Head Nods All Round

Posted on Wed Apr 30th, 2014 @ 10:32am by Captain Tim Williams & Lieutenant Commander Horatio Hawke & Lieutenant Commander Ciaran McIntyre & Lieutenant Ethan Kessel & Counselor Melony Taylor & Ensign Leon Kingson
Edited on on Wed May 7th, 2014 @ 7:02pm

Episode: Orphans
Location: USS Highlander - Bridge & Transporter Room
Timeline: MD15

Tim stood in the centre of the bridge as he watched their approach to orbit Cygnus XIV. Their scheduled stop here was only to last a day at most before they continued on their way to the new colony, and he needed to make sure that everything here was taken care of before they left.

Hawke had decided to give the auto-pilot a break on this one and guide the ship into orbit himself. It was a simple manoeuvre and the automated guidance of the flight control system was more than capable of getting the job done while the Chief Flight Control Officer sat back with his feet on the console. But this was one of those "firsts" and Hawke wanted to feel the control under his fingertips and get to know what she could do outside the simulator.

The pilot kept his eye on the orbital positioning display and watched the telemetry count down slower and slower until it came to a gentle rest in a geosynchronous orbit of three thousand two hundred and fifty kilometres above the capital. When he'd finished, he locked their position and turned to face the captain, "Stable orbit achieved, Captain," he reported with a nod.

"Good. Send a signal down to the surface, and get ready to beam up the colonists' representative. And keep the locals away from our computer," he added quickly. He still recalled the tale of Captain Kirk's ship having its computer reprogrammed to giggle and call him "dear" because the locals thought it lacked a personality. Though he always chuckled at that story, he didn't want to deal with the same happening aboard the Highlander.

"Aye, Sir." McIntyre chimed from the tactical console, transmitting a signal on an open channel. In his experience it was always a good idea to impose the arrival of a Federation starship on any 'interested parties'. "Their transporter room is standing by, they're ready for you, Ensign."

"Yes, Sir. All right, lets see about getting you folks on board.." Leon Talked quietly to himself. He tapped out the coordinates on the console, and powered up the transporter.

Tim started to head towards the turbolift, tapping his combadge as his orders were acknowledged. "Counselor, Ethan; meet me in transporter room two."

As the Captain left the bridge, Mac immediately knew that it was his duty to make Hawke feel as awkward as possible. "He didn't even say, 'You have the CONN, Mister Hawke.'"

Hawke had noticed that the captain didn't formally relinquish the conn as he left the bridge; it was one of the many military protocols that Captain Williams wasn't too worried with following. The informality was irking Hawke less and less as he got used to it and he was content to just let it slide. But when Mac piped up with a provocative comment like that, it became harder to let it slide. Fortunately, Hawke was getting good at deflecting his friend's good-natured teasing.

Ensign Reilly took over flight control as Hawke moved back to the command chair. As he went, he rolled his eyes at Mac's comment and said, "Mac, if you like I could recite all the Starfleet Regulations that detail the transfer of watch command on the bridge, including Regulation Eleven, paragraph two which states that should the captain depart the bridge without formally relinquishing the conn, then the rostered officer of the watch or the senior most officer present will automatically take the conn by announcing something like ..." he turned and sat down in the command chair, "I have the conn." The corner of his mouth tugged up in a sly grin.

"I'll take us to red alert then." Mac replied with a chuckle.

Melony who had been snapped out of her brief meditation by the Captains orders coming through the combadge, tapped it to respond, "On my way Captain". She was eager to meet the colonists representative and hopefully it would give her an idea how prepared they might be for this relocation.

Once the three of them were stood in the transporter room, Tim turned towards the transporter operator, and gave a little nod. "Energise." The pad that was the focus of the room lit up, and soon supported the glowing mass of blue particles, which rapidly resolved into the shape of a man in his forties, if Tim was any judge. Carrying a rough brown duffel over his shoulder, the man took one quick look around before stepping off the pad to offer his hand.

"Captain," he said as he drew close. "Malcolm Kurnow. I'm going to be the administrator of the Dreyas Three colony."

"Welcome aboard, Malcolm," Tim answered, shaking his hand. "This is my counselor, Melony Taylor, and this my chief engineer, Ethan Kessel."

"A pleasure," Kurnow said, with a slight nod of his head to each as they were introduced.

Kessel watched the colonist with interest. He was not as he expected... he seemed almost normal. He shook Kurnow's hand when offered, and smiled.

"Its nice to meet you administrator. We've done what we can to extend our cargo size for the duration of your travel. Just let us know if you need logistical support in moving all of the heavy machinery, and industrial scale power supplies." He said, but glossed over it as quickly as he could. There would be plenty of time to handle logistics later and the man had barley stepped off his transporter pad.

Melony smiled when Kurnow nodded to her, perhaps slightly wary but at first glance she could see nothing to worry about, he seemed as though he would cope quite well with this change, though a few pushes in the right direction would probably go a long way.

"Malcolm, I'm delighted to meet you, I hope once you've settled in a bit more I can talk to you about what to expect when you get to your new home, and answer any questions you might have about it." Melony said hoping to put him at ease, and let him know that any concerns were quite welcome.

"Thank you both," Kurnow responded, smiling slightly as the two Starfleet officers addressed him. He was clearly used to representing the future colonists enough to shoulder the attention on him well enough, but his expressions and pose in contrast to Tim's made it clear that he was no starship captain, capable though he may be as an administrator for a small colony. "If you don't mind captain, I'd like to beam aboard a couple of the colonists before we move on to make preparations to bring everyone aboard. Alena's our colony engineer, and she'll know more than I whether the changes you've made in the cargo bay for us meet our needs, and Kenji knows our equipment and supplies better than any. He's eager to speak with you about the arrangements for beaming it all up."

"Of course," Tim said, gesturing to the transporter operator to bring the two other colonists up. The glow materialised into a woman who - as was clear as soon as she spoke - had a strong Russian heritage, and a man who though he carried less of an accent, was clearly of either Japanese or Chinese descent.

"Let me introduce Alena Petrov and Kenji Masumoto," Kurnow said, indicating to each in turn as they stepped down from the platform.

"A pleasure," Tim said, nodding politely at each, and silently hoping for the sake of his neck that he wouldn't have to meet every one of the colonists like this. "If you'll follow me, I'll show you to your hotel suite," he said, holding his arm out to the door before leading the troupe out into the corridors.