To touch the stars.

Posted on Thu Dec 20th, 2018 @ 5:48am by Lieutenant Commander Thex sh'Zoarhi & Lieutenant Commander Mnhei'sahe Dox

Mission: Escaped Pantheons
Location: flight control office Deck 4
Timeline: 2395

Another day and another round of testings was taking place down in engineering. A smile was on Thex face underneath the armor as the readings showed that the radiation wasn't even coating the armored surface. " Okay, guys lets start decontamination before the next shift gets here. " She said onto the comms as the bright white light began to decontaminate the room. She had been nervous at the start of this, but after a few tests, she was quickly becoming very happy wearing this suit. She felt like the sky was the limit whilst wearing this thing.

" Flight mode activate. " The suits computer voice echoed in her head as she felt something emege from the suits rear plate.

" Oh f...." She managed to say before there was a loud thud that rang out across the ship as she hit the roof of the room.

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Thirty munites later.

Thex thankfully had survived with no damage other than an Andorian shaped dent in the ceiling that her team would have to buff out. Still, at least she knew the suit had a flight mode which she now needed to test out. For that, she needed some help and the shuttle bay. For that, she knew who to ask. She knew she should have checked in on Dox a while ago, but her job was keeping her busy. Still, she knocked politely on her office hoping the hybrid would be in.

Sitting at her mostly bare desk in the spacious flight control office, Lieutenant Junior Grade Melanie Dox was lost in thought, focusing intently at the computer display. Today had been her first day cleared for duty after almost dying as a result of her attack by the trickster god, Anansi only three days prior.

The young pilot was still feeling fairly out of sorts, as the attack was psychic in nature and revealed a host of repressed memories that weighed heavily on the part-Romulan officer. So she was burying herself in her work to distract herself from her own thoughts as best as possible. And even though her shift had ended twenty minutes ago, she desperately wanted to keep busy to distract herself from having to think about what she had learned, or about the monstrous horror that was Anansi himself.

Momentarily confused by the sound of knocking rather than the familiar chime, Melanie straightened in her chair, adjusted her uniform top and replied. "Come in."

Stepping in Thex gave her a warm smile. " Hello, Dox sorry for not coming to see how you're doing. How are you feeling? " The andorian asked as politely as she could.

Smiling a little awkwardly, as was her way, Melanie replied. "I'm... better." Emotionally, she was struggling to keep it together, but physically she was all but fully recovered. "Doctor Dael put my brain back together expertly. Still feeling a little off though. Almost like a three-day hangover, for lack of a better phrase."

"I can't even begin to imagine what you've been through, but if you need someone to talk to just let me know. You're not alone here Dox and we'll do everything we can to help." The Andorian responded before running her fingers through her head. " Now I have a favor to ask off you. I need the hanger by cleared for some testing. That loud thump you may have heard a while ago was me discovering the god armour has a flight mode." She said looking rather sheepish.

Blushing slightly at the offer of help, Melanie quickly shifted her focus to her Andorian Lieutenant Commanders problems. She winced slightly, imagining the scenario hinted at by Thex. "That's no problem. We're on a skeleton crew down there right now as I'm just about done with a crew rotation." Dox leaned back and tapped her comm badge while standing up to walk over to the large window at the other end of the office overlooking the Hera's main flight deck. It was an awesome sight and Dox understood why Rita Paris was often found standing and staring out over it when this was her office. "Ensign MacNeille, please clear the flight deck. I'll be needing to run some tests with Commander sh'Zoarhi for a bit. Thank you."

Looking down through the window, she waved down to the young officer who offered a nod as she exited the chamber. Turning back towards Thex, Dox replied with a smile. "The deck and her chief are at your disposal, Commander." She was happy for the challenge of the work.

" Thanks. I don't want to try using the flight mode until I have some space to use it. Well, try and use it. I still barely understand how it works. Not that I expected some god tech would be easy. " Thex said as calmly as she could. " Could you monitor me while I try to see what it can do?" She asked politely.

Walking back to her desk, Dox replied. "Absolutely, there's a control station down there I can monitor you at directly. Aaaannndddd..." Punching in some controls into her computer for a few seconds, she looked back up at the andorian officer. "For good measure, I've instituted an impact dampening force field in the bay. It's usually used in the event of a shuttle coming in fast, but at 25% power, should be a perfect cushion for training in this case."

"Okay, let's get this started." Thex said as she walked down to the now empty hanger bay. Pulling out the two bracelets from her pocket she slipped them over her wrists before crossing her arms across her chest. " Protect." She yelled as a flash of light enveloped her as the armor folded around her. The Andorians eyes looked along the data to see if everything was okay. " Pretty cool isn't it?" She said looking over at the hybrid.

"Wow." Dox replied as her eyes widened and a smile crept across her still wearly looking face. "That IS sutibly impressive, Commander. Let's see what you can do with it."

Thex closed her eyes breathing in deeply as she thought of flying. At the word sky, she felt the same shift in the armor as something sprouted on the rear plates. "Flight mode activated. " the suits robotic voice said as she felt herself float from the sky. Her mind scrambled as she thought about stopping leaving her hovering in the air. Gazing at one of the shuttle screens the andorian she saw that a pair of metallic looking wings had sprouted from the back of the armor which was pulshing with a light purple energy.

" Well, that's something. Can you get any readings Dox?" Thex asked trying to hide her excitement from flying.

Looking at the console in front of her, Dox was partly confused by some of the readings for a moment before working it out. "I'm getting some interesting data, Commander. That visual energy signature is not all that different according to the sensors to the HERA's tractor beams. It tells me that's likely the mechanism that's holding you aloft, and probably propulsion as well."

Walking a little to the side with a PaDD that gave her access to the rooms console array, Dox stepped over to get a closer look. "What's really interesting is that I'm getting a very distinct signature here from the armor. It's the same frequency we found from the flight control helmet I was using that inadvertently enabled me to pick up..."

Trailing off for a moment as the discovery had caused a brief flood of memories of the psychic attack she had only barely survived just days prior, Melanie cleared her throat and continued. "It's a telepathic frequency. The first our instruments have ever been able to identify, really. And I'm guessing it's keyed in to your brainwave patterns, Commander. Hold on."

Pressing a few buttons, Dox switched the sensors over for a basic medical scan. "The helmet tuning me in to their psychic energy played havok with my blood pressure, but you are in the green. This technology is clearly.more advanced and likely designed to do this."

Smiling up at the floating Andorian, Dox followed up. "Well, I'm not a doctor but your number ARE a little over baseline, but that's understandable. That DOES look fun."

" It was also probably designed to work with us easier as well. Hephaestus did seem to care about us." The Andorian said from her aloft position. " It does feel amazing. I hope i can figure out how to fix it so anyone can use it." Under the helmet, a smile spread over her face as she turned and looked towards the opposite end of the hanger.

The thought of flying towards it filled her brain as she felt her body shift as she roared towards the other side. Thex couldn't help but laugh out loud as she tore around the hanger.

Smiling as she watched Thex circle the hanger, Dox couldn't help but share in her excitement. "That's a lot of Data, Commander. But one of the hardest parts of flying can be landing. Let's see how you bring her in."

Thex nodded as she thought about slowing down to which she slowly did until she had returned to hovering in place. " Okay now lower..." She began before the voice echoed in the helmet. " Flight mode deactivated."

" Oh fu.." She began before the wings faded back into the armor causing her to fall to the floor with a thud. She felt no pain the suit canceling out any inertia. " Well, still need to learn how to handle the landing. " Thex said as she stood up and gave the deactivation switch a slight tap with her foot causing the armor to begin to disassemble and fall to the floor. She pulled the helmet from her head and gave her head a shake before she started to pick up the pieces.

"Well, there are a few tricks I can show you to help out thre with landing." Melanie kneeled down to help Thex pick the pieces back. "Stuff you can practice in the holodeck, even. But if you'd like, we can bring this data back up to my office and go over it. There's several really interesting stuff here."

" Sounds good. Could you imagine the possibilities if we can reverse engineer this armor? It could be the biggest jump in tech the federation has had in decades. " Thex said as they walked back to the office.

"You should talk to Ensign Gonadie about that. She's working on ideas along those lines, and when it comes to flying, she's forgotten more than I know." Dox chuckled as she spoke of the brilliantly plumed Miradonian officer that was second in command of the Flight Control Office.

Back at her desk, Dox called up the data. "Computer, data projection please."

With a chirp, the Holo emitters in the center of the room flaired to life and a three dimensional projection of the flight armor appeared. Surround it was a listing of data, charts, and graphs. "Ultimately, I'm no engineer, so most of this data probably means more to you than it does me, but I know flying and this thing projected some very familiar shaped fields."

Waving her hand in front of the projection, the view shifted to a digital green wireframe of the armor with an overlay of gold curved lines. "See these. This gold is what that purple glow was actually creating. We couldn't see it, but these are forced energy projections. Like a forcefield that takes on specific shapes."

Reaching to tap a button projected in the air, the gold lines shifted their shapes, one by one. "And the configuration changed every time you thought of a different flight action. Each configuration affected the airflow since you were flying in an atmosphere environment. Forward momentum created this wing shape, like a terran Manta Ray. When you stopped, the wing shape formed this wedge."

"Now, there's one VERY interesting thing you might not.have noticed. And that.came up when I checked your vitals." With a swipe, Thex's vital information came up with a holographic representation of the Andorian officer. "When that field was on, according to the sensors, your lungs were breathing recycled air. And it was NOT our air. That field was recycling your air from your own respitory system. It's self contained, Commander. We can test it, of course, but I think you can take that out of the ship for a ride without a suit."

On hearing those words Thex had been half tempted to jump in the suit and try flying outside of the ship, before her Starfleet mind snapped back to attention. " Yeah, I'd like to test that in a controlled environment before jumping into outer space." She said as her fingers began to move over the data.

The ship's scanners were still struggling to actually get a look at the inner workings of the armor due to it's the hardened material it was made from. Still, the had something from this result. The energy coming from the wing attachments was enormous according to the reading. " Whatever powering the suit must be very powerful. We'd need most of the ship's power to get the energy of this level." The andorian said looking at the holoprojector of an image of the wing attachment of the suit.

"Well, that is significantly beyond my abilities, but I hope this was helpful, Commander." Walking back to her desk, Dox pressed a few buttons on her desktop computer. "All the data is in your system for review, and we can run any further tests you need."

" Thank you Dox you've been a big help. Don't suppose you want to get something to eat after all that because I'm starting to feel hungry? " The andorian asked as her stomach started grumbling.

Grateful for the opportunity of company, the usually socially shy part-Romulan smiled her awkward smile. "I am officially off duty, so that would be great, actually." The young department chief logged out of her workstation, deactivating the hologram and relplied. "Thanks."

" Well, let's go. I have to drop this off back in its security box then we can get some chow. Want to go to the officer's mess they have fresh pizza?" Thex said looking at the armored pieces then back to her friend.

"Pizza sounds great." Dox replied.

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It didn't take long before the two had stored the armor back in engineering and had arrived at the officer's mess. The smell of fresh dough and cheese filled the small room as the fresh pizza's sat in the holding trays. " That smells lovely doesn't it?" The andorian said to her hybrid friend as they stepped into the room.

Walking somewhat hesitantly behind her Andorian Lieutenant Commander, Melanie entered the officer's Mess a step behind Thex a little nervously.

"Yeah..." Dox replied somewhat shortly, the aroma of fresh Pizza was quite welcome but the anxious part-Romulan hadn't been in the officer's Mess since the senior staff lunch briefing weeks ago. The socially awkward young lieutenant preferred to eat in her quarters, more often than not.

Thex gave a polite smile as she picked a pepperoni pizza from the holding trays. " Come on, the booth on the far end by the window's nice and quiet."

Picking up a tray and a bit more pizza then she probably needed, the rotund young pilot followed, sitting with her back to the room, where she could see the stars streak by through the window.

Thex still had her smile on her face as the stars streaked by the window. She took a bite from her pizza before looking out the window. " I wonder which direction Andor is from here?"

While the question may have been rhetorical, Melanie Dox grew up memorizing star charts, navigating by the stars and learning to fly a freighter by the time she was ten. She looked blankly up at the ceiling for a moment, running numbers in her head. She knew where the Hera was, where she was headed and her current speed.

After a drawn out moment, Melanie gestured toward the back right corner of the room. "Pretty sure... That way."

" So away from it. Always a comfort." Thex replied as she took another bite from her pizza. " Sorry, you probably don't want to hear about my mess of a childhood."

Recongnizing a sense of loss that was all too familiar to her in her Andorian friend, Melanie leaned in putting her pizza down on the plate. "If you want to talk about it, I'm not going anywhere."

Thinking about how Asa Dael listened to her cry in Sickbay over her own family memories, Melanie felt she could do no less now.

" It's okay. You don't need my troubles on top of your own. Let's just say you're not the only one with a shitty childhood and I have no intention of going back. " Thex said calmly. " Sorry, I shouldn't have brought it up. Especially given what's happened to you recently."

An awkward smile crept on the anxious officers face as she thought about it. In the few days since the attack, she had learned that she was surgically and genetically altered as a child. But outside of Asa in Sickbay, she had kept much of the details.of what she had learned to herself. Of course, starships being what they are, the broadest stroked had already made their way around the ship.

But Melanie didn't want to dwell on it any further at this point. "Nothing to be sorry about, really. I'm... Working through my shit. And I really don't mind if you ever do want to talk." She took a drink of her regretfully syntholic beverage and chuckled. "But it's nice to know shitty childhoods are a universal experience."

" That we can both agree on." Thex said taking a drink from her own glass. " Here's to beating are shitty start in life."

While she was feeling particularly defeated by her life at the moment, Melanie let herself smile, happy in that moment to not feel quite as alone in the universe. She raised her own glass as well. "I'll drink to that."