Shuttleport (Part 1 of 3)

Posted on 31 Jan 2017 @ 6:50am by Chief Warrant Officer 3 Lamar Darius & Commander Aren Ban & Commander Allyndra illm Warraquim & Ensign Miraj Derani & Senior Chief Petty Officer Martin Caine (KIA)

2,648 words; about a 13 minute read

Mission: Episode 13 - Rogue
Location: Kreanus Colony - Deck 1, Hangar Bay
Timeline: MD 06 - 0930 hrs

[ON]

Kreanus Colony's hangar bay was quite simply, huge. In some respects, it's size was a necessity due to the overflow of small craft which had been accumulated over the years. Not every vessel that had been captured or defected to Kreanus was a large starship, and more times than not, those refugees who could escape and find salvation at the colony had done so with little more than their own personal transports. Of course, this meant an abundance of sometimes old and rundown shuttlecraft and runabouts -- vessels that were once space-worthy fifty years ago but had since been left to degrade from a lack of continued maintenance and parts availability. What wasn't old or in danger of being salvaged, however, was quite plentiful. Charon-class and Imperator-class Romulan shuttles littered the occupied platforms and were accompanied by Federation Type 6s, Type 7s, and Type 9s. Several Danube-class runabouts joined both Romulan and Klingon fighters of comparable size on the bay's second deck. The occasional unique Ferengi or Bajoran shuttle could also be spotted, making maintenance of any kind a nightmare for those craft which used proprietary parts.

The bay was located slightly below the primary subterranean docking ports near the colony's subsurface entrance and incorporated two massive launch doors and a smaller vertical launch tunnel. For such a large-sized facility, the number of maintenance personnel and pilots present was visibly lacking. Only a handful could be seen, with the other ten or so working inside of various crafts to perform repairs and diagnostics. When the small entrance to the bay creaked open, one of the chief maintenance officers turned towards and took notice of the new arrivals.

The first one through, moving before the doors were even fully opened was the pink-haired half-human who had piloted the Galileo. Miraj was antsy from lack of flying, and the colony had no holodeck to give her even the illusion of flying to take the edge of her need to be in the cockpit. She all but squealed in delight at the variety of ships, even their condition, from decrepit to merely banged up, couldn't dampen her delight at the thought of being able to fly, even if it was just a few meters to move them around the bay.

She looked around for whoever was in charge. "Hello? Someone wanted some help?"

While there was enough to do in sickbay and handling the chores of administration, Allyndra needed to get away as well. There had been sections of duties required and she had asked people or let them make up their own minds. Still she had put aside a bit of time for the flight duties. While she had been trained enough by Lamar, and had her own natural abilities, it was more that she needed to get away from underground. As she entered she spotted the pink hair of Miraj and smiled to herself. She figured the main pilot would be here

"Hello Miraj, how are you feeling? I thought as soon as the roster requests went up you would be here."

"If I don't get to do something that feels like flying soon, I'm going to go nuts." Miraj said with a happy smile. "It will be messy!"

"Try to play nice. We must do our part," Allyndra made a little wink. She had passed the word to Miraj and then she in turn to those others in the crew. Play nice, smile, be helpful, watch, learn...those were the passwords for now.

Dressed in a civilian flight suit that was splattered in grease, a fair-skinned Human began to walk towards the Galileans. His facial features were rather unremarkable -- typical dark brown hair accompanied a pair of heavyset dark eyes and a strong jaw. His build was short yet stocky, and he was of an ideal body shape to fit into any form of confined cockpit regardless of the species' design.

"Are you the Starfleet crew?" he called out as he approached. He shoved a small maintenance device into one of his toolkit's pockets and wiped his dirty hands on his pant legs.

"Yes!" Miraj jumped forward before anyone else could speak. "Thats us! Ready to fly! Or whatever else needs doing!"

Aren had heard that there was some potential flight operations and maintenance that needed to be done on several of the colony shuttles. Aren really hadn't been able to spend as much time meeting the crew of the Galileo as he wanted, so he wanted to take the time to meet some those that made up the Galileo's flight department. He waked into the hangar bay, and noticed a rather energetic and pink haired ensign. He make his way over to the small grouping trying to remember the names and faces of those of the Federation crew that were assembled. He stayed back, hoping to remain unnoticed for a time before introducing himself.

"Hello commander, a compound eye is sensitive to movement. Come join us. This is Ensign Miraj Derani the Galileo's chief pilot." She figured the commander was still trying to get names down. "As for me, well..." she opened fully the translucent wings and made a slight hover. "I have a bit of flight instinct built in and as a child of sea and sky hoping to get out of being so cramped in."

Martin had always liked shuttles he had learned to pilot some and had often flown this or that admiral or general somewhere now as a way to learn some of the other shuttles there were around the place. He made his way into the shuttle bay there was a broken finger which doctor Allyndra had set for him and a black eye but no worse than he had already taken. He saw an officer he didn't know and introduced himself. "Senior Chief Martin Caine, sir, I gave some shuttle experience and thought I might be off assistance."

Aren nodded in a greeting. He had forgotten that Allyndra had had that ability to see more than the average humanoid with her eyes. "Hello Ensign Derani, it is am honor to meet you. If I recall, you are the Galileo's best pilot and in charge of the flight department? " He said as he extended his hand, hoping that he had remembered correctly.

"Yes, sir." she said brightly, then her face fell. "Not that i have anything to be in charge of right now."

Aren nodded, though trying to keep her in good spirits. He looked at the Kreanan briefly before refocusing on Miraj. "Don't lose hope. Soon enough you will. I don't mean to keep you from your duties. Please excuse me." Aren said, hoping that she wouldn't loss hope, he wanted to the crew of the Galileo out of here, he only needed a little more time.

He turned his attention to Allyndra and watched as Allyndra took flight briefly, he shook his head in disbelief. "I should have suspected that those weren't for show." He said in awe. "You really are full of surprises." He said, even more curious as to what more her and her species were capable of than he was during there first meeting.

"Not really, I have some things others do not and others have things I do not have. It is just the way the gods made us."

Aren turned to the chief and extended his hand. "It is a pleasure to meet you as well, chief. Wait, Chief Caine, you have been at the colony for a minute haven't you? I think I have seen your name on one of the Romulan rosters if I am not mistaken." Aren asked with interest.

"Yes commander, water acquisition and reclamation sir though I didn't even make a day before I had my leg broken. My other main list position is favourite Klingon punching bag. You have a fantastic doctor there sir!" Martin said as he held up the left hand with its splinted middle finger and walking stick which he used for assistance.

Aren nodded. "She is very good at what she does. I don't think the Galileo crew would be where it is without her." Aren said, nodding respectfully to Allyndra. "Tell me chief, how long have you been here? on the colony I mean." He asked. The information he had on the chief didn't include when he got here, and while Aren was technically acting leader of the crew, he needed all the help he could get.

"We, that is Lieutenant Frasier and her daughter, my niece JJ and I, arrived from Earth a week or two ago. I think the Klingons have poached us specifically because of Lieutenant Frasier's former development of solid humanoid holograms, because they are trying to get her to make holographic warriors. Hence the broken finger!" Martin said.

Aren again nodded, a faint smile appearing at the corner of his lips. "I don't mean to take up all your time chief. After you finish this with this, I think we should talk." Aren said, making his best to not make it sound like order, but rather a strong recommendation.

The Kreanan stood there watching the chit-chat with his palms spread in confusion. "You all finished? Or you want some private time in one of the shuttles so you can waste my time some more and do your meet-and-greets?" he said, somewhat bewildered. "These craft won't fix themselves."

Miraj turned away from the rest of the crew, blushing slightly like she'd got caught talking in class. "What needs doing most?" she wasn't an engineer, but she could follow instructions, and having spent so much time around the ships that her father salvaged she was fairly confident she could do basic stuff, given enough time. Though hopefully the first thing he needed doing was having things moved around.

Martin didn't take the chiding to well at all. He had spent a week and a bit having the crap beat out of him to get another person to do something that her research was not supposed to be about in the slightest. The only advantage was that they could get food fairly regularly because they wanted Stephanie to do the work for them. He was about to explode but instead walked to one of the shuttles and started looking it over.

"I am sorry, we are a bit new to all of this," Allyndra said and then rolled up her sleeves. ""As my chief pilot said, let's get things done." She looked over the motley assembly of craft. Most looked serviceable but patched up with parts from a dozen different sources. She made a mental note of that, parts were hard to get and fabrication facilities either could not or did not have the skill to replicate them well. She would talk to Engineering people about that.

"Hey, you," the Kreanan pointed towards Caine. "Get away from there. I didn't say you could touch my baby." His face made a funny expression which slightly resembled rage. "You all work where I tell you. And you won't touch my shuttles unless I say so, got it?" he fumed before mumbling under his breath. Damn Starfleet always thinking they know everything..

Martin laughed at him. "If I see something that attracts my attention, that also needs fixing that is where I am going to start. Starfleet training or no." He said then finished by saying. "Oh and it is senior chief to you."

"First things first, I'm Jonas. But you'll be calling me 'chief'. Got it? Second, all of your Starfleet textbook flight maintenance nonsense that's jumbling up there in your heads...throw it all out. Doesn't apply here. I doubt any of you have even gotten near a quantum singularity drive before so don't touch anything that you don't understand."

Jonas pointed to the opposite side of the bay towards a very Ferengi-looking support craft. With its simply cylindrical shape and two front prongs on either side of the cockpit housing which housed the nacelles, it was decidedly non-Federation by any stretch of the imagination. "That's Lon's ship and he needs it fixed. Na'Far-class, Ferengi," he instructed

"You have a Bird of Prey?" Quantum singularity was a feature of Romulan warp technology. She hadn't flown one of them. They were on her wish list. "Can I fly it?"

"Yes we have one. No you can't fly it," he answered. "But I tell you what, Miss Pink...maybe I can let you work on the cockpit a little once Lon's shuttle is running."

Allyndra crossed her arms. "Well chief, you are probably correct, but presumably the Hawking radiation balance is maintained so that the quantum singularity does not evaporate due to Hawking radiation. You know..." she put on a slight bemused look. "The radiation that comes from when virtual matter-antimatter particles split and one of the pair falls in and the other does not in such a way that one of the matter falls out and the one of the anti-matter falls out which then gives real energy which must come from someplace and that is loss of the mass of the black hole. If you did not compensate for that your singularity drive would simply evaporate." She then shrugged, "That is only what a lowly medical officer knows imagine just how much my chief pilot knows."

Jonas looked over at Warraquim. He didn't say anything in reply but instead just shook his head with disgust. People like her were the reason he'd left Starfleet after a 10+ year career as an officer. The hubris and ego he'd found floating around the fleet were enough to make even the most sane people put their skills to work for other organizations. And then he'd run into people like the "Senior Chief" guy who apparently never learned to follow orders, or didn't care, or thought they knew better. Or maybe a bit of all three. But Miraj he liked, and he waved her over away from the rest of the group.

"You remind me of myself when I was younger," he admitted to her quietly and out of earshot of the others. "Your bosslady and the other guy both have shitty attitudes -- I won't let them work on anything except the junk in here. Trust me, once you spend enough time in Starfleet like I did, you learn to avoid those types. But I like your spirit." Jonas pointed up to the second level of the hangar deck. "There's another one from your crew who came to us a couple days ago. He's been helping us out and you can go join him if you want. Smart guy, knows what he's doing and follows all the rules."

Almost right on cue, a man stepped toward the edge of the railing and peered down at the commotion on the lower level. He took quick notice of the pink head of hair standing next to the maintenance chief and waved. "Hey kid!" Lamar yelled down to get her attention as soon as he recognized her.

Miraj's emotional state was up and down like a yoyo. She had bounced with excitement the moment he'd said yes he had a Bird-of-Prey, dropped to a pout less than half a second later when he told her she couldn't fly it. But when she saw Lamar, she was right back up again. She whirled round to see who had called her name. "Lamar?! You're alive?!"

To Be Continued...

[OFF]

--

Cmdr Allyndra illm Warraquim
Chief Medical and Second Officer
USS Galileo

Ensign Miraj Derani
Chief Flight Control Officer
USS Galileo

CWO2 Lamar Darius
Support Craft Pilot
USS Galileo
[PNPC Ko'raH]

SCPO Martin Caine
Chief of the Boat (CoB)
USS Galileo

CMDR Aren Ban
First Officer
USS Galileo

Jonas
Shuttlebay Operator
Kreanus Colony
[PNPC Ko'rah]

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