A Bird's-Eye View (Part 1 of 3)

Posted on 21 Feb 2012 @ 4:55am by Rear Admiral Lirha Saalm & Lieutenant JG Robin Hilyer MD & Captain Jonathan Holliday & Command Master Chief Markum Quinn

1,647 words; about a 8 minute read

Mission: Episode 00 - Pre-Deployment
Location: San Francisco Fleet Yards, Support Craft Landing Pad
Timeline: MD 05 - 0900 hrs

[ON]

The breeze was cool and swift, a rather brisk February morning for the San Francisco bay area. The sun was halfway up from the East but partially shielded by the dark clouds in the sky. Rain, she thought as she mentally predicted the day's forecast. Having spent fours years in the city, Lirha knew all too well the signs of a cold and wet day ahead. She took a deep breath and leaned back against the side of her shuttlecraft, closing her eyes for a moment and smelling the sea-scented air. She waited patiently for her senior staff to arrive, as the message she had sent out the previous day had instructed them to meet her on the support craft landing pad.

Having roused himself from a deep slumber at the beckoning of the ship's computer, John had dutifully reminded himself of today's objective, to meet the CO and get this bird in the air. He had already taken to staying aboard the ship rather than in quarters nearer to HQ, he preferred the solitude he could get this way, unfortunately, Command was much more of a 24 hour operation, afterall, just because it was night on Earth, didn't mean it was the same on Vulcan, or Andoria, or Tellar.....

It wasn't a particularly long walk from his quarters on Deck 2 to the transporter room, and after a short conversation with the operator, he quickly found himself near the landing pad as ordered. It took a moment for him to adjust to the much colder environment outside of the conditioned climate of the ship, and he shuddered as a cold wind blew down the collar of his uniform.

"Should have worn a jacket..." He thought to himself, the beauty of hindsight having 20/20 vision. A few hundred yards away, he could see the now-familiar olive green silhouette of Lirha, and he headed towards her.

"Good morning ma'am, did you sleep well?" He enquired

The young Orion looked at her XO with sleepy eyes and gave him a small smile. "Morning, Commander." she said softly then shook her head from side to side. "Not as well as I would have liked. I haven't been sleeping great the last new nights and this launch is stressing me out." she admitted to him with a sigh, and ran her fingers through her dark hair while pushing some of it behind her ear.

"How about you?" she asked.

He smirked for a moment as his commander let down her guard for a moment, in terms of the command chain at least, and let slip that she might not have been as awake as she would like

"As much as I hate to say it, pretty well ma'am, the one thing I know works well on the ship are the beds, no complaints from me. Can I recommend a coffee or two once we get on board? The replicator in your ready room makes a pretty good Raktajino"

Again a wry smile made its way onto his face as he let slip exactly where he had been spending a good proportion of his working hours recently.

"I assume the rest of our senior staff are on the way?"

Lirha glanced down at the PADD clipped to her belt and checked the time. It was 0855 and they technically had five minutes before they were officially late. "They should be here momentarily." she said, then narrowed her eyes suspiciously at him. "You've been snooping around in my ready room already, Commander?" she asked in jest.

Catching a hint of joviality in her voice, the Commander decided that he was going to take up the opportunity to play along, if the stress of a new ship launch was affecting his CO to the degree where she wasn't sleeping, then it was his job as XO to try and help things go as smoothly as possible

"Yes ma'am, I wouldn't be much of an XO if I didn't know our ship as well as the men and women who built her after all, plus if you'd seen my office up until yesterday afternoon, you'd understand, my desk was a stack of plasma injectors left over from when the original shipment came aboard, apparently Engineering had run out of places to stow them! The upside to being the boss I assume, your ready room was well, ready!"

"Yes, I suppose there are a few perks to being the captain." she replied smugly. Lirha turned her eyes down one of the outdoor walkways leading to the landing pad and noticed a familiar-looking man walking their way. "I believe this is our Chief Medical Officer, if I'm not mistaken." she said quietly to the lieutenant commander.

Robin walked casually across a path flanked by native flowers and the brightest green grass he ever saw. The looming clouds in the distant and the wind didn't bother him. Rain in the south east of the American continent wasn't uncommon. A group of people stood near the aft entrance of a bulky shuttle craft and he could see Lieutenant Commander Saalm talking with a man in a red uniform.

Once he made it to her, he realized that he was later than expected. "I apologize Ma'am my mother felt it was necessary to pack for me. After all these years you'd think I could do it for myself."

"Good mothers always look out for their sons, Lieutenant," she said with a small smile, "I'm glad you could make it, we've got a lot of work to do this morning and I think you'll be happy to finally get a look at your new medical facilities."

Markum greeted the morning with a deep breath and sigh. He had already been up four hours, been to the ship to run a level three diagnostics on the Main Engineering MSD, then back to take a mile run, then followed up with chow. Now he was walking to the support craft landing pad. It was getting colder, though he never did mind the cold, and he thought he felt some drizzles of rain. He approached the group standing about with a smile and a swig of hot coffee from his travel mug that read: Engineers do it at WARP SPEED

"Sorry for the delay. I spent half the night and most of the morning looking for some lost plasma injectors. Those bozos in the shipyard supply were suppose to deliver them to my office and leave them on my desk. You'd think it was a pretty simple request."

"Good morning, Chief, glad you could join us." Lirha said in greeting. She glanced over at her Chief Medical Officer and realized he had not been properly introduced to the two other senior officers standing near him. "Doctor Hilyer, this is Mister Quinn and Mister Holliday," she said, then turned to the two other men, "Gentlemen, this is Doctor Hilyer, our new Chief Medical Officer." she said, then stepped back to let them get acquainted.

Extending a hand towards the recently arrived officer, John looked up to catch the man in the eyes, first impressions in his opinion, were crucial

"Doctor, good to meet you at last, John Holliday, XO, how was your trip?"

"Well it was just hop, skip and jump from Georgia," Robin said with his distinctive Southern drawl. "Not as eventful as some may think. Slight turbulence over the Grand Canyon but I had a good pilot."

Markum offered a hand to the Chief Medical Officer, "Nice to see you again Doctor Hilyer, this time under calmer conditions. Ready to take a look at our girl?""

"I am ready when you are Chief," Robin smiled as he entered the shuttlecraft. He swiped his hands along the smooth surface of the console before his took his seat in cockpit.

"Excellent. Now that we're all familiar with each other, let's get to work." Lirha said, then pulled her PADD from her belt and queued several bits of information. "We'll start with a quick inspection of the outer hull. I've secured us the use of two shuttlepods for the next hour." she motioned with her hand to the row of workbees and support craft on the far side of the landing pad. "We'll split up into two groups. Mister Quinn, you're with me in Pod Seven, we'll inspect the ventral hull. Doctor Hilyer and Mister Holliday, you are in Pod Eight and will inspect the dorsal hull. After that, we'll board the ship and fire up some of her systems. Any questions?"

"No ma'am, sounds like a plan to me" John chirped up, ready to begin the inspection, getting a look at the ship from the outside now was probably going to be one of the last chances they would get to ensure that everything looked about right from the exterior, doing it whilst underway would have been a major operation and would have surely slowed down their mission.

"Aye-aye." remarked the Chief Engineer. Markum walked over to Pod-7 and opened entryway. He stepped in and activated the flight control and navigational systems, while waiting for the CO to join him. "I once got trapped in one of these for sixteen hours. Once a rescue ship was within transporter range I had them beam me directly to the head. Man, if you ever wanna interrogate someone, you'd get answers."

Lirha smirked at the Chief's previous plight. "I'll have to pass that along to my friends at Intel." she replied light-heartedly, then addressed her group of senior officers. "Let's get underway." she said, and walked towards her shuttlepod.

To Be Continued...

[OFF]

--

CMDR Lirha Saalm
Commanding Officer
USS Galileo

LCDR Jonathan Holliday
Executive Officer
USS Galileo

LTJG Robin Hilyer, MD
Chief Medical Officer
USS Galileo

CWO Markum Quinn
Chief Engineering Officer
USS Galileo

RSS Feed