Placeholder title because I'm not feeling clever right now

Posted on Mon Feb 8th, 2021 @ 9:44pm by

Anastasia stepped onto the Pennsylvania and took a breath. The air filters were running at peak. She fiddled with the UV filters on her glasses, before going any further onto the ship. There was a slight light difference to what the shuttle was able to produce, and it just about gave her a migraine.

She checked her PADD onto the ship's network and linked it to her work station, taking the time to get any updated intelligence files, before stepping onto the turbolift.

"Deck..." She froze. She had been on a Starbase entirely too long, she decided. "The bridge." She corrected, after realizing that in her hurry to familiarize herself with the ship's duty logs, local intelligence, and problematic staff files, she had entirely forgotten to familiarize herself with the ship. She winced at this oversight, and shook her head. "You're slipping, Ana." She muttered to herself.

She stepped off the lift and had to check her PADD for which door went to the Captain's ready room before approaching it and hitting the door chime.

Captain Kamar rubbed the bridge of his nose, operating in the Delta Quadrant was definitely stressful, "I'm so close to retiring," he thought to himself. He stood up from desk and began replicating a cup of black coffee, it seemed to be all he did anymore, drunk coffee, submit reports, and jump from fiasco to fiasco. His thoughts were interrupted by a door chime.

"Enter," he commanded as he picked up his hot coffee.

Ana entered with a pleasantly surprised look on her face. "Captain." She said, coming to attention, and offering a salute. "Lieutenant Junior Grade Morrow. Reporting for duty, sir."

"Lieutenant Morrow, welcome to the Penn, I trust the shuttle from Iota Station wasn't too rough?" Frank asked as he walked to the Lieutenant, "Have a seat, would you like a drink?" he asked as he sized her up.

"The shuttle wasn't. The transport ship disagreed with the graviton catapult." She looked amused. She took the offered seat. "Triple espresso. Straight." She added, with a nod. She tilted her head at the Captain. "Something on your mind?"

"Just a lot going on, now that the Graviton has been shut down, we are cut off from Alpha Quadrant for the time being. I have a ship that can barely hit warp 7 or 8. We are in orbit around a planet with warp technology that appears to be using it for weapons instead of knowledge. The current theory is they have caused a type of mutated radiation sickness due to their weapons usage. Medical and Science are knee deep in researching, the Engineers are trying to reverse engineer what was done to try to help Science & Medical. I need someone with your particular set of skills to conduct some signal analysis and give me a better idea of what is happening on the surface," Frank said candidly.

"The Cochrane bomb? That's a myth." Ana blinked. "I'll get started on accessing their signals as soon as I can. In theory, if they're just harnessing warp drive but don't understand how dangerous using it within a planetary gravity field is, I highly doubt their data security will be hard. My background might not be set in code breaking, but I've got some tips, tricks and really complicated... We'll call them gifts from Starfleet intelligence that help circumvent that lacking on my part."

"As an engineer, I thought it was a myth also, but the damage to the atmosphere is full of warp trail residue, I think it has caused some sort of mutated radiation sickness. I almost wonder if they hadn't combined it with some sort of Biological agent.," Frank said aloud before taking a sip of his tea.

"More likely, a biological agent was being delivered by whatever the warp drive was attached to. Unless their power source was radioactive." Ana tilted her head. "In THEORY, I can probably gain access to their ship specs to figure that out. It's also possible that the radiation, itself, caused a mutation to an otherwise harmless bacteria or virus that made it act like a biological agent. I'll get started on finding out as soon as I get familiarized with the equipment."

"I hate to just throw you to the wolves as the saying goes, but you couldn't have picked a more opportune time to come aboard. I will definitely be looking forward to getting your report. In the mean time, have you been able to get settled in to your quarters and into your office?" Frank asked politely.

"Haven't found the Intel offices but I stowed my bags and Fred in my quarters." Ana nodded. "They're cozy. I like it. Don't tend to use them much."

"Fred?" The captain asked inquisitively, unsure if Fred was a family member or pet.

"Fred." Ana nodded. "He's a dandelion. I like to talk to him, sometimes. He's a good friend."

A flower, his intelligence officer talked to a flower, he made a note to check in with the counselor after this meeting. "Lieutenant, is there anything I can do to help you and uhh Fred, get settled into your new quarters?"

"Not that I'm aware of." Ana shrugged. "I thought it was my job to make your job easier, not the other way around."

"We are a team here, I try to take care of my team so they can take care of me. I think we need to know we have each other's back in a crisis," Frank explained

"That'll take some getting used to." Ana gave a wince. "Last time there were problems, I got hung out to dry and court martialed." She took a breath. "Sorry. Bitter. Still." She closed her eyes and refocused her composure. "What I mean to say is that it may take me some time to adjust to such a... welcoming command style, but I greatly appreciate it."

"Well I do things a bit different here on the Penn but it works out for us, for the most part," he replied. "If there's nothing else Lieutenant I'm going to get back to filing these reports. You know Starfleet and their never ending paperwork."