Let's start an everyone can post story and see where it goes.

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Seeing Captain Jacobs coming through the oculus, the XO called out, “Captain on deck!”

“At ease.” The captain replied, “Comms, please open a channel to the Philadelphia.”

“Aye Captain, channel open.”

“Philadelphia Docking Control, this is GDIS Bright Star,” Jacobs started, “Requesting permission to release docking clamps and move to heading one, one, two mark eight.”

The voice of Jim Beaman sounded in response to the captain, “Bright Star this is Philadelphia Dockmaster, permission granted. Release docking clamps and move off on stated heading. Maintain port speed until you have cleared station control. Good luck and Godspeed.”

Walking over to the command chair the captain replied, “Copy Philadelphia; maintain port speed. Thank you. Oh and Jim; be sure to thank Samantha for the cookies she gave me last night. I’ll see you when we get back. Bright Star Out.” He strapped himself in, and ran his fingers confidently over the command console. “All hands this is the Captain. Report to stations; condition Voyage. Brace for release of docking clamps.”

“All stations report Ready; condition Voyage, Sir.” The XO reported.

“Very good Mark. Take her out.”

“Yessir.” The XO Mark Flinn replied, “XO has the con. Helm, release clamps and move away from the station. Thrusters only please.”

“Aye sir, thrusters only,” The helmsman replied in a dull voice. The ‘thrusters only’ is the running joke that our helmsman Joseph Wallis is at the butt of. While still in the academy Joseph had a bad habit of pulling away from stations and other ships using full power from the sublight engines. Despite that he is the best damn pilot the universe has ever seen.

“Helm, bring us to heading one, one, two, mark eight, thrusters only.”

“Aye, heading one, one, two, mark eight, thrusters only.” Joseph replied somewhat dryly to the smirks of the rest of the bridge crew.

About 15 minutes after undocking with the Philadelphia Space Defence Platform the expected call came from the sensors station. “Sir, sensors are showing that we have cleared Philadelphia station control.”

“Very good. Initiate inertial dampening, and engage the sublight engines. All ahead full.”

“Inertial dampening initiated, showing green across the board.” Joseph stated. “Is this confirmed? Sensors?”

“Sensors confirmed.”

“Engineering?”

“Engineering confirmed.”

Joseph continued with the procedure, “Helm, sensors, and engineering confirm inertial dampening is active. Command permission to engage sublight engines?”

The captain responded, “Acknowledged inertial dampening active. Permission granted to engage sublight engines.”

Joseph replied, “Engaging sublight engines. All ahead full.” And we rocketed out into space, at 0.752 the speed of light.

You will have to excuse the lengthy and really unnecessary process of starting the engines. In the early years of high speed space flight there were cases where the ships left the solar system and afterwards there was no contact from them. When other ships caught up to them it was determined that they engaged their engines when the inertial dampeners weren’t working. It was quite the mess that had to be cleaned up off the back walls of those ships. Because of those cases it became standard procedure to triple check that the dampeners were on and working before the engines could even be turned on. Now the computer takes care of it all, and wouldn’t even let the engines start unless the dampeners were on. But despite this the procedure remains the same.