Best Foot Forward

Posted on Thu Oct 8th, 2009 @ 6:54pm by Lieutenant JG Yvette LaFaal & Lieutenant Commander Eliza McAdams

1,961 words; about a 10 minute read

Mission: Shoreleave - Welcoming Old Friends and New

The shuttle journey from Earth had lasted no more than a couple of minuets, but still her breath caught in her throat as she watched that beautiful ball of green fertile land and crystal blue water recede into the distance. No matter what anyone said about their home worlds, Earth was still one of the most beautiful in the galaxy only rivaled by Risa and Bajor in her opinion. But there again, beauty was always contained in the eye of the beholder.

She brought her attention up from the monitor in front of her with the picturesque view of the planet she was leaving behind, but intended to return too all in good time.
Now her gaze fell on the small but well formed new home that she would be spending the next how ever length of time on board.
She was a compact little ship with little more than one hundred souls living on board. She was built for speed and her ability to puzzle things out and it showed in her frame.

She was elegant with the iconic slipping pylons that connected to the power house channels that were the ships warp nacelle's. They always reminded her of the old days when legends like Captain Kirk and Captain Garrett had been around. Their elegant ships had exactly the same shape and build for the Nacelles.

Next came the newest feature of Starfleet Ships. The saucer section was streamlined into the main space frame of the engineering hull. The first class that incorporated that was an Intrepid Class... or was it. Even so, it was one of the smallest, but most durable classes of ships within Starfleet.

The pilot banked the ship around, chatting in low tones with the officer sat at the Operations console on the ship guiding the small shuttle in. She had asked if she could pilot the shuttle up herself and then have it return on auto pilot, but they had denied her request. It wasn't often that she got to sit behind the pilot's chair, or even the Command chair.

With a deft hand, the shuttle set down on the deck of the small ships landing deck with a soft thud.
Yvette smiled and thanked the pilot for a smooth ride and grabbed up her belongings before disembarking.

The deck was empty apart from one officer. A young women in a gold uniform so she walked over to her and plopped her bags on the ground once again.
"Lieutenant JG Yvette LaFaal reporting for duty. Here are my orders. Permission to board?"
She asking in clipped tones, assuming that the senior officers were still Earth bound for their debriefing.

Though the ship was abuzz with the promise of shoreleave, not everyone on board was necessarily looking forward to the break. Whilst Earth was a welcome sight and though any opportunity to see her family was always going to be something Kate appreciated, she simply wasn't ready to tread water again for another week whilst she waited for her life to get back on track. The legal process had removed her from duty and waiting for reassignment had given her plenty of time just recently to visit with her loved once, the security officer simply wanted to bury herself in work until life started making sense again. That was why she had volunteered for duty shifts even whilst the Archimedes was docked, though there was also the point that she felt she had technically used up most of her accrued leave. The system didn't quite work like that but Kate's sense of right and wrong did.

Greeting newcomers tended to fall to Operations a lot of the time, since they were in charge of billeting arrangements, but it was a break in routine that Kate was happy to put herself forward for. As the diplomat shimmered into view, the brunette straightened her back a little and forced herself to concentrate. "Permission granted, Lieutenant." Reaching out to accept the PADD, Kate continued. "Lieutenant Kathryn Martin, Assistant Security Chief. Captain Lane will see you as soon as possible. In the meantime, I can show you to your quarters and deal with any questions you might have."

"I've already met the Captain. We had lunch in Paris not twenty four hours ago", the smiled she wore the day she had lunch with the captain played across her lips. "He's a very striking and interesting man."

Yvette took a step towards the Lieutenant and extended her hand to shake the other women's. "Lieutenant JG Yvette LaFaal, Chief Diplomatic Officer".
The title still didn't sit well with her, but that would most likely be something that she would grow accustomed too over time.

It didn't take much to throw Kate off-centre these days and having what had really been comfortable rhetoric so promptly corrected had left her literally speechless at first. She had no idea what Lane's movements were and hadn't given them much thought, she'd simply assumed... Well, actually, she hadn't assumed anything. She hadn't given the remark any thought and her mistake aroused a familiar weariness. Just once, at some point soon, it would be pleasant to actually get something right for a change. Offering the other woman a thin-lipped smile, she rallied her small talk reserves again and gestured towards the door. "After you. As you can probably tell, the Nova's aren't particularly big so I can at least promise that it isn't far to your quarters."

"Great things come in small packages though Lieutenant", her smile faded slightly and her tone became somewhat conspiratorial. "So, what happened on the ship. Something happened and I can't get access to the records yet".
Everyone seemed tired, just as the Captain had, but she was yet to get the opportunity to read over any of the reports from the previous mission. She also spotted that the Lieutenant seemed a little downcast about something, but couldn't place her finger on it.

"What?"

Lapse in protocol, especially when she was prone to clinging to it for familiarity's sake, was not something Kate suffered from easily but perhaps trying to exercise her duty with a mind full of extraneous preoccuption hadn't been such a good idea after all. If anything, it was LaFaal's sudden switch to a less officious tone that had thrown her off completely, if only because Kathryn wasn't exactly used to being taken into people's confidences. Perhaps it a professional sense, if you looked at things a certain way, but rarely in a private and almost friendly way. Though the pair might have looked like a couple of gossiping schoolgirls from a distance, that was one hat Kate had never managed to wear.

"Oh," she said after an uncomfortable pause, her mind having raced to figure out what the question actually meant. Then there was another awkward moment as she tried to figure out how to answer it. Strictly speaking, none of it was really classified, at least nothing of what Kate knew, but the way it had been asked had made her instinctively wonder if she should choose her words carefully. "There have been several matters of importance," she ventured tentatively, her uncertain tone already giving her away, "though they've all been resolved as far as the crew's involvement is concerned." She frowned, seeming genuinely baffled. "Why do you ask?"

"Lieutenant", her tone was almost playful, "Your gonna have to learn to relax", her French accent tripping up slightly on some of the words. "I don't know anyone on the ship, and I need to get a feel for the place... Plus a friend would be nice as well".

Yvette had never really been one to stand on ceremony. It always appeared to her to be nothing more than pomp and fluster that served no real purpose. Granted it had its time and place, but any other time it was unneeded.

The Lieutenant was very cagey about divulging any type of information and it made Yvette wonder if there was a reason behind it. Still she persisted determined to make through roads with this women. After all it was a small ship and they would no doubt be working with each other in the future on many and various projects and assignments.

"So, how long are we in dry dock for?"

Well and truly flustered, Kate found herself without a standard answer to offer and was stuck, instead, with the far less trustworthy truth. "I'm not sure." Briefly, her brow flickered and the faint frown betrayed her own confusion. "The current docking billet has us booked for a further three days but that means very little when standard starbase rotation is about that long." A glance sideways confirmed that she was again speaking in a way that wasn't considered "relaxed" and the bemused security officer attempted to amend. Kate knew that she wasn't all that good at forging friendship, her distinct lack of social network made that abundantly obvious, but she wasn't ever really sure why that was. For an astute woman, Kate seemed to suffer from a severe lack of self-analysis. "What that means is they only schedule three days at a time. If a ship is due longer, they are just reissued their docking orders after the three days is up. It helps insure that ships aren't forgotten or neglected and..."

Slowly, the lieutenant's voice trailed off as it occured to her a little too late that she was babbling nonsense. The question, after all, had been what their intended stay was likely to be, not the ins and outs of starbase management. Curtailing her unnecessary elaboration, Kate added far more quietly, "I think we could be here for a couple of weeks. The situation was pretty serious." For a single moment, as her tone subdued, Kathryn managed sincerity. She was troubled, she just wasn't used to having someone to discuss it with.

Picking up on Kate's discomfort, Yvette once again confronted something that should probably be left be.
"Do I make you uncomfortable, Lieutenant?"
She posed the question with no intent to insult or offend, but even Yvette winced at the bluntness behind the question.

"Sir?"

There had been absolutely no intention on Kate's part to highlight the seniority difference that existed between the two by dint of the diplomat's position, and since it was a complicated technicality in any sense, the honorific was hardly applicable in the current situation. The question had surprised her though, so much so that LaFaal's direct approach had fooled Kate's already addled mind into viewing her as a higher ranked officer, someone she was supposed to answer to. It took only a matter of seconds for the young lieutenant to realise her mistake, by which point it was too late to do anything about it other than to rush through with a proper response. "Oh no," she said with hasty reassurance, "No, no, it's not you..." It's me. Just how trite are you aiming for, idiot.. Expelling her breath as an audible sigh, which was clearly an attempt to gather her composure, Kate swallowed once and continued, "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to give you that impression." She offered the woman a wane smile. "Rough week."

For some reason Yvette didn't believe her, not completely. She had been faced with many situations were picking through the truth had become almost second nature to her, however, some situations as with this one needed a more soft approach or just left alone.

"I can understand that. You can always talk to me if you want. I'm a good listener".

Yvette and Kate rounded another corner on their journey to Yvette's new home and both had slipped into a less than comfortable silence.

 

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