Octavia's Defiance

Octavia flinched, sitting bolt upright as she caught herself on the cusp of falling asleep for the third time within the hour. The command bridge was as quiet as ever, save for the usual hum of electronic equipment and the dull roar of the ship's engines. It was only the second day of the Defiance's month-long patrol assignment and Octavia was already bored out of her mind, and the rest of her crew wasn't faring much better. All of them had been hoping for some action, especially after their last assignment that consisted of nothing but monitoring traffic over a trading planet. So far, there had been nothing of the sort; jump after jump, scan after scan, there was never even the slightest bit of excitement. One of the very first lessons Octavia learned from the Imperial Navy is that space is a very, very boring place.

Seated all around her, in a semi-circular pattern, were Octavia's officers. A team of six, they worked well together, and they followed her orders faithfully; they were the very model of what a bridge crew should be like. This made it all the more frustrating to her that they were stationed on such a pointless patrol route, leaving all of this talent utterly wasted. She sighed heavily, leaning back in her cushioned command chair as her eyes skimmed over the bridge.

"Exciting work, isn't it? I'm just shakin' in my boots."

The voice came from the left, belonging to a tall, scrawny-looking mare at the comms station. With a deep blue coat and an equally dark green mane, Waterlily looked quite a bit like her namesake. Her accent was a dead giveaway to her outer rim roots, even if it had somewhat strangely melted into a combination with the stereotypical Imperial accent.

"That's one word for it. Just don't get too excited, we need you to stay focused." Octavia muttered, letting out a dry, humorless chuckle. She gave Waterlily a tired smile, who answered back with a playful wink, before turning to look at her sensors officer on her right. "Anything new on your end, Rainy?"

"No, ma'am. Just the same bunch of nothing as before." She replied, shaking her head without looking up from her console screen.

"Just keep an eye out. You never know when we might get lucky and end up having something to do."

After several seconds, it seemed that silence would be making a return for another long while. That was, until another voice piped up. This time coming from in front, Octavia glanced over and met the gaze of her pilot.

"It's about time for our next jump, captain. Do I have a green light?"

Sunny, as everyone had taken to calling him, was one of the best pilots Octavia had ever seen. He'd grown up working on and racing speeders, then graduated to flying starships when his parents shipped him off to the Imperial Naval Academy. He was the youngest officer on the bridge, a short earth pony with a golden yellow coat and a fiery red mane.

He had turned to look at Octavia over his shoulder, arching an eyebrow at her. Octavia merely nodded. This would make the fifth jump today, another in a long series of relatively short jumps through hyperspace along the predesignated route of their patrol. As Sunny pushed the button to confirm the jump, there was a faint, distant whirr as Defiance's hyperdrive warmed up. Octavia braced herself against her chair, knowing exactly what was about to happen. After a few seconds, the glowing specks outside the viewport abruptly stretched into star lines before disappearing into a swirling blue vortex as the Defiance entered hyperspace.

The inertia compensators lagged for just a fraction of a second, leading to the floor rumbling beneath everypony's hooves before settling. The bridge was bathed in blue light coming in from the transparisteel viewports across its front and sides, and Octavia eventually found herself forced to look away before the swirling gave her a headache.

Instead, she turned her attention toward the two weapons officers seated at the very front of her array of experts. A larger console occupied a spot at the front of the bridge, wide enough to house two workstations side by side. On the left was a pegasus stallion, and on the right sat a unicorn mare. Both of them looked bored out of their minds, the pegasus even having kicked his hind hooves up in order to recline in his chair.

Octavia loudly cleared her throat, prompting her lounging officer to first glance in her direction. When he realized he was staring right down the proverbial barrel of Octavia's stern glare, he quickly swung his legs to the side and dropped them back down onto the floor.

"Much better," Octavia said, before slowly relaxing once more. "How about you and Star run some diagnostics on your equipment? Quiet as things are out here, it pays to be ready just in case."

The mare quickly spun around to meet her captain's gaze as well, sitting up a little straighter in her seat and swiftly raising her hoof to her forehead for a salute. Her male colleague was slow to follow suit, having to adjust his crooked cap first before making a similar gesture with his right wing. As the two of them turned back to their stations, Star Chaser teasingly elbowed him in the side.

"Maybe this time you'll actually get done before we drop out of hyperspace. Wouldn't that be something, Sky?" She snickered, much to Sky Specter's annoyance, though he knew better than to shoot back with any snark of his own. Instead, he just rolled his eyes and got to work, making use of his hooves and his wingtips to tap away at the dozens of buttons on his console.

Then, save for the subtle tick-a-tack of ponies at work and the muted rumble of Defiance's engines, the bridge fell silent. Boredom was the only threat to the crew so far, and Octavia knew it would only be a matter of time before ponies began to feel restless. As the ship zipped through space faster than the speed of light, she rested her chin on her left forehoof and settled into a decidedly contemplative look.