Making the Rounds

Posted on 06 May 2021 @ 2:48pm by Lieutenant Parker Voss & Lieutenant Commander Gemma Alexander

1,228 words; about a 6 minute read

Mission: Extinction
Location: Flight Deck
Timeline: Mission Day 15 at 1300

Lieutenant Parker Voss walked onto the flight deck, to observe things. He had thought that if his engineering services were required, he should have a lay of the land.

He walked around, looking at the systems, and at the ships.


"Looking for something?" said a polite, British accented voice as Gemma walked up to near the engineer. Normally when they come onto the flight deck it was to fix something and/or meet with ground crew, so when the engineer was noticed just looking around Alexander had been informed as she'd been checking the flight deck anyway. It may not always look like it but they'd gotten pretty good at catching sight of visitor.

He turned when he heard a lovely voice call to him. "Hello. Lieutenant Parker Voss, new Chief of Engineering." He motioned to the flight deck. "If anything happened, I wanted to know the lay of the land so that my people could be ready, commander."

"I can respect that, to be honest though you might do better with an appointment then we could shake a ground crew tech loose to answer your questions, give you a safety briefing on things to watch out for. Someone unfamiliar with flight ops could get hurt wandering about." Still polite but imparting serious information. "Were you able to review the Flight Deck information in the computer beforehand?" She asked trying to get a read on this new CEO as she shoved the PADD she was carrying into a pocket of her her flight suit.

"I've read everything I could get my hands on before reporting in, commander." He looked at her, trying to get a read on her. "Maybe I could meet with the person in charge and sit down and look at what each department can help the other."

One eyebrow went up briefly on Gemma's features in a trick she'd learned from a Vulcan roommate at the Academy. Her tone slightly amused. "Perhaps not quite everything. Lieutenant Commander Gemma Alexander, Squadron Commander, so that would be me." She introduced herself. "That's a good idea but I'm in the middle of something right now." She said as she noted her ever politely nagging yeoman coming up to them and waiting patiently. "20 minutes work for you?" Trying to hide her reluctance to deal with the paperwork that seemed ever present on her job.

"I am at your service, commander." He nodded. "When ever is fine for you, will be fine for me."

Gemma nodded, glad he seemed to be reasonable, "I'll be back, if you'd like my office is over there..." She pointed at a door fairly nearby with her name next to it. Then with another smile turned to pay attention to her yeoman who was still hovering nearby, her head bend in focus to whatever she was being shown on the PADD.

Voss, who had looked at her yeoman, smiled. "Then that's where I'll wait, and I promise not to look for any classified information." He smiled again and headed towards the office.

She nodded, not prone to leaving classified items out anyway, "Just watch you don't touch my tea stash." She joked before returning her attention to the yeoman.

The office was an odd mishmash, plenty of flight related items like the mock up of the Gryphon on her desk next to a zen sand garden and a tiny wooden trebuchet or the painting of a hawk in flight on her wall etc. There was also a full tea set in one corner, family photos, an old Springball racket sat next to an unstrung long bow which in turn sat next to a quiver of target shooting arrows. Random mementos of her career also littered the office, patches from her previous squadrons in a shadow box, a twisted piece of metal from when she'd been forced to crash land a craft some years back and others.

Voss took his time looking around the room. The collection of items were very...eclectic. It gave him some insight to the mind of this woman.

15 minutes later Gemma walked in, "I have escaped early," She sounded pleased about that "The paperwork gods have been fed for now and are off my back. Water or anything?" She offered heading to the wall unit next to the tea set.

"Water, please. Iced." He sat in one of the chairs opposite her desk. "Anything earth shattering you want to share?"

Gemma busied herself getting two glasses of water and placed one in front of the engineer before placing her own and sitting, "Not as such no, but time sensitive about last minute changes to the training plan for this afternoon. It's always something." She gave a brief smile, "So before something else happens, any particular place you want to start?" She'd put aside this time to work on routine matters anyway, squaring things away with the new CEO seemed an excellent use of that time.

"I'd like to discuss how our departments could help each other, in the event of an emergency." He looked at the model on her desk. "I've only flown shuttles and runabouts......but something like that looks like it would be..challenging...and I love challenges." He smiled at her.

"It is at that." She agreed, leaning back in her chair with an answering smile. "Well if you like challenges, reviewing our emergency planning would be a big help. We've got a fair set up here with our ground crews, other techs and some equipment onsite but there are limits since so much that can affect the ship would naturally ripple to the flight deck." She paused to take a drink of water, "We've done what we can to offset to big issues like being cut off from support, impassable corridors, unable to transport that sort of thing as well as internal malfunctions but I am always happy to have another pair of eyes on it. Are you familiar with the AI test we did awhile back?"

"Artifical intelligence? Used for what?" Parker responded.

"As an interface with the computer, I don't quite get everything but the overall effect was were were training and it did more than mimic damage. And at one point it shut down an entire gypthon squadron in flight by running a diagnostic." She frowned annoyed at the memory, "We were lucky but still, not an experience I'd care to repeat."

"I'll have to look up the data...does sound interesting. I know it's been around for awhile, but it might be...fun, trying to get it to work." Parker nodded. "if you would like to continue this discussion over coffee, I'm available."

"Please do." She replied, "I will send you everything you may want to review and we can set up a time to follow up if needed." She replied with a smile, thinking at least the new CEO would be easy to work with and seemed like a reasonable sort.

Parker stood up. "Then I look forward to talking about the project, over coffee, with you very soon." He smiled at her when she smiled at him, then turned and left.

Gemma nodded to herself as she left. Time would tell but he could be a lot worse to work with, before she could consider more her door chime went off and time for musings was past, "Enter." She told it.

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