Stuck In The Middle With You

Posted on Tue Jan 8th, 2019 @ 1:16pm by Commander Rita Paris

Mission: Section 31-B
Location: USS Hera, all over the place
Timeline: 2395, after 'Comes The Dawn'

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DohRa9lsx0Q

Leaving Deck 8 first thing in the morning meant morning muster on the bridge. Rita Paris had left herself enough time to stop off at her office, gather a PaDD and have herself a little musical interlude to get into the mood before arriving on the bridge a few minutes early. Now she roamed the stations, collecting reports from those who had them ready, which most did. The engineering ensign reporting in was apparently working in some recent developments, and Rita offered to him to take his time- the time constraint was less important in developing events than a succinct report.

Today was another day at warp, so the briefing was light. Science would be calibrating some of the long range sensor packets and swapping out some of the experimental palettes, with reports on scheduled times for experiments and potential effects for the Hera at hand. Thorough and informative, as she'd come to expect of her guy, as she still found she liked to refer to Sonak, the brilliant chief science officer.

Engineering was apparently unlocking the god code, and unlocking the artifacts of legend Hera had been storing in her basement. Hera herself might know a bit about the legends and lore of the artifacts she'd held- that might be a visit to the VIP quarters worth taking. She'd have to remember to ask the captain's permission to bring Hera out and about for a walk, something to see other than movies and the walls of her very nicely appointed prison cell aboard the starship that bore her name. With a security escort maybe?

There was a golden apple in that lot of trouble Thex had dug up on Meroset 347. That was a bucket of trouble waiting to happen all by itself, Rita was certain.

Ops was quiet. Dauntless had vanished into her quarters and not emerged. Subspace traffic in and out of her quarters on the channel she'd worked to hard to insure would remain undetected had been detected- her routine comm burst pattern had given her away. Being a creature of routine gave her away. Now that she'd been threatened with expulsion, the question was whether this would make her realize that her 'mean girls' act was a dead end, or would she just transfer out without a word, and go chase whatever nefarious purposes she intended to pursue elsewhere.

Security had follow-up reports on the intruder alert, including how Lieutenant Junior Grade Dox had not shown up in any sensor readings for periods of time during the intrusion back on the Worldship. Anansi was a very impressive intruder indeed, she'd defeated him and he had apparently retreated. Science was determinedly trying to track him down, and Dedjoy had the helmet in one of the vaults in the intel pod.

Flight Control reported all was well, although the assistant chief was covering for the chief, who was on restricted duty today. Tapping away a message, the curvy commander requested a corroboration from the chief medical officer. Given the reasoning she was reasonably certain the physician would concur. More than likely Lieutenant Junior Grade Dox could count on a house call from the ship's surgeon.

Sickbay had multiple reports, most of which were business as usual. A case in the isolation ward, Crewman El'iash, who was on day 124 of quarantine due to him having developed a mutation upon exposure to the Rigellian flu which transformed him into a carrier for the disease. He was dealing with it well, working on a novel series that was catching on with the crew. A random assortment of injuries from falls, accidents and the high incidence of holodeck injuries. Which was considered acceptable in modern Starfleet, because they worked hard, they played hard, and that was healthy for them. And Sickbay kept their skills sharp, a win/win.

Security was rotating a small pool of guards, who were allowed to interact with their 'guest' and were required to check on her at shift changes. They had been informed by the Commander that they were to be polite and to treat the reforming goddess as a guest, not a prisoner. They in turn were being closely watched by a dual operation of the medical and security teams to see how Hera tried to influence them. So far she seemed to appreciate seeing another face a few times a day, which broke up the monotony. A few minor unrelated discipline items, and one Lieutenant Garfield, who had apparently had a glass of Romulan Ale, gotten into an argument and slugged one of the enlisted men.

Lieutenant Garfield was sleeping it off in the brig. Rita put in a request to be informed when he awoke, as she planned to have a conversation with the young operations officer about choices and consequences. Giving those little talks and helping others turn things around was immensely satisfying to her when it worked. As it so often did for her, which made her an effective executive officer. Although she still preferred the old-fashioned term 'First Officer', a preference that was well known throughout the starship.

The departments were all checked in, the Captain wasn't due on the bridge for another hour, which meant that it was time for Paris' morning rounds about the Hera. "Ensign Itxycoatl, send me that report when it's ready, or update me on the situation in 10 minutes whichever comes first. Miss Tyler, you have the conn."

Terms like that which were old naval vessel holdouts even in her day were indications of the able astronaut's anachronistic origins. These days Starfleet personnel called the deck 'the floor' or 'the ground', because they viewed the floating palace of technological wonder upon which they served to be their world, so thinking of it as a ship, a vessel, was a difficult concept for them to grasp. But Rita didn't care. She'd still call the bulkhead a bulkhead, a hatch a hatch and the surface upon which she stood would remain the deck. Because those old traditions were still good traditions, and Rita Paris would be happy to keep them alive in the distant future.

For the hundredth time she plucked at the crimson uniform that depressed her. She missed her old uniform. It wasn't just the color, it was the cut, the style. It was marking herself as an anachronism, a little piece of way back when that walked and talked and spouted Starfleet slogans. She was still debating approaching the Captain about it- after all, she'd done her duty and ushered in the sea of red, while Sonak had modeled the blue- which, she realized, he wore the uniform cut well. But she missed her old uniform, even though the captain had told her she'd expect to see her in this from now on.

An ongoing debate in the mind of Rita Paris as she began to go about her day, keeping tabs and solving issues on the mighty starship that was her home- the USS Hera.