18:30 – Observation Deck – USS Daradax

The USS Daradax coasted along, crossing the Federation border at warp 6 space around her was empty except for the graceful shape of the USS Scimitar, an Akira Class cruiser ship.

For the last month, the Daradax and her crew found the degrees of independence they had been used to since arriving in the Kunhri system vanish as she was assigned to assist the USS Scimitar on the recovery and investigation effort of the Romulan base. This meant that they acted as a ferry between the larger vessel and the asteroid base which the Akria would in places struggle to move through. Over the period of the month, the tension has increasing built onboard the ship as everyone felt sidelined from the job they started since Captain Terilance of the Scimitar felt that the small ship and relatively junior crew had overstepped themselves with such a risker operation that could have resulted in untold deaths. But that was almost at an end.

Kirin leaned back in a chair on the observation deck at the stern of the Daradax putting her feet up on the viewport window sill. Looking out the viewport watching the stars streak by her eyes were drawn to the imposing figure of the USS Scimitar shadowing the Daradax just above and behind them only a couple of kilometres off. She had just come off duty though the thought of ‘off duty’ on a Raven class ship with such a small crew made her let out a snorting laugh. “Off duty, doesn’t work like that here; all day every day…” she said with a chuckle to herself as she reach over and picked up her cup of tea and took a sip letting the warm liquid relax her. She closed her eyes and enjoy the stillness of the moment, one where her continual headaches had not appeared. The moment stretched on, blissfully for minutes but had to end as she was interrupted as her combadge chimed beside her.

“Of course…” she muttered as she leaned over and tapped the badge, “Go for Tarken.”

“Ma’am, Captain Terilance has just sent through a message. They will be changing course shortly and wish us the best.” Came Ensign Dawson’s voice. The sound of her voice and the steadiness in it made Kirin reflect on the changes she had seen in the young women since she joined. Especially the changes since the asteroid. Kerry was more sure of herself, still painfully shy outside of ‘work’ but definitely more confident.

“Just changing course? No meeting request or orders for us?” Kirin said with a sigh. The annoyance clearly coming through in her voice. 

“No, Ma’am. Should I acknowledge?” Kerry responded to which Kirin confirmed. 

A few seconds later Kirin saw the Akria bank to its port side and slide out of view. “Well he didn’t wait long did he…” he mumbled to herself, the moment of calm, she felt before shattered.  Standing up she turned and left the observation deck. “Mine as well go catch up on some work now I guess.” she muttered, “What an ASS… too busy to talk, blah blah,…if only you were more experiences…, blah blah,…such a dick.”

As she walked out the door, stormclouds possibly visible above her, she walked full on into Ril and Belania almost knocking the small Ferengi over. Belania quickly twisted and sidestepped preventing the two of them from walking into each other head-on while Ril just shifted with ease. “Captain, sorry, I should have…” Belania started.

“Stop it Belania,” Kirin said holding up her hand. “That was my fault, very clearly. Are you ok?” She glanced over at Ril, “You both ok?”

They both nodded and said “Yes” while Ril continued and made an exaggerated sigh, “Can’t you just watch where you are going Kirin?” This caused Belania to glare at Ril with a look of annoyance. “Ril she is the Captain you don’t speak to her like that.”

“It’s alright. Ril is completely correct and rank or not I was in the wrong.” Kirin said with a smile, her anger still there but not directed at her crew. “Ril, how did the check-in with the Doc go? He give you the all-clear on the disrupter blast?”

Ril shrugged, “Yeah, it has healed up nicely. The medical team on the Scimitar was able to sort it out.”

“Sort it out,” Belania said with a slight annoyance. “When I beamed you over it took everything the Doc had to keep you alive until the Scimitar arrived. You would be dead if it wasn’t for them.”

Ril laughed, “That isn’t how the Doc sees it, was moaning about how their medics were nothing but a bunch of scalpel jockeys and I was lucky to be alive and in such amazing care as his own…for an EMH he really has an ego.”

“That he does at times. Not sure what is going on with his programming. I plan on having it checked out when we get back to Bravo before we get new orders.” Kirin said with a shrug. “That said, I am glad to hear he is happy with your recovery. I need to go do some work. I will see you later.”

With that Kirin nodded to both of them and walked past them to her quarters leaving Ril and Belania who both shrugged and walked onto the observation deck. 

“What board game have you selected this time Bel?” Ril chided.

“A fun one,” Belania retorted.

19:00 – Bridge – USS Daradax

Kerry Dawson sat on the bridge’s science console, watching the USS Scimitar pull away. She was not one to pick up when people were being underhanded or rude on the down-low but even she had to admit, the Captain of the Scimitar had seemed to enjoy giving the Captain underhand insults.  

“What is up with that guy anyways?” she said aloud without realizing it as she continued to watch the sensors and review a dataset from a nearby star system whose star was undergoing a rather significant set of solar eruptions.

From behind her, a deep and somewhat cold-sounding voice answered making her jump. “Captain Terilance? Hard to say, I don’t think anyone on board has ever met him.” Kerry had thought she was alone on the bridge and cursed silently under her breath, ‘Idiot – why did I check?’

She turned around to see Lieutenant Thanen Th’zalnar standing just inside the doorway to the bridge. His jacket was open and scuffed while his white hair and antenna had clear signs of a dark liquid on them. “Sorry sir, I was just thinking out loud. I didn’t mean….” she said a bit abashed.

Thanen cut her off with a laugh. “It is perfectly fine. I have thought the same thing myself and not in so nice words Kerry. Thinking nothing of it.” he said with a large smile as he walked onto the bridge and headed over to her station. “What are you looking into? Anything interesting?” 

“Oh, ok,” she responded still feeling embarrassed by her comment. Watching him walk towards her for a moment she blinked and turned back to the console “Looking at…um, there was B class, Hyper giant, a few light years back that had no planets but was undergoing a series of very large solar eruptions. I had the scanners focus on it out of curiosity.” Pulling up some of the data and images she slid over so Thanen could see the display clearer. “Nothing out of the ordinary except their size but some of the images are very pretty. I was thinking of framing this in my room,” she said pulling up an image of the star with several substantial X8 and X9 flares coming off its surface.

“I can see why. Pity we could get in closer…don’t think Terilance would have been happy.” Thanen said and frowned. “Did the Scimitar change course? Did we get new orders?”

Shaking her head Kerry simply said, “No orders. Just a notification a couple of minutes go saying they were leaving. Not even a send to the Captain which seemed odd. I let her know and she just told me to confirm acknowledgement though I think she was a bit annoyed.”

“I would think so, but anyways I am sure we will get new orders shortly from Bravo and then who knows where we will end up,” Thanen said with a shrug and smiled. He started to turn and leave when Kerry responded. 

“What got you all messed up in engineering, sir?”

“This,” he said gripping his jacket, “It’s nothing. I was just clearing out some of the power junctions and such. Anyways, I got to replacing a couple of the bio-neural gel packs, pulled one out of the box and the damn thing started to leak. Figure it was faulty maybe or the box was damaged when we fought the Romulan ship.” To which Kerry nodded and laughed.

“Well looks like you could use a shower, sir.”

With a deep laugh back Thanen agreed, “Most definitely, a nice shower, then some food. Care to join?”

Kerry’s face went bright red just as Thanen realized what he said and a look of horror crossed his face as he began to back peddle. “To DINNER, Dinner ONLY, not the shower…I just thought eating alone is never fun…yeah just the food…” he said as he backed away from her. ‘I CAN NOT BELIEVE I JUST SAID THAT. INNOCENT ENOUGH, OF COURSE, IT CAME OFF THAT WAY…’ he thought to himself. 

The thought of the shower made Kerry blush and images pushed into her head which she quickly tossed aside as Thanen back peddled. “Oh, ah, FOOD. Yeah, beats sitting in the mess alone or in my room,” she said her voice a little shaky.

“Ok….I will message you. Do you want to see if anyone else wants to join? Shouldn’t be more than 30 minutes” He added. 

Hearing him ask to see if others would join relaxed her even more, it was a slip of the tongue but one she would have to try not to think on and having others around definitely would make it easier.