Welcome To Your New Home

Posted on Fri Nov 13th, 2015 @ 11:19pm by Lieutenant Ryan North & Ensign Theodore Vega

Episode: Lost Property
Location: Cheif Science Officer's Office
Timeline: MD 01: 1600

Ryan was on his third cup of coffee and neck deep in reports that hadn't been filed since the ship had left for her maiden voyage. Not that it surprised him, they hadn't ever really had a chief science officer aboard or even a proper science department really. Still, that made his job all the more difficult. He looked at the time on his display. He was due to finally get a member of his and the bridge informed him that he bad beamed aboard a few moments ago.

Ryan cleared some of the clutter off his desk and then went back to reading through the various reports.

Outside, Theo was double-checking that he had the right room. It'd be extremely embarrassing to bumble his way into the wrong person's office. Yes, it was extremely unlikely, and yes, he could just ask the computer - again - but there was still some lingering doubt in his mind. Finally sure of himself, he stepped up to reach for the doorbell, only for the door to just slide open by itself, leaving Theo standing there like a deer in headlights.

"Uh... hello, sir?"

Ryan looked up from his PADD at the officer that entered his office. "Theo, isn't it?"

"Yes, sir," Theo said, somewhat thrilled his immediate superior knew his name. Which, put like that, was kind of silly.

"Welcome to the science department, now there are two of us," Ryan smiled. He gestured to the chair across from his desk. "Have a seat, I was just going over your transfer orders. First assignment out of the academy, huh?"

Theo sat down stiffly. "That's right, sir."

"Theo, relax," Ryan said. "This is my first assignment as head of any department, I'm still learning too."

"Yes, but you've had other first assignments, sir."

Ryan waved his hand dismissively. "First off, if its just the two of us you can call me Ryan. Second off, I have but we all have to start somewhere. I don't want you blindly following orders, I want to hear your opinion. If I'm doing something wrong I want to hear about it. "

"I'll try to keep that in mind... Ryan," Theo replied.

"Good," Ryan nodded. "So, why biology?"

"I work well with animals," Theo said. "I mean, I guess it kind of sounds silly, but you do what you enjoy, right? And it's a lot more hands on than other subjects. Also, plants and animals generally don't involve temporal physics or warp fields."

"Warp fields aren't so bad," Ryan admitted. "Although I am a little fuzzy on temporal physics. What do you like to do for fun?"

"Sports, mostly," Theo said. "Soccer, mostly, but also rock climbing, handball, a few others. Camping's pretty fun, but not too practical on a starship I think."

"I've heard we have some great holodeck programs," Ryan said. "If you could have all the resources you want at your disposal what would you like to study?"

"Holodecks don't count, it's not real nature," Theo said, before remembering he was arguing with his boss. "Uh. Anyway, there's some interesting work being done lately on the interaction of Preserver-transferred ecosystems with native biospheres, especially compared to our own terraforming techniques. Or the confirmation of the galactic panspermia hypothesis is just now starting to be really fleshed out, there's a lot of work to be done with it."

"Sounds interesting indeed," Ryan remarked. "Good to know that you are taking that part about being honest with me seriously already."

Ryan made sure that he smiled at the tail end of his sentence. He wanted those under him to be able to speak their mind, it was the only way that you often got a different point of view or found a new solution to a problem.

"I read that paper you wrote at that academy about adaptive ecosystems and their effect on evolution, pretty entertaining stuff. I studied exo-biology at the academy, though to be honest you seem to have more a flare for it than I ever did."

Theo shrugged. "In Starfleet, if you're only good at one thing, you have to be really good at it."

"We have to play to our strengths Theo," Ryan smiled. He really wanted the young ensign to relax. He had no intention of running his department like a boot camp.

"We should get down to business, I've already had a conversation with the ops officer. Apparently the lateral sensor array was neglected by the department heads of both ops and science before we arrived he wanted to know if we could help calibrate the astrometric and stellar cartography sensors."

"Of course, sir, I think I can handle that."

"Good," Ryan nodded, making a note on his PADD. "After that we'll get to work on some of sensor studies the ship has done... sadly no one had really been around to properly analyze and study them I'd like to start with one in your area. They did a pretty in-depth look at a class M planet with some unusual fora and indigenous animal life."

That sounded a little more interesting than sensor calibrations. "Anything in particular stand out?"

"Actually, yes," Ryan said. "There was an unusual amount of cellular resistance to radiation. We haven't been able to make a more in-depth study yet."

"Sounds like there's lots of room for study there," Theo said, "both for pure research and for possible medical applications."

"Very much so," Ryan nodded. "But let's get the rest of the mundane tasks over with. Welcome aboard Theo, I really do hope that you enjoy yourself here."

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