Unexpected Travel Plans

Posted on Sun Dec 7th, 2014 @ 3:48pm by Captain Li Hawke & Lieutenant Z. Talan & Warrant Officer Awf

Mission: Breaking New Ground
Location: Admiral's Office / XO's Office

* * * Admiral Wegener’s Office * * *

It was early evening by the time Jackson and Holbridge left her office. She hurried out and over to Ricky’s office and rang the chime. Hope had already departed and Kai had been nice enough to agree to pack a bag for Li and send it to the shuttle. She tapped her foot as she waited for Rick’s invitation.

“Who is it?” he said in a loud, sing-songy, falsetto voice. Apparently today had been a good day for him.

Li couldn’t help laughing as she entered. “How was dinner?”

“Epic. Food enough to feed a decent sized army,” he replied, patting his stomach and leaning back in his chair. “Hell, I may not have to eat again for a week.”

“Shall I call you a camel?” she teased, then her smile faded. “Something has come up and I don’t have much time to explain it.” Li took a seat across the desk from Rick. “And it’s something that has to be dealt with immediately.”

“Spill it,” he said, putting on his serious face.

“Time to think back a few years,” she answered. “To the Zephrinas Belt and a certain ice planet and some buried treasure.”

His eyebrow cocked. “Okay…” he said, not thinking he would have been hearing about this out here.

“Someone stumbled across it. Holbridge’s company is doing some work out there and he and Quentin were exposed. Which means that he arrived here with a report and I had to inform Dae and Jackson. To make a long story short, I have to go do damage control.”


He exhaled sharply through his nose and crossed his arms. “Go. Take the yacht and whatever personnel and material you need. I’ll take care of whatever you have going on here.”

Li nodded. “I thought of that but I think a shuttle will be less conspicuous. I‘ll need our new pilot and along with Jackson, I’ve pulled in Talan from Security. Talan and Awf will need you to handle security clearance. Holbridge is now civilian so nothing to be done about that, but he knows when to keep things to himself. We’re leaving in ten minutes.”

Rick tapped his terminal and it flickered to life. “I’ll take care of the security clearances. Be safe.” It wouldn’t take him long to get Talan and Awf squared away and they would be ready to take on whatever Li needed them to do.

“I will.” She rose and gave him a nod. “I’ll report in as soon as I know something. Please inform Dad? I don’t know yet how much this has spread and will need to be contained. See you soon.” Without another word, she turned and hurried out.

He was already nearing completion on Talan’s clearance when she left. “Wait--inform your dad? Dammit. Now he’s gonna’ be irked at me instead of her.” He shook his head and added, “Yayyyyy…”


* * * XO's Office * * *

Li returned to her office, her thoughts buzzing with the events of the past hour. She had a lot to do - her assistant had gone off to pack some clothes for her, and she needed to inform Sakkath, but that she could do once they were underway. Now, she needed the last two members of the crew that would accompany them. To speed things up, she opened the main channel to the station's comm.

"Lt. Talan and Warrant Officer Awf, please report to the XO's office."

As she waited for them to arrive, she sat in her silent office, the image of the alien in her thoughts. One never knew when the past would rise up, the best you could do was to take it as it came. This would be an interesting ride, there was no doubt of that. The chime at her door interrupted her thoughts. It was time to get the show on the road.

Having straightened out his uniform jacket, the aforementioned Ocampa smiled a bit and adjusted his hair. It was only a short turbolift ride away to visit the door of the office had called him. Well, it seemed like a short ride away in spite of it really being half a station from him, but turbolift efficiency never ceased to amaze him.

Soon enough he found himself pushing the pressure plate that requested that door be opened.

"Enter," she called out.

"You had something you wanted to say?" Awf smiled as he started to walk in, "From what you and the CO said before I didn't think I'd be invited up here too often."

"On 900, plans change fast and often," Li answered. "Which is what has happened. We have a situation and I need you ready to fly out in twenty minutes. You'll be piloting the runabout. Lt. Talan is on his way and when he arrives, I'll give you both the short version of the story. You'll be filled in en route."

Having shown a bit of a wry smile, Awf looked back and laughed in a good-natured fashion, "You know all too well that I'm one of the few people who actually like it when plans change, Captain. I'll take any chance to fly that I can get my hands on."

The Wormhole Bar

After all these weeks, finally. A woman. . .Not just a woman, but THE woman. Not just a beauty, but drop dead gorgeous. . .A redhead-to-top-all-redheads. A drop dead gorgeous redhead wth personality AND intelligence.

Tamin Zehra (according to the bartender). Bajoran, civilian flight engineer. She was the first thing to catch his eye as he entered the bar, just under 15 minutes ago. Slashes of conversation he’d overheard between Tamin and a small group of pilots from Flight Operations. The woman was phenomenal, not just in her knowledge of vintage spacecraft – from various worlds – but of Earth aircraft, 20th century era.

His Aunt Zee was right. There really was a God.

Z had been only a heartbeat away from making his dreams come true (or at least giving the process a kick in the ass). . .5 feet and 10 second away from strolling up to introduce himself when. . . .

“Lt. Talan and Warrant Officer Awf, please report to the XO's office”

Yes. . .there WAS a GOD, Z sighed. And he was one sadistic son-of-a. . . . .

XO’s Office

“Lieutenant Talan reporting, as requested,” he announced after enter the office.

"Welcome Mr. Talan." Li indicated Awf as Z took a seat. "This is Warrant Officer Awf, our new Chief Support Craft Pilot. His orders are the same as your new ones, Lieutenant. We are shipping out in twenty minutes. A situation has developed in an area several hours away in the Zephrinas Belt. I have need of you two - Awf will be piloting the runabout for the team and you, Z, will be assisting in a recovery. Things might get dicey, to use the vernacular, so be prepared. I'll brief you both fully once we are underway, but I must inform you both now that this is a sensitive operation. As such, your clearances have been raised. Any questions for now?"

“I have one,” said Z. “Words like dicey, sensitive. . .A short notice assignment, a briefing enroute, and our clearances being raised. . .Would I be out of line in asking whether this mission is on or off the books?”

Li smiled for the first time. "That depends, Z, on which set of books you mean." She looked from him to Awf and back. "If you mean the usual ones, then no. This mission comes under Commander Nalas' purview."

Pausing, the Ocampa pilot then looked over to Li. He was actually surprised to hear that, because previously she and the base CO had seemed to be rather strict about things so he doubted that either of them would have ever taken on a mission that wouldn't have been, well, official in all senses of the word.

"Captain, you know from the first meeting we have that I'm not one to go around the chain of command - I asked the Admiral about it and he told me that we were rather, well, proper around here." Awf's eyes were soon as wide as saucers, though he didn't seem to be expressing even an ounce of fear. Eventually his look of concern turned to a smirk and he said, "I assume then that these details aren't to be discussed with anyone?"

"You assume correctly, Mr. Awf. However, I don't expect this to take long, barring unforeseen circumstances. Now, if there are no more questions, get packed and I'll see you both in twenty minutes."

With that same snappy salute against his fluffy hair that he had initially greeted the Captain with the time that he had first met her, Awf nodded and started off, "I'll be ready; I wouldn't miss this for the world."

Realizing the irony of the statement he smirked and added an addendum to his flippant comment, "...any world that is."

Naturally he then started off presuming that the Captain didn't stop him, considering that he had no wish to miss that twenty-minute mark - both because he was looking forward to it and because he didn't want to let anyone down.

Z departed without comment, unsure as to what to pack or how exactly to prepare for such a mission, but he didn’t feel comfortable standing around waiting twenty minutes either. Twenty minutes gave him just enough time, however, to go back to his quarters and retrieve the one thing he never traveled without: his lucky coin.

**************
Captain Li Hawke
Globetrotter

Admiral Ricky Wegener
Always Missing Out on the Good Stuff

Lieutenant Z. Talan
Security Investigations

Warrant Officer Awf
Elfin Pilot