The Dish Ran Away with the Spoon | LTCMDR Dahe'el, Lt Waterhouse, Lt Zola

Posted on Sun Jul 13th, 2014 @ 6:28am by Commander Amelia Waterhouse

1,475 words; about a 7 minute read

Mission: In the Dark

When Amelia left her boss behind in the brig, she was left shaking her head. She wasn't really doubting that he had a reason behind his actions as he returned to the ship, but without information to back it, she was sorely limited on what she could do to get him out of there. Sure, she'd make a token effort to see if he could be released, but she didn't have anything to plead his case. Any push back, and she really couldn't do anything about it. Not that it mattered much, he seemed perfectly content to listen to the voices, music, or whatever was floating in his head while waiting for the return of the command staff.

That Amelia felt she had a better chance of being able to do something about. She was experienced in extraction from dangerous situations, had security experience, and she knew one of the missing people. However, without the full details of the situation, she was left unsure how she'd be of use. So she needed to hunt down someone who did.

"Computer, location of Lieutenant Commander Almar Dahe'el?" Amelia directed as she stopped in front of the turbolift doors and waited for them to open.

"Lieutenant Commander Almar Dahe'el is on the bridge."

"Around and around she goes, and where she stops, she'll never know," Amelia murmured to herself as she walked into the turbolift. "Bridge," she directed it, and it whisked her away in silent efficiency.

Reports were still filtering in from the stations around the ship about their alert status, some were taking a little longer to secure than others and it was beginning to frustrate the Cardassian in the command chair, he flattened his hair with a sweep of his hand and scrolled through the received reports.

The turbolift deposited Amelia Waterhouse on the bridge. She glanced around, taking in the fact that everyone seemed to be secured into a seat of some sort. That was concerning, and she quickly evaluated where there was a free place to strap herself in should it come to it. She spotted the Cardassian that was her target, and approached.

"Excuse me sir, this looks like a bad time, but I've been lead on a merry chase today as the result of that-" she slipped into Klingon, and the best the universal translator could make of it was something about Klingons juggling tribbles without the help of knives. "And I would just like to officially report in for duty, and assist in retrieval of the command team. Given that my department head is cooling his jay' heels in the brig, I need to report to you." Amelia saluted and waited to see if she'd get welcomed or told off.

"Name and Rank?" the Cardassian asked, his face still fixed on the viewscreen as he reviewed all of the available information, "And you might want to take a seat, it's about to get very bumpy." he added with a gesture towards the First Officer's seat.

"Lieutenant Amelia Waterhouse," she answered, quickly moving for the indicated seat though careful to not seem gleeful about it. An invitation to sit in that seat was not one Amelia would turn down. She stole a look at the screen that held Almar's attention as she strapped herself securely in place.

"Well, Lieutenant Amelia Waterhouse, ever flown a ship this size into atmosphere?" Almar asked, finally turning his gaze away from the viewscreen and down to the helm console, giving the worried looking officer a nod.

"No sir, but it sounds like something that if my mother hasn't yet tried it, she would jump at the chance to do so," Amelia observed, her gaze following the Cardassian's lead to the helm officer.

The Cardassian chuckled slightly as the ship began to get closer and closer to the upper reaches of the atmosphere, the descent was intentionally slow, the engines on the colossal ship were not designed for this kind of entry.

"If you don't mind me asking, what is the situation and plan? My boss has lead me on a wild targ chase, so I've gathered less information than I usually would in a situation like this," she admitted, looking around at everyone else on the bridge to see how they fared.

"Well, our own little Ferengi is working on a device to detect the sounds of our crews unique heartbeats and all that other medical stuff to do with sound," Almar began as the ship started to rattle slightly as the inertial dampeners strained to stabilise the ship, "The plan is to drop into the atmosphere, deploy thousands of them, using them and our enhanced sensors we'll locate our crew and beam them up."

Zola, Amelia realized, you're a crafty little thing. The red-head grinned, even as she pondered how that factoid would go into her first report about the Ferengi woman. "That sounds like an amazing plan, sir. Assuming the ship doesn't shake apart on us first." The teasing slipped out without thinking about it, and when Amelia realized her cheeky nature had just been expose and she hadn't yet gotten to know this engineer, the chief engineer who also outranked her yet, she had to hope that her tone of voice conveyed that she was joking and that he had a sense of humor. She bit her lip.

"I have faith in my ship," the Cardassian replied, his tone turning as cold as the blood that ran through his veins, his eyes shooting to her quickly, "I have complete confidence in my construction techniques."

Amelia smiled apologetically. "No offense meant," she quickly insisted. "Only a small joke... my parents tease each other like that all the time, sets a bad example when I'm unleashed around engineers that aren't my father." She laughed nervously.

"I'm sure," Almar offered as the ship suddenly jolted violently and left one of the bridge officers with a nasty bump to the head after he had failed to secure himself properly, "Auxiliary power to inertial dampeners and structural integrity," he called out as he flipped open the console in the arm of the chair and thumbed in a few commands, "Helm, increase descent speed by 12.5%, decrease forward momentum by 4%."

Amelia watched silently, noting the ship wasn't shaking as bad as she would have expected given her size. She wanted to just disappear into the First Officer's seat though, after firmly inserting her foot into her mouth. She expected the color was creeping up on her face by now, but lucky everyone was probably busy enough that they wouldn't notice.

"Zola to Dahe'el," the Cardassian's combadge chirped at him.

The hand went instantly to the badge and double tapped it, "Dahe'el here, please tell me you have some good news Lieutenant." he stated simply as he ship shook again and clouds began to envelop the ship.

"Yes sir, the first batch of little big sound probes are ready for deployment when you're ready for them, sir," Zola answered.

"I estimate... roughly five minutes," Almar replied, he allowed himself a slight smile at the progress of the Ferengi Engineer, "Keep up the good work Lieutenant, have a second batch ready for deployment as soon as possible."

"Thank you, sir," Zola replied. "The next batch is being replicated as we speak."

"Excellent, keep an eye on the external sensors, when we pass through the cloud level deploy the first batch," the Cardassian replied with a slight nod to himself, "Dahe'el out."

Down in the cybernetics lab, Zola looked over at the replicator that was spitting out her delicate little flying microphones. Using the console the lab tech had set her up with, she patched into the sensor array, and watched the external display showing clouds breaking up as the ship split through them. The transporter system was primed to transport the first batch of the probes to their deployment location just in front of the deflector array. The boost they should received from the deflector should allow them to reach deployment speed quicker and form their search grid more efficiently.

As the view opened up, revealing a frozen little planet below the cloud cover, Zola's fingers danced across her console. The whine of the transporter stole away the first batch of probes in a shimmer and Zola smiled softly as the sensors showed them arriving and bouncing off the deflector shield as predicted. At first they were a shiny writhing mass of silver, but as the probes spread into their programmed deployment, they quickly disappeared from view. As she prepared the next batch for deployment, she sent off a quick report to Dahe'el on the bridge with the status of the deployment.

=/\= TO BE CONTINUED... =/\=

Lieutenant Commander Almar Dahe'el
Chief Engineering Officer
USS Vindicator

Lieutenant Amelia Waterhouse
Infiltration Specialist
USS Vindicator

Lieutenant Zola
Engineering Officer
USS Vindicator

 

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