Stardust & Shuttle Trips

Posted on Tue Jun 23rd, 2020 @ 5:17am by Lieutenant Arlowe Tate & Lieutenant Bethany Robinson
Edited on on Fri Jul 10th, 2020 @ 5:31pm

Mission: Death in Paradise
Location: Spiffy Shuttle
Timeline: Arrival at Pandora

The shuttle skipped through space on a known path. Arlowe had long since unstrapped herself from the restraining harness located behind the seats to keep her in place should they crash into something. If they came to a sudden full stop, a heavy bulkhead promised a nice goose egg or possible broken arm. However, she felt it was completely worth the risk. Lowe had never been interested in being confined or restrained and thus she was sitting in an unusual way in her seat. She was turned sideways. One leg over the side of her seat and dangling about a foot or so off the floor. The other leg, to the side where her legs 'should' be and her Starfleet issued boot planted firmly on the deck below. She was currently, leaned back to where her back was leaning on the side of the seat. However uncomfortable it was for the formed plastic to be biting into her back it was better than sitting up straight.

She wasn't alone in the shuttle. Occasionally, her hazel eyes, rimmed with dark make up would flicker up to the other woman on the ship. Betazoid by the feel of her, but, that was all that Arlowe had investigated. She didn't push, nor pry. It wasn't her way and besides, the stout shields that surrounded the young girls' mind said 'leave me alone'. So she did. Looking back at the paper book, a rarity, in her hand, her eyes flickered over the words while she turned the page. there was nothing quite like the sound that paper made as it moved. She read a lot on her PADDs and what not but there was something tangible about reading a paper book. Caring for it, smelling it, touching it. Embracing it. It was halfway to being a religion at this point. Her hand rose to tuck her silver hair behind her pierced ear and shifted slightly in her seat.

One would think, Starfleet could at least make comfortable shuttle seating....

Bethany shifted in her seat. Wishing for the umpteenth time that she hadn't opted for the regular shuttle, it left her with far too much time to think. She felt eyes on her every now and then, and when she nervously looked up, she saw the silver-haired woman, with brown eyes (thank goodness, not a Betazoid. Not with those eyes). Though there was a kind of a sense she got, or she was just paranoid. She seemed uncomfortable with her seat, and she had an ancient object in her hand. A book! Bethany hadn't seen one in some time, but her family kept a number of them. The blonde found she could enjoy reading a book, but PADDs were more convenient...so long as there was a power source.

Furthermore, the other woman, a lieutenant from her rank pips, had decided to go without the restraining harness, unlike Bethany, who was quite snug and comfortable as she was. She had her travel container resting on her lap, and she fixed her blue eyes on the woman after a moment, noticing her shifting in her seat again, and to break the boredom and the proverbial ice, she spoke up, her voice light and almost child-like, "Not comfortable with the seat?"

She offered a shy smile with her inquiry.

The voice caused Arlowe's brow to rise and her lovely hazel eyes shifted to the young woman that had finally spoken. Putting her finger in between the pages of her book, she shifted again her seat so that she didn't have to crane her neck to see the woman. She looked about the same age as Arlowe, if she had to guess any, and she seemed very shy. Something she would have to get over if she was to be in Arlowe's company any time at all. Arlowe wasn't shy, she wasn't much for huge social gatherings either, but she most definitely wasn't shy. Her brow rose and she gave a sigh.

"No, you would think after all the things that we have created and invented in our lives we could have at least found a way to make long journeys like this one way more comfortable." she sighed and shifted herself. Sitting more up right she turned so that she was facing the other woman leaning over though so she could rest her forearms on her thighs.

"I'm Arlowe, by the way. You and I, it seems, are the new girls for the Pandora." she gave a bit of a grin and held her hand out for the strapped in woman. "Arlowe Tate, soon to be Chief of Operations."

Chief of Operations! thought Bethany as she took the woman's hand and said, "Bethany Robinson, nice to meet you."

So she would likely be working with her a lot. She'd heard that there was going to be a new chief of ops when she took the assignment as an assistant chief engineer, but she had no idea she'd be travelling together with her. She seemed really nice. And, "I like you hair-I mean I'm the new assistant chief anchor-ENGINEER! I mean engineer."

Tate's brow rose at the mention of her hair. The short silver locks were something she had decided on herself. Along with the lovely hazel eyes that accompanied her. They weren't her real eye color, but holo lenses that altered her color. One because most full Betazoids weren't trusted so easily, and this made it easier to deal with people. Two, because she enjoyed having colored eyes. Though she was careful to keep the same color every day so it wasn't obvious she was using external means. "Thank you, Engineering huh? Looks like we'll be working together a lot then. You can call me Tate, if you want." she stated calmly.

The girl for her part, looked snug and quite comfortable, and she made no effort to free herself from the safety restraints. "I guess I'm used to them," said Bethany and she gestured to the seats with her eyes, "or I've had lousier accommodations."

She gave a nod at the girl's response and brought her arm back to rest in her lap again. Thinking about what she had said. "I think we all have. I just don't take kindly to being restrained unless necessary." she gave a shrug. "So... Becks." she said, instant nickname because Beth was .. just too soft, she couldn't quite wrap her mouth around it. "Do you know anything about Pandora?"

Bethany for her part had failed to pick up on the nickname given, as she got excited to spiel what she knew about the Luna-class starship. She happily showed Tate a PADD with some of her theories on experimental developments in the research vessel, and her eagerness to see the ship's propulsion systems, to hear the heartbeat of the ship and to understand its inner workings. To hear Bethany talking about it, it was almost like a living thing with a soul. "You'll get to be on the bridge," said Bethany, "I would love to see the bridge eventually."

Holy... mother.... Becks went full on Nerd-mode as Tate asked about the ship. She tried to be interested, and more so, tried to keep up with all the information that was being spouted at her. She caught this and that, Tate knew a bit about the ship and she was trained as an Engineer too because she had to be able to give the proper orders when it came about. However, the level of passion this one had for the ship was borderline sociopathic. Still, Tate could understand the girls' passion. It was good to be so into something like the ship that you would be working on and taking care of as much as possible.

"The Bridge is noisy, chaotic, and amazing." Tate admitted. "I've done some stints on the Bridge but this will be my first time as a senior officer. Attending the meetings and .. giving out orders is going to be new to me. But, I'm excited to push myself in that way."

"I feel the same way," said Bethany, grinning, "about the responsibility of looking after Pandora, and keeping her alive," she tilted her head, "which keeps us alive, so that's good, right?" Her sunny gold hair flopped over her face suddenly, and she had to flip her head over to get it out of the way.

She looked away distractedly, "You know what I'm hoping for? One of the reasons I accepted this assignment when it was offered?"

"What's that, short stack?" she asked curiously.

Bethany turned to look back at the woman, smiling wistfully, and she said, "I wanna see the unknown, and to discover...I guess, a new stable energy source for starships, besides dilithium." She gestured with her hands as she added, "I want to be able to break the maximum transwarp barrier...without, you know, the side effects we read about in Voyager's journey, or-or the detrimental effects higher warp travel has on the fabrics of spacetime. Like if we could negate all of that, think of the advantages we'd have."

She leaned over to Tate and whispered, "This journey would be even shorter, for one."

Tate grinned, looking at the girl with those striking hazel eyes of hers. Rimmed in the make up they stood out beautifully against her pale skin that was decorated with so many tattoos it was hard to see where some ended and some began. But, they all had meaning for her, though many of them were things she didn't want to talk about, missions she had been on, people lost, heart break, the norm. Some of them were personal triumphs. "You know what I want?"

Bethany inclined her head indicating Tate should go on with a smile. She could see the tattoos on the woman and she was curious what that was all about, but she decided to table that for some other time.

"I want to find a.. new place. Where I can be me. Open up. It's hard for me. I"m open to a point but.. anyway. I don't have any grand Starfleet Dreams, other than, I'm hoping one day to fill the center seat. I'd like to continue and hope to be a Captain or even a First Officer at some point. I'd like to command an entire ship not just the day to day life but all of it. Every schedule, every department, every corner, every person. I want to be.. that person."

"Wow," said Bethany, "I mean, that's a dream of mine too...some day. But it's a long while from now, I think. I'm happy just working on a ship's warp core for now."

She swiveled her head to look out a viewport, and she whipped it back to look at Tate, "I think I can see her! Look!"

Tate twisted in her seat and looked out the viewport so that she, too, could see the Pandora that was coming into view. She grinned the ship was large, and beautiful, and she could not wait to see what would happen for her on the ship. "She's beautiful. That's our home, Becks. To new adventures." she said reaching out her fist for a bump.

For a moment, the blonde girl comically almost introduced her nose to the proffered fist when she turned and her eyes widened before she remembered what the gesture was and how to respond to it.

"Oh, yes, to new adventures!" she quickly said as she hesitantly touched her fist against Tate's.

Oh this poor soul. It was all she could do not to allow her head to shake as the girl realized the point of the waiting fist and bumped it very hesitantly. "Come on short stack you can do better than that." she said with a sigh as she let her hand drop and looked out the window. The pilot told them to prepare for docking so Tate did the one thing she could do and strapped herself back in. Just in time, as the bit of turbulence of going towards the shuttle bay and getting inside, not to mention the whole.. landing part wasn't exactly comfortable. Here and there the bite of the padded straps bit into her shoulders slightly but overall she would be fine. She doubted she would even bruise.

"Ready to meet our future together?"

Three centuries of space travel development and they still couldn't do something about the turbulence. Bethany was strapped in to begin with, but there was a brief noise she made, and she went very white. She stayed frozen with her eyes wide open, and when Tate spoke to her, she finally turned slowly to look at the woman and gave a pained smile, "I threw up a little back there..."

FIN