Coming aboard

Posted on 02 Nov 2017 @ 10:22am by Lieutenant Junior Grade Gidassa Thomas (Dec-Jan 2389 - TRNSFR to Bre'el Dip. Msn.)

Mission: He ho'omaka hou 'ana - A New Beginning
Location: Shuttle - Providence Fleet Yards
Timeline: 22 December 2388

Lt JG Thomas piled into the USS Honolulu along with a half-dozen or so other crew bound for the USS Hawaii, floating in dock high above the planet's surface. She was nervous, though she was trying to not let it show. Her duty assignment had gotten changed at the last minute from a small research vessel to the Hawaii - a Sovereign class starship, and one headed into the thick of things according to the scuttlebutt.

This was fine with her. She had little in the way of family, only Emma Thomas and her family, who had opened their home to her. She knew that Dan and Kami Thomas, Emma's parents and essentially her foster parents would worry. But the family had a long history with Starfleet, and they understood.

A little smile crossed her pretty green face when she thought of the Thomas's and the fact that they'd worry about her. It was... comforting. It gave her more of a sense of purpose and duty than she would have had without them. She'd spent hours working with Counselor Dovi at the Academy, coming to understand this, and understand herself. Truth was, Kami felt more like her mother than her actual one did now. That made her feel a little guilty, and Dovi had helped her realize that was okay too. Yes, she had two mothers. One who bore her and raised her for awhile. One who'd accepted her, as she was, warts and all, and treated her the same as she treated Emma.

She was rattled out of her pondering as the ship's pilot announced departure. The back of the runabout was mostly packed with containers of supplies and who knew what else. The passengers were just filling out the current load. That was when she realized the bottom of the stack was containers with torpedoes. Sealed, unarmed and safe, yes, but there was something chilling nonetheless. Those crates, if the contents were armed, had enough power to vaporize this ship and everything in it. She was sincerely glad they weren't armed.

The trip was short, and a Yeoman meet them as they disembarked, instructing the other crew to report to their departments before addressing Gidassa.
"Lt Thomas?" he inquired, looking at his PADD, before offering it for her to read and sign in.
"I am" she replied, giving him a slight nod as she took the device.
"You're to report to the ship's commanding officer, Lieutenant Commander Tachibana. He should be on the bridge or in his ready room off the bridge at this time."
Lt Thomas signed off on the PADD, but was growing more concerned. Nothing in duty assignment. Nothing in Direct Superiors.
"Do you not have a Chief Engineer aboard Yeoman?" she asked, handing back the PADD.
"No, I believe we do ma'am, though things are still a bit... chaotic. I'm not sure if they're aboard yet. Our launch got moved up, and there's still a lot of personnel reporting. Any thing else ma'am?"
"No, thank you yeoman" she said. The dismissal was informal, and he seemed to be uncertain so she quickly added "Dismissed".

Gee composed herself, then headed down the corridor to the turbolift. No duty assignment. That was bad; she should be reporting to the Chief in Engineering. Instead, she was reporting to the ship's commander. Very bad... new ship, new crew, it wasn't like they could possibly have filled the positions down there. If anything, they'd be lucky to have a full crew before they reached the border! Which meant... she was being rejected. She knew what was in her fitness report, and she knew the reputation Orions had, regardless of anything else. Well, on the plus side, this was a new ship, and a green crew...so to speak. The thought at least made her smile a little. Understaffed worked in her favor; maybe she could change his mind? If she could just get him to speak to one of her previous superiors, he'd see she was ready for this.

Which gave her a thought...what if she got the ship's medical officer in on this? Make sure he or she would back her up, that the shots worked, that she wouldn't be a distraction? She'd worked her butt off on the last two assignments, to get were she didn't cuss at equipment she was working on! Well... much anyways. That was the only thing she'd been told had to change. Her one big "problem" to fix. Okay, she'd fixed it. Now, she just had convince Commander Tachibana of that, so he'd let her stay on board.

Entering the lift, she said "Med Bay" and headed off to see if she could enlist the doctor as an ally.