((Blythe, Bridge 1228h))

The ship was fully stocked, and all crew had reported aboard. It was now time to depart from SB86 and begin the first leg of their mission. Tyler was nervous about repeating his jittery performance during briefing the day before. He had even studied the commands he would need to perform to get the ship underway.

He stood from the Captains chair having just recieved permission to depart from SB86 range control and said ‘Well, let’s get underway people. Helm, disengage from the airlock. Starboard half thrusters until we clear the the Docking port…come about to course 098 326.4. Prepare to make way at uh, 1/3 Impulse until we clear SB86 range control.’

Lasage replied with a smile, knowing the regs stated that 1/4 impulse should be the maximum speed when inside a starbases range control area ‘I yI mon Capitan.’

Tyler had practiced this next sentence several times ‘Next stop, Vestic Prime. Make your speed warp 8 Lt….’ He said with a nod and then turned and went back to have a seat.

Lasage report ‘Hready to hengange sur’.

Tyler simply said ‘Hit it.’

Wong leaned over to him and whispered. ‘Excellent pick sir. Hit it, is one my personal favourites’ referring to how each ships CO had their own saying when giving orders to engage.

‘Thank you commander. It was what us kids yelled to my father when he was driving the boat I used to water ski behind in the summers during my childhood.’

((A few hours later))

After leaving the bridge in what he hoped were Wongs capable hands Tyler had retired to his Ready Room to catch up on local reports and file his second official Captains Log as the CO.

‘…we plan to arrive at Vestic Prime in about 8 hours, where we will be reconfiguring our small craft element to more efficiently complete the series of missions that lays ahead of us. The crew continues to settle in, and seem to be in good spirits. My XO has been a great assistance to me as I learn the finer points of starship command. Recently his efforts to optimize and maximize the comfort and living space efficiency of the crew, went above and beyond my expectations. As noted in my log of last night, I have appointed LCdr Mee IH as the ships second officer, and the required preparations for his first duty shift tonight are complete. I look forward to working with my experienced Beluga officer in his new role going forward. Computer End Log.’

He turned on his console and began reading through the local starfleet reports. Mostly scanning for anything that might possibly affect their mission itinerary or flight paths.

After a few minutes his door  chimed. And after he called for whoever it was to enter, his Chief Engineer came strolling in wearing her duty uniform, but also with a towel wrapped around her head and a padd in her hand.

‘Hey Cap, I just finished hanging out down in cetacean ops with the guys and I think we came up with a plan to let Cdr Mee IH actually be present on the bridge for his duty shift up here, if you approve of course sir’ she said as she layed the padd on the Captains desk.

‘I thought you had left the briefing before I had notified the new second officer about the role.’ Tyler replied as he picked up the padd and read it. Getting more and more wide eyed as he scrolled through the pages.

‘I did…but you didnt think that that would stay a secret did you?…From what the guys told me, you are very quickly approaching rock star status in the cetacean ops world sir.’ Tesa responded cheerily.

Tyler wasnt sure what to be more suprised about. That he was now on the way to cetacean stardom, or that his chief engineer had just handed him a blueprint with plans to run a 7 foot wide water pipe 70 linear feet through his ship, creating an opening to the right of the helmsman console in the corner of the Bridge.

‘Okay Lt. back up. Rock star status, what are you talking about?’ Tyler decided to take this one step at a time.

“Well sir… you didn’t think you would be the first person to ever place a cetacean officer ‘in the Captains chair’ of starship and get away without some notoriety did you?” Tesa revealed to him.

Tyler considered the notion for a second and admitted “I guess I never thought about that potentiality. I wonder if I’ll start getting asked for my autograph now hahah’ He said jokingly ‘and now about this idea of yours? You want to build a pipe from Mee IH’s Quarters through the ship and pop up into and opening in the corner the bridge? So that our second can actually be on the bridge? Isn’t somehing like this going to require alot of work and a Shipyard to install?”

“Actually no sir, myself and 5 or 6 volunteers who are off duty could get this done in 3 or 4 days. When you think about it, it’s literally only installing about 70 feet of duraplast piping. And if you look on the schematics there sir, we can head through about 20 feet of dead space behind his quarters. Do a swizzle(it was technically referred to as an offset coupling but she thought swizzle sounds better) into this open section of the inertial damperner assembly, then we go through a simple interior wall, turn 90 degrees and head up 30 feet to the open in the floor of the bridge. No structurally sensitive work required at all” Tesa said, sounding quite pleased with the plan she and the dolphins had come up with. The dolphins notionally served under the Beluga in cetacean ops, but as a tradition they always considered eachother more as cousins and co-workers when left to themselves. And the dolphins were ecstatic at the idea that their Beluga buddy would be the first cetacean to serve in the role.

Tyler reviewed the padd again. “It all seems very thorough and well thought out Lt. Do we have the supplies we would need to install all this?”

“Of course we do sir, all we would need to do is replicate the pipe itself. have you had a chance to jump in the circle of trust to just hang out and go for a swim with any of our cetaceans officers yet cap?”

Chortles slightly “Ugh uh, no, I can honestly say I haven’t had the pleasure yet. I dont know if skinny dipping with subordinates is an acceptable thing for a CO to do Lt” Tyler replied.

‘Oh dont get do caught up in their pleading for you to get naked sir. Its not neccesary for you to get totally nude and skinny dip with them…that just their colloqiual term for it, in their language the religious passage translates as ‘shed their clothing and join us for a swim’. You can join the circle of trust with the cetaceans while wearing swim trunks sir…I dont swim naked with them all the time, sometimes I wear a bathing suit. For ceteceans its a major cultural barrier, I dont know enough about all the specifics of the ‘circle of trust’ and all the ins and outs. But all the cetaceans I’ve ever met often treat the circle of trust with an almost religious like faith and adherence…there’s other things about joining the circle of trust that I can’t really describe you just have to experience it for yourself.’ Tesa shrugged, honestly not knowing how to describe the difference in the cetaceans while you were in the circle of trust with them. It was a MAJOR change in their personality and demenor when someone went for a swim with them.

‘Well thank you for the cultural insight Lt. I will make an effort to see for myself then. You also have my permission to begin to canvass for volunteers to help build this…uh…pipe.’ Tyler nodded.

((8 hours later, Bridge))

The had just arrived at the Vestic Prime system. After the CO had solicited a bribe from the entire senior staff a few days before, Wong had taken over the planning and coordination of the shuttle/runabout swap. Things of this nature we always better to do on the sly. He had messaged Ford an hour prior, and told him to load the Saurian Brandy on to one of the 3 type 8 shuttles they would be swapping. The addition of 2 of the venerable Danube class runabouts would greatly assist them during some of the stops on the second leg of their mission.

Tyler asked Lasage ‘How long until reach the Depot?’

Lasage ‘Tirty tree minute mon Capitan.”

Wong rose from the XO’s chair, and said ‘I’ll head down to the shuttlebay and get ready then sir.’ Tyler nodded to him, and he continued ‘Lasage, make sure 2 of your best pilots are down there waiting for me.’

((37 minutes later))

Wong and 2 of Lasages pilots had each flown one of the older and smaller type 8s over to the Depot station. His pal, the Quartermaster was waiting for them, and had the 2 runabouts prepped and ready for them as they landed. As his techs were unloading the cases of Brandy the Quartermaster asked ‘No hot seat pilots? Who will fly these shuttles back with you Danny?’

Wong realized they had never discussed actually swapping 3 of their shuttles, only that he needed the runabouts. ‘Well, we dont have room for them bro. Obviously the runabouts are going to take up some room…I thought we’d leave these here until we bring the runabouts back?’ Wong asked.

The QM laughed, ‘The runabouts are yours Danny, we already did the paperwork, you dont need to bring then back…hence the Brandy. If I had known you wanted to leave 3 of your shuttles here in exchange, I would’ve only charged you 2 or 3 cases haha’  the QM whispered the last part.

‘Well the shuttles are yours now then I guess, I’ll file a report with the QMs back at 86 saying they were dropped off here to make room… Mind if I take a case of the stuff back as a rebate since you’re getting 3 free shuttles out of the deal?’

‘HA! Sure, why not, make sure you spean kindly of and send all of your friends to me if they need anything… HEY FUENTES, load one of those cases onto one of the runabouts please. Put the rest in the lock up!’ The QM hollered to his techs before turning back to Danny. ‘Hey, since I’m guessing you are doing this swap to add some versatility to your small craft detachment. Would you be interested in that old type 6 cargo shuttle over there? She takes up slightly less floor space then a type 8, and has room for an extra 110 cubic metres of cargo’ He said pointing to a scratched up, well used, nearly half century old shuttle in the corner of the Depots launch bay. The QM was going to have the old shuttle scrapped in a week or 2 anyway, so it would save his people some time if Wong and the Blythe took it off his hand.

Danny thought to himself for a second ‘The type 6s are old and slow, but they do carry alot of cargo, it will be a tight fit, but we could park it in the auxilary shuttle maintenance shed in shuttlebay 3…”

Wong told the other 2 Blythe pilots to board the 2 runabouts and prepare to return to the ship. Wong turned back to the QM and said ‘You know what, we’ll take it, it’ll be a tight fit, but it might come in handy. Thanks again Kev’ he shook his old friends hand and then made his way over to the old type 6, earnestly hoping he hadn’t forgotten how to fly the shuttle that was likely a decade older then him.

And with that, the Blythe now had 2 runabouts, an old type 6 cargo shuttle and the senior staff had a whole case of Saurian Brandy.