The First Inkling

Posted on Tue Jul 3rd, 2018 @ 12:48pm by Captain Henry Crow & Commander Edra Crow & Commander Brielle Jayde

Mission: To Boldly Go
Location: Ready Room
Timeline: MD 1, 0700 hours

Edra crossed the command pit toward the corner of the Bridge and hit the chime, waiting for the doors to open.

"Enter." He was on his fifth Starfleet Command memo of the morning. He never knew how little he cared about an ongoing conference to establish a new trade route through Ferengi space until he had begun reading it.

Edra walked into the room and automatically sat down on the other side of his desk. "We missed you this morning."

He set the PADD down. "I'm sorry, I was going to tell you, but all of you were still sound asleep, and I wanted to see what I had waiting on me. Now that I know what I had waiting I wish I'd stayed in bed." He gave her a smirk.

"Just keep us from running into anything." Edra joked. "We'll be en route for a while, so we shouldn't have anything special, but give us a call if anything looks concerning, or interesting."



She smiled, but a brow arched in curiosity of his last statement. "Oh?"

"You don't want to know. But now that you're here I was reviewing some of the crew permanent records and well....someone needs to have a talking to." He slid a PADD across to her with one particular person's record.

Edra took the PADD and read through it, nodding as she went. When she was done, she gave him a knowing look. "I agree. This needs to handled as soon as possible."

He touched his communicator. "Lieutenant Jayde to the Ready Room."

Raising an eyebrow slightly, Brie nodded to her relief before going over to the Ready Room door, pressing the chime.

"Enter." Said Henry using a formal tone.

The formal tone caught Brielle off guard, but she opened the door and stepped inside. She nodded to Edra before looking over at Henry. "You wanted to see me, sir?"

"Lieutenant....do you have anything you want to tell us about?"

"Something to...tell you about? Captain, I'm not sure what it is that you mean."

He looked at Edra, then back to her. "Really? Then how do you explain these?" He opened his desk drawer and removed a small box which when opened revealed Lieutenant Commander pips.

Having been back at the doorway still, Brielle stepped forward to see what had been pulled from the drawer. Her eyes went wide as she looked between the two of them, speechless.

He smirked a little, motioning to Edra. "Why don't you do the honors?"

Edra took the extra pip and stood, turning around to face Brie. "I'd be glad to," she said with a smile. Her hands deftly messed with the other officer's neckline to place the pip where it belonged. "It's now official, and long overdue. Congratulations." Edra embraced the other woman in a hug.

Brie wasn't sure what to think or even say. This was the last thing she expected when she woke up that morning. She finally came out of her shock when Edra gave her a hug. Returning it, she finally smiled. "Long overdue? This was honestly the furthest thing from my mind. Thank you, both of you."

"Don't thank us, we need to thank you. You've been steadfast in your duties and you've become someone the whole crew can rely on."

Edra nodded and continued, "And someone we'd be hard pressed to be without. You're an integral part of this crew."

Running her fingers along her collar, just to be sure she wasn't dreaming, Brielle smiled again and looked to the both of them for a moment. "And I don't know what I'd do without this crew. Without the both of you. Still, thank you."

He grinned at Brie. "Why don't you test out those pips and take command of the Bridge for a bit?"

Smiling, Brielle nodded. “Of course. Anything specific you want done while I’m out there?”

"Just keep us on time."

"Not a problem," Brie stated as she went towards the door. She ran her fingers along her collar one last time, grinning, before letting the door open, returning to the bridge.

Henry turned to Edra with a chuckle. "I'm not sure she's excited about that."

She smiled. "Well, it was a good call. But I don't think anything will get rid of that smile for a week." She sat back down in the chair. "Well, maybe whatever it was that you said you wished you hadn't gotten up early for." She gave him a questioning look, hoping he'd expand on that.

"Early indications are when we get to the Starbase we'll be taking on a new piece of equipment to be tied into the sensor arrays. I guess the Tzenkethi raiders are using some kind of cloak but this is designed to detect them early. As always, there should be an asterisk of 'if it works'."

She nodded, pondering the implications. "How did we get this technology?"

"Something fresh out of R&D."

She nodded, understanding his hesitancy. New technology could be innovative and a step above the others, unless it didn't integrate well with the present tech. "Can we have our engineers have a look at it first? I'd like to see what they say."

"I've talked them into letting the Chief Engineer supervise the installation."

She raised a brow, "That sounds like a consolation prize..."

"We got spoiled being on our own. This is the way it usually worked."

She sighed and sat back. "I just want to hear our engineers say it will integrate with what we have. The people giving it to us aren't out there in the field."

"If they're using cloaking technology that's a jump for them. Makes me wonder if we don't have a third player wanting them to cause trouble for a diversion."

"Well that just gives me the warm fuzzies," she said with a deadpan expression. "Have you shared those thoughts with brass? "

"I did and was told to 'use all due caution' in our investigation."

She nodded. Unfortunately, not much more could be done without hard evidence. So she changed the subject. "Anything besides traveling on the docket for today?"

"The kids ought to be meeting up with us in about eight hours once we cross out of the Deovi system. Then we have a little under two days until Starbase 621. I was thinking of reserving a large dining room once we arrive and maybe have a senior staff dinner."

She nodded. "Sounds good. Anything else for me?"

"No, and I think we better get out there before rumors start swirling." He winked as they stood and made for the door.