Pathfinder's Arrival
Posted on 10 Nov 2020 @ 9:57pm by Commander Thaddeus Zayne & Commander Calliope Zahn
Mission:
M1 - Emergence
Location: CIC / Docking Berths
Timeline: MD05 - 1029HRS
2698 words - 5.4 OF Standard Post Measure
”Commander,” Ensign Havash called from the comms terminal.
Commander Thaddeus Zayne was just to his left, sharing a terminal with Petty Officer Sanderson, trying to decipher a bit of a communicate they’d intercepted in the traffic the 7th had brought back. He turned back to the Ensign curiously, not happy to be interrupted but hopeful it was for a good reason.
“Sir,” he smiled, “Short range sensors just picked up the Pathfinder.”
A smile curled over Thad’s features. Finally. He’d been worried far more than he’d led on to anyone else about the Pathfinder arriving unharmed. She wasn’t exactly a battleship but she packed enough firepower that she’d been a good support vessel for them if they had any issues. She was a Nova-class vessel meant for scouting and survey but well larger than the Wallace and Wasp class garrison vessels they had at the moment that were effectively runabouts on steroids.
Calliope emerged from her office, hastening around to the central stations to see what Commander Zayne was grinning about. "The Pathfinder?" she gathered from the display information.
"Looks that way," he answered, hopeful that their scanners weren't picking up something else.
When she looked back to Thad, she had to remind herself how long he'd probably stood in that very place and stared into a starless void. And now each day welcomed yet another ship. It was a wonder, she thought, that he only looked like it was Christmas morning and wasn't breaking into tears each time.
"Magnify." A portion of the surrounding displays illuminated a section of the starry sky and overlaid a magnified segment, bringing the familiar lines of the Nova Class into a low resolution image from where it had just entered detectable range outside of the Loki system. Calliope caught Thad's eye sidelong with her own, as if to quarry for his thoughts.
"I'd rather it was a fleet, but I'll take it," Thad smirked crookedly.
"Ensign, open a channel." Calliope waited, holding her hands behind her back and straightening in anticipation of being holo-cast. "USS Pathfinder, this is Commander Zahn, Executive Officer of Obsidian Command. Welcome to the Loki system."
"There's no place like home," a man's voice replied brightly. "It's good to see you Obsidian Command. This is Senior Chief Samuel Edgerton. Permission to approach, Commander?"
"Permission granted, Chief. On your way in, can you please take your time and complete a long range scan? We're relying on comparing scans from patrols at the moment."
"That's what's kept us, Commander. We've completed several long-range scans and have deployed a series of probes to supplement the data," he explained, "There's plenty of fascinating scientific phenomena in the area, but there's also a fair bit of curiosities we're going to need your assistance in deciphering," he outlined, the frown on his face evident in his voice with just a touch of fear. "I'll feel a lot better once we're safely inside the stations defensive field. See you soon. Edgerton out."
After the signal ended, she rocked back on her heels and crossed her arms, regarding Thaddeus. "You must have worked with Edgerton right up until the evacuation," Calliope deduced. "Tell me about him."
Thad let out a slow breath and a dark chuckle, "Sam's about as smart a man as I've ever met. He's a science officer with a specialty in astrophysics but since he has chevrons instead of pips, he's never had the chance to run his own department. He really should though. He ought to be on a capital ship somewhere, running the Science department." he explained. It wasn't actually his first time working with Edgerton, when he was first assigned here. He'd served with him early on in his career when the Senior Chief was just a Petty Officer but he'd stood out even then as someone who belonged leading the scientific division, not simply doing as he was told.
"There's plenty of Non-Commissioned officers that run departments." Calliope said, genuinely confused. "Or take the Warrant Officer track. Or go for Officer Indoctrination late in their career."
"Well. Being a Department Head would require him to advance. I'm pretty sure he took Senior Chief because it was all but forced on him. He's not likely to go for Master Chief, which would be what he needed to be a DH. You've got better odds convincing a Vulcan to do the lambada than you do of getting Sam to try for Officer," he explained. "Not that he wouldn't beat the standard and then some," he smirked.
"Ah well." Calliope mirrored Thadeus' easy smirk. It was hard not to. "At least he's one of us that will never be promoted passed his point of competency then."
"Probably not. Pretty sure his point of competency would be running the Daystrom Institute," he shrugged, gesturing to the holoprojection of the docking bay behind them. "Should we head down and meet them?" He wasn't sure what the XO had in mind but if they left now, they were likely to get there just as the Pathfinder was making berth; it was a long turbolift ride.
"Yes, lets." Calliope started after him, and then hesitated as they approached the lift car. Thaddeus was holding the door while Calliope appeared flustered over something.
"You alright, Calliope?" Thad asked, looking quickly worried.
She was going to say she forgot her padd, she'd catch up to him. But... looked down at her own hand and there it was. She took a deep breath and stepped inside, glancing at the ceiling and praying to the stars this turbo lift ride down wasn't also going to be a nose dive for their working relationship. "Sorry," She said. "I thought I forgot something for a moment." Self consciously, Calliope spaced herself from Thad; she formed tightly with her arms closed against the padd over her heart and avoided eye contact, nothing like the easy manner they had in the command center.
Thad ordered the lift accordingly, glancing over at Zahn and burrowing his brow slightly in confusion at the sudden change in demeanour. He wasn't the sort to bring it up, and was already questioning whether anything had really changed. He wasn't the most social person. Most of what he did manage was only after he remembered some distant lesson his mom had tried to ingrain in him as a teenager. Given his own preference, he was fine to ride the lift in silence. Yet, for some reason, his mind was wandering to Falkirk and the shopkeeper he'd met at the lounge. That had been almost two years ago. Odds were low she was even still there.
He sighed with a touch of longing, "What's the plan for bringing civilians back?" he asked finally as they rode.
"Civilians?" That struck her as an odd question out of no where. "It's not really in stone yet. Aside from getting defensive capacity back online, it looks like the environmental control systems have to go through damage control first. Honestly, apart from some very limited exceptions for family quartering, it's pretty far down the checklist. I hadn't even thought of broaching the topic yet. Do you have a suggestion for it?" Calliope kept her eyes forward and a little upward, aiming to focus on the deck count.
"Just a thought. Having civilians back aboard makes the place feel more like it should. Normal operations. Shops, stalls, things like that," he explained, obviously thinking about fabric shops like the one the woman he'd met in the lounge ran on Falkirk but not willing to voice that aloud. "It's hard to walk the promenade as it is, knowing the how it was before," he added sadly.
Attuned to the note of sorrow in Thad's voice, Calliope felt shorn in two. She wanted to commiserate with the man who had the same seven compatriots for eighteen lonely and uncertain months, possibly for all they knew entombed with one another. Of course he was longing for life as it was before all of that. "It's going to be back to normal." She promised, still training her eyes on the deck numbers, although her posture had relaxed on an exhale. "That's what everyone's here to make happen. As soon as there's a timeline for it, you'll be the first one I tell."
He simply nodded back, a half baked smile on the edge of his lips. With a brief roll of his neck he shook out the thoughts and got back to the task at hand. He knew she was right, and felt a bit like he'd let himself down asking a question he knew the answer to. He may not have been the stations First Officer but he very well could have been anywhere in the Fleet. In fact, he'd been thinking of throwing his hat in for that instead of toiling away in Strategic Operations. Especially after his eighteen months in the void. Maybe a transient life for a while was the answer to his problems. Maybe he could take that shopkeeper gal with him... he brushed that off as quickly as it had appeared, rolled his neck once more and focused, glad to see that the lift was approaching their destination.
How did you end up assigned here to begin with?" Calliope asked.
"I wasn't," Thad replied with a shake of his head, brushing one hand along the neatly shaven side to set his longer hair in shape. "I was here for an intelligence briefing. Longest meeting I've ever been to," he offered deadpan.
Imagining the absurdity, Calliope chuckled darkly in spite of herself. "Do you ever think about where you'd be now instead, if it hadn't happened?"
"First couple of weeks, sure," Thad frowned, "But that's a recipe for madness. You can't work when all you're thinking about is what could have been. What if I'd not come, what if I'd left a day earlier as planned. What if I'd sent the Marine intel guy instead of going myself, like he asked. The list could go on for days and all its going to do is make you a little bit crazier each time you think about it," he shrugged, glancing over at her. "Head on straight. Mind on task. That's the only way you get out of anything like this alive."
"And now that you are out of it, still face forward and on task. Not out of the weeds yet, are we?"
The lift doors opened, saving him having to offer any response. He simply gestured out the door and waited for Commander Zahn to step out and then followed. Ahead of them in the distance was the large viewport windows that looked out into the bay and already the Pathfinder was mooring to its berth to their right and they turnesd along the corridor accordingly.
They reached the docking bay access corridor and were met by the controlled chaos of a ship disembarking supplies and personnel. Thad shook his head, looking over to Calliope, "Were you expecting the Pathfinder to be bringing additional crew?"
"No, I mean, I don't have any on file." She looked pleased, if a little flustered by all the unanticipated activity.
"I guess it won't hurt," Thad mused, watching a few more personnel walk past, a few giving polite waves as they did.
"Commander Zahn?" a voice called out, approaching from the back of a group of Engineers, standing out in Science blues.
A red-haired man came into view, a little on the taller side and slightly burly for a science type. He was human, at least appearing to be, and gave a friendly wave as he approached and then offered his hand, a data PaDD in the other hand. "Commander Zahn. Senior Chief Samuel Edgerton," he smiled as he held his hand out.
She switched her padd to the other hand and shook his hand in greeting. "Very glad to meet you." She seemed to be measuring him up, internally comparing his visage to the description Thad had given. She never would have guessed from his easy demeanor and his appearance that he could outstrip some of the best minds at Daystrom but she reserved the opinion for now, remembering Thad had also said Edgerton didn't want accolades and promotions.
"Good to see you again, Senior Chief," Thad offered with a wry smile, shaking his hand as well.
"Damn good to see you, Thad. I never thought I'd see you again. It's damn good to see you," Edgerton grinned broadly, shaking the Commander's hand fervently.
Calliope thought for a moment that she was witnessing someone welcoming a friend back from the dead. For all Edgerton had known, his friend had been lost with the disappearance of OC. She felt her heart swell a little for the reunion. "You brought help, I see?"
Sam nodded, glancing over his shoulder at more personnel making their way through, "Ran into an Ion storm. Pretty big one, actually. It diverted three other Starfleet vessels in the area all either headed this way or to rendezvous with another ship to offload their passengers to be brought here. I offered to take them all, so they could get back to their standard patrols. One of the ships was a Vesta-class. Skipper let us ride in their slipstream. The Nova's small enough to lock to the rear shuttlebay platform. They shaved the better part of a week off our trip, and got these folks here well ahead of schedule," he grinned. "When the Captain comes aboard, I would recommend she sends Captain Cetara a bottle of something."
"Talk about making this up as we go. The compensation on mass for that..... I can't even imagine...." Thanks to some general slipstream theory that she'd tried to wrap her brain around on comm conversations with Lance, she knew much of the computation had something or else to do with the forward geometry of the vessels, but it wasn't nothing to add a Nova to your back. "That's some serious calculus for a piggy back ride."
"The trick is convincing the computer that you're part of the hull's geometry," Sam smirked, "The important thing is, we're here now. What can we do to help?" he asked, holding his hands out wide.
"I think you're about the only Science officer we have aboard at the moment," Thad answered. "Depending on how many you brought with you," he added, gesturing to the officers moving past.
"We have a few junior science officers," Calliope said. "A very few. I think if you're here to stay, we'd be remiss if we didn't appoint you provisional head of the department. I'm sure there will be officers to relieve you of the title in the next couple of weeks."
Sam's smile faltered for a bit and then he managed to bring it back. Running the show wasn't something he did well; he'd only done it on the Pathfinder because there was literally no one else that could and even then he was leaning hard into the other staff to assist. He didn't want to be out of his lab writing reports and otherwise deviating from true scientific research. That was his passion. He'd been fighting off Starfleet's attempts to make something more of him since day one.
"Sure," he nodded finally, "I'll... uh... make sure everything's in order."
"Great." Calliope regretted roping him into it the moment she saw his slightly crestfallen look. It reverberated with how she worried about pulling Lance into working for the station. She'd done this before though in personnel. Sometimes the very best talent was reluctant for all the right reasons. "Now, I really want to see your Long Range scan analysis before we put the Pathfinder back into patrol."
Sam nodded fervently, a topic he was much more comfortable with. "Well, you're in luck, Commander," he grinned, offering her the PaDD he'd been holding when he found them. "I have that, and more, right here," he explained, activating it despite holding it out to her. "Let me tell you what we found..."
