Room With A View

Posted on Wed Sep 4th, 2019 @ 7:51pm by Captain Remas McDonald & Lieutenant Commander Shadi Zatra & Lieutenant Chester O'Hamlin & Lieutenant Dinui Locke (loch)

2,969 words; about a 15 minute read

Mission: S1.5:1:A Time To Heal
Location: USS Traveller, Canopus Station Repair Bay Alpha
Timeline: MD12

The Bridge looked like it had been attacked by a crack team of minimalist architects on a mission to blandify the entire experience of flying through space. The space was still functional, with the proper number of work stations. But their designs were subtly off, canted to face towards the main viewer as opposed to the walls. Even the Conn station had covered slightly, sinking into the floor by a foot into little redoubt with a bare minimal LCAR's control pane arching across it pilot seat.

And the walls...actually the walls, floor, and ceiling of the bridge were a bland and lifeless grey colour. It was even a grey that glowed, as the walls gave off a soft luminescence instead of the pinpoint light sources that would indicate actual illumination. It was like stepping into the control room for a cloud. Tech's worked here and there, adding or replacing wiring in the few threadbare consoles. Here and there some of the luminous grey wall panels had been removed, revealing worryingly complicated wiring and power layout behind them.

"So...what do ya all think of the new bridge?" Remas asked, sounding ever so much the proud papa.

Dinui blinked looked around and then looked up at her Captain, "Ye canna be serious, Sir." **~~Please say it's a joke all this gray will definitely bring depression and boredom.~~** she thought to herself as her wide eyes gazed up at her Captain.

"Miss Locke, I have never been more serious about a single thing in my entire life," Remas said, his voice ringing in the timbre of a showman warming up a crowd. "Now please, to your stations. Mister Feswick?"

One of the Canopus Station tech's looked up from the wiring he was working on. He held up one fist, thumbs up.

"The show is soon to begin."

Jolani walked onto the bridge. It was grey. Everywhere she looked, the ship looked dead. Did the ship purposely choose how it appeared to mirror her internal feelings? Better than that sterile white. Jolani nodded to the Captain, "For what it is worth, I like the colour, Captain." With that, she took her station.

"Our colours are deceiving," Remas said, taking his seat in the centre of the bridge. He gave a handle signal to Mr Feswick, who then spoke quietly into the lapel comm link on his collar. And then the walls, ceiling and floor vanished. Above their heads was the overarching gantry arms of the repair dock, with a pair of Workbee's moving a large hull-plate around in their manipulator arms.

To their sides were the deep flanks of the repair bay the Traveller had been settled into, with the support braces reaching out to them. Imbilicles feeding power, water and air into the ship could be seen plugging into ports that hung in the air. The same was true below them, where dock works in mech suits were busy repairing one of the Traveller's nacelle pylons.

Each of the bridge stations was connected to the captain's chair by a glowing blue walkway, as though the entire bridge crew were cradled in the hand of a god out among the stars.

"Augmented reality holography," Remas said with a purr of approval in his voice. "I helped in developing the prototype back in my days as an engineer, before the wings of a pilot drew me to my current path. We were reverse-engineering it from Dominion tech, you know those head set's they so loved to wear. But this is the end result...the full scope of what we are here to explore laid out before us."

He stood up, walking the narrow path to Jolani's conn station. As he approached controls began to appear around her, thrust vector graphics apparating under her hands. They kept shuffling slightly, morphing into a more familiar and fighter pilot-friendly layout than the big starships conn panel. Another control appeared to her right, one that had not been there before. Remas swiped a hand at it, and the controls marked 'Quantum Slipstream Drive' vanished.

"Spoilers" he admonished. "A pilots station designed with a pilot in mind. The dockyard dogs are working on adding twenty more RCS thrusters to the frame during the refit, should make it feel like your flying a pinnace and not a 70'000 ton ship of the line. I've seen you dance this ship through the fire with nor but a few singed feathers, and with this fidelity of control I expect true artistry from you."

Jolani looked all around her, seeing nothing but other consoles and space. Her eyes were lit like Christmas lights. Emotion came into her voice, a rare occurrence, as the Traveller crew well knew. "Now, this is amazing!" she practically cooed. "I will nearly truly be flying.... I want to touch the stars."

"Not a bad set up for room and board," Remas said with a smile. As he spoke a test program ran, surrounding the piloting station in a cage of navigation markers denoting the horizon and degree markers. "I have the training program loaded in the holodeck memory for you to begin drilling the Flight Control team. That should give the system a chance to learn all your various styles and preferences, tailoring the system to each pilot on a particular shift."

Jolani's smile faded. Did the Captain really want her to fly on automatic? Hell no! The other pilots needed it. They were definitely inferior. How they could fly their way out of a port on runners was a wonder to her but they were not her choices. They were Starfleet's. "Very well. I will see that they can figure out how to pass the training program," she told the Captain.

"At'a girl," Remas said, and got up.

He came up and walked to Locke's station. As he approached large data panes appeared in the air before the science officer. Metallurgical analysis of the area of space around the Traveller, a listing of radiation sources within the dock, and myriad other items appeared before her...and then narrowed. The panes shrank, showing more pertinent data. Remas gently placed a hand on one of the panes, and the three screens morphed into three symbols.

A chess piece Bishop.
A Russian Matryoshka doll.
And a constantly shifting tesseract.

"The Wise Men. Might I present to you Miss Locke, the three brothers: Casper, Balthazar, and Calvain. Whilst not Smart AI as you might well be used to interacting with on a personal level, they are highly focused expert systems. Each of them checks the other works, providing insight and theory to you for approval. They will help you map us every star we come to find, and uncover every mystery we seek. And with Clee'san's help, make us Myriad proof," Remas said proudly.

Dinui blinked and blinked again utterly speechless she took a breath then looked up at her Captain her eyes wide in delight, "Ah'm thinkin' Ah owe ye apologizes, Sir!" This was a wonderful surprise the interactive display was going to be heavenly she already had several things she wanted to check over but she wasn't going to interrupt him in his showcasing each newly designed renovation of each bridge station.

"Think little of it," he grinned.

"Shadi," Remas walked to the back of the bridge, where it appeared a wide balcony resided over the stern of the Traveller. But instead of looking out at the aft of the repair dock, a smaller Traveller appeared. The highly detailed three dee model floated before the Saurian, illuminating the various worksites and damaged areas. The hull was littered with angry vivid scars, and one nacelle was missing as its supports were replaced. Even the pod at the Ronin class's upper aft was being worked on, rebuilt from the root with some fairly large additions.

"An Engineer's blueprint," he said proudly, reaching out and gently cupping the bow of the Traveller and sending the model spinning in midair. He then reached out, tapping on of the damaged areas, and the map vanished to be replaced by a data pane showing the holocam view of that area as a tech guided a repair drone through its motions. He then batted the camera angle away and shrank the hologram down to palm-size before placing it in Shadi's claws like a bright little star. "The Traveller...could not be in better hands."

Shadi's talons trembled as she clutched the holographic display. "Great Goddess' gluttony! I might never have to do a diagnostic in a Jefferiesss tube ever again!"

The fact that such diagnostics often ended with her in the nude or near enough due to a shredded uniform very likely factored into the upgrade.

"We might only be so lucky Shadi. And Mr Garret, whilst new to our company this show does have something for you as well," Remas walked to the new head of Expedition Security. "Victor left large shoes to fill, but I feel better knowing that his work on Carpathia Colony will go some way to making right the fact of their existence. Allow me to be the first to welcome you aboard."

The Rish captain held out his hand.

If he were expecting anything surprising, Garrett would have been dearly disappointed at what he had seen. Perhaps the Traveller had won the ‘blandest bridge of the year’ award and he was not privy to hearing such news. However, here he stood, among the crew of the ship looking decidedly unimpressed. But, he wasn’t here just because he had put in a request to transfer; the crew needed a new chief of expedition security and as such, he was an available number. At the call of moving to their respective stations, Garrett had waited before approaching what he presumed was his own station on the bridge, his blue eyes observant as the captain went about spinning details about their ship’s interior that they would be working with.

Conn, science, and then engineering.

It was here that he was exposed to what had truly happened to the ship itself, his head craning over to catch a glimpse of the hologram that detailed the extensive injuries to the ship. Grimacing, he could only imagine the hell that they had gone through, but something must have gone in their favor for the positive outcome. Despite his momentary distraction, this provided a chance for Garrett to get to know the faces he was working alongside and commit them to memory, along with their respective names.

That was when the captain’s attention had turned to focus on him, introducing him in a roundabout way to the rest of the crew and informing him of the big shoes he was stepping into, acknowledging with a curt nod.

“Thank you, Captain.” There he met the outstretched hand with that of his own, shaking with firm but not too tight as he locked eyes with the younger male. “Gaz’ll be fine.”

"And Remas as well, if you like." the Captain said, stepping to the side of the ExpSex Chief and holding out his hands before him like a pianist preparing to play. Under his hands holographic control interfaces flourished in a wide arc around him, shoehorning Garret in alongside. "The Ronin class heavy cruiser was built for a war she never got a chance to fight in. And whilst for the most part, her complement of weapons is remaining unchanged, they are being upgraded. Her forward chin-mounted Phaser Cannons are being retooled with new metastable sapphire lenses, which will mean she can sustain rapid fire from the main battery for longer. Phaser strips along the ventral and dorsal hull are also being upgraded, along with her torpedo launchers. But the real prize is the new shielding and armour systems. These we get to test."

In the centre of the room another holographic Traveller appeared, though more solid and lifelike than the Engineering holo. The triangular sensor pod that sat at the back of the saucer section looked...different, blockier. But this was clearly not the focus of Remas's little show and tell. A gauzy serrated bubble began to appear around the ship, enclosing the vessel in a pine cone of interlacing scales.

"Ablative shielding. Multiple shield generators scattered throughout the space frame, all of them forming part of your defensive screen. It'll make allocating shield coverage..." he said, sliding a hand over a control. A flock of energised plates shuffled along with the jagged bubble until the Travellers brow bristled a defensive screen nearly as thick as the saucer section. "...A little more effective in certain situations. And coupled with the reactive armour plating that's being attached to the hull, that can adjust to an enemy attack to better deflect or absorb it, the Traveller can now take a beating."

He made a gesture to the controls, and then to the ship in its plate mail shielding.

"Mr Garret, your sword and buckler," Remas said with a note of seriousness in his voice. "Among the Rish, the issuing of a sword to a crew member is a sign of absolute trust. As our protector, you have mine and the entire ships."

Shadi gasped and thrust her scaly hands over her lipless mouth. "Oh no he didn't!" She began to sulk, muttering about how she never got a sword. Slowly, reluctantly, she looked up to Gaz. "Congratulations, Mr Garret. May your arm be strong and your belly full."

At that moment, Chet burst onto the bridge. "My God!" he exclaimed, gazing around. "It's here, too! It seems the designers ran out of imagination when they built this place. The whole thing is grey! With your permission, sir, I'll begin painting the trims red."

"The ship's decor will be something of a project after the core systems are online," Remas said as he stepped towards the Doctor and lead him into the centre of the glass bridge. "This will all look a lot more impressive once we're out in the stars, but for now I thought we could use a glimpse of what is to come."

Garrett had so far followed the displays of what the USS Traveller had to offer him in terms of weaponry, defense systems and offensive alike. Certainly, the descriptions of the upgrades and the additions had the newly appointed Chief of Expedition security with a half-grin, a spark in his eye. He would have to go into discovering the ins and outs of his station, along with that of the personal weaponry that the crew would carry. "I didn't think she couldn't." He replied, in response to the comment of the ship not being able to take a beating - at least from the damage report that he had spotted only moments earlier.

He would have corrected the captain, saying that Gaz was more than sufficient (that he wasn't choking under the formality of being called Garrett was his mother's job) if the tone hadn't turned serious. Garrett locked eyes with the captain, his back stiffening some but his head bowed ever so slightly in acceptance of such a highly regarded position of trust - only for such a notion to be seconded by Shadi.

"Thank you, Captain. Shadi." Would he have said more than those two words? Or were they sufficient? Garrett wouldn't launch into a full speech. However, the lieutenant didn't need to say much more as someone else had burst onto the bridge.

The Yorkshireman swiveled quickly to face the intrusion, only to note that he was only another starfleet officer, another lieutenant. He stood there for a moment, taking in the new man before turning to fiddle with his controls; knowing that he would have plenty of time to commit it to memory.

Dinui had been quietly getting to familiar with her new station's upgrades as she over heard the new addition to the crew being greeted by the Captain and heard Shadi's comments. She turned around and then after setting the 'Wise men' to scan over the data from the science labs and the data collected from the star base she walked over to greet the new Chief of security with a cheeky smile, "Welcome aboard, Ah'll be givin' ye science input durin' mischief, Dinui Locke, pleased to be meetin' ye!" She said as she offered her hand to the taller guy. Though everyone currently on the bridge towered over her 4'11" stature, not that it mattered to her.

"Now, we have the time to practise and get to know our new ship as our old is repaired and made well. When we leave Canopus Station in six weeks, we will be undertaking a mission of utmost importance to Starfleet's mission in Messier 4. We're going to make peaceful first contact with a potential ally in Messier 4, and in doing so help free them of the Myriad yolk over their world. It will not be a mission easily passed, but we have not come this far to falter now. I'll have more details for department head's in a briefing, but until then keep on top of your departments and let's get the Traveller back into the void where she belongs." Remas said with pride in his voice.

Shadi shuddered in anticipation. If Mazarian got to see his homeworld again, then he might be in a coiling mood. "Oh, I just can't wait!"

"You and me both," Remas said, looking out of the holo bridge to the space dock beyond and the sealed doors that kept them from the stars. " I am tormented with an everlasting itch for things remote. I love to sail forbidden seas, and land on barbarous coasts."

 

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