Snowfall

Posted on 04/28/2013 @ 1:11pm by Captain Kheren & Commander Snowfire K'Leysha PhD
Edited on on 05/01/2013 @ 6:12am

Mission: The Forgotten
Location: USS Horizon, Captain's Ready Room

Leaving her department to get to know one another without the burden of a senior officer present had been somewhat harder then she'd expected, but in a good way. The new members of the team seemed to be gelling well - although she'd have to see how the other officers meshed as they arrived. She filed that away in the small corner of her mind dedicated to shipboard admin, attaching the possibility of a full social gathering for the officers of her department before the commissioning ceremony. Possibly a formal briefing followed by some sort of shirt-sleeve dinner. She'd work it out. And she could always rely on the officers she knew to help her get to know the others. Complicated sometimes, but it would work out. It always did. Now, however, there was another duty that she had to obey. That of a subordinate officer to their captain. A quick query had confirmed his location, and now her long legs carried her almost silently across the vast bridge of the Horizon. A lot bigger then the McKenzie - the term 'glorified breadbox' quite an apt description of that ship.

From here, less than a score of officers would dictate the lives and duties of over two thousand. And she would be one of those few. It was a lot of responsibility. Oh, sure, most IDF cruisers had crew populations of this size of larger, but that was differences in design philosophy. And more to the point, didn't really matter right now. Right now...right now was something else. She was going to have to ask about those cultural sessions if she had the chance now. There seemed to be a lot of misunderstanding involving her people - not that she was terribly surprised. Disappointed, but not really surprised. And adding another few prayers to the Goddess that the Vision was for alikeness.

She reached the other side of the bridge, and reached out to tap the stud on the wall that served as the trigger for the entrance request chime. Everyone else had reported, and it wouldn't do to let herself fall behind. Not when she respected this captain as much as she did. Ebony fingers touched the switch, and a brief pressure knocked it home for the second required to transmit the signal. She doubted she'd have to wait long.

"Enter. "

This was the deep resonant voice she was familiar with. The door slid open before her and she could see the former captain of the late, great starship Artemis looking at a framing plate where were displayed a good number of medals, some of them noticeably prestigious. He was looking at them with his head going from one shoulder to the other, as if unsure about what he was looking at.

"My wives' idea of instilling proper decorum in the office of the commanding officer," said Kheren with a decidely dubious tone. " I prefer to have the respect come from actual dutywork... but I know that if I put them back in a drawer, they will as quickly get them back out here... and bolt them to the bulkhead... "

He finally turned to greet the dark-skinned vulcanoid woman now entering his ready room.

"Lieutenant Commander K'leysha; welcome aboard the Horizon. And congratulations on your well deserved promotion. We are all in your debt after what you did during Operation Horizon. I am sure you will be invaluable to this ship and crew. "

"I will do all that I can, Captain." Snowfire replied firmly, then her lips quirked in a fleeting grin. "Just don't get us in any situations where we need to use neurogenic overrides until I've got at least ten more people trained in the technique." Her tone was joking, but there was a subtle question within. Scream had been a desperation measure, but it had also worked. And even if the reasons for that medal were known, the technique almost certainly was not - beyond herself and those few others that she had trained in it. And blocking it would be...difficult if one didn't have specialist knowledge.

"No promises, Lieutenant Commander. I do not choose the problems we face; I deal with them. With your help and that of everyone on board. Guess this is what those baubbles mean..."

"And any who know you will understand the reasons for that framing, Captain. It is a statement of what you have done in Starfleet, what you have sacrificed and given in your time as an officer. It shows that you are not just the captain of this vessel, but that Starfleet could not have chosen a better one."

It wasn't flattery. The very idea of that was as repellent a concept to her as it was likely foreign to the Andorian who stood before her.

"Medals are more than pieces of metal. They are a sign of Starfleet's thanks, and of its trust. And to not show that?" She shook her head gently. "If you would forgive my speaking freely; your wives would not be the only ones bolting them to the bulkhead."

She hadn't raised her voice, but the presence of command that had brought her a captaincy of her own a long, long time ago had never been clearer; violet eyes flashing fire as she looked down to meet the reflective silver of her superior. Then she shook herself, posture shifting, and the intonation in her voice faded to return to that of a subordinate.

Kheren sighed in obvious surrender.

"Guess I must submit to will and reason then. I just hope they will not have people, or me, looking backward when we should be looking forward."

"That aside, sir, I come bearing a request." She centered herself mentally, running over the words in her mind, and then spoke carefully. "In meeting one of my new subordinates, I found through conversation that there are a great many misunderstandings in regards to my people and how they have interacted with the Federation - and how they exist now. With you permission, I would like to try and remedy that."

"You may know that I headed small classes at Starfleet Academy in the two years before my transfer to Lotus Fleet, if not you do now. I would like to request permission to restart that cultural course here aboard the Horizon. The number of officers in Starfleet that have more than passing knowledge of my people is a fraction of the total. The number that actually have been taught about us is even less. I do not place blame here, and even if I intended to it would not lie with Starfleet in the primary. The files that my people transferred to the Federation were not as well ordered as they could have been, and the fact that our databases use a very different hierarchy does not help. So if you would allow it, I would endeavour to fix that." 

Kheren nodded.

"I am all for it, Lieutenant-Commander. Fact is, I will attend them myself. Understanding one another as individuals and as people and sharing what we are is why we are out there in the first place. "

He looked at her in silence for a moment. Then his tone became a bit more formal.

"On that point, Lieutenant-Commander; I am known to be rather strict on adherence to regulation. I prefer a certain... esprit de corps under my command... and such a distinctive uniform as yours only serves to set you apart from all of us, to remind us that you are not one of us, only parading as one... "

He left the thought suspended in the air, attentive to what the Ilythirii would say next.

Snowfire blinked, then it clicked. Bringing one black-skinned hand up, she tugged lightly on the white shoulders of her uniform.

"This?" She sighed. "I don't have a choice, Captain. However I came prepared this time." Drawing a small PADD from her pocket, she held it out. The device was already set to the right passage of the Treaty with her people - she had expected this. A slender finger tapped the particular sentence.

'All members of the Ilythiiri Defence Force contingent transferred as cultural exchange must adhere to the jointly designed IDF/Starfleet hybrid uniform standard detailed in appendix 42A.'

"I'm not a member of Starfleet," she said quietly - was there regret in her voice? - shaking her head once. "Not really. It might not seem like that sometimes, but it's the truth. And the IDF wanted to make very sure that we stayed like that. That there was some visual cue to show that we weren't Starfleet officers first. Hasn't been working so well with me...but I'm the exception to the rule. And also the only member of the exchange program to rise about the rank of Lieutenant - which attracted more...attention...then you would believe."

Again that small headshake, as if she wanted to say more but something was holding her back.

"I'm glad you'll be coming to the cultural courses, Captain. I'm planning on going over the Treaty first, so why don't you keep this copy?"

She released the PADD into the Andorian's hand, and her tone turned formal.

"Was there anything further, Captain?"

The Andorian listened to her explanation and simply nodded. It was hard to tell what he felt about it from the lack of expression in his dark blue face, but his eyes told plainly that he was not happy about it; but he would defer to higher authority in this matter... at least until he found a reason to bring up any objection. And it would not be to Snowfire. 

He took the PADD and looked directly at his chief of science.

"Is your department ready to... go boldly where no one has gone before? "

"One or two of my sub-department heads are coming in a bit later then I'd prefer, but they were multiple quadrants away when I sent the transfer requests so we're lucky that they've managed to get here at all. But even with that, we'll be shaken down and ready well ahead of the commissioning service. I'm aiming for a twenty eight hour grace period." 

Here, at least, she had a lot more experience then most Starfleet officers. If there was one thing that the IDF had learned and then proceeded to hammer into every member who graduated from its Academies, it was the required practices to get a large number of personnel working together in as close an approximation to a well oiled machine as the timing allowed. It was an oft repeated mental mantra for herself, even with the somewhat short notice that she'd had to work with. From the McKenzie, yes, it was a big jump. But from the last ship she served on before then, before the transfer, it was actually a step down.

"We'll be ready Captain, my word on it." She said firmly, then, in the manner of reciting a motto. "Before you need you know us."

"This universe will certainly endeavor, as always, to put that assumption to the test. Excellent, Lieutenant-Commander. Unless there is anything else, you are dismissed. See you at the commissionning ceremony. "

The way he ended his sentence, Kheren gave the distinct impression that this upcoming social event was the very test he had been speaking of... at least for him.