S6: E1 - The Prime Recommendation

[Neva Cordon]

[Lt. JG Neva Cordon, ACEO|USS-Challenger|Briefing Room]

Neva quickly took her seat and looked around, stomach in knots. She saw familiar and unfamiliar faces around her, and she sighed softly through her nose. Her lips turned into a thin line, black eyes finding the Captain and holding them there.

When the Captain spoke of helping one another get their footing in their new positions, Neva pulled out the PADD she'd put in her kit before leaving Engineering. Tapping quickly, she was ready to say something when he reminded them of what they were sent out for. Neva nodded and smiled a little, gazing out the windows. The Great Wide Somewhere...

Neva was slapped back to reality when she realized the room had gone silent for a long moment. Looking around at the others, she sighed and raised a hand sheepishly.

"Uh Captain...forgive me for this, but do we have the right TO throw the idiots in the brig when they get lippy at us? Or the right to just slap 'em upside the head or kneecaps and tell them to get back to work?" Neva's whole face suddenly turned bright red after she spoke.

[Ian Galloway]

[Lt. JG Neva Cordon, ACEO|USS-Challenger|Briefing Room]

Neva quickly took her seat and looked around, stomach in knots. She saw familiar and unfamiliar faces around her, and she sighed softly through her nose. Her lips turned into a thin line, black eyes finding the Captain and holding them there.

When the Captain spoke of helping one another get their footing in their new positions, Neva pulled out the PADD she'd put in her kit before leaving Engineering. Tapping quickly, she was ready to say something when he reminded them of what they were sent out for. Neva nodded and smiled a little, gazing out the windows. The Great Wide Somewhere...

Neva was slapped back to reality when she realized the room had gone silent for a long moment. Looking around at the others, she sighed and raised a hand sheepishly.

"Uh Captain...forgive me for this, but do we have the right TO throw the idiots in the brig when they get lippy at us? Or the right to just slap 'em upside the head or kneecaps and tell them to get back to work?" Neva's whole face suddenly turned bright red after she spoke.

[Briefing Room - Deck 1 - USS Challenger]

Ian arched an eyebrow and snorted with amusement.

"There are many leadership styles, but Starfleet does frown on corporate punishment. You need ta put someone in the brig, it is your department, I won't tell you can't. Dashlish ran a tight ship, I cannae imagine you'll be needin' anything like that. I have found that extra duty in the form of scrubbin' the outer hull with a toothbrush is a powerful motivator for those slow on the uptake."

Ian then paused for any other questions and wondered what was in store for everyone with such an extensive change of leadership.

[Jettis Jyur]

[Lieutenant Zhukdra'shar Mrekrerhas | Briefing Room | Deck One | USS Challenger NCC-40117-A | En route to L7-425977 System]

Zhukdra'shar Mrekerehas arrived a couple of minutes earlier at the Briefing Room. He took his seat and waited patiently, wondering if perhaps he had been too soft. Maybe the three, even the child, were required to be placed on the brig. In the end, though, he was banking that perhaps some deck scrubbing would be the best way of preventing such a matter from repeating itself.

His thoughts were interrupted as the Captain regarded him and the rest of the old and new senior staff. He couldn't help but deflate slightly at the mention that all the previous senior staff had been laid off, especially as he realized that Chloe might be amongst them. He would check later, as for now, his whole attention was on Ian.

When he finished, he proceeded to raise a hand, "Yes, Captain Galloway. I have a question. Do we have any new intelligence upon the system that we are to visit? Or such information will be discovered by us?"

[ USS Challenger - Briefing Room ]

Jettis was the one to pipe up in answer to Mrekrerhas. "Starfleet has virtually nothing on anything we will be exploring. The only information we've managed to glean from our scans is that the distortions appear to be artificial, and there's evidence it may be caused by some sort of effort at power generation."

Shaking his head, he didn't like the lack of information either. He was all for going into the unknown, but foreign temporal disturbances... were not his favorite.

"I don't love the idea of letting a bunch of cadets loose to catalogue and chart the contents of our scans, but I suppose the more hands the better." He raised a brow dubiously. "I suppose I'll have Hyperion double check most of the reports. I may coordinate with Ops as well" He hated having to rely on the bot to essentially check the newbies homework, but they simply didn't have enough hands to do otherwise. He had no further questions - he just had to sort out how to wrangle his department before they got anywhere near the source of the disturbances.

[ShranLahr ch'Verret]

CPO ShranLahr ch'Verret
[USS Challenger - Deck 12 - Main Engineering]

After the Cordon left for the briefing, Lahr settled into his assigned station - watching the primary intermix flow.  The computer for the most part maintained the flow rates automatically - increasing or decreasing the rate at small increments when it noticed trends up or down.  Lahr's role was to make sure the automation was doing it's job correctly, and to manually adjust in those situations where the downtrend was too rapid and the computer couldn't compensate fast enough.  This meant a lot of attentive watching.  Basically, the same sorta thing he'd done on Deck Twelve.. but now he because he was manning a primary system - the likelihood of needing to actually make an adjustment had increased by over double.

Lahr settled into his seat, stifling a minor yawn, popped in his earbuds and tapped the music icon on his PADD accessing the ship's database of music.  First up was a Risan dance rhythm.  Lahr's head could be seen from across Main Engineering bobbing to the beat that only he could hear.

[Kyan Mackenzie]

"Well, I certainly can! When do I get started?" She asked for a start. She'd need time to prepare onboarding programmes and maybe a welcoming dress-down dinner with the relevent department heads invited and somesuch, but she reckoned she could come up with something on the fly if need be. "If possible, could I have a list of names? I'll remember them by heart by evening."

Tora's enthusiasm was infectious. Kyan couldn't help but smile. That, and the sight of a Cardassian grup sitting on a bean bag chair was something that he had never seen before. He wondered if he could get one of the Vulcans in here too. THAT would be hilarious. He couldn't help but laugh as he imagined the stoic Vulcan trying to sit straight-backed and getting swallowed up.

Yeah. He was definitely going to find a reason to meet with a Vulcan in here.

"Well..." the Onlie responded finally, after keeping himself from breaking out inn a fit of giggles. "Ye can be getting started now so ye can. All the new people are down in the shuttle bay.... and..."

He picked up the padd and brought up the roster and specifically the science people. He was about the hand Tora the padd when a name caught his eye.

ENS Paulsen, Andrew Q. Astrophysics. Human Male, Age 29

It can't be him! Kyan thought, staring at the name.

As he did so, memories from his short tenure aboard Starbase Columbus surfaced. The time on the USS Gibson, when Paulsen tried to take over the ship after Kyan had ordered the helmsman to put them between some Alien ship and the station. And then later, when Paulsen had gotten so angry about having to do Security training that he assaulted Kyan in Sickbay....

"Oh you know what." Paulsen replied, "Shut up. You're a joke. You might wear a uniform and have rank pips, but you're nothing more than a child. I have no idea why these assholes let you parade around and pretend to be in charge."

"Now listen to me....." Kyan got out before Paulsen's hands were on him, lifting him up to eye level by the front of his mustard undershirt. The angry ensign then pinned the diminutive Security Chief to the wall and came nose to nose with him.

"Don't you give me orders you little bastard! I'm going to report you! I'm going to press charges against you for shooting me! But right now, I'm going to...."

He hadn't thought about the chubby Scientist in years and would have been happy to carry on not thinking about him. And he'd never admitted it to anyone, least of all Paulsen or the other idjits that ran the station, but he HAD been afraid when the Ensign had put him against the wall. For an instant, he felt helpless. Of course, the Medical Officer had broken it up before anything else had happened, but for a moment Kyan felt like a scared little kid. If there was one thing that he hated more than anything else, it was being afraid. And he despised Andrew Paulsen for making him afraid, even if it was just for a moment.

After a few moments, and realizing that he was still holding the padd, he shook free of the memory and handed it to Tora. "Here's all of em." He said, working to get back to being jovial. "An if you have any problems with anyone... Just let me know."

[Tora Zalos]

Tora's enthusiasm was infectious. Kyan couldn't help but smile. That, and the sight of a Cardassian grup sitting on a bean bag chair was something that he had never seen before. He wondered if he could get one of the Vulcans in here too. THAT would be hilarious. He couldn't help but laugh as he imagined the stoic Vulcan trying to sit straight-backed and getting swallowed up.

Yeah. He was definitely going to find a reason to meet with a Vulcan in here.

"Well..." the Onlie responded finally, after keeping himself from breaking out inn a fit of giggles. "Ye can be getting started now so ye can. All the new people are down in the shuttle bay.... and..."

He picked up the padd and brought up the roster and specifically the science people. He was about the hand Tora the padd when a name caught his eye.

ENS Paulsen, Andrew Q. Astrophysics. Human Male, Age 29

It can't be him! Kyan thought, staring at the name.

As he did so, memories from his short tenure aboard Starbase Columbus surfaced. The time on the USS Gibson, when Paulsen tried to take over the ship after Kyan had ordered the helmsman to put them between some Alien ship and the station. And then later, when Paulsen had gotten so angry about having to do Security training that he assaulted Kyan in Sickbay....

He hadn't thought about the chubby Scientist in years and would have been happy to carry on not thinking about him. And he'd never admitted it to anyone, least of all Paulsen or the other idjits that ran the station, but he HAD been afraid when the Ensign had put him against the wall. For an instant, he felt helpless. Of course, the Medical Officer had broken it up before anything else had happened, but for a moment Kyan felt like a scared little kid. If there was one thing that he hated more than anything else, it was being afraid. And he despised Andrew Paulsen for making him afraid, even if it was just for a moment.

After a few moments, and realizing that he was still holding the padd, he shook free of the memory and handed it to Tora. "Here's all of em." He said, working to get back to being jovial. "An if you have any problems with anyone... Just let me know."

[Ensign Tora Zalos|First Officer's Broom Closet|USS Challenger]

There was something off about the way the first officer seemed to freeze as he scanned the list of names he was passing to her. Had he seen something he didn't like? Was there something irregular she should take note of? Nothing seemed out of the ordinary as she scanned the nominal roll herself - the sheet was a list of names, ages, gender and species and little other information and that was all. Weird. Tora glanced up one last time at the Only, searching his boyish face for any sign or indication of something more - and seeing none, smiled and stood up with the PADD in hand. "I'll get right on it, sir. I will keep you appraised." She promised, as the first officer let her out.

[Shuttlebay|Deck 9|USS Challenger]

Welcoming visitors to Risa was a much easier affair than welcoming colleagues to a Starfleet vessel, that much was for certain. Back home Tora would've scrawled the name of the person or group she was to link up with on a bit of paper or a whiteboard, held it up at the transporter pad and offered them a hug as they arrived. Starfleet, however, expected quite some modicum of professionalism, and so she opted to simply turn up at the shuttlebay with just herself and her PADD.

Finding the new officers wasn't hard; they'd all clustered together, a gaggle of people in blue uniforms standing and talking off to the side, of a cornucopia of races. Briefly, Tora was reminded of herself on her own first day aboard, standing and conversing with her future colleagues while they each waited to be assigned quarters. Funny how things had come full circle, she thought to herself, as she approached them with a welcoming smile. Some aspects of a Risian welcome didn't have to stay on Risa.

"Right! Could you all get around me so I can check off who's here? Thank you!" Tora felt a ball of nerves wriggle in her belly as she went down the nominal roll, associating each new arrival with a face. She'd have to memorize them all, she'd promised the First Officer - which she hoped her memory would not fail her in. She could just hear her aunt's admonishment in her ear as she contemplated the possibility that she might forget one of them: Come now, Tora, I taught you better than that. He would've been so disappointed.

"Right! That'll be the whole list! My name is Tora, and I'll be bringing you all to the science labs! Don't worry, they're not hard to get to." She promised, and led them out of the shuttlebay, much to the visible relief of the beleaguered-looking shuttlebay manager.

"...and here we are. Chemistry, biology, the archives-" Tora pointed out each room in turn as she shephered her entourage down the hallway. "-the replicators have good menus, don't worry. Just don't replicate anything illegal, of course." Tora smiled. "Now, if there's any questions..."

[Neva Cordon]

[ USS Challenger - Briefing Room ]

Jettis was the one to pipe up in answer to Mrekrerhas. "Starfleet has virtually nothing on anything we will be exploring. The only information we've managed to glean from our scans is that the distortions appear to be artificial, and there's evidence it may be caused by some sort of effort at power generation."

Shaking his head, he didn't like the lack of information either. He was all for going into the unknown, but foreign temporal disturbances... were not his favorite.

"I don't love the idea of letting a bunch of cadets loose to catalogue and chart the contents of our scans, but I suppose the more hands the better." He raised a brow dubiously. "I suppose I'll have Hyperion double check most of the reports. I may coordinate with Ops as well" He hated having to rely on the bot to essentially check the newbies homework, but they simply didn't have enough hands to do otherwise. He had no further questions - he just had to sort out how to wrangle his department before they got anywhere near the source of the disturbances.

[Lt. JG ACEO Neva Cordon|USS-Challenger|Briefing Room]

Neva nodded and kept looking down at her PADD when the Captain answered. She smiled a little at his suggestion, but perked up a little at the Doctor's mentioning his distaste of having his newer crew doing mundane tasks. She'd have to ask him about sending her wayward "darlings" to him to help him with his task.

Neva's brow furrowed at the mention of the results, such as they were, of the distortion scans. Looking at him directly, she asked. "Is it possible for you to forward those scans to me and my team in Engineering, please? I'd like to see if we can pool ideas on this and maybe set up some protocols we can start with when we get there."

[Ian Galloway]

[ USS Challenger - Briefing Room ]

Jettis was the one to pipe up in answer to Mrekrerhas. "Starfleet has virtually nothing on anything we will be exploring. The only information we've managed to glean from our scans is that the distortions appear to be artificial, and there's evidence it may be caused by some sort of effort at power generation."

Shaking his head, he didn't like the lack of information either. He was all for going into the unknown, but foreign temporal disturbances... were not his favorite.

"I don't love the idea of letting a bunch of cadets loose to catalogue and chart the contents of our scans, but I suppose the more hands the better." He raised a brow dubiously. "I suppose I'll have Hyperion double check most of the reports. I may coordinate with Ops as well" He hated having to rely on the bot to essentially check the newbies homework, but they simply didn't have enough hands to do otherwise. He had no further questions - he just had to sort out how to wrangle his department before they got anywhere near the source of the disturbances.

[Briefing Room - Deck 1 - USS Challenger]

As Ian listened to Jettis' report his heart sank. Artificial power meant intelligence, given no warp signatures had been detected, that implied they were dealing with a pre-warp civilization and now the Prime Directive was active. He pinched his nose bridge in an effort to suppress the headache threatening to form.

"Well, that news bloody complicates things. If'n we truly are dealin' with a pre-warp civilization, we have ta tread lightly. Now the question I have for you Lieutenant Jyur is, what kind of technology are these buggers muckin' about with that's bendin' temporal stability? We'll enter the system by 2000 hours tomorrow. Science has got 30 hours ta find some answers. Dismissed."

Ian stood and as he filed out of the briefing room he intercepted Jettis before he could leave.

"I ken full well you nae like Hyperion, but he is an astrometrics expert, I'm certain he will be very useful ta the chartin' that needs ta be done. It would be useful for the cadets ta get ta ken the little bugger, he is a useful resource and is grossly underutilized. This mission is a chance for him ta shine. He has apologized and has promised ta never kidnap you again you know."

Ian clapped Jettis on the shoulder and returned to his ready room to continue to study the personnel files of the new people.

[Neva Cordon]

CPO ShranLahr ch'Verret
[USS Challenger - Deck 12 - Main Engineering]

After the Cordon left for the briefing, Lahr settled into his assigned station - watching the primary intermix flow.  The computer for the most part maintained the flow rates automatically - increasing or decreasing the rate at small increments when it noticed trends up or down.  Lahr's role was to make sure the automation was doing it's job correctly, and to manually adjust in those situations where the downtrend was too rapid and the computer couldn't compensate fast enough.  This meant a lot of attentive watching.  Basically, the same sorta thing he'd done on Deck Twelve.. but now he because he was manning a primary system - the likelihood of needing to actually make an adjustment had increased by over double.

Lahr settled into his seat, stifling a minor yawn, popped in his earbuds and tapped the music icon on his PADD accessing the ship's database of music.  First up was a Risan dance rhythm.  Lahr's head could be seen from across Main Engineering bobbing to the beat that only he could hear.

[Lt.JG ACEO Neva Cordon|USS-Challenger|Main Engineering]

Having formulated a plan to tackle the Anomalous Power Distortion, Neva's crew broke from the table to implement it. Neva watched them with a strange feeling bubbling up from her stomach to her heart. These were Her people, Her responsibility now. Suddenly, a cold tsunami dashed through her. It brought stark reality in its wake, and her eyes widened at the thought. Her responsibility...

Shaking off the melancholic thoughts, she let her gaze trace through the area. In that scan, Neva found Lahr hard at work. Of all those now under her command, she was unsure how she would "handle" him. She thought about how they had worked together in the past and she smiled a little. 'I wonder if we could rig up a playlist for Engineering?' she mused.

That said, Neva walked up and lightly tapped Lahr on the shoulder. "Hey there! How's it going? Our baby's heartbeat still clear and strong?" She smirked a little.

[Jettis Jyur]

[Lt. JG ACEO Neva Cordon|USS-Challenger|Briefing Room]

Neva nodded and kept looking down at her PADD when the Captain answered. She smiled a little at his suggestion, but perked up a little at the Doctor's mentioning his distaste of having his newer crew doing mundane tasks. She'd have to ask him about sending her wayward "darlings" to him to help him with his task.

Neva's brow furrowed at the mention of the results, such as they were, of the distortion scans. Looking at him directly, she asked. "Is it possible for you to forward those scans to me and my team in Engineering, please? I'd like to see if we can pool ideas on this and maybe set up some protocols we can start with when we get there."

[Briefing Room - Deck 1 - USS Challenger]

As Ian listened to Jettis' report his heart sank. Artificial power meant intelligence, given no warp signatures had been detected, that implied they were dealing with a pre-warp civilization and now the Prime Directive was active. He pinched his nose bridge in an effort to suppress the headache threatening to form.

"Well, that news bloody complicates things. If'n we truly are dealin' with a pre-warp civilization, we have ta tread lightly. Now the question I have for you Lieutenant Jyur is, what kind of technology are these buggers muckin' about with that's bendin' temporal stability? We'll enter the system by 2000 hours tomorrow. Science has got 30 hours ta find some answers. Dismissed."

Ian stood and as he filed out of the briefing room he intercepted Jettis before he could leave.

"I ken full well you nae like Hyperion, but he is an astrometrics expert, I'm certain he will be very useful ta the chartin' that needs ta be done. It would be useful for the cadets ta get ta ken the little bugger, he is a useful resource and is grossly underutilized. This mission is a chance for him ta shine. He has apologized and has promised ta never kidnap you again you know."

Ian clapped Jettis on the shoulder and returned to his ready room to continue to study the personnel files of the new people.

[USS Challenger - Deck 1 - > Deck 8 - > Deck 15 ]

Jettis nodded to Cordon at the request. "Sure. I meant to send some over anyhow once I made some more sense of the readings. Distortions and electronics don't typically mix, so I may give you an officer or two to try and head off any future complications before they arise. And you may know a bit more on what type of power source this could be."

With that settled, he jotted down a few notes on his PADD, before standing as they were dismissed. Headed off by Ian before he could escape to start his busywork, he shot the man a tight-lipped smile. "I feel eternally relieved. Hopefully we don't encounter any full-blown wormholes, though. I can't promise my best behavior." He laughed, shaking his head as he re attached his PADD to his side. "But I think he'll be great for the cadets. Maybe he can even scare them straight with threats of abandonment and airlocking."

Slipping out of the room back to the turbolift, he had three stops to make. The first was to track down all of the brats he had to monitor, which was thankfully made easy by all of them being crammed into the labs currently. He was a bit surprised at who was leading them - Zalos, was it? He'd met her briefly a few times, and gave her a small nod.

"Ensign Zalos, thank you for taking over the tour in my stead." Flashing a wide grin to all of the science officers, his eyes briefly scanned them all for ranks. "I'll give you all half an hour to familiarize yourselves with the labs and ask questions, and then another hour to eat and prepare for the most spreadsheeting you've ever done in your lives. There'll be a special guest once you get back."

His gaze scanned around labs for his unsuspecting next-in-line. Gaze falling on Randell, he grinned and moved to clap two hands on the man's shoulder. "And this will be your designated questions man!"

Ignoring the panicked glares being thrown his way, he marched the Lieutenant out to the sea of wide and fresh eyes. That's what he got for skipping out on welcoming them and making the newbie do it. "Ensign Zalos, you're with me." He grinned, checking his PADD once more before motioning her over to the turbolift.

"Since you seem to be well acquainted with the labs so far, and basically all of the senior scientists are going to try to run away, I think you're the best person to collaborate with our specialist. Tomorrow I'm not going to be able to focus on just running scans, I'm going to be processing the information as we try to track down what exactly is causing it. So..."

The door slid open on deck 15, and he moved over to Stellar cartography. Eyes scanning almost cautiously, he tried to track down the little ant. "Hey, Hyperion! You swimming in data yet? Because you're about to be."

[Tora Zalos]

[USS Challenger - Deck 1 - > Deck 8 - > Deck 15 ]

Jettis nodded to Cordon at the request. "Sure. I meant to send some over anyhow once I made some more sense of the readings. Distortions and electronics don't typically mix, so I may give you an officer or two to try and head off any future complications before they arise. And you may know a bit more on what type of power source this could be."

With that settled, he jotted down a few notes on his PADD, before standing as they were dismissed. Headed off by Ian before he could escape to start his busywork, he shot the man a tight-lipped smile. "I feel eternally relieved. Hopefully we don't encounter any full-blown wormholes, though. I can't promise my best behavior." He laughed, shaking his head as he re attached his PADD to his side. "But I think he'll be great for the cadets. Maybe he can even scare them straight with threats of abandonment and airlocking."

Slipping out of the room back to the turbolift, he had three stops to make. The first was to track down all of the brats he had to monitor, which was thankfully made easy by all of them being crammed into the labs currently. He was a bit surprised at who was leading them - Zalos, was it? He'd met her briefly a few times, and gave her a small nod.

"Ensign Zalos, thank you for taking over the tour in my stead." Flashing a wide grin to all of the science officers, his eyes briefly scanned them all for ranks. "I'll give you all half an hour to familiarize yourselves with the labs and ask questions, and then another hour to eat and prepare for the most spreadsheeting you've ever done in your lives. There'll be a special guest once you get back."

His gaze scanned around labs for his unsuspecting next-in-line. Gaze falling on Randell, he grinned and moved to clap two hands on the man's shoulder. "And this will be your designated questions man!"

Ignoring the panicked glares being thrown his way, he marched the Lieutenant out to the sea of wide and fresh eyes. That's what he got for skipping out on welcoming them and making the newbie do it. "Ensign Zalos, you're with me." He grinned, checking his PADD once more before motioning her over to the turbolift.

"Since you seem to be well acquainted with the labs so far, and basically all of the senior scientists are going to try to run away, I think you're the best person to collaborate with our specialist. Tomorrow I'm not going to be able to focus on just running scans, I'm going to be processing the information as we try to track down what exactly is causing it. So..."

The door slid open on deck 15, and he moved over to Stellar cartography. Eyes scanning almost cautiously, he tried to track down the little ant. "Hey, Hyperion! You swimming in data yet? Because you're about to be."

[Ensign Tora Zalos|Science Labs|Deck 15|USS Challenger]

Tora's facial expression morphed into one of confusion as her department head decided to take over the entire show and send away the people she was supppsed to be on-boarding. Talk about tossing a huge wrench in the works. She opened her mouth to say something, but then he shepherded her into the stellar cartography lab - the seemingly empty cartography lab. Her amber eyes darted round the room, searching for whomever this Hyperion person was.

"Um, sir-" Tora finally managed to get out at last. Honestly, she felt a bit miffed that he'd interrupt her like that without warning. "Commander Kyan asked me to help the new personnel settle in, actually. About thirty minutes ago. Do you need me to put that on hold, or-"

[Hyperion]

[USS Challenger - Deck 1 - > Deck 8 - > Deck 15 ]

The door slid open on deck 15, and he moved over to Stellar cartography. Eyes scanning almost cautiously, he tried to track down the little ant. "Hey, Hyperion! You swimming in data yet? Because you're about to be."

[Ensign Tora Zalos|Science Labs|Deck 15|USS Challenger]

Tora's facial expression morphed into one of confusion as her department head decided to take over the entire show and send away the people she was supppsed to be on-boarding. Talk about tossing a huge wrench in the works. She opened her mouth to say something, but then he shepherded her into the stellar cartography lab - the seemingly empty cartography lab. Her amber eyes darted round the room, searching for whomever this Hyperion person was.

"Um, sir-" Tora finally managed to get out at last. Honestly, she felt a bit miffed that he'd interrupt her like that without warning. "Commander Kyan asked me to help the new personnel settle in, actually. About thirty minutes ago. Do you need me to put that on hold, or-"

[Stellar Cartography - USS Challenger]

On hearing his name, the small robot rotated its body around to identify the individual speaking to him. As his face was fixed and unable to convey thoughts or emotions, he could only use his extensive vocal capabilities to express himself in a way humanoids could understand.

"Lieutenant Jyur it is pleasing to see you again. I was very disappointed to learn of your transfer. I am aware of an exponential increase in data from long range sensors of the system cataloged as L7-425977. I can determine by your vocal inflections a certain intent at humor regarding an increase in workload for me. As I am typically an under utilized asset, I welcome additional work and responsibilities."

When Tora spoke up, Hyperion had sufficient mobility to cant his head as he regarded her.

"You are Ensign Tora Zalos. Science department with a specialty in anthropology. Welcome to USS Challenger. My designation is Hyperion. I am the ship's astrometrics specialist. It is pleasurable to make your acquaintance."

[ShranLahr ch'Verret]

CPO ShranLahr ch'Verret
[USS Challenger - Deck 12 - Main Engineering]

[Lt.JG ACEO Neva Cordon|USS-Challenger|Main Engineering]

Neva walked into Main Engineering after the briefing and surveyed what was now HER domain-her Sanctum. She'd never thought she'd manage to be Chief Engineer so soon, but then, these were strange times. Nevertheless, she had a job to do.

Tracking her gaze back through the area, Neva found Lahr hard at work. Of all those now under her command, she was unsure how she would "handle" him. She thought about how they had worked together in the past and she smiled a little. 'I wonder if we could rig up a playlist for us?' she mused.

That said, Neva walked up and lightly tapped Lahr on the shoulder. "Hey there! How's it going? Our baby's heartbeat still clear and strong?" She smirked a little.

Lahr was deep into some Tellerite Grunge and focused on his watch of the system that he didn't notice the approach of the Acting Chief Engineer.  When she touched his shoulder and spoke, he was startled and jumped out of his chair and nearly tripped on his own feet.  Righting himself he looked towards the Betazoid and couldn't help the slight self-conscious worry that she was right then reading his thoughts.  Not that he was thinking anything bad at the moment, but there were times when he missed Ruth a little too much.   Lahr cleared his throat to help refocus his attention on the hear and now.  He smoothed back his gelled hair trying to make himself more presentable despite the dark purple circles under his eyes before answering - understanding immediately that the 'baby' referenced was Challenger.

"Certainly is, ma'am. We got green across the board."

He then smiled and offered an up-nod.  "Not sure you if caught my parting call to you as you headed off to the briefing.. but uh.. Congratulations on the promotion.  It's well deserved.  You've done some great work lately. "  Then to explain his knowledge of that he added,  "My buddy Blackfeather was telling me about Zhuk's adventures and well, dropped your name as well at few times.  He was quite impressed - which says a lot.  I look forward to working along side you, ma'am.  If there's anything I can do... just let know."  he offered.

Now was not the time to be saying he would rather avoid away teams cause he had PTSD issues.   He was certain she'd be provided that intel when she read up on his personnel file.

"I know Chief Tharn and I never got along but that doesn't have to be you and I.  I'm here to work."  Even though if truth be told he'd rather be searching for Ruth.  He'd tried his best for 9 months... now the search was in some private investigator's hands and he needed the extra credits to pay for that.

[Jettis Jyur]

[ USS Challenger - Deck 15 - Stellar Cartography ]

"Unfortunately, the new personnel aren't going to get the opportunity to settle in." He shook his head, sensing Tora's concern at the intrusion. Honestly, he wasn't entirely certain how the duty of greeting them had gotten shuffled over to her, but he wasn't going to complain. It made his life easier, and it seemed she was ecstatic about the duty.

"But don't worry, you'll have plenty of time to help them out, we're going right back up. But, we have about thirty hours to come up with some answers for the Captain, and adding in a proper welcoming committee to that is complicated." He stepped further into the room, motioning for Tora to do the same if she chose to. "Especially with half of our senior personnel getting whisked off. So," He motioned to Hyperion, who by now had made his appearance. "Reinforcements!"

Allowing the bot to introduce himself, he shot a muted smile to the AI. "Glad to hear it. You're still mobile, right?" Unfortunately. "I'd like to bring you up to deck 8 to make it easier to coordinate. Ensign Zalos is helping out with acclimating a few new recruits with our labs before they get to work, and I thought to best streamline the process, you could confirm and forward any data that is catalogued from the labs. Savar and Randell are swamped, and I have to go through the new personnel files for them to all get their codes and schedules."

With a nod, he turned back to Tora to further explain his reasoning for dragging her off. "Since you will primarily be teaching and helping them with how to properly document everything, I thought it best you meet Hyperion first. I imagine there will be a bit of a fuss in the labs once they see him."

[Neva Cordon]

CPO ShranLahr ch'Verret
[USS Challenger - Deck 12 - Main Engineering]

Lahr was deep into some Tellerite Grunge and focused on his watch of the system that he didn't notice the approach of the Acting Chief Engineer.  When she touched his shoulder and spoke, he was startled and jumped out of his chair and nearly tripped on his own feet.  Righting himself he looked towards the Betazoid and couldn't help the slight self-conscious worry that she was right then reading his thoughts.  Not that he was thinking anything bad at the moment, but there were times when he missed Ruth a little too much.   Lahr cleared his throat to help refocus his attention on the hear and now.  He smoothed back his gelled hair trying to make himself more presentable despite the dark purple circles under his eyes before answering - understanding immediately that the 'baby' referenced was Challenger.

"Certainly is, ma'am. We got green across the board."

He then smiled and offered an up-nod.  "Not sure you if caught my parting call to you as you headed off to the briefing.. but uh.. Congratulations on the promotion.  It's well deserved.  You've done some great work lately. "  Then to explain his knowledge of that he added,  "My buddy Blackfeather was telling me about Zhuk's adventures and well, dropped your name as well at few times.  He was quite impressed - which says a lot.  I look forward to working along side you, ma'am.  If there's anything I can do... just let know."  he offered.

Now was not the time to be saying he would rather avoid away teams cause he had PTSD issues.   He was certain she'd be provided that intel when she read up on his personnel file.

"I know Chief Tharn and I never got along but that doesn't have to be you and I.  I'm here to work."  Even though if truth be told he'd rather be searching for Ruth.  He'd tried his best for 9 months... now the search was in some private investigator's hands and he needed the extra credits to pay for that.

[Lt.JG ACEO Neva Cordon|USS-Challenger|Main Engineering]

Neva looked equally worried and about to laugh at Lahr's reaction to her. Before she could stop herself, she felt his tiredness and worry over someone. Shaking it off, she smiled. "Thank you, Lahr, that's high praise indeed."

Neva looked around then back at the Andorian. With a smirk, she murmured. "Lahr,  lets drop the 'ma'am' and 'Chief' between you and I. Since weve worked together a good bit before this, lets agree that you can call me 'Neva' from here on." She dropped the smirk to one of slight embarrassment. "Chief Cordon is too damned formal anyway."

Straightening up, she turned away from him and scanned the room. "Hey Gang, listen up!" She called with a smile. "From now on, do not call me 'Chief Cordon' from here on out." She took a deep but shaky breath, then continued. "When you talk to or about me, its 'Chief Neva,' ok?" She smirked as she took in their mostly surprised faces and softly chuckled. Yes everyone, i am serious. Live it, love it, do it! Dismissed!" She turned back to Lahr. "Lets go to my office, ok?" Neva asked with a smile. "We need to get all that stupid  formal stuff out of the way."