carefully, peering at the bartender.



"Go boil your head!" the man shouted at him, practically spitting on his face in the process.



Ren swore, pushing himself off the bar. This place is starting to infuriate me! . He scanned the room, looking for anyone in any type of clothing resembling a captain. Red jumpsuit..no..weird blue coat with shroud thing and ancient grandma contained inside of it..likely not a captain (I hope), ah! Military looking uniform. . Ren made a beeline for a taller man, dressed in what looked to be some type of military uniform.



"I'm looking..for a Captain.." Ren said slowly, his patience already tested for the day.



The man looked blankly at Ren-no, through Ren. He made no response at all to Ren's comment.



"Are you a Captain. What do you-" Ren's interrogation was rudely interrupted at Yisha appeared on his visor screen. "Hey there! Thought I'd give you a tip! Its custom here to ask a pilot or Captain for his skills before you go blindly hiring them!" she chirped, "Say 'show me your skills, PLEASE!' and they will hand you over a dossier of their abilities! Have fun!"



The screen on his visor blanked out. Ren looked down at the ground, wishing he could find some rope to hang himself with. He looked back up at the Captain. Sarcastically, he uttered, "Show me your skills, PLEASE". The captain suddenly came to life.



"Sure, here you go buddy!". The man reached into his pocket and pulled out a small datapad, handing it over to Ren. Ren was still in slight shock at the events that had just transpired, but he took the datapad, and looked at the screen. It displayed:

?

?

?

?

?



"What the hell is this?" Ren said, looking back at the man.

"Those are my skills, sir." The Captain continued to stare lifelessly at Ren.



Ren sighed. "Fine. I'll hire you."



"Thank you for hiring me sir! You will NOT be disappointed!" the man barked, showing more emotion then any individual Ren had seen all day, with the exception of the lizard shouting girl.



The man then walked off, apparently knowing where Ren had parked his ship.



Some time later, after finding his way through the mess of the station interiors, filled with horrible decor and dying plants, Ren arrived back at the ship.



"Great! You're back! Lets drop our new captain off at the freighter!" she said excitedly, typing in what appeared to be random keys on the keyboard. "We'll assign him to his station, after we hire an engineer first!"



Ren stared blankly at Yisha. "You have got to be kidding me-why didn't you tell me we needed an engineer before I went searching for the captain!" Ren squeezed his fists, tightly balling them, ready to hurl Yisha out of the airlock. "Do you know how long it took me to find a captain! Now I have to go back in and randomly look for an engineer!"



Infuriated, Ren walked out of the ship, trudging down the ramp and back into the station.



A few hours later, he returned, frustrated-he had found no engineer. He couldn't count on both hands the number of times he had been told to 'Go boil his head' while trying to find this engineer either. "Yisha, there isn't a single engineer on this station."



"No worries! This is a big galaxy. Let's try the next station!"



Ren sighed, lifting the ship off the launchpad. He was not to be rewarded with his efforts, however. He spent the next day landing at station and landing pad, after landing pad. He had to endure creepy squatting, ancient women with not a shred of kindness in giving him directions, hostile cleaning robots, and migraine enducing club music. Even further to his dismay, the ship computer only registered four out of a possible ten or so job applicants at each station. But finally, after landing on at least ten different stations, he had found his engineer.



"Great, now that we have our engineer, and we have our Captain, we can return to the freighter!"



"Promise-no more recruits? I don't want to have to crawl through the stations again looking for people to hire."



"Don't worry," Yisha replied, smiling "You only have to go on the stations when you need to hire people, or if you want to buy some better equipment for your ship."



Ren stopped the ship, flipping the little switch on the chair arm so that his and Yisha's seats spun around to face each other's. "Wait. You are telling me that I can't order those things remotely? I have to hunt down these people..which I am assuming is similiar to the process of hiring that damned captain-everytime I need to buy more drones or missiles or ship equipment? What type of backwards galaxy do you live in!"



Yisha only continued to stare at Ren with her lifeless expression. After an awkward pause, Ren continued. "Let me guess-you can't even hire someone, to do the hiring of people, can you."



"Nope, that's part of the best thing of running a business around these parts! There's so much more personal interactions when the boss does the hiring-recruits won't join a company unless they get to personally be recruited by the CEO!" She smiled at him, with what Ren regarded as an ignorant, childish look.



Ren groaned, not even sure how to reply to that last statement. At the company he controlled, he couldn't have imagined personally hiring every single employee for his corporation-which consisted of over thousands of employees. Yisha person probably hasn't even worked for a company herself-what does she know about hiring people . He straightened in his chair, still uncomfortable to the metal neck brace latched around him, and flipped the switch, causing the chairs to turn around again. He increased the throttle, heading towards the system where the freighter was parked.