A Step Up

Posted on Sun Jan 13th, 2013 @ 1:15pm by Lieutenant Ito Tsuki

Mission: The Struggle Within
Location: Space Near Starbase 900
Timeline: Current

The Civilian Starship Mary Lou
Captain's Quarters
Early Morning

* ding *

Ito rolled over in the bed and stretched, fighting the return to consciousness. She grabbed the blanket, tugged it up under her chin, rolled over onto her right side, and sighed in bliss from the warmth surrounding her.

* ding DING*

This time the automated wakeup call seemed more strident. She groaned, then sat up in bed even as a third chime started to sound throughout her quarters. "I am up, Molly," she said, cutting off the beginning of another set of chimes. She glanced at the chronometer on the wall by the door and saw that it was 0630 ship's time. Time to get up.

Twenty minutes later she had showered, dressed, and was on the bridge of the Mary Lou. She was a small civilian ship, capable of carrying up to a dozen personnel. She had picked the ship up for a song after the owner had gone and got himself arrested for smuggling and brought to Deep Space 14 for arraignment. During the subsequent trial he had been found guilty and sentenced to ten years in a medium security facility run by Starfleet. All of his possessions had been confiscated and sold off to help pay his fines. There was not much call for a small civilian ship on a Federation starbase, and the fact that it had been damaged during the smuggler's attempt to escape authorities had made it even less inviting. She had not been able to bring the small runabout she had grown up with to the Academy when she had attended, and had even less opportunity to get it after her assignment to DS14, so when her friend in Engineering had told her about the ship she had jumped at it.

It had taken her almost a year to get it back up to operational specs, even with the help of some of the Engineers on the base. They had said they were glad to help her, as it gave them something different to do, and she was not about to turn the help away. When she wasn't up in Flight Ops tending to her duties as the Assistant Flight Control Officer she was working on the ship. She had taken the time to automate almost all of the functions needed to fly the craft by herself. Granted, she could not take the ship into battle, but then again she was civilian. She should be running from battles, not going into them.

And now her she was, flying to her new assignment in her own ship! She couldn't have been more pleased, especially when she had found out that there weren't any regulations on a member of Starfleet having their own ship. She did not think that she would have any problems finding a berth to store her on at her new assignment. Starbase 900 was an Immense class station, with over five hundred supporting craft assigned to her. She didn't figure that she would have a problem finding a berth.

"Molly, are we ready for the drop back into normal space?" she asked as she entered the ship's bridge and settled down into her chair. Unlike the bridge's found on most starfleet vessels the Mary Lou's bridge was much more compact. From the captain's chair she could see every instrument on the bridge, and could rapidly configure her console to emulate any of the other stations she might need to use. There were also three other stations evenly spaced around the room - communications, tactical, and engineering. Her glance lingered on each, taking in the conditions of each.

"Systems are green," the computer responded. When Ito had first gotten the ship's computer running she had been surprised at the AI's personality. Apparently the smuggler had a thing for sultry voices, and Molly's was right up there at the top of the scale. She had thought about a reinstall, but had never gotten around to it. She had actually gotten used to it, and it made her giggle to herself whenever a base's maintenance crew happened to talk to her. The looks on their faces were priceless.

"Excellent." She configured the board in front of her for communications and flight control, then dropped the ship out of warp. The simiulated starscreen vanished to be replaced by the real thing. Ito glanced down at the tactical screen displayed to the right side of the main viewscreen and took note of SB900's location. She locked on to the station's nav beacon and accelerated to half impluse on a course for the station.

She powered up the comm station to contact DS900's flight control. She unconsciously straightened her shoulders as she thought of her new job and the responsibilities it will bring. Then the answering hail from the starbase filled her ears and she turned to the job of landing at the base.

Lieutenant Ito Tsuki