A Colonel, and a fish walk into a bar. There's gotta be a joke in there somewhere...

Posted on Mon 28th Jan, 2013 @ 4:27pm by Colonel Horatio Drake & Captain Eee-eee-rie--eeee-eek Nightingale D.Sc

1,318 words; about a 7 minute read

Mission: http://sb109.sim-station.net/index.php/sim/missions/id/3
Location: Captain's Ready Room
Timeline: MD-01: 1130 Hours

ON:

As Nightingale walked on to the operations, she winced, slightly at the noise. "Audio filters to 107%." She quietly instructed her translator.

She watched the people, from the lift briefly, and then wandered in the direction of the Captain's Ready Room. She pushed the chime, at once.

Ashton had been lying on the sofa for the past ten minutes with a pile of PADDS on his chest. As ever his daily ritual of coffee and administration work was proceeding as usual. Any distractions were always welcome and today was not exception.

Upon hearing the chime he threw his legs round and sat himself up.

"Come in" he spoke towards the entrance of the room. Grabbing his cup from the floor he noticed that it was empty so headed over to the replicator.

Nightingale entered the Office, and nodded. "Hello, Captain. I am Doctor Nightingale, assigned as Chief Science Officer. Don't bother trying to pronounce my proper name. You don't have the vocal cords for that." She said. She stepped closer to the man. "Aquatic field to 20 percent." She noted, and the band of water encasing her shrunk to a portion of her neck, and torso. She extended a hand to the man.

Turning around he found himself standing there, brow raised, mouth nearly open and empty cup still in hand. Standing in front of him was... essentially... a fish. A fish with some kind of apparatus around her head and neck. A fish with, what looked like, a Marine uniform on. There were few times that Ashton was lost for words... but this was certainly one of them.

"Hello... Captain" Thank God for rank pips. "Can I get you anything?".

"For one thing, it's Doctor. I've been a Scientist a hell of a lot longer than a Marine." Nightingale said, with a chuckle. "And if your replicator has been programmed with Akalid Juice, that'd be great. Otherwise Aloe Vera enriched water will suffice."

"Right... well... Doctor. Please, take a seat" he extended an arm to the opposite side of his desk and turned to the replicator, ordering himself more coffee and the latter choice of the good Doctor. The replicator hadn't been touched since he had moved into the office and certainly nothing extraordinary had been programmed in.

He placed the two drinks on the desk and took a seat himself. "So, how are you settling in on Protector, Doctor?" He smiled.

"I'll stand, if that's alright. My clothes are still damp, and most standard "Starfleet Ugly" grade styles don't handle damp clothes well." Nightingale noted. "However, the base seems... sufficient. I have yet to meet many members of the crew, just some kid in my department with a botanical degree, really, so I have no frame of reference to comment on them."

Ashton took a sip of his coffee... despite it being far too hot, it gave him a second or two to process and think.

"Forgive me, Doctor... it's hard to keep up with all new incoming crew... even Senior Staff. Tell me, where was your last posting?" He placed the cup back on his desk and smiled.

"Oh, it was a tiny little ship..." Nightingale said. Next time I give you a box like this... her old Captain's words echoed in her mind. "The Aescalpus. It was a medical ship. Still, the crew was more than capable, and a song-fish could not have had a better audience than my Science Department of seven."

"I see" he paused. "Have you always been in the Marines?" Fifteen years ago the question would have been odd and out of place. But since the Dominion War, the lines between Marine and Starfleet became more than vague. It was now commonplace to have transfers and even Marines fulfilling Starfleet position and vice-verse.

"Hardly. It's kind of a new thing for me." Nightingale said, with a shrug. "For Humans, I suppose nearly a decade is a pretty big part of their lives. For me, it's a sixth of a percentage of my specie's expected life spans. I'm still not quite used to a lot of things, but it doesn't take all that much brains to figure it out, really, no offense."

"Uh... none take" Drake smiled and frowned at the same time, wondering whether he had lied and had, in fact, taken offence!

"May I ask... why did you join the Marines? I mean, why not just stay in Starfleet Science? Surely their resources in your department match, if not exceed, ours?" He sensed almost that she resented being a Marine?

"For the record," Nightingale said, in translated Velurian, shaking her head, "I've never been a Fleet Officer. I joined the marines because they came highly recommended by the first Velurian to ever join Starfleet. Much more Honor, and Dignity. And, for the most part, she is right, however, I envy an old friend who joined Fleet Security, and hasn't been asked to do one of those Goddess-forsaken Science Gatherings your Fleet Admirals deem necessary. But from the same point of view, she was recently released from incarceration, so I don't tend to put much stock in her opinions on Fleet infrastructure." She took a moment, forgetting that the translator didn't keep up with the speed of her singing.

Once it caught up, she shrugged. "I don't want resources in my department. I don't particularly want to be in Starfleet Science. I want to be good at my job. My job happens to be Scientific Consultant, and I happen to be good at it, but that doesn't mean, Colonel, that I regret either enlisting in the Fleet, or, for that matter, in the Marines, specifically, which seems to be where your line of questioning is going, if I have my basic understanding of human Psychology correct. I just have a particularly winded way of explaining myself. It's Velurian Southwestern. We're long winded, and verbose, and the translator doesn't always keep up. If you think this is bad, you should have seen me at the first Science Conference, explaining trans-spacial passageways, as generated by an artificial graviton field, which is what my species uses for FTL drives, rather than standard Warp systems." Her mouth had stopped singing a full minute before her translated voice caught up. "I don't always speak with the translator, though." She added, in English, with a particularly higher pitched accent. "I try to remember that not all humans are particularly fond of working with Song-fishes."

Drake had started to feel foolish for not reading the officers service record prior to this meeting. But now he was smiling... her humorous side was something which he definitely wanted to get to know a lot better! "I can imagine that the conference was quite the event, in the end!" His grin became even bigger. He shared her opinions on such conferences which, regardless of which department you were in, always seemed to come up at the most inopportune of times.

"Is there anything I can do for you, Doctor? To help get you settled on the station?" He asked, returning to seriousness.

"If you could hasten the retrofit request for my quarters, it'd be appreciated. Typically botanists get annoyed if I sleep in the ponds of their arboretums, so fitting the small tank in the bedroom is a great necessity. I do not like upsetting fellow scientists, even if their fields are something as mundane as plants, instead of trans-dimensional or even trans-temporal theorem." The Translator started again. She paused, then shook her head. "You know, one day, I'll master talking Science stuff in English. One day." She finished in English.

"Well, yes of course... I'll talk to Lieutenant Lee about making your quarters a priority. I'm sure it won't be a problem"

"Thank you, Colonel." Nightingale said, with a smile.

OFF:

A Post By:

Captain Nightingale
Chief Science Officer
&
Colonel Ashton Drake
Commanding Officer

 

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