Well What Have We Here?

Posted on Thu Feb 23rd, 2012 @ 12:47am by Captain Vorn Krace & Commander Acle Walex & Commander Jordan Gunning & Lieutenant Commander Zim Drex & Lieutenant Commander Sara Archer & Lieutenant JG Emily Hamson

Mission: Heart of an Explorer
Location: USS Iapetus - Bridge
Timeline: MD40 1223hrs

Captain Krace could have taken to his ready room to read through the latest material from Starfleet Command, but had instead elected to remain in his seat on the bridge, loading the various reports into a single PADD to keep with him. As he perused the latest reports from other ships in the fleet, the gentle chirps and whistles of the consoles around him provided an ambient noise that didn't quite hide the low hum of the warp engines through the deck plating. It was a collection of sounds which Vorn had come to find quite soothing over the years. Rising above the sounds of machinery were the sounds of his officers; passing reports or instructions to each other, or for the most part chatting amiably between themselves. The last month had been a quiet one, and they had only just passed the border which marked the extent of Federation manned exploration a few days ago, and Krace had been quietly pleased with how well his officers worked and lived together.

Gunning sat in silence as he watched his assistant work at the auxiliary tactical station. She was keeping an eye on things and it allowed him to take stock of the bridge around him. It was a throng of activity but it seemed lacking in anything other than professional conversation. He shot a glance toward the Engineer sitting a couple of seats away at a programmable console.

"Hey, Drex," he said, getting the Bolian's attention, "what do you call a man with a seagull on his head?"

"Oh, good god." Lieutenant Cathcart spoke up. "Be careful with that joke, Commander. It's an antique."

"An oldie but a goodie, Allison." Jordan shot back with a smile before turning his attention back to the Chief Engineer.

"I don't know Commander." Drex called out from an open console near his engineering station. A standard Starfleet toolkit was laying open nearby. Drex was installing conduit bypass valves into the bridge stations so that they didn't always just explode in your face when the ship was being shot at. With his nose in a dozen tactical manuals throughout much of his career, he hadn't had much time to keep up on the jokes. Even the basic ones. He poked up his blue head from under the bridge station. "What do you call a man with a seagull on his head?"

"Cliff." Jordan replied with a slight inflection in his voice that implied it was okay to laugh. Nothing came. The bridge sat in uncomfortable silence for a few seconds until Gunning spoke again. "Okay, what's your best effort then?"

"How do you find a Bolian on a completely blue starbase?" Drex piped up, trading a coil spanner for a flux coupler.

"I genuinely don't know, Drex." Gunning replied, now all but ignoring his sensor sweeps. "How do you find a Bolian on a completely blue starbase?"

"Look for the floating gold uniform. And if he's naked, look for the floating engineering kit." Drex patted a hand on the grey polymer case. He grinned cheesily before ducking back under the desk.

Sara rolled her eyes and looked back to the mission ops console. She was busy going over the notes from other ships on what they may expect from their voyage. Of course they were traveling into the unknown, but there were still some reports that could be of interest. With the Iapetus's focus back on exploration, she services were less needed, at least until they found something of interest.

Emily didn't understand the point of jokes, she didn't see how or why they were funny. She just stood silently by her console and besides, no one seemed to even want her to join in the conversation.

Drex was still chuckling as an afterthought to the jokes, then looked over toward the science station. "Oh come on. That one was funny." He risked provoking her, even though it may have made him seem insipid. "I am the joke. You will be assimilated." He moved his arms in a partial approximation of a 1950s era sci-fi robot. "Primary adjunct of USS Iapetus. A smile is demanded by the hive mind. Comply."

Emily gazed up at him and decided to indulge him and smiled at him but didn't show her teeth.

"Oh, hang on! Someone call the Federation News Service! We've got a smile over here!" Gunning teased the Science Officer with a wide smile. It was unusual to see her do anything other than humour the rest of the crew but that wasn't going to stop him trying to bring her out of her shell.

"You are an intriguing individual Commander." Emily stated but found was amused by his behaviour and couldn't help but slightly smile to herself.

"I think that does it." Drex said, standing back up with a tool in each hand, placing them back in the case. "Each bridge station has a plasma blow-off valve, which will dump the plasma from the terminal in the event of a possible plasma leak. It'll take your panel offline but it will keep you alive, is the idea." He snapped the kit closed, shaking his head. "To be honest, I don't know why this kind of overhaul wasn't done years ago."

As the captain was just getting into the latest report from one of the Federation science vessels which had been knee-deep in another study of the Solaria Nebula for the past three months, one of the consoles towards the front of the bridge bleeped. It was all a bleep that they had heard before, but the fact that they hadn't heard a single one in the past month instantly made everyone present fall silent.

After a few moments, Krace spoke quietly, having lowered his PADD from his gaze. "Report?"

Acle spoke up from where he was sitting beside the captain. As the XO, he could tap into any console that he needed to at the moment. "Captain, there is a low-level warp signature at bearing one niner three true." Acle frowned. "It wasn't there a moment ago."

"Hang on a tick," Jordan stalled as the report formed on the screen in front of him, "whatever it is, the configuration doesn't match anything in our database."

"Sir, I am only reading a cochrane level of 1 and the ships power intake is barely higher then 200 megajoules. The ship is only capable of warp 1 and can't go any higher then that." Emily reported after she had thoroughly scanned the ship.

"Well then," the captain said, raising his eyebrows at his first officer as he leaned forwards in his chair, passing his now-locked PADD to a nearby crewman to tidy away. "Let's take a closer look. Mister Cook, alter course to intercept."

"Impulse generators might act a little squirrelly Captain." Drex put in after he made the order. "Or seagully...whichever... I'll keep an eye on it." He put himself back in the seat and brought up a cross-section of the ship's impulse generators. Right. Back to business.

"Noted Commander," the captain said, smiling slightly at the engineer's comments.

---------------------
Captain Vorn Krace
Commanding Officer

Commander Acle Walex
First Officer

Commander Jordan Gunning
Chief of Security

Lt. Commander Zim Drex
Chief Engineer

Lt. Commander Sara Archer
Chief Intelligence Officer

Lieutenant JG Emily Hamson
Chief Science Officer
USS Iapetus