Putting through Paces

Posted on 07 Apr 2016 @ 7:05pm by Chief Warrant Officer 3 Lamar Darius & Ensign Miraj Derani

3,138 words; about a 16 minute read

Mission: Episode 10 - Symposium
Location: USS Galileo - Deck 4, Main Shuttlebay
Timeline: MD 91 - 1505 hrs

[ON]

Meeting her predecessor done and dusted, and survived without too much damage, she moved on to the next on her list of staff ; a former marine of all things. Who knew what marines flew like?
Only one way to find out. She sent out the request to meet her in the shuttle bay when he was free for an hour or so.

Already present in the ship's support craft hub, Lamar checked his PADD to verify the incoming message. It seemed a new flight control officer had been assigned to replace the old one, Jynn, and the chief warrant officer let out a mental sigh. The comings and going of new crew members was to be expected aboard any Starfleet vessel, he supposed, but it didn't help that he seemed to have a new department head every six months or so.

He didn't know much about this new lady except for her name and rank. As an ensign, he assumed she would be straight out of the Academy...which meant she was probably young and ambitious; almost the opposite of himself who had been serving for a long time in multiple branches of the fleet.

Ever so patiently, he tried to act busy while he waited for her, and he grabbed a rag from the nearby locker to begin cleaning his tools.

She arrived about fifteen minutes later, in uniform, but hanging open and she was focused on trying to get it to zip up more than on where she was going, but she managed to weave around the various obstacles without really notcing them until she got to him, uniform jacket finally zipped, pink bunches bobbing.

She looked at him for a moment. Old enough to be her father almost, and had a look that screamed he'd beaten around the bush more than once. Would he even take her seriously? Only one way to know. "Hi, I'm Miraj, are you Mr Darius?"

He did a bit of a double take upon seeing her. It was most likely the bright candy pink hair that shocked him the most before he had a chance to look over the rest of her youthful and alien features. She seemed to be of average height with a slim build, but wasn't exactly what he'd mentally pictured for his new department chief.

"Yes, ma'am," he acknowledged with an appropriate nod before reaching out to extend his large hand in getting. "Lamar Darius, chief support craft pilot."

Ma'am. He was older than her brother and he was calling her ma'am. That felt so weird. She shook his hand anyway, "Pleased to meet you. I hope you're not busy. I'm trying to get to know my department, and was hoping you'd take me for a trip."

His dark eyes shifted back and forth for a brief moment. "Uh, you mean an inspection?" Great, he muttered in his head. It was his own fault, of course, for not realizing that a new department head would probably drop in on him sooner rather than later.

"I wouldn't go that far." Miraj tried to reassure him. "Nothing so formal. I just want to see how everyone flies, learn a little more about them. I thought since we're docked, and have free time, we could do something more fun than a formal assessment."

He glanced back towards the large runabout stationed on the middle of the landing pad. "Well, that's Marina right there, and our Type-9, Virginia, is in the holding bay under the deck." He then pointed up to the ceiling. "In our auxiliary bay on Deck 3 there's our workbee, Celeste, and our transport, Pisa." He wasn't quite sure which craft she wanted to take for a ride but he liked her laid-back approach.

Jynn had chosen the Pisa. She thought it was much like him. Compact but surprisingly powerful, and slightly soiled. She was curious to know what Darius would choose. "Surprise me."

Hmm... a surprise? He tried his best to think of something interesting for her, then suddenly remembered the large, glowing gas giant they were currently in orbit of. "Ever taken a Waverider into the atmosphere? Vincenzo is in the forward docking bay and I can take you for a tour of Jupiter if you want?" he suggested.

She smiled. "That would be lovely. Lead the way?"

"We can use the turbolift. It's quicker," he said, motioning for her to follow him towards the main bay's exit doors and into the corridor. A quick ride in the turbolift cab to the ship's primary hull took less than a minute, and they soon found themselves in a different section of Deck 4.

She followed him through the corridors to the dedicated bay for the atmospheric shuttle. Vincenzo was much newer than her own waverider, all clean plating and sleek lines not broken up with extra thrusters and flaps.

She opened it up, and dropped herself down in the co-pilots seat, wriggling around in it to get comfortable and then turned to Darius. "Show me what you got."

Climbing down the ladder into the main cabin of the craft, Lamar then followed the young ensign into the cockpit and took a seat at the helm. "Clearance is at your discretion, ma'am." She was the senior officer after all, and so he thought it best for her to get on the comm and inform both Jupiter Station and Galileo's bridge crew of their pending departure. Meanwhile, he pulled out a PADD from a nearby compartment and began the preflight checklist. His dark fingers danced across the console in front of him and brought the colorful displays to life by initiating the power-up sequence. He then brought all secondary and auxiliary systems online and felt the shuttle's reactor come to life with a soft hum.

"Okay" she told him, only half listening. She slipped out of her boots and put her bare feet onto the deck floor. The Queen Anne's Revenge hissed and buzzed like an angry hornets with her souped up engines and overpowered thrusters. By contrast Vincenzo was as soft as a falcons wings, barely a whisper of wasted energy. She'd specced her waverider to attack an atmosphere, to let herself be thrown around, locked in epic battle. This waverider would do as they were supposed to, soar on the jetstreams, serene and masterful.

Then she pulled herself together and sent the clearance requests to Jupiter Control and the Galileo. When both were granted, she said, "he's all yours,"

He reached up and tapped away at the overhead console to disengage the primary docking clamps. The craft jolted slightly and he moved his hands to the navigation console in order to give the maneuvering thrusters a gentle prod. Slowly and delicately, the large support craft descended from its port and away from Galileo's ventral hull. Once it had cleared the proximity obstacles, Lamar then manually swung the nose around towards Jupiter and used the nav computer to plot a course to its upper atmosphere. "Course set and locked, engaging," he informed her just as the impulse reactors engaged and the Waverider zoomed off towards its intended vector.

"So, uh, you met a lot of the crew and officers yet?" he asked, evoking a bit of small talk to alleviate the awkward silence and to try to get to know her a bit better.

"A few." she nodded, and began to count on her fingers, "The Second Officer, The Captain. The Admiral. She made me feel very," inexperienced, "Welcome. And I think I gave the chief Engineer a," heart attack, "Good impression, I hope. And Lt Benice tells me everyone is," Sex crazed , "friendly. But the person I really want to meet isn't awake yet.

The glowing gas giant slowly grew larger in the cockpit while their shuttle approached it. Out of the starboard window, Lamar noticed an Ambassador-class starship departing from Jupiter Station, probably ferrying some cadets back to Earth following the conclusion of the symposium. "Yeah? Who's that?" he asked the ensign.

She gave a little laugh. Surely that was obvious? "Galileo, of course." She glanced back towards the Nova class till docked at the station as Darius moved smoothly away. "I must admit its kind of frustrating being here already and not being able to fly the one ship I came here to fly. Have you ever flown a Nova?"

He shook his head with a small degree of disappointment. "No. I'm not rated to fly starships yet -- only the shuttlecraft and transports," he explained before suddenly remembering the recent adventure he had gone on with the Andorian commodore. "But I did meet a captain who let me pilot her Sovereign-class a few weeks ago...she was pretty maneuverable for a heavy cruiser. The ship, I mean."

Miraj giggled at the unintended double entendre, "They're more flexible than most, but they don't roll over for just anyone."

A small grin spread across his dark features. Ain't that the truth... "Yeah it was surprising. I bet it would give those new D-8 battlecruisers a run for their credits." A quick check of the flight vector on the navigation display showed that they were about a minute away from Jupiter's upper atmosphere. Already, Vincenzo's flight computer was beginning to compensate for the heavy gravitational drift in order to keep them on course. "If you don't mind me asking, ma'am...how'd you get into piloting? What made you want to go through the Academy?" he inquired, briefly changing the subject while glancing over at her.

"I've never done anything but fly. My earliest memories are sitting in my dad's lapp at a conn. I joined Starfleet becuase I wanted to fly ships that actually worked. Before, apart from Dad's ship, I normally flew broken ones. You know, limited thrusters, laggy conns, ships with large chunks missing. Flotsam and Jetsam. In starfleet i can fly something that works first time and isn't leaking radiation like water from a sponge."

A sudden thought occured to her as her brain caught up with the rest of the conversation. "You're not rated to fly Galileo?"

"No," he answered. "That's, uh, why I'm a support craft pilot and not a conn officer." He inputted a small manual course adjustment to intercept Jupiter at a shallower angle than he had originally plotted. "There's tests and paperwork and all that good stuff that I haven't gotten around to yet."

Miraj bit her lip. If lamar Darius wasn't rated, and she knew the Cadet wasn't, that left just her and Jyn qualified to sit the conn. "Sorry wrong question. Forget about tests about and paperwork, if you had to, can you fly a cap ship?"

"Well...I just piloted a Sovereign-class not too long ago," he reminded her with a light shrug. "Most of the flight control systems are automated and it wasn't hard. I guess it just takes time to learn the spatial awareness and performance characteristics of each hull class."

That was good enough for her, ninety percent of all conns were alike, and ninety percent of the time all conn had to do was watch the auto pilot, and ninety percent of time in flight was dull as ditchwater. It was really all about reaction times, and if you could manage shuttles, you could manage in a bigger hull. "I wander what the record is for getting a rating on a frigate?"

He did a bit of a double-take, glancing from his nav console over to her then back and then back towards her. "Um, is than an order for me to get certified, ma'am?" He was trying to read between the lines and wasn't quite sure what she was thinking.

"Yes. No!" she corrected herself quickly. "Only if you want to. Flying should be fun, not something you do because you were told to. You do want to, though, don't you. fly I mean?"

A hard shimmy rocked Vincenzo when the small shuttle came in contact with the planet's upper atmosphere. The inertial dampers engaged and the ride quieted a bit, but not without some expected turbulence. "I'm down with that," he answered. "Just needed someone like you to give me a kick in the butt to complete the quals," he grinned. "Hold on, we're about to punch into the stratosphere..." He manually corrected their trajectory and within a few seconds they had pierced the upper lay of the gas giant's body.

The ride through atmosphere this time was much steadier than the one this morning, and she had time then to appreciate the glorious clouds of hydrogen and helium and the trace elements that coloured them, roaring around in its muliple bands and jet streams, roiling and changing in the everblowing winds.

The fact that she now had a third hand to fly the ship also meant she could relax a bit more. Okay there would be some long shifts until he was properly certified, but she wouldn't have to do more than watch him for those. Double shift would be hard to keep up for any length of time, and still stay sharp though. "Do you get on alright with Jynn?"

"Bald guy? The Deltan?" Lamar remembered him but hadn't had too many encounters with the junior lieutenant. He also wasn't one to participate in the gossip circles aboard the ship, and in the back of his head he wondered what had happened to the man to get himself demoted. "Yeah I guess, I didn't work with him too much. Most of the time he was up on the bridge and I was down in the bays working on the shuttles," he answered with a light shrug. "How'd you end up getting his spot, anyway?"

Miraj nodded along at his reply. So whatever Jynn had done, he hadn't made himself objectionable to the Shuttle pilot. That meant she could split the observation of his shifts with Jynn.

Relieved that things were coming together, she focused on his question.
"Luck I guess. I wanted to be the beta side of the galaxy. Asked for something where my experience might be useful. Wwhat about you. How'd you end up here?"

Lamar pitched the shuttle's nose down by two degrees to increase speed, and suddenly there was another strong shimmy throughout the Waverider's space frame while the inertial dampers once again compensated. He rolled the craft over on its z-axis until the cockpit was pointing straight down towards the planet in order to give his new chief a good view of the clouds below them.

"I did my time in the Marines and wanted something different," he began, keeping a close eye on the nav console while he talked. "Transferred to the Fleet and got assigned a starbase posting, then got assigned to the Gal as COB. Then, when Chief Quinn stepped down from engineering, I talked to the captain -- Saalm -- and she wanted to transfer me to flight ops and put Quinn as COB." It was a bit of a complicated explanation and he hoped she was able to follow along.

Miraj frowned. It sounded like a step down to her. "What did you do to upset her?"

"Nothing? I think? It wasn't a demotion, really, more like a request. I've dealt with all those young bucks who come into the service and want to make a name for themselves...being the COB is pretty much babysitting them and making sure they all behave. I wanted something different." His own narrative might not have been 100% accurate but the sentiment rang true in his ears. He had found, over the years, that he performed better on his own as opposed to being a supervisor.

He intimated a turn to starboard and the Waverider once again shuddered for a short second. He looked up and gazed down into the hydrogen/helium clouds of Jupiter. "And really, I wouldn't trade this for anything. There's something about being a pilot and the freedom that you can't get when you're stuck aboard a starship. Or in a foxhole."

She winced at the shudder, and rubbed a hand along the panel in front of her to sooth both her self and the ship. But she smiled up at the clouds beneath them. "Nothing like flying," she agreed, her minds eyes floating away on the 400mph winds. "It must have been a very big fox?"

"A huge fox," he replied with a big grin. "You'd be surprised at how nasty some of the Jem'Hadar weapons are. The Houdinis were bad enough, but we once lost an entire platoon that got caught out in the open by their long-range artillery." He and Derani were approaching the end of his plotted flightpath and he took the opportunity to roll the shuttle back over and begin to pull it up out of the atmosphere.

The roll was graceful and without a sense fo strain, perfectly excuted. "Before my time." The Dominion War was barely warm when she had been born, and her father had left Starfleet. It had kept him busy in the years after. "Did you fly in combat?"

"I was on the ground," he answered with a light shake of his head. "i didn't get into the cockpit until I transferred to the Fleet and started working in flight ops. A lot of my buddies were Marine Corps pilots. But..." he let out a louder-than-normal sigh, "most of them didn't make it back. They regrouped and rearmed in the next life, I guess." It wasn't really a sore subject for Lamar but he couldn't help but think about his comrades who had been shot down on close air support missions during the war.

There was a ilence. Miraj felt a bit awkward, not really knowing what to say. "I'm sorry."

His attention drifted back towards his navigation console and then to the hazy hydrogen/helium clouds in front of them which began to dissipate as the Waverider exited the outer atmosphere. "Looks like we're all clear, ma'am. Back to Galileo?" he asked for permission.

"Back to Galileo," she agreed, "We need to get you started on qualifying to fly a Nova."

With his orders now given, the elderly support craft pilot nodded and reached down to his console to input the remainder of the flight plan back to Jupiter Station. "Agreed, ma'am. Sometimes a kick in the butt helps get things moving along," he added, turning to her with a sideways smirk.

[OFF]

--

CWO3 Lamar Darius
Chief Support Craft Pilot
USS Galileo
[PNPC Lirha Saalm]

Ensign Miraj Derani
Cheif Flight Control Officer
USS Galileo

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