Birds of a Feather
Posted on Thu Oct 14th, 2010 @ 6:44pm by Captain T'mpest Michaels & Lieutenant JG Jason Fisher
1,535 words; about a 8 minute read
Mission:
Structured Shoreleave - Marchwiel
Location: Chief Security Officer's Office
Timeline: [backpost] Before landing on the planet
ON:
T'mpest kept up with the changes to the crew of the Ranger. As Chief Intelligence Officer, she needed to know who was on board at any given time in case there were any problems.
When she read the personnel file of the new Chief Security Officer she was intrigued. He was a former Intel officer and switched over to security to join the Ranger.
Curious to learn more, she ascertained that he was in his office and rang the chime on his door.
***
Jason Fisher had had much to do. Familiarising himself with a new ship, a new crew and a new job were all time-consuming. And, in an ideal world, all would have been done before he arrived on-board. Unfortunately he had not had that luxury. His transfer had been done quickly and, as such, he had had little time to study anything before he was required to report for duty. As such the days had been long. When he wasn't on the bridge, he had been reviewing personnel files and spending time on the holo-deck running ship-to-ship simulations.
As the door-chime sounded he felt conflicted. On one hand he did not wish to be interrupted, but a significant part of him was relieved that the excuse to put down the security protocol handbook he was reading. "Come in." he called, with slightly less enthusiasm than intended.
She walked in and gave the room a quick scan, then smiled at the man seated at his desk. "Greetings. I'm T'mpest Michaels. Welcome to the Ranger."
Jason Fisher looked up to see the intelligence officer standing before him. Quickly he stood from behind his desk. "Commander, come in." he said, slightly uneasily, "My apologies," he continued, fumbling his words slightly, "I wasn't expecting you... Can I get you something?"
T'mpest had to smile at his actions. "No, I'm fine, thank you," she said as she walked inside. "I hope I'm not disturbing you. I like meeting the senior staff. And, with your background in Intelligence, I was intrigued."
'Ah,' Fisher thought to himself, 'the ulterior motive...' "Not at all," Fisher lied, motioning to the seat opposite his desk, "It would be safe to say that I was looking forward to meeting you too." That wasn't a lie, he would have simply preferred it if it had been on his own terms. He presumed, however, that Michaels would have thought exactly the same way, and therefore simply gotten in first. "So," he continued, spreading his hands in a gesture of openness, "what would you like to know, sir?"
"Please, call me T'mpest. I'm not comfortable with sir," she said, sitting down. She didn't believe him. "Why are you so uncomfortable?" she asked.
"I'm not uncomfortable," Fisher replied with an abject smile, doing his best to appear more relaxed, "I guess I just wasn't expecting you."
"Not many people do," she chuckled. "I'm intrigued that you are a former Intelligence officer who switched to security." She grinned. "Mostly because I'm a scientist who switched to Intel."
Fisher smiled, and chuckled to himself, figuring he might as well be honest about the situation. It wasn't as if his personnel file wasn't available for someone with Michaels' security clearance to view. "Well," he began, sitting back in his chair, "there was..." he paused, searching for the right word, "there was an incident."
"Oh?" she asked, one eyebrow raised. "A lot of things can constitute an incident. What sort of incident did you experience?"
"I died." Fisher replied, matter of factly, wanting to see what reaction, if any, he might evoke.
T'mpest raised an eyebrow at his words. "Fascinating. How long were you dead?"
"About five days."
"How were they able to resuscitate you after that length of time?" She wondered if he had been kept in some sort of stasis for the five days.
"I was shot during an away mission and declared dead upon being beamed back to the ship," Fisher explained, his eyes almost glazing over as he recounted the story, as if he had become so detached from it all that it was no longer a autobiographical account. "However, some brain activity was detected," he continued, "but with the limited medical facilities available on-board, the decision was taken to attempt place me in a kind of cryogenic stasis, until the ship reached Deep Space Five. With a more advanced infirmary, they were able to transplant my damaged organs and here I sit. I don't really understand how it works."
"I'm sure they could tell you -- but it probably wont' make much difference," she admitted. "So you decided to switch from Intel to security?"
Fisher smiled at the T'mpest's continued questioning. She was an intelligence officer through-and-through, always trying to draw out a little bit more information. "Not at first," Fisher answered, figuring that he had nothing to hide at this stage, "The Serenity had to leave spacedock before I was fit to return to duty, and intel couldn't find my a like-for-like shipboard assignment."
"So you came here?" she asked, wanting to flesh out the details.
"Yeah," Fisher replied with a brief shrug. "My sister is an ensign in the engineering department, so I thought I would look here first. Turns out there was an opening." He regarded the intel officer for a moment, before deciding that it was a good time to move the topic of conversation away from himself. "So, what about you?" he asked. "What drove you to the murky depths of Starfleet Intelligence?"
She chuckled at the question. "I'm friends with the Chief Intelligence Officer on the Endeavor. We worked together on a few assignments. Someone liked my work and offered to train me to be an Intel officer. It sounded like a fun challenge, so here I am."
"Seduced by the dark-side, eh?" Fisher chuckled, "How do you find it?"
"Not bad. I've always loved doing research," she replied, grinning at his comment. "My father is pleased that I'm working with computers, my mother thinks I should settle on one field."
"Surely being multi-skilled makes you more useful, though?" he asked rhetorically, "Certainly it means you bring a much wider set of aptitudes and experiences into whatever role you fulfil at any given time?"
"I think so, but then, I believe it's important to always be learning something."
Fisher nodded and took a swig from a the cup of coffee that had been sat on his desk since before the conversation began. Grimacing as the now-cold liquid trickled down his throat, he placed the cup back on the desk. "Sorry," he said, "Not sure why I did that - and yes," he continued, finally getting around to responding to the commander's statement, "I agree." Suddenly he was aware of how relaxed he was. Whether by her design or simply by virtue of their similar personalities, Fisher found that his misgivings about the intelligence officer were no longer bothering him. Suddenly he thought of Mikaela and was concious of the similarities between the two women. As he looked at her, he decided that he would push the boat out a little further. "I hope this isn't too inappropriate," he said, carefully measuring each word, "but I was wondering whether you'd like to have dinner later?" Almost as sooner as the words were out of his mouth, he wished he could reign them back in again, but it was too late.
T'mpest wondered at his sudden change of attitude. He seemed to pull into himself. "It is not inappropriate. I like to get to know the people I work with."
"Excellent," Fisher replied, visibly relaxing a little. "Shall we say nineteen-hundred hours in my quarters?"
"All right," she said, standing. "I'll let you get back to your work. See you later."
Fisher watched as the intelligence chief left the room. He paused for a moment, replaying the conversation in his head. He wasn't entirely sure but he had a suspicion that he had just asked a superior officer on a... date? Of course, he imagined that she wouldn't see it that way, preferring to view the encounter as two crew mates simply getting to know one another better. And if there that was all the evening turned out to be then that would be fine... But there was something about T'mpest that fascinated him.
He stood, taking his cold cup of coffee back to the replicator slot. As it disappeared, he thought about what to provide for dinner. While it was true that the replictor did offer a vast number of excellent options, there was nothing quite like a dish cooked from scratch. Which immediately made him question if that was a very 'date-like' thing to do. He sat back in his chair and shook his head at his on-going second-guessing. One thing was certain, however...
... the evening would be fascinating.
OFF:
T'mpest Michaels
Chief Intelligence Officer
USS Ranger
&
Jason Fisher
Chief of Security & Senior Tactical Officer
USS Ranger
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