Science is a Wonderful Thing

Posted on Thu May 23rd, 2013 @ 5:17am by Lieutenant Kell Demar & Captain Vorn Krace

Mission: Renewed Beginnings
Location: USS Iapetus - Science Labs
Timeline: TBD

As the doors to one of the Iapetus' many science labs slid open to permit the captain's entry, he paused to take a look around his surroundings before approaching one of the officers nearby to ask to be pointed in the direction of the new Trill officer whom he had come to see. Being directed to a station near the rear of the room, Krace thanked the officer and moved through the freestanding consoles to reach his new crew member.

"Lieutenant Demar?" he said, as he approached. "I see you're getting settled in."

Kell turned to see who had spoken to him. The red collar and 4 pips clearly marked this man as the Captain. An easy smile slid across his face as he slipped into the whole 'I'm just a happy science officer' routine.

"Yes Captain, I am. I must admit the science faculties on the ship are quiet impressive. I've yet to have the opportunity to set foot on a Luna class ship. It's quite the impressive ship,"

The captain nodded. "Yes, we are quite proud of her," he said, patting one of the consoles fondly, as one might pat a pet. "I actually rather envy you in your position here lieutenant. You've got a unique opportunity to make use of the best ship-board science suite in the Federation. As good as the Luna class ships were when they launched the project, our recent refit has improved our capabilities ten-fold. Every modification made by each of the ships in the Luna class fleet to accommodate phenomena or problems they have encountered has been combined into our systems. No other ship in the fleet could match our science capabilities right now."

Kell glanced around the room as he walked towards the center of the room where a large console with a holoprojector built into it was; a Starfleet Science logo slowly rotating above it.

“Indeed. I thought Starfleet Sciences on Earth had pretty much the best equipment R&D could produce but clearly the Federation is serious about pushing ships back into exploratory roles. None of the ships I’ve served on had anything close to this.”

That was, for the most part, true. He hadn’t set foot in Starfleet Sciences on Earth in nearly a decade but clearly the Luna Classes were the 2380s version of the Galaxy Class. When Kell was stationed on the Edison, a Galaxy Class, he thought that was advanced but that was nothing compared to what the Iapetus could accomplish and it made the Casey, a Steamrunner, look like a cargo ship. Despite the circumstances of his assignment here; Kell did feel a bit of excitement growing in him as he returned to his roots as a science officer.

“I must admit Captain, the human phrase ‘Kid in a candy store’ seems to fit right now.”

Vorn chuckled at that, following him to the centre of the room. "Yes, I admit I've been accused with that exact phrase on more than one occasion since I assumed command. You should take some time to look in on stellar cartography if you haven't already - that should do more than give you a little insight into that." The captain loved boasting about the Iapetus' cartography lab, considering that it was unique from any other design in the Federation. Where other ships used variations of large rooms with flat screens along the wall to show their data, the Luna classes had a spherical room outfitted with holoprojectors on their own power grid and linked up in real-time to the ship's science and navigational sensor arrays. There was a walkway and a central platform suspended in the centre of the room with the primary console on it, but the gravity in the chamber could be modified independently from within the room; literally allowing the person within to float through space.

"But anyway," the captain continued. "Enough about the ship, I'm sure you'll get plenty of opportunity to look around. Tell me more about yourself; I've received your transfer orders, but not yet your latest service record."

Ah, so Starfleet Intelligence had yet to finalize his ‘new’ service record. He had to tread carefully unless he wanted to be put into the awkward position of explaining to the good captain just why he couldn’t get his own service record right.

“The first few years were a tad bit exciting I must say. A few parallel universes, a few very long investigations from temporal affairs, a starship that frozen from the inside out and a lovely little particle that starts with O. Granted quite a bit of that didn’t make it into the official record everyone gets to look at.” He left out the part about leading the last remnants of a parallel universe Federation to its doom but that wasn’t a fact he ever preferred to dwell on.

“After that I asked to be stationed on some Core World since I’d had more than my share of…bizarre happenings on Starships. So Starfleet was kind enough to plunk me down on Trill for a few years before they pulled me back to Earth to lead a small research team. It was nice but I suppose Starfleet decided I needed to, what is it Humans say? Get my sea legs back? And here I am.”

That should be vague enough to fit in with whatever fluff Intel would put into his service record. They would have likely left everything up until his assignment to Intel intact anyway. If something didn’t match up the he would simply have to improvise. He was an Intelligence Operative. It wasn’t like he hadn’t had to improvise before.

Krace nodded at that. He knew from the transfer orders that the lieutenant came to him from Earth, and he was more than glad to hear that he was receiving someone who had spent at least some time on a starship - and one which had more than its fair share of adventures under its belt. "Well, I hope that your time on Trill and Earth haven't caused those legs to atrophy," he said with a grin. "The Iapetus doesn't often stand still for long."

Their conversation was prematurely interrupted be the bleep of the comm system, followed by the short announcement "Captain Krace to main engineering. Captain Krace to main engineering." The announcement reminded Vorn of those made by communications officers on starships of the twenty third century, but they were fairly common when a starship was going through a refit. It seemed to be some left-over vestige of those older times.

Sighing at the untimely interruption, Vorn turned his attention back to his science officer. "Welcome aboard," he said. "Make sure you check out stellar cartography," he repeated, as he began to move towards the door. "Ensign Myers should be able to show you around!"

Kell nodded as the Captain was leaving. “Aye sir.”

He looked around as the several teal shirted people moving about the lab. “Now” he muttered to himself “who is world is Myers?”