Watch Handover 

Jeff took a sip of his coffee and leaned back in his seat so he could look at the stars outside the window. The mess-room had been decorated in wood-grain effect panelling in an attempt to make it more “homely”. The attempt had failed utterly.

The door slid open and Jeff greeted the visitor with a cheery “Morning Tom! I’ve got you your usual” as he gestured to a container of orange and a plate with two slices of toast.

Tom grunted in reply, flopped into the seat and took a sip of juice and a bite of toast.

“Did you sleep well?” continued Jeff, glancing at the screen in his hand. His eyes ran down the list of items. Nothing particularly notable to draw his opposite number’s attention to: only one scheduled event and a couple of things to watch out for.

Tom swallowed and replied: “No, not really. I’m not sleeping well at the moment. Don’t know why. It’s not like anything has changed. Anyway, enough of that: anything to report?” He took a screen from a pocket in his overalls and held it in his left hand, while taking a bite of toast.

Jeff looked at his screen. “Everything is working as it should. There in nothing untoward to report at all. The last spell has been downright boring.” He gestured to something on his screen. You can see that in a couple of day’s time we’re due to pass Ceres. The mines there are due to release a cargo Earthbound. We probably won’t need to stop though.

Tom nodded and then indicated something on his screen. “What about this? Do we have a visitor?”

Jeff grinned. “I wouldn’t get your hopes up. The sensors have detected something inbound, and it’s due to cross our path about the time we’re passing Ceres. You’ll want to monitor it, but I expect it’s just a dirty snowball. Boring!”

Tom nodded again. “And those pulses of communications interference we were getting?”

Jeff scrolled down his screen. “You can see here. I ran the diagnostics and left the system monitoring things but it’s all rather inconclusive. It’s difficult to be sure whether there it is a very minor internal fault or something outside. I haven’t been able to establish anything for certain. I was hoping to either cross it off the list, or leave you something positive to do. Sorry.”

Tom shrugged and grunted. “Not your fault.”

Jeff looked at his companion and, touching his screen firmly with his index finger, and changing the tone of his voice, clearly enunciated “You have control.”

Tom replied by pressing his screen and said “I have control. Enjoy your break.” He got up to leave. As he was leaving, he turned and asked “Are you going to the ‘pub night’ next week?”

Jeff looked at him – “Yes, I thought I would this time” he said. “It breaks the monotony, doesn’t it?” Tom nodded in agreement and left, allowing the door to close behind him.

Jeff collected the remains of breakfast, tipped the scraps into the garbage disposal and put the plates into the dishwasher. Then he set off for his cabin, leaving the mess-room unoccupied.

 (28th November 2016 – 536 words)

An experiment with dialogue. I'm not entirely satisfied with it.