Three days later Janny found himself nervously twiddling his thumbs in the corridor outside Captain Corli’s office. Well, days didn’t mean much when your ship’s cycle was out of sync with that of the Hub it was docked on. All Janny knew was that three times in a row he had got exactly as much sleep as he desired, and woken up nice and early to get to work on the day’s tasks.
He’d met the ship and made contact when they were minutes away from the Hub, and had never felt such an overwhelming sense of relief as he was admitted back into the belly of the larger ship. But now, as the triple beep signalled he should enter, Janny reflected on how times had changed.
---
“Ah! There it is!” Janny shouted, fully aware he was talking to himself but far too excited to care. Lestili had just ceased communication with him, but maybe the interface would appreciate his delight.
The Endoleon ship was bigger than any of the crafts he’d been on in the last Hub-rotation. It was easily the length of a sports stadium, though it was difficult to tell because of the soft curves of the outer walls. And so tall! He had really missed having a ceiling so high he couldn’t hit his head on it without massive deliberate effort.
“Greetings!” boomed a voice. It was much deeper than the interface, but he recognised it anyway. He’d spent months with that voice ringing out over the loudspeaker.
“Hello, Captain Corli!” Janny called out, waving even though the captain’s office was at the other end of the ship.
“You have now entered the flight-space of- Wait, how do you know my name?”
Janny giggled. He could easily imagine the captain leaning into the map screen and eyeing the dot of his craft, blinking big round eyes under sharply spiked eyebrows.
“It’s me, Janny. Er - Rolgen Gomm, head of maintenance!” Janny declared. He pulled himself up to full height carefully and felt his head-spikes lightly brush the ceiling. He rubbed the back of his neck. “I suppose we could put this down under holiday time?”
“Gomm? Holiday? I didn’t know you knew the meaning of the word! In fact… that sounds so unlike… tell me something only Gomm would know! That’s certainly not any ship belonging to a Fladian - or an Endoleon - you’re floating along in.”
Janny frowned, wondering absentmindedly where Lestili had got a non-Endoleon ship. Then he cast his mind back to the previous day’s schedule of tasks. “Ah! I know that your waste disposal system needs unclogged.”
“Well… not anymore. But close enough!” the captain shouted. Janny winced at the volume, but smiled wide at the invitation.
“Interface: access TS Daer-Ta by nearest dock,” Janny said.
“What was that, Gomm?” the captain asked.
“Nothing, sir. Whoever built this ship but in rather decent voice control,” Janny said. He sat back, but his weight barely shifted in the tight space. What the captain had said sank in. “Wait, what do you mean ‘not anymore’?”
“Oh, you didn’t think your team would sit around idly, did you?” The captain bellowed a long, loud laugh. “You’ve trained them well.”
Janny frowned as the little blue craft slipped through a hatch that had just opened in the underside of the larger ship. “Who unclogged your toilet, sir?”
“Why, maintenance worker Upumsel, no less,” the captain replied. He spoke as loudly as ever, but there was a tightness in his voice.
“Upumsel unclogged your toilet?” Janny exclaimed.
“Yes,” the captain replied. There was a pause. “I have him booked in again tomorrow to clean my bathroom ceiling.”
Janny put a hand over his face as the craft slid through the second hatch and the first closed behind him, but beneath his fingers he could feel the grin edging across his face.
“Sir, I’ll be back in the maintenance base in a moment, but could you let my team know I’m coming?” Janny asked. “And tell Upumsel I’m proud of him.”
“As you wish,” the captain said, “I’m sure he’ll appreciate that.”
“Oh, he’ll hate that,” Janny said, “But that’s half the fun.”
“If you say so… Gomm, could I ask you a question?” the captain asked, somewhat quieter, but still with his natural richness.
“Of course,” Janny said, as the blue craft finally landed in a small, dimly lit room.
“Where the starshine have you been?”
End of chapter
Continue to next chapter A Janitor's Adventure: 7.2Points:
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140,178 Literary Works • 673,037 Reviews
Good Morning/Afternoon/Evening/Night(whichever one it is in your part of the world),
Dropping off potentially my last review for the day,
First Impression: Well...nothing too dangerous. Looks like an explanation awaits and then possibly a happily ever after. Maybe. Looks like Ennet, Gerscin, Odela, Birt at Lestili are not going to be making any more appearances. But then what do I know. Let's see.
Anyway let's get to it,
Good to see him get back to his life.
Wait the captain personally does the greeting of the space craft coming into its flight space? I thought this would be more of a pilot's job.
So he recognizes the captain's voice but the captain doesn't recognize his voice. I guess that does make sense.
Well that's a very interesting point. Maybe that missile was sent for more than reason. Am I overthinking this?
Totally.*round of applause for Upumsel*
*stops clapping and is busy rolling around the floor laughing hysterically*
Looks like we have an explanation in order soon.
Aaand that is probably it for this day. I will definitely get to the last two parts tomorrow at the latest.
Overall: Aand looks like this plot is coming to a close. So far it has no holes and considering this is pretty much the end I don't think there will be any holes in the future. Overall this was a blast to read today. And your characters are all really likable and well written.
As always remember to take what you think was helpful and forget the rest.
Stay Safe
Harry
Holy wow! That's a whole lot of really good reviews to do in one day :O What you have happened across is my entry for a Summer Novella Challenge some of us did last year. Only requirements were that it was finished within a month, and had to be over 25k. I think this is maybe like 27k? But yeah, definitely a short, self-contained arc.
Well... sort of... You'll see when you get to the end that it technically could keep going and I did try. But you know when you have an idea for a story and you can see the whole thing in your head? I only had that as far as the end of chapter 7, so going forward was just feeling like forcing it.
In any case, thanks for all the reviews and I'm really glad you've enjoyed
Your Welcome!! I'll do the other two chapters soon!!
Ahh...I see then it makes a lot of sense to use just the one arc.
Ahh..well that is true. No point forcing more out of it.
And I've enjoyed all your stories so far. The humor especially is amazingly done.
Hey Bisc!
Okay, so, let me try to sort through my thoughts here. Janny is back with his ship? This seems like an explanation of what happens in the future, and then it seems to jump back. I'm not sure what the purpose of this was, but I could also be misinterpreting what's going on here. If I am, my apologies.
(also, as a side note, wasn't the captain of Janny's ship Captain Firo or am I,,, not understanding something,,,)
His pure delight of finally returning to his ship and his home is DELIGHTFUL I love it.
!! yes another good line about Janny's character and personality!!
I mean, is it absent-minded if he's actively wondering about it?
At this point, you don't need to keep repeating how loud the captain is speaking? It's a little too much when it's being repeated almost every time he speaks.
Actually, continuing off that last point:
Here, it's a good contrast with volume! If you write in the first time the Captain's voice is loud and booming, and then don't mention it again until here, when he gets quieter, then it's implied that he's been speaking loudly this whole time (and really, just incorporating that his voice is naturally like that the first time he speaks, it'll do the trick, but then obviously if he gets quieter here, it's worth mentioning and it just solidifies it)
I don't think I have much else to say! I'm really looking forward to Janny reuniting with his team! I hope he tells them about what happens and there will be some kind of reaction and so on.
I am kind of wondering why the Captain is confused by his absence? Didn't Ennet and Grescin take off with him in the ship at the beginning after he'd been sent to translate? What did everyone think happened to him? That he just, decided to take a vacation with two strangers? I mean, maybe he is just asking in a "what happened!" kind of way, but that wasn't my first impression of the "where have you been".
Anyway! Good work, as always
I hope you have a great day!
Hey there, I'm finally popping back in here to review some parts of Janny's adventure. ^^
I feel like a little montage of what happened could prove interesting, since this is a short chapter containing mostly only dialogue as stated previously. But then again, I tend to like prose over much anything else, so having some conversations in here does suit the story well.Since I've fallen behind in this story, I can at least assume that Janny has actually arrived back home after all of the crazy events. Since there's a reference to previous occurrences, as in
At the beginning of this novella, I didn't think we really had gotten too many sides of Janny, mostly that he was a hardworking janitor and had an interesting background due to what places came from. Here, the reader can really see how the journey has affected him, in that he giggles openly front of his captain, or just giving funny remarks to the workers he used to look after. Also, I think it's sweet that his old crew has certainly stepped up in their prospective role. Very good for them.
I like that we get a good sense of resolution coming here, with his captain still a little in disbelief as to what had happened with all this, and Janny feeling relief at finally being back home.
I love the bit about the captain's voice being too loud. It's both funny, and works really well with his characters.
I love the continued used of the world-specific expletive "starshine". It feels really natural and fits the setting really well, and reminds the reader that this is a bit different from being set in their backyard. Additionally, send you return to the same one in multiple chapters, it makes the reader begin to feel like an insider of the setting, because they recognize it.
The dialogue in this chapter is really well-written, but it's a bit too dialogue-heavy. In fact, after the first third or so, it's pretty much only dialogue, which can begin to become difficult for the reader to picture in his head. And some interior monologue might be useful as Janny hears his team was surprisingly competent without him. There are a lot of ways he could respond to that, and what he's thinking might not match with how he presents himself to the captain, so as the reader, I just want some confirmation that this really is what he's thinking.
Once again, overall it's a great chapter. I'm glad we're getting to see him tempted to return to his old life, and can't wait to see what his decision will be!