First Flight

Posted on Sat Sep 18th, 2010 @ 7:25am by Lieutenant Kaj Mikkola & Chief Petty Officer Shalie Montgomery & Lieutenant JG Erin Tal

4,361 words; about a 22 minute read

Mission: Peace, or Something Like It
Location: Cargo Bay 2

-ON-

If deck plates could talk, a few of them would have loudly complained that Kaj was wearing a groove in them. This project had taken up a lot of his free time and he had ducked quite a few fun engagements to get it done, and now the date of its revelation was upon him and despite the tests and the long hours and the detail work he still was convinced something was missing.

Still he took a little comfort in the fact that CPO Shalie Montgomery was at least double checking certain key and secondary systems, although by his experience the most unlikely of glitches became more likely when something like this was undertaken.
"How's it going over there Shalie, anything unusual come up yet?"

Shalie rose up from the table she was working at. She looked at the Lieutenant over the project she was working on. "Well the thermo grav couplers were running a little hot but I seem to have them in working order." She paused as she looked over the contents of the table, "Oh...the power couplings on the solenoid relay are a bit shaky, but not enough to effect the device."

Kaj groaned, the last bit of news was worse than it sounded to Shalie, experience had taught him as much.
"Could you try and re-splice those couplings on that solenoid relay? I've seen malfunctions with fully secure relays so it would do a lot to ease my brain."

Kaj broke from his pacing to do one more look-over, and found something else to grouse about.
"Oh why is that panel off on the left side under a secondary brace? Did one of the power relays need adjustment?"

Shalie moved around the table to see what the Lieutenant was talking about. She couldn't help but roll her eyes as she did so. She knew this project was important to her, but she was using her free time to do it. It was kind of adorable. "Uh...no...that we took off to assist with the alignments of thermo couplings on the interior plating." She stood up and walked back to where she was. She literally ripped out the power coupling before moving to the replicator to replicate a new one. She knew the problem wasn't in the splicing but she didn't think it warranted a replacement, however if there was one thing they could tell Kaj wasn't going to let it go.

On the corner Lusa watched all of this with what seemed like intense interest, cocking her white-blazed black head left and right and turning her ears into a facsimile of a swinging gauge needle. The Karelian Bear dog eventually got up from where she had been laying down on an old blanket she found somewhere in a corner and dragged into a bed, walked over to Kaj and firmly but unitrusively stuck her head under his left hand.

Looking down Kaj smiled and gave the dog a firm scratch behind the ears, then grabbed a spare piece of bracing that was lying around and tossed it behind some crates for her. As Lusa barked and tore off after it he turned to Shalie with a sheepish look.
"I'm sorry, its not that this is just for Erin, its going back to her tribe. Stupid I know, but it really looks good, couldn't have done it without you. Here let me do some touch-up work if I can find it, if anything it'l keep me from going nuts."

Kaj grabbed a bottle of clearcoat sealant and started to scour the project for imperfections in the finish. A clattering of nails heralded the return of Lusa with the piece of bracing, only this time she found Shalie and dropped it at her feet, tail thumping loudly on the deck plating as she sat patiently and waited for her to throw it.

Shalie couldn't help but laugh at the dog as she scratched her behind the left ear. She grabbed the chunk of bracing and tossed it as she turned back to what she was doing. "It isn't a problem." She said with a sympathetic smile. "You would think I would be used to having officers looking over my shoulder." She added sarcastically.

Shalie finished installing the coupling and ran a quick diagnostic. "Well the solenoid seems to be better." She said with a bit of doubt in her voice.

Kaj detected the doubt but this time was at least calm enough to offer a solution.
"Want to run a quick run-through? We can handle two control pads apiece, just need to check how much power is going where, shouldn't take long."

On the other side of the bay Lusa barked then started to growl, and one could hear a squeaking noise as she obviously went to work prying her new but temporary toy from a grate that it had probably gotten stuck in.

"Sure..." Shalie said with a weird look towards Kaj. "I will gladly help...as you know." She said with a little smile. She tossed two of the controllers to Kaj and aligned the other two on the table for easy access. "On your command, Lieutenant"

Kaj gave her a 'look' before seating himself on a box and positioning the two controllers.
"For crying out loud, how many times have i told you the rank stuff doesn't apply in this bay. If you think im off my rocker feel free to give me a verbal beatdown. Alright, start up the primary and secondary reactors and power relays, ill run through the primary and backup control systems."

Shalie couldn't help but grin at herself because of his reaction. "Yes Sir." She said defiantly as she brought the systems online. The controllers were working better then she had hoped they would. It had been a while since she had built anything that you might consider "remote controlled". "When ever you are ready Kaj."

"Alright, start it up, go slowly though, no overrunning the lifters or drives before the revelation."

Kaj tapped a few buttons on one of the controllers he had in front of him, never breaking rhythm even when Lusa ambled over with the section of bracing and dropped it in front of him. Kaj simply kept tapping away with one hand while scratching Lusas ears with the other.
"Alright Shalie, getting good responses over here, how does it look on your end?"

When it was apparent that Kaj wouldn't throw the thing for her Lusa picked it up and trotted over to Shalie, again dropping it at her feet and sitting patiently.

Shalie smiled at the pooch as her fingers tapped the controls. She didn't stop what she was doing but hooked the toy with the tip of her shoe flinging it across the bay. She couldn't help but laugh as the dog excitedly scrambled after it. "Everything looks good over...here." She answered with a bit of a delay as she thought for a moment something was going to happen.

As Lusa went off after her new toy barking like she had found an elk, Kaj tapped a few more buttons than shut his controls down.
"Looks good, everything is ready. Now let's stash these things under the lower section and get that tarp over it. Hopefully Erin is far enough on the other side of the ship that it will take her awhile to get down here."

And with that Kaj hopped off the crate he was seated on and gently placed the two controllers he had under a mass of gray polycarbon sheeting and behind a parsteel brace, then grabbed a folded tarp and threw the remainder over the top of the construction, letting it unfurl and fan out on the other side to a degree.

Shalie stashed the tech as Kaj requested. She thought he was endearing and a little smile crossed her face as she saw the tarp go flying to cover up their little project. "Well now you have only the hard part left....the reveal" She said mockingly.

Kaj injected a lot of fake dramatic worry into his voice.
"Oh yes and everything has to go perfectly otherwise the universe will come crashing down on me! Got my end here, need help on that side? Just give me a moment to contact Erin and ill give you a hand if you do."

He gave the tarp a few more tugs before tapping his commbadge.
"Lieutenant Mikkola to Lieutenant Tal, could you come down to Cargo Bay 2 for a moment? The Chief Engineer and I need your help with something."

Shalie rolled her eyes at the Lieutenant. She chuckled to herself as she set to work securing her side of the tarp. When she was finished she fell backwards as her foot unexpectedly found Lusa's toy. She landed hard on the floor before laughing. She patted the dogs head while she stood back up and tossed the toy. The one time the ninja dog attacks.

Erin shot her commbadge a confused look, as if Kaj could see her reaction. Unless there had been a mental breakdown in the cargo bay she couldnt think of what a Pilot and an engineer would need her help with, seeing as technical gadgets was certainly not her forte.
''Sure, I'll be down in a minute.'' She replied nevertheless, abandoning her work and trotting out of the councelling centre and into the turbolift, curiosity getting the better of her.

A few minutes later she arrived in Cargo bay 2. Sorry I took so long, I ended up in Cargo bay 1 for a moment.'' She said with a grin, looking around for the supposed problem.

The Kazon noticed the dog chasing after an airborne toy and had to smile. It was pretty evident who's dog that was, but Erin decided to leave the cooing over the adorable canine til after she had helped.
''So.. whats the matter??''

Kaj looked up from micro-adjusting what looked like a tarp over a rather sizable object and a grin crept into the corners of his mouth. Clearly something was up and it wasn't a real issue of any type, but SOMETHING was afoot.
"We needed you to take a look at this thing under the tarp. Clearly the person or persons who made this thing are either obsessive or just outright crazy.

Shalie, you ready over on that side? Don't wanna damage this thing, it might be valuable evidence in case there's a hearing regarding the mental competence of its maker, twisted as they probably are."

While Kaj was talking Lusa made her way back over to his side. As she passed Erin she gave her a cursory glance but didn't do much else before sitting down dutifully behind him.

Shalie rolled her eyes slightly as she held in a laugh. "Yes I believe I am...whenever you are ready." She thought about playing along but this whole was too silly for her, but she was enjoying it anyway. She cast a glance over at Kaj waiting to see what he was going to do next.

Erin raised an eyebrow, grinning uncertainly.
It didnt take a phsychiatrist to see that somthing was definatly a little shifty.
''Ok....'' She played along, eying the tarp curiously. ''Unveil at will, so I can take a look at this deranged masterpeice.''

Kaj nodded subtly, but a signature gleam in his eyes gave him away for a moment before he looked at Shalie and spoke.
"Alright Shal, on three we pull this thing back. One, two, THREE!"

On his end Kaj tugged hard and in coordination with Shalie revealed a near-identical scale replica of the very ship they now occupied. In essence it was the USS Calypso right down to the very position of it's outer hull seams and window placements.

All the while Kaj grinned semi-manically. For all his bluster he was impressed himself. Though he did what he could he knew damn well that it was Shalie who did most of the most complex work, and in a moment it would show. For the moment however this at least deserved an explanation.
"Well, I promised the little guy back on the refugee world a ship, and with a lot of help from Shalie here and a bit of inspiration from Lusa we did it."

Erin face was almost comical in her disbelief. ''You did it.'' She echoed, stepping forward, her eyes riveted to the scale ship.
She was utterly speechless for a few moments, but when she turned around finally, her vocal chords seemed to have recovered and there was a huge smile on her face.
''Thank you so much.'' She threw her arms around Kaj's shoulders and hugged him tightly, a lump in her throat.
''This will mean so much to Fe'ere. And thank you too.'' She let go and turned to Shalie, gratitude in her eyes. ''Thank you for taking the time to do this. It's...''
She threw another amazed glance at the ship. ''..magnificent.''

Kaj smiled and simply let Erin take the whole thing in for a moment before reaching under the lower hull of the mini-Calypso and grabbing all four controllers. Keeping the tactical and sensor controllers for himself he gave Shalie her engineering controller back and handed the flight control one to Erin.
"Well, glad it passed muster, because you get to take her on her maiden voyage around the cargo bay. Don't worry, Shalie did a helluva job installing the computer modules, so as long as you keep the safeties on you won't crash. Speaking of, Shal if you would please, make this model hum for us."

Shalie smiled at the compliment as she used the engineering controls to initiate all the systems in the model. With a quick diagnostic the ship was ready to go. "All systems are green...awaiting fight control commands." She was excited to see what the Kazon could do with it and it would be a good test of her safety protocols.

Erin stared at the remote with a mixture of awe and apprehension.
''Well I hope the safeties are on, cause I'm rubbish at this sort of thing.'' She grinned nervously, remotly piloting the small model into the air and guiding it around the cargo bay.
''This is amazing! It looks just like the real deal in fight- how long did this take?'' She asked Shalie before looked at Kaj.
''Fe'ere will hero-worship you forever, you know that?''

Shalie smiled as she used the controllers to monitor the systems on the model ship. "Not as long as you might think...believe it or not, the replication process took up most of our time." The giddiness on the Kazon's face was more rewarding to Shalie she then first would have thought.

Kaj smiled and consulted one of the pads as he spoke.
"First off you're doing a great job. You've got the mechanics down pat, just have to work on your touch a little. And Fe'ere heart is going to explode from excitement, because this ship doesn't just fly, it also has teeth."

Kaj punched a few buttons on the controller he was looking at, and it made a few bleeps before emitting a continuous tone. After hitting the obligatory red panel on the control the primary lower phaser bank of the miniature Calypso whined a little before a bright red-orange strip of light shot out from it and creased the space between Kaj and Erin before sweeping across him and doing no damage, then a few sharp hissing gas reports heralded the sudden launching of three black ping-pong balls in rapid succession which hit the wall of the bay with a loud click then clattered to the deck.

"Ok, so the phasers are just low-intensity solid state lasers and the torpedoes are ping pong balls, but the point is this Calypso has its own version of what the real one has. And just like the real one she also has sensors. Synthenic aperture radar, basic motion tracking and particle analysis, remote ion painter, and enhanced image modes. Here, take a look."

He sidled over next to Erin and brought up the other controller, tapping a few images and bringing up a thermal-enhanced image of Lusa on a small screen off to the side, who was staring intently at one of the fallen ping-pong balls.
"There's thermal, and there's also a penetrator mode."

Kaj tapped a few more buttons and the image shifted in color from the bright hues of thermal to the darker ones of penetration viewing as well as sweeping away from Lusa before apparently viewing her inner Karelian Bear-Dog workings.
"Its got plenty of power, they can use it to look right through about 10 feet of bedrock, so the usual skeletal imaging isn't a problem..."

As if to highlight the point the image showed Kaj and Erin standing together, albeit at a skeletal level. The image highlighted the interesting differences and similarities in Human and Kazon skeletal structure, and of course Kaj did the obligatory wave towards the camera.
"...however with a little practice the person who mans the scanners can exercise a lot of finite control, even filter out certain specific levels, like this."

Once more Kaj tapped a few more buttons, and as they watched the skeletons grew nervous systems, then organs, then muscle tissue, then layers of skin and hair, and finally undergarments, where the procession of layers of filling in finally stopped.
Kaj was about to make some smart-aleck remark but the image of Erin on the screen made him pause and raise an eyebrow in her direction.
"Hmm, I take it that getup was for later?"

Erin's jaw dropped and she rounded on Kaj with a look on her face that suggested she wanted to laugh and smack him at the same time.
''If this was deliberate, you can bet your ass it'll be the last time you see the 'getup' for many a moon.'' She threatened with an embarrassed grin, snatching the controls back and trying to turn off the scans.

''While we're on the subject, I really hope that YOUR getup isnt for later.'' She added with a grin.

For once in his life Kaj had nothing to say, simply opening and closing his mouth a few times before actually going red a little. When he finally spoke it wasn't his usual banter.
"Uh, its what was clean? And that was totally by chance, really, exactly."

There had been smoother cluctchless gear-changes than Kaj's attempt to try and change the subject, but he gamely pressed on.
"Hey Shalie, show her what the controller you have does, the engineering one."

Erin laughed. ''Only kidding.'' She added with a smile, wanting to save him a bit of face.
''Okay, so the engineering controller!'' She agreed, moving swiftly on.
''I'm telling you, this ship is amazing.''

Shalie laughed at the couples interactions. Being a betazoid hybrid had its entertaining moments. She tipped the controller so that Erin could see what she did. "Well thank you." Shalie said easily before she continued. "Ok first...this controls all of the ships major systems...I installed a dummy mode...it isn't as bad as it sounds" She laughed as she thought of how that had sounded. "The special mode is almost like an Engineering auto pilot...if you have any specific system tweaks you want to do it will let you as long as it doesn't jeprodize the ship...In other words it won't let you blow it up..."She turned towards Erin. "And that feature can't be turned off or disabled."

Erin laughed. ''A great idea, seeing as it's new owners are a load of young boys. Without that they would have surely found a way to wreck it with all their inquisitive poking and prodding.''
''I'll call and tell them tonight. Thank you both again, I don't think you have any idea how much this will mean to them.''

Kaj smiled and shook his head subtly before wrapping his arms around Erin and hugging her.
"Oh, I have some idea given how enthusiastic Fe'ere was about it, but you'll have to tell me what they thought after you contacted them..."

A sudden prodding at his hip an undoubtedly Erins told him that SOMEBODY wanted attention and it wasn't Shalie. Looking down he saw what he expected to see, namely Lusa sitting on the deck and looking at him, tail thumping away against the plates.

Kaj grinned and let go of Erin, holding his index finger up then kneeling in front of the dog. Gently holding her by the muzzle with one hand and scratching behind her ears, he softly but rather directly spoke and not in Standard either.
Hei Lusa, tm Erin, sano terveisi hnelle.

He was still standing when he stood back up, but Lusa's demeanor suddenly changed. Lunging forward she placed both of her paws on Erin's midsection and barked happily for a moment before straining her neck to reach Erin's face and possibly lick it off.

Kaj simply chuckled and winked at Shalie. He had done the same to her when she first met Lusa as well.

Erin grinned, scratching behind the dog's ears.
''Heya girl.'' She cooed, trying not to fall over with the weight of the bear-dog.
''I've heard alot about you.''
Curious, she paused and looked up at Kaj. ''What language was that, Finnish?''

Kaj grinned and nodded.
"Yes it was, and so is this: Alas lusa, alas tytt
For a moment Lusa cocked her head to the side like she was pretending not to hear that last command, but being the good dog that she was she eventually took her paws off of Erin and sat dutifully, albeit still looking up expectantly at Erin and making swishing noises with her tail as it wagged furiously against the deck.

Kaj chuckled and pointed a thumb at Shalie as he spoke.
"At least you got fair warning, I decided to be clever and simply let Lusa do her own thing without any sort of warning when Shalie first met her, that introduction didn't go smoothly at all."

Erin laughed, kneeling down to pet the dog.
''I can imagine. Its a wonder she's bilingual though, I've never heard of that before.''

Kaj nodded his head back and forth in trying to remember the historic reason for teaching a dog commands in two different languages but failed.
"I know there's some historical reason why working dogs were trained to respond to two different languages but that reason escapes me. Lusa understands Finnish as well as Standard because her previous family decided to teach her to understand both languages, well as far as her doggy brain can, which is unsurprisingly a lot. Karelian Bear-Dogs were traditionally bred to hunt big ferocious apex predators like Bear, so they have to be big and strong and smart to deal with them among many other things.

I figured it was interesting enough to keep doing, so Lusa knows all the basics and plenty of tricks in both standard and finnish, which is helpful when you want her help in creating a bit of well-intentioned chaos without the victim getting wise to what's going on."

''I should have known that you'd be his partner in crime, clever girl.'' Erin told the dog, patting her on the head and standing up as her Commbadge beeped- a call to her office.
''Well thats my free time over. I'll see you later.'' She said with a sigh, giving Kaj a quick kiss and smiling at Shalie.
''Thanks again. I cant wait to contact the colony about this.''

Kaj kissed Erin back and watched her go, half-grinning and rubbing the back of his head. No matter how many times he thought he had a handle on her reactions Erin always kept him on his toes, which was again one of many reasons why he was falling headlong for her at something akin to terminal velocity.
"Definitely."
Was all he could manage to say before she left. Only when the hatch had shut did he finally turn to Shalie, grin still plastered on his face.
"Well I think that went pretty damn well, how about you?"

Shalie couldn't help but laugh and roll her eyes slightly at the two officers. She had never seen someone so excited over a toy but she could tell that Tal's response was genuine. She nodded to Kaj as she finished wiping her hands on the towel she had for cleaning up the hydrolic fluid. "Yep, I think your idea was a hit." She moved around to the same side of the table. "And now you owe me..." Shalie said with a joking grin as she menacingly rubbed her hands together.

Kaj groaned and rolled his eyes as he started to pick up some of the debris still present in the cargo bay.
"Great, from what you've told me about your favorite pastimes I probably should get the pain medication ready. Alright, go ahead and hit me with your deviance, what's your fee?"

"And ruin the suspense for you.?" Shalie said with a mocking looking of shock. "No way" She added with a shake of her head. "Don't worry it won't be anything too bad...I don't want Tal coming after me if I broke you." She finished with a laugh and a wink as she joined in on the cleaning up. She had enjoyed the build, it was a nice change of pace to what she was used to.

"Right, suspense, is that what they call it these days? The last time I checked it was called utter dread."
Kaj gave Shalie a "look" and mock grimaced before giving up and chuckling.

-OFF-
Lt. Kaj "Natch" Mikkola
Chief Flight Control Officer
USS Calypso

Lt (JG) Erin Tal
Cheif Councellor
USS Calypso

Chief Petty Officer Shalie Montgomery
Chief Engineer
USS Calypso

 

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