Bridge Duty Log | Call For Aide

Posted on Sun Nov 11th, 2012 @ 12:41pm by Captain Olan Dar & Captain Robert Lansine & Captain Landon Neyes & Lieutenant Commander Hayden Williams & Lieutenant JG Saia Roswell

1,298 words; about a 6 minute read

Mission: Romulan Ale.. I mean Aide
Location: USS Vindicator, Bridge

It was a regular duty shift on the bridge mid morning as the Vindicator travelled along through open space. 

Most people on the ship, including the senior bridge officers, were just left with their daily routines while many in the science department were busy scanning, mapping, analyzing and generally enjoying the vast space around them to look at.

Including Saia. While she had privilege of bridge duty, she much preferred her labs. 

Rather than seclude himself in his ready room, Olan had elected to spend the majority of alpha shift on the bridge to do his work. While there he worked with a padd on as many reports as he could stomach.

Landon slowly and silently strummed the edge of the helm console, biding his impatience at having almost nothing to do. They raced along at a ridiculous number of kilometers-per-hour, yet travelling well under cruising speed to give the blue-jackets time to nerd out to the empty space which entirely enveloped the immediate region. He had spent a good deal of the morning trying to find something wrong to fix while he watched the auto-pilot mindlessly at his station, but was unsuccessful. The commands to change course blinked once and while, but he couldn't muster up the energy to tap the single button to automatically alter their course a few degrees. Before he finally would cave, the computer would take back the option and change the ship's course for him. The ship was a little too well built, and a little too well in-repair for the moment. The most he could do was study the theory and design of the slipstream drive, but for much of it he needed to be bouncing around engineering to really get to the material's heart.

In short, he was bored again.

Neyes pulled up from his slight slump in the helm chair and yawned a little, "Gee it would be so cool to study the inside of a slipstream conduit," his tone was highly charged with humored enthusiasm, "I bet we could get some fascinating scans while we test the new drive systems." A toothy grin immediately filled his expression.

"Plus I think it'd be fun." He added innocently.

"Lots of things are fun," Lansine quipped as he strolled passed Landon's station. "Sitting quietly has always been a favorite of mine." He was pulling the Trill's leg. Their journey since the transfer has so far proved long and strenuous. It didn't help Neyes kept finding ways of asking 'are we there yet'. 

Olan smirked from his seat as he listened to the banter. He tapped on his padd to finish off and file that last report he had been working on for the last hour, "Next time we stop I promise you can take out one of those spiffy new shuttles and put it through its paces."

"Be glad you get to pilot the shuttles, some of us just get to play with the shiny new buttons that say 'Don't touch' all over them." Hayden smirked at the banter between the bridge officers. 

Dar turned to look at Williams behind him, "I will admit though I am rather looking forward to seeing what does happen when you get to push those buttons." he smirked, knowing that this new ship would be able to pack a bigger punch than the last one, "Purely out of scientific curiosity, of course."

"Of Course Sir." Hayden chuckled.

Almar found himself sitting at the engineering console at the back of the bridge, he'd done as he had been ordered, put himself on a few of the bridge duty shifts, he found himself keeping one ear on the conversations between the other senior officers while the other tried to focus on the slight changes in the way the ship sounded.

Landon playfully threw his hands up behind his head, expressing his casual disbelief. "Talk, talk, Cap. All I get is promises. You finally get a brick with style in its bays and you keep me locked up here," he feigned at drama, throwing a hand up in a tortured grasp, "CHAINED to this console."

Meanwhile, in the science lab, shiny new buttons were being pushed. "This new display is fantastic! Look, this new color scheme is much more informational. Just remember, neuronic emissions are green rather than yellow now. Well, just keep an eye on the actual data..."

"We know..."

Saia ignored it. She'd been yammering and rambling. Her department was rather annoyed that she was instructing them in common sense. 

"Not to be insubordinate, but your place really is on the bridge."

Saia looked around at the hopeful faces. She scowled, "Fine."

Moments later, Saia stepped onto the bridge still giving off grumpy vibes, but professionally stepped into the science console. 

Olan chuckled lightly, shaking his head at Landon when a familiar beep sounded from the tactical station behind him. He knew what that sound meant, the ship had picked up a subspace signal of some kind. He turned to look at Hayden, "Commander?"

"Checking sir." Hayden called out knowing The Captain wanted answers. "Its a distress call sir. General hail, all bands... Captain, their Romulans. Looks like some type of colony looking for medical aid. No indication... Message ends there."

"Romulans?" Olan repeated, his brow creasing slightly, "Where did the message originate?" he asked. If it was beyond the neutral zone they couldn't do anything.. but then again if they were getting it out here nearly a sector away from the Romulan border... Olan shook his head and waited for the answer rather than speculating too much.

"Hard to pinpoint sir, but from the looks of it id say the signal came from somewhere in this area of space." Hayden replied putting up a section of space up on the main viewer. Looks pretty far off from any habitable space we know of, completely cut off from any space lanes."

Neyes tapped his controls and adjusted the main viewer. "The message is bouncing off the nebular cluster we detected just a while ago. If it's coming from any direction, based on how weak we're getting it, it would be...," the screen panned out to display a narrower section of space at an angle between them and nebula. "Somewhere in this area. Though why anyone would build a colony so far out I can't figure."

The Captain turned back to look at the main screen. Just guessing based on their current location the source of the signal was as much as 18 light years away which would be more than four days at warp 9 if they were to go.

"Looks like they're likely outside the Romulan border." Dar observed then looked to Lansine after thinking about it for a moment, "Thoughts?"

Rob had stopped moving around the bridge and now leaned in behind Commander Williams at the Tactical station. "That's awfully close, almost too close for comfort." He looked from the Captain then to Neyes, very much aware of the helmsman' time onboard the Charon and their extensive experience with Romulans. Rob felt woefully under prepared to even begin a conversation about Romulans; he couldn't remember the last time their aggressive neighbors had even entered his thoughts.

Olan nodded slightly and tapped fingers on the arm of his chair, "But we are required to render aide to anyone we are not currently at war with.. and Romulans or not they have requested aide."

He used his console to run a quick numbers check. At warp 9 it would take them over four days just to get into the area. It made him smile a bit, "Mr Neyes.. let's give this new slipstream drive a try." at that speed they'd be in the area in a half hour where they should be able to find a more specific location.

=/\=

 

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