New Environment

Posted on 07 Sep 2014 @ 9:23pm by Chief Warrant Officer 3 Lamar Darius & Lieutenant Commander Dea Mialin

2,770 words; about a 14 minute read

Mission: Episode 06 - Legend of Souls
Location: USS Galileo - Bridge/Main Shuttlebay
Timeline: MD9 0900 hours

[ON]

The shuttle ride from starbase to the Galileo had taken about four days, which was a long haul for the young cadet. Cadet... it was still so hard to believe and a sophomore too. Apparently they decided that since he'd served on a starship for two years already, they'd let him skip the first year. Especially since he'd put himself towards other studies on the Sarek as well.

Tired, and finally glad to be at his destination, Wintrow had himself transported over to the Galileo. "Permission to-" he started, promptly tripping over several Tribbles that lay at his feet. Flailing his arms, he caught his balance, letting his duffle drop to the floor. "-come aboard?" he finished.

The duty transporter operator nodded his permission and the teenager stepped off the pad, now mindful of the so many tribbles. His eyes widened at the quantity of them. He handed over his assignment and promptly got directed to the bridge, while also told to leave his duffle, it'd be taken to his assigned quarters, along with the small cage he'd taken with him. Three small rodents were running around in it, their furred tails stuck up in the air. (gerbils)

"Thank you." Now free of his burden, Wintrow made his way to the bridge, all the while very mindful of the balls of fur on the floor, and on the walls and...everywhere. "What has happened here," he murmured as the turbolift deposited him onto his destination.

"Cadet Sophomore WIntrow Paragon, reporting for duty," he called out, not quite sure who exactly he was to report to. He felt so small, and he just radiated anxiety, at being somewhere unknown. Here, there was no-one to shelter or protect him. No friends, no family, nothing. Thrown into the deep end. His voice shook as he spoke and out of habit, he found an interest in the carpet at his feet.

Dea had had a very rough night. Between the Tribbles and the whole away team experience it had been a restless one at the very least. Even though her injuries had been treated Dea had been warned to take it easy. Glancing up as she heard an unfamiliar voice reporting for duty. Slowly and carefully getting up to greet him Dea crossed the short distance to where he was standing. Extending her hand to the new arrival, "Welcome aboard Cadet."

For a moment, the teenager hesitated, then slowly reached out to take her hand while seeming to steel himself for something. "Thank you ma'am," he replied, his voice still having an odd tremor in it.

"I'm Lieutenant Commander Dea Mialin, Chief Flight Control Officer and Second Officer. Its good to have another support craft pilot joining us even if its only temporary."

Gradually, Wintrow looked up at her, while dropping his hand back to his side. "Of course ma'am, while I'm nervous to be here, I'm looking forward to learning something new. On my uhm..last.. assignment, I mainly flew Razors ma'am. And sometimes a shuttle. Where'd you like me to start ma'am?"

Dea's leg was already protesting moving back towards the chair she'd just gotten up from. "My apologies I'm not 100% quite yet, had a rough away mission."

"Understood," the boy answered softly, already starting to move forward as he sensed her discomfort and offered her his arm to guide her back to her seat.

Pausing to lightly toss a Tribble on to the ground. "As you can see we have a bit of a problem at the moment. Report to MWO Lamar Darius our Chief Support Craft pilot. I need an update on this Tribble situation as it pertains to our shuttle bay and associated area."

"Yes ma'am I'll report to him straight away ma'am," the boy replied smartly, "will you be alright here ma'am? Do you need anything?"

Dea nodded, "I'll be fine Cadet, thank you. Medical told me to take it easy so thats exactly what I'm going to do by sitting here while I'm on the bridge so that I don't trip over anymore of these blasted furbie type things. Ok so they are Tribbles but they've become beyond annoying." She smiled as she spoke. "One piece of advice, all that stuff they teach you at the Academy that seems rather far fetched don't discount it as useless."

"I've never actually attended the academy ma'am," Wintrow offered, his voice dropping to a whisper, "I learned all I know aboard the Sarek, with officers tutoring me."

Dea nodded, "Well it also applies to any mentors you have along the way in your career. I won't keep you any longer. There is a Tribble mess to deal with and I now Master Warrant Officer Darius could use the help."

Giving her a final nod, and once again taking care not to trip over a Tribble or two, Wintrow headed back to the turbolift. "Shuttlebay," he told the turbolift, and sighed as the doors closed. Taking another step, he nearly jumped when he heard a loud squeal. He shook his head and picked up a cream coloured Tribble, petting it absently as he felt the lift start to move.

Seconds later, he stepped off at the shuttlebay and once again steeled himself for an introduction to a complete stranger. Gosh, how he wished Shron was here with him. He'd talk some courage into him, for sure! Seeing the chief pilot busy with one of the craft, the youth just cleared his throat to get his attention, not wanthing to startle him.

Only an hour into his shift so far for the day and Lamar was officially fed up. Starting at 0800, he had reported to Galileo's primary shuttlebay for the standard daily inspection and maintenance routines, but the massive piles of tribbles littering the tarmac and covering the shuttlecraft had made any efforts to accomplish such tasks all but useless. Instead, he had spent the past hour collecting whatever balls of fluff he could find and stuffing them into an assortment of duffel bags. It was a futile attempt, really, especially considering he's only managed to pick up a few hundred out of the thousands of tribbles which had infested the shuttlebay. His normally-crisp and clean red-collared uniform was now speckled with tribble dander and hair, and he wiped his forehead with the back of his hand before letting out an exasperated sigh. It was going to be a long day. Quite possibly the longest day of his career, at this rate.

The sound of someone nearby caught his attention and he looked over his shoulder to see a youthful-looking Starfleet man standing near the entrance to the shuttlebay. "Morning," Lamar said simply enough. "Here to help with tribble disposal?" The unfamiliar blond-haired man looked awfully young and the warrant officer wondered if he was a new yeoman who had been sent down to assist him.

Wintrow shook his head, the Tribble in his arms still purring softly. "No sir," he answered, his voice barely carrying towards the man, "I'm sent to report to you sir. I'm Cadet Sophomore Wintrow Paragon sir, I'm here on temporary assignment to ah...expend my knowledge on flying sir." He eyed the shuttle. "Do you require assistance?"

"Assistance? ...I need a f--king vacation..." Lamar mumbled under his breath. Did he say that out loud?

Wiping the fur off his hands and onto his pant leg, he shook his head to clear his thoughts then approached the cadet. "Lamar Darius, support craft pilot," he said to introduce himself while extending his large, dark hand for the man to shake. "You can call me 'chief'. It's good to have an extra hand in the shuttlebay...as you can see, we're not really operating at peak efficiency. Or at all, for that matter," he began to explain while motioning behind him towards the piles of tribbles which littered the expansive bay.

"You ah...seem to have a bit of a uhm...plague here, chief," Wintrow ventured carefully. "But I'm not sure what you need me to do. I'm a qualified Razor pilot, and a shuttle pilot...learned all I know so far on the ship I served on before transferring here." He sounded nervous, looked as if he'd rather be elsewhere. He flinched when the large hand came to him, then realised nothing was going to happen. Hesitantly, he raised his own hand, which was slender and pale in comparison.

"Plague's not the best word," Lamar corrected the cadet. "If I didn't know any better, I'd think we were halfway through the apocalypse. Of tribbles." Tribbocalypse, he said to himself.

"Well," the chief continued, "good to have you on board. If you want to get started, grab a duffel bag from the storage locker over there and start filling them up." He nodded with his head towards the far side of the bay where the extra supplies were located. "Right now I'm trying to get Virginia cleared out and run some daily maintenance, but we have to take care of the critters first," he explained while referencing the sole Type-9 in the hangar.

"Fill them with Tribbles chief?" Wintrow queried curiously. "What are you going to do with them? Surely, they'll choke, or something if we stuff them together?" He loved pets, and he viewed Tribbles as pets even though until now he'd never seen one up close. The idea that these might somehow be killed, made him feel anxious about following this request.

Lamar hadn't really considered the possibility of asphyxiating tribbles before. In his limited experience with them, they seemed to do just fine clumped together in large groups, and so he lightly shrugged at the notion. "I think they'll be alright. They're pretty resilient little creatures," he replied. "Once we have all our bags full, we can load them up onto a hover lift and take them to Ops. Those guys should know what to do with them."

Wintrow hesitated, though he had retrieved several of the requested bags. "I'm not comfortable with this order chief," he offered, cringing visibly as he waited for retaliation that was sure to come.

"It is what it is, kid," Lamar replied without much of a second thought. If he had a nickel for every time he'd been uncomfortable with an order given to him, he could have retired on Risa many years ago. "No other option, really. The quicker we can get them all rounded up, the sooner we can start taking care of the shuttle maintenance," he added before moving over to a nearby cluster of tribbles and methodically shoveling them into his bag using both hands.

"How about I hold open the bag and you put them in?" Wintrow asked, still not meeting the man's eyes. "I'm not a kid chief, I'm nineteen standard years old. My...my niece, she's a kid chief. She's nine...my uhm...I guess foster brother's daughter. Not quite foster really, he's my uhm...guardian but he prefers to think of himself as my big brother."

Looking back over his shoulder with an inquisitive expression, Lamar couldn't help the feeling of impatience that was now slowly growing inside of him. "...How about we both collect the tribbles and do what we need to so we can get on with our work?" he answered while ignoring the cadet's instance that nineteen years old somehow qualified him to be a grown man. He then paused and quietly sighed before continuing.

"Look, kid... I know you're new and this all probably seems a bit weird especially for your first day, but everyone on this ship's been dealing with these tribbles for the last week and they ain't making our lives any easier. So we need to buck up and deal with them or else the shit'll be hitting the fan worse than it already is," he tried to explain. It was no doubt one of the worst times to have come aboard Galileo, the chief admitted to himself, but unfortunately he didn't have the time to hold the young man's hand throughout his first couple days on board.

"I meant to suggest that teamwork would be more efficient chief," the youth countered uncertainly. "You toss, I catch. When the bag is full I get another, which is more efficient than both of us doing the same on our own at a slower pace." He shrugged. "Seems more efficient to me to work together."

"Let's just do it my way," Lamar replied while feeling the twinges of a headache beginning to form at the subtle arguing that was beginning to occur. Two people filling individual bags with tribbles was no doubt more efficient than two people filling the same bag, and the warrant officer wasn't exactly in the mood to have to explain that to the nineteen year-old. Turning his attention back towards the task at hand, he began to top of his almost-full bag with more balls of fluff.

Sighing and shaking his head, Wintrow started to move off to the other side of the room to start there with what seemed like a never-ending task. He filled one bag, tied it off and started on a second, all without saying another word or even looking at his new supervisor. Was this what was ahead of him for the next months? Clearing tribbles? "They're not going to kill them, are they?" he asked after a very long silence, his voice almost inaudible.

Lamar had been focused squarely on his task and barely heard what the cadet said. "Huh?" he asked. "Kill what? The tribbles?"

"Yes chief. They're not going to be killed are they?" The teenager looked terrified at the very idea, the Tribble in his hand purring soothingly before it was dropped into the bag. "Please, they're not going to be exterminated are they? They're harmless...they don't know any better."

"I wouldn't worry about that. I think there's got to be some sort of Starfleet regulation prohibiting it." In truth, Lamar wasn't really sure what was going to happen to the creatures. He was only responsible for his section of the ship in the two shuttlebays, and he had no idea what procedures -- if any -- Ops had in place to deal with the current infestation. Somehow though, he just couldn't imagine mass euthanasians taking place on board the ship.

"Oh I hope so," the youth breathed, "plague or no plague they're...adorable." He watched the creamy ball of fur in his hand, felt it vibrate as it purred. "And they seem to like us...I do wonder if they even know what we're thinking. Is a Tribble intelligent at all chief?"

A lot of questions were being asked of the warrant officer, half of which he wasn't entirely sure of. With a momentary pause to contemplate the inquery he'd just been asked, Lamar still couldn't exactly put together the most scientific response. His Starfleet Marine Corps military training was inherent throughout his decision-making which was currently the best thing he could rely on without further information. "Don't know, kid. And don't care, really. That's a job for science to figure out. Our job is to clear the shuttlebay and take care of our craft," he answered.

"Understood chief," Wintrow demurred, still not agreeing with all of this. "Chief? Please don't call me 'kid', I have a name sir."

Lamar paused for a brief moment while wondering why the cadet was so sensitive about his name. "Sure thing, rookie," he eventually replied with a shrug. The kid would figure it out, eventually. It was the rite of passage that all new Starfleeters had to go through.

Wintrow just shook his head and sighed. "Chief...if anything...back on Sarek they gave me a nickname...a call sign, actually....." He hesitated a moment. "They called me Farseer."

Farseer? The things these youngins came up with these days... Lamar had no idea what that meant and he sure wasn't about to call a nineteen year-old cadet by some special name when they weren't even part of a fighter wing. "Sorry rook, no call signs here. Although if I had to pick one out, Mister Tribble might be a good one for you," he said while chuckling lightly to himself. And with that, he continued on with his tedious daily tribble task.

OFF:

MWO Lamar Darius
Chief Support Craft Pilot
USS Galileo
[PNPC Saalm]

Cadet Sophomore Wintrow Paragon
Support Craft Pilot
USS Galileo
[PNPC T'Vanna]

LTCMDR Dea Mialin
Chief Flight Control Officer/Second Officer
USS Galileo

RSS Feed