Assignments and Discoveries

From TFC Galactopedia

Captain Allen Rikes smiled at crew members as he passed them coming from Starbase Three Three Eight’s airlock and into the corridors of his command, the Nebula-class starship USS Alexie Leonov (NCC-78443). One of the first of the ‘Batch One’ vessels, the ship had just completed a refit and was preparing to leave dock again. Leonov was not new to the setter; he had served on her for quite some time, from tactical officer after leaving the Endurance, to First Officer to now Captain. Although he had received command at a relatively early age, thirty earth years, he really had no want to go any farther in the Fleet. Alexi Leonov was his home; he had his ship, what more could a Starfleet Officer want?

“Captain?” Rikes heard a voice and the dignified English setter turned. Jogging up from behind him was Commander Angelo Diamantie, his equine first officer trotted up to him, PADD in hand. “A word?”

Rikes nodded at his first officer, who had many times been the short end of ‘Italian Stallion’ jokes ever since the Academy. He was slightly skewed to the stereotype of Italians held throughout the centuries, a little hot blooded but not overly so and Rikes had to admit, his cooking was representative of probably the best part of that old stereotype, absolutely magnificent, even with replicated ingredients his dishes were the best the setter had ever tasted. He was also, in Rikes’ opinion a fine officer and as soon as the chance came up, he’d put him up for his own ship. While he hated to loose fine officers and friends, it was the best he could do for Angelo. Much as he had done for his young friend Michael McLoude when he had sponsored him to a higher possession, even though it meant transferring to the Gettysburg, Rikes never was one to stand between the successes of his people just to keep them under his command. After all, he doubted that if he had kept Michael under his command, he would have been captain of the Venture now. “What is it Angelo?”

The equine didn’t look at the PADD but seemed to be quoting things as he talked, knowing his first officer, he had already memorized everything he wanted to say before even speaking to him. “We’re taking on the last of supplies for our deployment sir. We’re up for having our replicator bunkerage filled in a couple hours.”

Rikes nodded. “Good, what of the new warp-core and deuterium bunkerage?” That had been one of the reasons Leonov had been laid up for so long during this refit, she had a new warp core installed and the fast tanks that held deuterium slush, one half of the fuel mixture for the ship, had been thoroughly examined and re-lined and sealed.

“Chief says the core’s going to take a few light-years to dial in properly, he suggests not pushing things over Warp Five till everything’s properly aligned. The new bunkerage seals he said is acceptable.”

“Were those his exact words Angelo?” Rikes asked with a small smile.

“Well, he’s complaining that someone doing the refit scuffed the valve casing but he said it’s a ‘reasonably passable job’.”

Rikes gave a small smile as he walked with his first officer. “That sounds more like the Chief,” he said, letting his tidewater accent thicken a little. While with those off the ship he tried at the least to soften it, on the Leonov, he let it a bit fuller reign. Some had chastised him for not speaking the proper Standard English, but, it let his crew be more at home as well. He refused to follow the ridiculous notion of eliminating all accents, no mater what the language, in favor of a flat dialect. It erased people’s heritage he thought, and heritage was something he believed was important, even if some hypocrites in the fleet thought otherwise. “Anything else I need to know before I head to the bridge?”

“Yes sir, we took on a few new officers a few hours ago, mostly ensigns right from the Academy, one engineering lieutenant junior grade that just finished time with Utopia Planitia. I’ve set up the interviews, as per you’re normal procedure. The Lieutenant’s first up,” Angelo handed over the PADD. “This is her personnel file.”

Rikes took the PADD and scanned it at a glance, and he had a bit of a surprise. “Half Klingon?”

“That caught my eye as well, not too many of them around as you know. I pulled her academy and service records, its all there captain. She wasn’t described as a ‘charismatic being’ but no outrageous mostly comments on being a loner.”

Rikes nodded. “All right, let me review this and then send her up to the bridge, I’ll conduct the meeting in my ready room Angelo.”

“Yes Sir.”

Lieutenant (j.g.) Lanna Tigris walked through the turbolift door to the bridge of the Leonov. It was a fair sized opening, with both helm and ops forward, with tactical off to the right, and science and engineering stations lining an upper ring behind the two chairs placed in the center of activity. While not the largest bridge she had known, she reserved that one for the USS Galaxy, which she had briefly been aboard. The bridge here was a comfortable one, with none of the cramp feelings she had felt with the old Constellation-class that had been her training cruise ship.

“Ah, Lieutenant,” the tall equine sitting in the command chair said upon the tigress appearance in his view. He had been reviewing a PADD, and most the crew on the bridge seemed busy with pre-departure chores, the tactical station even had an engineering rating at it, panel covering the display up and in its guts apparently working on some sort of problem or another. “The Captain’s in his ready room,” there was a slight trace of an accent in his voice.

Lanna nodded and crossed the bridge from her right to left to the hatch to the ready room, touching the LCARS plate hearing a soft chime on the other side. She also heard an ‘enter’ through the intercom and pressed the plate again, the hatch sliding open near silently and the young tigress walked through. She saw the captain reading over a PADD and decided to let him finish in his own time, taking the chance to look about the ready room.

Always the captain’s personal sanctuary aboard ship, ready rooms most often also were given a flavor by the captain. This one was definitely exuding a sense of history. An old, actually ancient looking curved cavalry saber in a simple mettle sheath hung on the bulkhead to the left. Next to the couch over against the same bulkhead as the hatch to the ready room was an old paper document in a stasis case, though the words were too light to make out from where she stood. Above the couch was the obligatory painting of the Leonov, it seemed those paintings of the ship were almost standard issue for ready rooms. There was also a modest book case next to the viewport with real books in it. Most with odd titles such as ‘Influence of Seapower Upon History,’ most being she guessed historical documents of some sort or another. Opposite of the bookshelf was a painting of a rolling, quite green landscape though she couldn’t pinpoint it she was fairly sure it was on earth somewhere.

Finally she came to the desk, which seemed to be an old antique wooden one modified to serve the purpose in the ready room, and found it clean and orderly, a single book, and the standard issue terminal, and two holo-projectors were all that were on it at the moment. One was projecting a wedding picture of what she guessed was a younger Captain Rikes and a strikingly beautiful Irish setter, and the other was slowly cycling between pictures of, what she could tell, three different canines looking like some breed of setter or another. Most likely she guessed, his children.

Rikes for his part had heard the young tigress walk in, but, wanted to finish studying what he was reading of her service record. Something wasn’t quite right he had thought when Commander Diamantie had handed him the PADD, and the more he studied it, the more he was sure of it. It wasn’t so much anything that was said in the personnel file, so much as what was not said. Rather sterile after graduating the Academy…

He sighed, one real reason for that, but, he wanted to make sure first. “Lieutenant Tigris, please, sit down,” he waved to the chair opposite his desk his voice slipping easily into the ‘southern gentleman’ manners of his Tidewater accent. He waited till she was comfortable and sat the PADD down gently on his desk. “Quite a service record you have, a stationing at Utopia Planitia right out of the Academy. I knew several cadets back when I was in the Academy that dreamed of pulling that.”

Lanna suddenly had an ‘uh oh’ go off in her head. There was nothing necessarily wrong with what the Captain had said, but more in that he had chosen to mention her assignment (fictitious of course) to the yards at Utopia Planitia right off the bat. That had been a cover assignment for her real first position. Right out of the Academy, her engineering abilities and, well to be honest, work-a-holic attitudes had caught the attention of ‘Section 31,’ an ultra-secure compartment of the much larger Starfleet Intelligence organization. If there was a conspiracy theory a foot in the Federation, most thought Section 31 was a part of it. However, Lanna had not experienced any ominous activity; in fact, her whole stint at Section 31 had mainly been with high tech research and development of engine and other technologies. Stuff that most personnel in Starfleet had no idea was even being thought of. Her work had been so black that she had literally disappeared off the sensors for the time she was at S31 because no one wanted to risk any of the other powers getting a sniff of what was going on.

“It was a great experience sir, I think it made me a better engineer,” Lanna answered truthfully, just, well, not to the exact location of her assignment.

The Captain ‘ummm-hmmmed’ as he looked her up and down. While the look was far from harsh, it made her uncomfortable, and soon she found out why. “The thing is, besides you’re performance review, there is nothing in you’re file about you’re assignment.”

Lanna tried very hard not to wince, and pretty well succeeded. Someone hadn’t been quite thorough enough in her cover ‘legend,’ an ancient term from the 20th century to describe the story a being was suppose to remember and stick to when it came to either intelligence gathering or black projects no one was suppose to know. Someone definitely had been sloppy in that, and now it looked like she might be paying the price for that. That got the Klingon part of her heritage starting to simmer, and wanted to find the idiot that thought just a performance review would be sufficient. Apparently they hadn’t thought of commanding officers that wanted to know about their people as anything more than cogs in the machine that kept their ships going.

“That is rather odd Lieutenant; especially considering all the projects you could have been involved in while you were there. Such as taking part in the fitting out of the first of the Batch II Galaxies being completed? Or maybe the Prometheus Pathfinder project, participating in the engineering team for that? Compared to the comments from you’re instructors at the Academy, you’re superiors at Utopia Planitia are almost disturbingly silent.” Rikes kept an eye on her for any sign of admission of guilt, or defiance, anything. He considered himself a fair judge of character; you couldn’t be a good captain and not have developed that ability. What he saw in Lanna was favorable he thought. “Lieutenant, you were not at Utopia Planitia were you?”

“Sir?” Lanna asked, starting to get rather nervous, what was he leading to? Was he going to squeeze her for information? If he did, maybe this ship wasn’t the great assignment she thought it might have been.

The English setter sat forward. “You had a different assignment, one that, for some reason or another, is secret, requiring a cover assignment. Looks like someone got a little careless though in setting it up for you. If it hadn’t been for the fact that the only thing mentioned after graduating was you’re performance review at the yards, I would have probably never known or suspected you’re real assignment.”

Lanna suddenly felt her entire career going down the proverbial tube. They had warned her about being discovered by the rest of the fleet, and how things could go very badly for her if she didn’t keep her muzzle shut. Here now however, her first commanding officer out of Section 31 had, within twenty minutes of knowing her, fairly well guessed that she hadn’t been forthright in her assignments, and that she knew that could get her a Article 32 review hearing in preparation for a courts martial, not something to really look forward to.

Before she could say anything to either deny what Rikes was saying, or try to sidestep the issue, he continued in his soft, matter-of-fact voice, more outlining what he thought than accusing the young officer. “You were involved in R&D for something rather deep I suspect, with you’re records at school, I’d suspect some sort of engine research. Because that research was deemed by someone somewhere to be too valuable to even let the rest of the Fleet get a scent of it, they decided to take you, and any of you’re fellows working on that project, out of the loop and when it came time to come back to the rest of us, you needed a convenient explanation for you’re first assignment.

And the noose tightens, Lanna thought as she looked the captain straight in the eye. Well she thought, if this was to be the end of her career in Starfleet, at least she would meet it head on with dignity. “Sir, I cannot confirm anything you just said,” it sounded like a horrible line from a holo-movie, but, she wasn’t going to lie to him, even when he probably had figured out pretty much the real assignment, and how she had a fabricated personnel file, another courts martial offense. She looked the Captain straight in his eyes, not backing down at all. All right Captain, you got me, now what’s going to happen?

The Captain didn’t flinch, and tried very hard not to smile, he had been correct about her, she was a good officer, and even after confronting her with what he had figured out, she did not go rambling off about how she was assigned someplace or another to save her career, and had not lied to him either ‘I cannot confirm’ was not the same as ‘You’re off you’re rocker you know that old man?’ “Very well Lieutenant, consider this matter completely dropped, though, I’d be a little worried about you’re next commanding officer finding the same thing I did, I intend you’re file to be a little more ‘filled out’ as it were during you’re time aboard the Leonov.”

And at that, Lanna’s preparations for a dual of wills with her Captain suddenly came to a complete, and rather immediate and confusing halt as if she had slammed into a bulkhead. “S…Sir?” Was all she managed to get out; this was the most off guard she had felt in a long time.

The Captain stood in a gentlemanly manner and rounded his antique desk. “Miss Tigris, you are now a member of my crew, I am concerned about you’re previous assignment yes, but, you’ve proven yourself to me in this interview, you neither tried to weasel out, blame what happened on someone else, or even out right lie to me. I can expect the sort of discretion and commitment to you’re duty here as well?”

“Sir…” she gulped, but then got her act together after the complete reversal of where she thought things were headed. “Yes sir.”

Rikes nodded with a small smile and extended his paw to her. “Then I want to welcome aboard the Leonov Lieutenant Tigris as one of my crew.”