Cascade – Checking in
by Lieutenant Commander Steve Wyman & Captain Tasha Tahir (NPC)
Post Details
ON:
'I swear, it feels like I just did this. Wait... because I did.' Steve thought as he walked up to the door to Captain Tahir's ready room. It was only a few weeks ago that he had uprooted his family for a post on the Freedom, and he had discovered that the door to Commander Maxwell's ready room didn't open properly.
Unconsciously, he rubbed his nose, remembering the pain of walking into a door that was supposed to open as well as the bruising to his ego. With a quick glance to make sure his uniform was in order after the trip in from starbase 66, Wyman pressed the door chime.
Harris looked up at the sound of the chime, which at this hour was audible above the relative peace of Operations. He had not seen the officer pass his console and he made a mental note to have his console moved for the Delta shift.
"I'm afraid the Captain is not in her office, not at this hour. She will be in her quarters. Anything I can help with?" The communications officer smiled as he posed the question.
"Not in her... How late is it?" Steve muttered, pulling a small device out of his pocket. The clock had already synced to station time, and he blinked incredulously when he saw the display. "Almost 2300? It's that late?"
His arm dropped and a foolish look came across his face. "Well, don't I just look foolish. This time of night of COURSE the Captain isn't on duty!" As as his face twisted thoughtfully, he finally turned his attention to the Petty Officer at the communications console. "Sorry about that. I feel just flat out dumb. Anyway - Lieutenant Steve Wyman, newly arrived chief engineer. I just got on board and came up to report in."
Williams lip folded inward as he gave a single nod. "I see Lieutenant." Will said apologetically, feeling genuine remorse for the poor fellow, "Tell you what, I will enquire if she can see you tonight or can it wait until tomorrow?" He asked probing for the need of the situation.
"I suppose it's not urgent, and I'd rather not disturb her. But if she's able it would probably be better to get the formality over with so I can get to work first thing in the morning." Wyman thought aloud. The last thing he wanted to do was wake his new commanding officer out of a dead sleep just because he came in on a late transport. That didn't strike as a good idea ten minutes after putting boot to deck.
Tasha, dressed in casual clothing consisting of towel trousers and sweat top was a little startled by the call. The station had been unusually quiet for the last couple of nights and this was a hail, not a order to report to Ops.
She reached over to the desk, laying the PADD onto the small table alongside the sofa and picked up her comm badge.
=^= "Tahir." She said simply
=^= "Apologies for the lateness of the call captain, but I have Lieutenant Wyman, the new Chief Engineer here in Ops requesting to see you. It's not urgent, but he has a desire to see you tonight, if you can?" Harris advised.
Tasha glanced across to the time. It was late, but not adversely so.
=^= "Send him down Will." =^= She said closing the comm and surveyed the room, checking nothing was untoward for a late night visitor.
==A few minutes later==
For the second time in a matter of minutes, Steve was outside of a door checking his uniform for creases. Now that he was disturbing Captain Tahir in the middle of the night on what was more or less a professional social call, the last thing he wanted was to make the impression worse by looking even slightly out of sorts.
'How did I miss that before...' he thought, pulling a long red hair that could only belong to his daughter from the underside of his left sleeve. Unceremoniously tossing it to the side, he smoothed out his uniform jacket, took a deep breath, and pressed the door chime.
Tasha pulled the hair band down to her neck, swept her hair back before sliding the band up across her face holding her hair back from her eyes and slipped her feet into her soft carpet shoes, padded to the door and tapped on the door release. The door slid apart, revealing a very pristine mid thirties human male with hair swept back across head.
"Lieutenant Wyman," She assumed, "please come in. I am Captain Tasha Tahir." Turning sideways away from the new CEO she sidled towards the replicator. "I know it's getting late, but would you like a drink. Tea, coffee, cocoa?" She offered without adding any alcoholic beverage to the choice she offered.
Wyman waved off the suggestion, "No, thank you, Captain. The last thing I need is caffeine at this hour." He chuckled at the thought of the way he had told Gwen she couldn't drink stuff like that before bedtime. "I'm sorry for bothering you at this late hour, Captain. I honestly didn't realize how late it was when the transport docked. If I had, I would have waited until morning to check in."
Tasha nodded at his declination and moved to the sofa. "Not a problem, if you don't mind meeting me in my civvies." She said as she took eased herself downwards. "It is never the easiest thing to do, keep track of time in space. It's always dark and the I swear this station works on a 28 hour clock." She admitted with a hint of irony, "Please sit, but keep hold of the PADD until tomorrow. I'll tell you what I can of the current situation and where you'll need to be."
As Tahir sat down in one chair, Wyman took a seat across from her. So far she seemed like a no nonsense type of command officer, which Wyman didn't have an issue with. Given that DS5 was out on the edge of Federation space, nonsense wouldn't get you very far.
Bringing her leg under herself, Tasha advised the CEO of a basic outline of his duties considering the immense size of the station, his team equated to that.
"We recently had a very unfortunate accident in the main hangar bay, that would be a good place to start, most of the repairs are done but it would not hurt for you to give an appraisal." She suggested as she noticed the placid stare from the chief. "You will get used to it." She said confidently, "It will take a while to find your bearings, but your predecessor has installed some beneficial equipment. The transporters are the most demanding things, turbo lifts just took too long but, and I can't go into specifics, the beams were tightened and the receivers I think, have been especially honed to allow site to site transport, much quicker." She smiled.
Steve took the whole thing in. "Well, every engineer tends to leave a mark on a ship - or base, as the case may be. I've read some of the articles that Commander Freeman published. He's brilliant, albeit eccentric, at least that's the reputation he has around the Corps of Engineers. I'm sure whatever non-standard tweaks he's made to the station's systems work pretty well, and I'll try not do anything that'll disrupt the normal operation of the base."
"Though I can't promise I don't have a few odd tricks of my own up my sleeve." he added with a mischievous smirk.
Tasha held the smile. "Yes, he did but that of course doesn't mean that you cannot add your own, with tricks or no." She countered amiably, "There are so many things to go wrong on a station, the advantage being that unlike a ship, we have the facilities to manufacture everything and anything at short notice. I don't know if you have served on a station before, but believe me, it takes a lot to get used to and DS5 is nothing like a ship." As Tasha said it, there were times when she so wished it was. It would make her life much easier and far less stressful.
"The rules are a little more..." She paused, "relaxed. I think that is the best way to describe it. There are civilians, cadets, scholars, ambassadors, so many variants to live with that we cannot hold the same regard rules as a ship that being said, that is not an excuse for poor performance. The limitations are not so strict, the parameters freer." She realised she was babbling. "Sorry Lieutenant, you'll get what I mean after a day or two." She said with a shrug of her shoulders. "So changing topic slightly, any family?" Tahir enquired.
Steve nodded quickly, "A lovely wife and a five year old daughter. Almost six, actually. The missus is career enlisted and knows her way around a warp core better than I do. And my little girl is very much her mother's daughter. Though I'm still trying to figure out how she so easily wraps me around that tiny finger of hers."
She was surprised to hear the Chief Engineer admit his partner knew more about a warp core than he as Tashas smile widened. "Your wife or daughter?" She replied knowing Steve referred to his daughter as she brought her leg out and sat more upright. "What does your wife do?" She asked with a rise of her brow.
He couldn't help but chuckle. "Both, actually. And my wife is the new Engineer's Mate - no pun intended." As he'd already had this discussion not very long ago on the Freedom, he immediately moved to assuage any misgivings on Tahir's part, "And I know what you're thinking - we're absolutely professional on duty. Plus the majority of the time we won't be on shift together, anyway. Now that I think about it, Gwen's at an age where sometimes it feels like we have to be professional when we're off duty, too."
Tasha shook her head. "The thought didn't cross my mind. It does however strike me as odd and it must be a strain on your relationship.." She started then thought of his daughter. "sorry ignore me, I didn't mean to be over familiar . Do you plan on working different shift patterns so that your daughter" Tasha would have used her name but the Lieutenant had yet to reveal it, "has one parent with her?" Her head cocked slightly to one side.
Tasha thought back to how at around the same age as Steves' daughter, she had lost her mother and through no fault of her own had been taken into state care and for many years, it had a profound affect on her. Though she didn't have time nor patience for children, she still felt that a child belongs with its family.
"Well that, and protocol. The Engineer's Mate is effectively the third in command of the department. So I'll be on duty for one shift, the assistant chief for another, Ceridwen for the third, and whichever junior officer I think has potential for advancement on the forth. But also so that one of us is with Gwen at all times. She's at an age where she can be a bit rambunctious."
It was then that Wyman noticed a look on his superior's face, like she was thinking about some bad memory. He wasn't about to press her on it though. "Not to pry, ma'am, but what about you? Or are you like a lot of command officers I know - married to their job?"
Tasha looked blankly at Steve for a moment. Nobody had asked her about her marital status in such a long time, she barely gave it thought these days.
"Widowed." She replied , not divulging the circumstances or Romans name. "So I guess I am married to my job." She shrugged her shoulders having neither considered she was either, that is until now." She felt the grey cloud descend, so to not appear dour, she stood. and gave a weak smile to the new CEO.
"Sorry Lieutenant, it is getting late," She made the excuse now it suited her, "so I shall bid you good night and good luck with the new job. We'll get a chance to talk further in the morning." She extended her hand in welcome, but also in departing.
Needless to say, Wyman felt like a schmuck as soon as he heard her response and saw the color run out of her face. He wanted to apologize for asking, but his brain froze and the words refused to come to him. Weakly, he managed to squeeze out, "Of course, Captain." before rising, shaking her hand, and turning toward the door.
Tasha followed him to the door, more to ensure it was sealed securely behind him and Tashas' hand slipped down the door to her side as she turned to look at her room, her lonely room and felt the tears begin to track down her cheeks, thankfully out of sight of any of the crew.
OFF
Captain Tasha Tahir
CO
& introducing
Lieutenant Steve Wyman
Chief Engineer
by Lieutenant Commander Steve Wyman & Captain Tasha Tahir (NPC)
Post Details
| Title | Checking in | |
| Mission | Cascade | |
| Author(s) | Lieutenant Commander Steve Wyman & Captain Tasha Tahir (NPC) | |
| Posted | Thu Feb 14, 2013 @ 12:57am | |
| Location | Main Operations, outside the captain's ready room | |
| Timeline | SD 70 22:55 |
'I swear, it feels like I just did this. Wait... because I did.' Steve thought as he walked up to the door to Captain Tahir's ready room. It was only a few weeks ago that he had uprooted his family for a post on the Freedom, and he had discovered that the door to Commander Maxwell's ready room didn't open properly.
Unconsciously, he rubbed his nose, remembering the pain of walking into a door that was supposed to open as well as the bruising to his ego. With a quick glance to make sure his uniform was in order after the trip in from starbase 66, Wyman pressed the door chime.
Harris looked up at the sound of the chime, which at this hour was audible above the relative peace of Operations. He had not seen the officer pass his console and he made a mental note to have his console moved for the Delta shift.
"I'm afraid the Captain is not in her office, not at this hour. She will be in her quarters. Anything I can help with?" The communications officer smiled as he posed the question.
"Not in her... How late is it?" Steve muttered, pulling a small device out of his pocket. The clock had already synced to station time, and he blinked incredulously when he saw the display. "Almost 2300? It's that late?"
His arm dropped and a foolish look came across his face. "Well, don't I just look foolish. This time of night of COURSE the Captain isn't on duty!" As as his face twisted thoughtfully, he finally turned his attention to the Petty Officer at the communications console. "Sorry about that. I feel just flat out dumb. Anyway - Lieutenant Steve Wyman, newly arrived chief engineer. I just got on board and came up to report in."
Williams lip folded inward as he gave a single nod. "I see Lieutenant." Will said apologetically, feeling genuine remorse for the poor fellow, "Tell you what, I will enquire if she can see you tonight or can it wait until tomorrow?" He asked probing for the need of the situation.
"I suppose it's not urgent, and I'd rather not disturb her. But if she's able it would probably be better to get the formality over with so I can get to work first thing in the morning." Wyman thought aloud. The last thing he wanted to do was wake his new commanding officer out of a dead sleep just because he came in on a late transport. That didn't strike as a good idea ten minutes after putting boot to deck.
Tasha, dressed in casual clothing consisting of towel trousers and sweat top was a little startled by the call. The station had been unusually quiet for the last couple of nights and this was a hail, not a order to report to Ops.
She reached over to the desk, laying the PADD onto the small table alongside the sofa and picked up her comm badge.
=^= "Tahir." She said simply
=^= "Apologies for the lateness of the call captain, but I have Lieutenant Wyman, the new Chief Engineer here in Ops requesting to see you. It's not urgent, but he has a desire to see you tonight, if you can?" Harris advised.
Tasha glanced across to the time. It was late, but not adversely so.
=^= "Send him down Will." =^= She said closing the comm and surveyed the room, checking nothing was untoward for a late night visitor.
==A few minutes later==
For the second time in a matter of minutes, Steve was outside of a door checking his uniform for creases. Now that he was disturbing Captain Tahir in the middle of the night on what was more or less a professional social call, the last thing he wanted was to make the impression worse by looking even slightly out of sorts.
'How did I miss that before...' he thought, pulling a long red hair that could only belong to his daughter from the underside of his left sleeve. Unceremoniously tossing it to the side, he smoothed out his uniform jacket, took a deep breath, and pressed the door chime.
Tasha pulled the hair band down to her neck, swept her hair back before sliding the band up across her face holding her hair back from her eyes and slipped her feet into her soft carpet shoes, padded to the door and tapped on the door release. The door slid apart, revealing a very pristine mid thirties human male with hair swept back across head.
"Lieutenant Wyman," She assumed, "please come in. I am Captain Tasha Tahir." Turning sideways away from the new CEO she sidled towards the replicator. "I know it's getting late, but would you like a drink. Tea, coffee, cocoa?" She offered without adding any alcoholic beverage to the choice she offered.
Wyman waved off the suggestion, "No, thank you, Captain. The last thing I need is caffeine at this hour." He chuckled at the thought of the way he had told Gwen she couldn't drink stuff like that before bedtime. "I'm sorry for bothering you at this late hour, Captain. I honestly didn't realize how late it was when the transport docked. If I had, I would have waited until morning to check in."
Tasha nodded at his declination and moved to the sofa. "Not a problem, if you don't mind meeting me in my civvies." She said as she took eased herself downwards. "It is never the easiest thing to do, keep track of time in space. It's always dark and the I swear this station works on a 28 hour clock." She admitted with a hint of irony, "Please sit, but keep hold of the PADD until tomorrow. I'll tell you what I can of the current situation and where you'll need to be."
As Tahir sat down in one chair, Wyman took a seat across from her. So far she seemed like a no nonsense type of command officer, which Wyman didn't have an issue with. Given that DS5 was out on the edge of Federation space, nonsense wouldn't get you very far.
Bringing her leg under herself, Tasha advised the CEO of a basic outline of his duties considering the immense size of the station, his team equated to that.
"We recently had a very unfortunate accident in the main hangar bay, that would be a good place to start, most of the repairs are done but it would not hurt for you to give an appraisal." She suggested as she noticed the placid stare from the chief. "You will get used to it." She said confidently, "It will take a while to find your bearings, but your predecessor has installed some beneficial equipment. The transporters are the most demanding things, turbo lifts just took too long but, and I can't go into specifics, the beams were tightened and the receivers I think, have been especially honed to allow site to site transport, much quicker." She smiled.
Steve took the whole thing in. "Well, every engineer tends to leave a mark on a ship - or base, as the case may be. I've read some of the articles that Commander Freeman published. He's brilliant, albeit eccentric, at least that's the reputation he has around the Corps of Engineers. I'm sure whatever non-standard tweaks he's made to the station's systems work pretty well, and I'll try not do anything that'll disrupt the normal operation of the base."
"Though I can't promise I don't have a few odd tricks of my own up my sleeve." he added with a mischievous smirk.
Tasha held the smile. "Yes, he did but that of course doesn't mean that you cannot add your own, with tricks or no." She countered amiably, "There are so many things to go wrong on a station, the advantage being that unlike a ship, we have the facilities to manufacture everything and anything at short notice. I don't know if you have served on a station before, but believe me, it takes a lot to get used to and DS5 is nothing like a ship." As Tasha said it, there were times when she so wished it was. It would make her life much easier and far less stressful.
"The rules are a little more..." She paused, "relaxed. I think that is the best way to describe it. There are civilians, cadets, scholars, ambassadors, so many variants to live with that we cannot hold the same regard rules as a ship that being said, that is not an excuse for poor performance. The limitations are not so strict, the parameters freer." She realised she was babbling. "Sorry Lieutenant, you'll get what I mean after a day or two." She said with a shrug of her shoulders. "So changing topic slightly, any family?" Tahir enquired.
Steve nodded quickly, "A lovely wife and a five year old daughter. Almost six, actually. The missus is career enlisted and knows her way around a warp core better than I do. And my little girl is very much her mother's daughter. Though I'm still trying to figure out how she so easily wraps me around that tiny finger of hers."
She was surprised to hear the Chief Engineer admit his partner knew more about a warp core than he as Tashas smile widened. "Your wife or daughter?" She replied knowing Steve referred to his daughter as she brought her leg out and sat more upright. "What does your wife do?" She asked with a rise of her brow.
He couldn't help but chuckle. "Both, actually. And my wife is the new Engineer's Mate - no pun intended." As he'd already had this discussion not very long ago on the Freedom, he immediately moved to assuage any misgivings on Tahir's part, "And I know what you're thinking - we're absolutely professional on duty. Plus the majority of the time we won't be on shift together, anyway. Now that I think about it, Gwen's at an age where sometimes it feels like we have to be professional when we're off duty, too."
Tasha shook her head. "The thought didn't cross my mind. It does however strike me as odd and it must be a strain on your relationship.." She started then thought of his daughter. "sorry ignore me, I didn't mean to be over familiar . Do you plan on working different shift patterns so that your daughter" Tasha would have used her name but the Lieutenant had yet to reveal it, "has one parent with her?" Her head cocked slightly to one side.
Tasha thought back to how at around the same age as Steves' daughter, she had lost her mother and through no fault of her own had been taken into state care and for many years, it had a profound affect on her. Though she didn't have time nor patience for children, she still felt that a child belongs with its family.
"Well that, and protocol. The Engineer's Mate is effectively the third in command of the department. So I'll be on duty for one shift, the assistant chief for another, Ceridwen for the third, and whichever junior officer I think has potential for advancement on the forth. But also so that one of us is with Gwen at all times. She's at an age where she can be a bit rambunctious."
It was then that Wyman noticed a look on his superior's face, like she was thinking about some bad memory. He wasn't about to press her on it though. "Not to pry, ma'am, but what about you? Or are you like a lot of command officers I know - married to their job?"
Tasha looked blankly at Steve for a moment. Nobody had asked her about her marital status in such a long time, she barely gave it thought these days.
"Widowed." She replied , not divulging the circumstances or Romans name. "So I guess I am married to my job." She shrugged her shoulders having neither considered she was either, that is until now." She felt the grey cloud descend, so to not appear dour, she stood. and gave a weak smile to the new CEO.
"Sorry Lieutenant, it is getting late," She made the excuse now it suited her, "so I shall bid you good night and good luck with the new job. We'll get a chance to talk further in the morning." She extended her hand in welcome, but also in departing.
Needless to say, Wyman felt like a schmuck as soon as he heard her response and saw the color run out of her face. He wanted to apologize for asking, but his brain froze and the words refused to come to him. Weakly, he managed to squeeze out, "Of course, Captain." before rising, shaking her hand, and turning toward the door.
Tasha followed him to the door, more to ensure it was sealed securely behind him and Tashas' hand slipped down the door to her side as she turned to look at her room, her lonely room and felt the tears begin to track down her cheeks, thankfully out of sight of any of the crew.
OFF
Captain Tasha Tahir
CO
& introducing
Lieutenant Steve Wyman
Chief Engineer