JL | Com Ivanova, Cmdr Dahe'el - "Wee Small Hours"

Posted on Sat Sep 3rd, 2016 @ 1:30am by Admiral Rochelle Ivanova & Commander Almar Dahe'el

1,987 words; about a 10 minute read

Mission: Resurgere

Midnight had come to pass, chasing away the night and leaving the wee hours to come out to play. They were quiet, filled with starlight and gentle beeping from one console or another. With the ship still snugly tucked away in space dock, the need for crew to fill her bridge was left at nil. An occasional security officer checked in on their rounds, and even that was considered scarce. The Vindicator was more than secure, even with the majority of her compliment already aboard, in her location. Admiral Red had ordered that the behemoth of a vessel be kept carefully watched and guarded until the event of her departure, and even then... She'd never be far from watchful eyes. Earlier that evening the final specs for James Archer's ship had come through, and Rochelle had spent the time to pour over the information while Landon worked to prepare dinner. The refit Defiant could dock between the Vindicator's nacelle's, optimizing the mission pod technology long ago afforded by several different ship classes and metamorphosed for greater purpose on the Vindicator class vessel. It made sense. The Discovery's fatal flaw was that it needed escorts in order to best defend herself, but offered no support to those escorts that often were classes not designed with long range missions in mind. Neither was the Defiant, but being able to piggy back on the parent ship, as it were, afforded it a greater range. It made the Vindicator nearly impervious to attack, and left Rochelle feeling secure for the first time in a long time. Almar had kept his promise.

Regardless, the little redhead now sat in the center command seat, watching the hulking Cardassian as he worried the brand new deck plates with his constant back and forth pacing. Her legs were crossed Indian style, hidden by sweat pants that were both too wide and too long even for her coltish legs. They were, decidedly, Landon's - but they offered comfort. Her elbows rested on her knees, forcing her tank-top clad torso to hunch over as her eyes followed Almar's every move, studying him for all of his fretting, with a small smile tugging at her lips. "Are you going to tell me why you called me up here or is the plan just to hypnotize me or something?" She asked, tucking a wild lock of hair back up into the messy bun she'd quickly twisted the rest of its kind up into.

There had been a lot of time for Almar to spend on checking the specifications and the initial power readouts while they were still attached to the umbilicals of the shipyards. The presence of the Commodore, while requested was something he loathed. She should have been resting and relaxing in her quarters with her new child, "I didn't exactly call you up here, Rochelle." the Cardassian replied as he paused in his pacing and locked her eyes onto her for a moment, "I simply said that I had a few things I wished to discuss with you, you chose to interpret that as an invitation to the bridge,"

"We all know that if you put up the bat signal, you get the bat." the spirited redhead snorted softly and leaned back, folding her arms as she did. "Rest will come, sleep with it, but if you want to discuss things then they need to be discussed here and now before the ship leaves dry dock."

"All of the necessary supplies have been bought on board, even those requested by our temporary house guest," the Cardassian replied as he slid a padd out of his jacket and handed it to her as he approached the central command chairs, "Inspection of the superstructure has been completed and signed off as spaceworthy, the additional docking in the aft engineering hull has also been matched to the specifications we received, we're short a few of our standard compliment of auxiliary craft since the shipyard facilities here are not equipped to handle the amount of work we've thrown at them." he added as he placed a hand on the arm of the First Officer's chair and turned it so he could place himself into it's uncomfortable embrace, "Beyond that, I only have to finish registering the crew rotations."

"I've read most of the reports, Landon has been keeping me entertained with them." Rochelle sighed softly in response and gently shook her head, "I'm not handling leave well, definitely feeling like there's so much to do in such a small space of time and here I am unable to pull my fair share of the weight." Her lips pursed together for a moment as she shifted to watch him take his seat, "I can do the crew rotations, if you'd like."

"First Officer's responsibility, which makes it mine." Almar replied with a slight smile and a chuckle as he tilted his head and looked over at her, "You never have been able to handle leave well, you should be spending time with your family and letting the rest of us handle the duty assignments," he was absentmindedly flicking through a series of padds that appeared out of his uniform as if by magic and were whisked away by an aide as soon as he was finished with them, "It won't take me long to get all of the rotations finished."

The sharp sound of a rather undignified, and tired, snort resounded from the little firebrand. It was a mix of amusement and irritation, and it rose thick and hung heavy as the head shaking began anew, this time with her face covered by her hands as her fingers reached to press against her temples. "You're killing me, smalls." She groaned and let her hands fall away into her lap, "I love my family, but you know how it is, Almar. I worry and I micromanage. It's my process."

"And we're here to make sure that we can keep sane while you're doing all of that." the Cardassian replied as the chuckle turned into a full blown laugh, it subsided and he reached over with a large calloused hand and laid it on top of hers, "You, like this ship, are the phoenix that rises from the ashes, but even the strongest cannot do things alone."

"I'll concede that point." Rochelle nodded, understanding that she couldn't be a one woman army, no matter how much it would have suited her fancy. Andrea had tried, almost in vain, to teach her that and Landon... Landon had taught her an entirely different degree of temperance. The man in front of her now had proven to be as bull headed as she, and even he had managed to gently course correct the burning wildfire of a woman. "But the one I made remains. I'm not a fan of down time. Ever."

"We all know this very well, Rochelle." Almar replied as he finished the last PADD. No more were appearing from the numerous pockets and he shoved his hands inside the voids instead. Beside him, an aide rushed off with the pile towards the direction of the turbolift and eventually the Quartermasters office. "That does it for the paperwork for now, the rest will be waiting for me in my office when I'm done with this shift."

"It never ends, does it? Never thought I'd say this, but I envy it at the moment." She idly responded, following the retreating aide's form with her eyes until the lift swallowed them up and left nothing more than a bulkhead, empty, in their wake. Her nose twitched. "Have they given us a preliminary push back time?" Brushing hair from her face, she finally managed to steal herself away from the odd sense of wistfulness that had encompassed her, "Lord knows it'll be all drama aboard the station, Blyx isn't about to let the fact that a brand new class was built and launched at Theta go unnoticed."

"We have our full shakedown and launch procedure ready, approved by Fleet Admiral Red and with your father's blessing," Almar replied with a chuckle that shook his shoulders as he pushed himself to his feet again and resumed his previous pacing, "I'm eager to get underway but there has to be a ceremony, the Chancellor wishes to witness it before he leaves to re-enter Klingon space."

"Of course. Like I said, there'd be nothing less. Allowing this ship to head out unnoticed will never happen." Rochelle sighed softly, rolling her eyes at the thought of her father and aunt conspiring and collaborating. "A ceremony is just a great big giant middle finger being hoisted towards Tr'Bak, and that's pretty much what they want."

"Part of me is proud of how much we have accomplished in such a short space of time, to design and build a ship from the ground up at this pace is something every Engineer dreams of but can never achieve." Almar replied as he turned to look at the viewscreen which was currently showing the forward angle of the ship, "But another part of me wishes that we had more time to go over things, to perhaps draw in a few more phaser banks or an additional torpedo launcher, I have a feeling we'll need them."

Rochelle could only nod in agreement. She understood where her trusted first was coming from, just what thoughts were speeding through his mind at that very moment. Her eyes followed his to the viewscreen, studying the contrast of patterns on display. "I think that's where Archer's Defiant comes in," she mused, "he took what happened pretty hard. I think he blames himself for not being on Apsha."

"Having a defiant class escort is something that I had not considered possible, beyond the larger capital class carriers, we've never had a ship capable of docking it before." the Cardassian responded with a light chuckle, "But, we a few backup systems and redundancies, we've managed to create an umbilical system that should keep her docked tight enough to engage warp and slipstream, but it is untested."

"I think it was you who said I could have anything I wanted when it came to the ship. I think that order has been fulfilled." The redhead grinned and leaned back into the warm confined for her chair, "We have all the time in the world to test it, but I still maintain that the warp bubble will contain and protect her while she's docked."

"In theory, yes." Almar replied as he retook his seat and allowed himself to relax slightly as the talk turned to more comfortable ground for the former Engineer, "I'm more worried about Slipstream."

Flitting her eyes from the viewscreen to the Cardassian, Rochelle's grin turned into more of a wry smile. "I have faith in your abilities. You wouldn't have made it happen if you weren't confident, let alone put it into action or allow us to launch for testing."

"We shall see, there really isn't any way to truly test this kind of thing in a simulation." Almar replied quickly.

"Nope." She agreed with a gentle nod and moved to get to her feet, "Don't worry about it too much. I'm sure everything will be fine."

Almar scoffed as he looked at her, "It's my job to worry, Rochelle, so you don't have to."

"That's what you think." Rochelle chuckled softly, "but I'll leave you to it either way. Try and get some sleep. Tomorrow's a big day."

"I'm the one who's on duty, you should be the one resting," the Cardassian replied with a chuckle as he settled himself back into the chair.

"Semantics." She huffed as she stretched, feeling her back pop slightly as she did so, and languidly made her way off the bridge and back towards bed.

---

Commodore Rochelle Ivanova
Commanding Officer
USS VINDICATOR, NX 78213-F

&

Commander Almar Dahe'el
Executive Officer
USS Vindicator NX 78213-F

 

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