Posted by Captain Marceau Renault (Commanding Officer) in Side sim: Bringing The Team Together - The Pilot

Posted by Lieutenant Helena Laursen (Helm/Nagivation Officer) in Side sim: Bringing The Team Together - The Pilot

Posted by Captain Marceau Renault (Commanding Officer) in Side sim: Bringing The Team Together - The Pilot
Posted by… suppressed (12) by the Post Ghost! 👻
Marceau returned to the Smuggler’s Cove Bar after his chat with the Commodore, looking for Helena. He’d read through the ship files, there were a few key crew members the ship was missing. Thankfully, he already knew who to ask for both. He figured Helena would be easiest to find, so he started with her. His head was still spinning. Yes, he was ranked Captain, but now he was actually Captain of something. Of a ship. A Warp-4 ship.

Helena had been hanging out at the bar talking and dancing. Her duty assignments always had her rotating through San Fran, so she knew a lot of people. She was back at the bar for the moment, another ice water in her hand, sipping from it. Helena never liked the feeling alcohol caused and any hint of alcohol in her system would ground her for the day, and that was a fate worse than death.

When he found her, he took a seat next to her and folded his hand on the surface in front of him. He looked excited and nervous as he sat quietly for a moment, deciding what to say. “My meeting with the Commodore went well.” He said at last, then he turned and smiled at her. “I’m getting a ship. A lunar rover-class starship.” In his hands was his own PaDD, loaded with the ship specs and information.

~ Captain Renault

Helena turned to look at Marceau, waiting. She was curious what was going on. They had been pulled off Titan with no warning in the middle of a training exercise. She was just the pilot, but she was curious. She nodded, she figured it had to be what the brass considered good news since no MPs we’re waiting when they landed.

Then he finally told her. “Marceau! That’s wonderful!” She hugged him quickly with a huge smile. A warp 4 ship. She was jealous, she really was but she was really excited for him. “Wait, a Lunar Rover? All four are crewed and deployed. Which one?” She didn’t think any of their captains were ready to step down, at least there was no scuttlebutt about it.

Lt Laursen

He hugged her back with a smile. “Lunar Rover V, a brand new ship called the Sojourner. The crew of a ship that was decommissioned will be transferred aboard. The Captain of that ship was called away. However… there are a few vacancies in the crew.” Marceau said excitedly, letting her see the PaDD. “Helena… how would you like to pilot a star ship?” He would be happy to have a person or two he knew well on board with him. “It’s stocked for a year’s worth of travel, so we’ll be out at most that long.”

~ Captain Renault

Helena almost glared at him, waiting to see if he was pulling her leg. She brushed her hair back over her shoulder and then greedily took the PaDD and looked it over. There had been a lot of talk about the Lunar Rover class. Very versatile and the science and engineering types were all abuzz about it. Helena and the other pilots shared that interest as far as the engineers went and the new Warp 4 engine and the upgraded nav controls and impulse drives. Helena had been one of 3 pilots that got to test those systems out and she had been dreaming about flying one again ever sense.

“Of course I want to pilot a star ship! You’ve known that for years,” She grinned like a kid at Christmas.

Lt Laursen

Marceau grinned at her. “Then the spot is yours.” He had known she’d want it but he was enjoying her grin. “We can board tonight or tomorrow morning. I will go up tonight après I make one more stop.” He said, accidentally replacing the word “after” with its similar sounding French equivalent.

~ Captain Renault

It looked like it was all she could do to not bounce in her seat. Helena could kiss him! She wouldn’t though. “Marceau you better not be messing with me.” Then…did she pout slightly before grinning again? “Guess this means it’s Captain Renault from now on.”

Marceau smiled, a light blush colouring his lightly freckled cheeks. “On duty. We won’t be on duty twenty four hours per day, you know. And I am not messing with you.”

Helena was giddy. Marceau was getting a ship of his own and she was going to get to pilot a Warp 4 ship. Even better she was going to pilot Marceau’s ship. It brought back a lot of hasty plans and promises from training. Nice to see some things worked out the way you hoped. She nodded, “Good, don’t let the rank go to your head.” She swirled the ice in her water so it clinked creating a soft tone off the crystal.

She drummed her hands on the edge of the bar. “Après? After what? When you want to head up? Absolutely no one else is flying you up to your first command. Absolutely not.”

Marceau shook his head. “Not at all, not at all! No pilots. I will ask Logan, the man you met earlier to be our head engineer.” Then he smiled again, “Do you really think I’d want someone who isn’t you flying me up there?”

Helena might have flushed a bit, but it was hot in the bar. “I hope not. I mean it’s the only way I could ever impress you.” She chuckled over her own joke. “Seriously though, do you need back up pilots? I can recommend a couple.”

“The only way you could impress me? Where do you get that from?” Marceau asked. Then he shook his head. “Most of the crew is transferring over from another ship, so there aren’t too many vacancies.”

Huh? Nope she wasn’t answering that one. She didn’t say a thing. It was endearing about Marceau that he never seemed to have a clue. He’d already moved on though. She’d have to look up who the back up pilots were going to be. She didn’t need a couple of rookies messing with her, Marceau’s ship.

She didn’t drink and neither did Marceau, but this was a big deal for him. They had to celebrate. “Come on,” she grabbed his hand and dragged him off the stool and into the crowd and music to dance. “We are going to celebrate.”

Lt Laursen

Then she grabbed his hand and dragged him off the stool and Marceau was protesting the whole way. “Helena, no, I was happy over there. What are we doing?” Then they were on the dance floor, and he looked at her and smiled warmly. “Okay. A little celebration,” he said, overexaggerating his accent purposefully on the word celebration.

~ Captain Renault

“We’re dancing,” she laughed over the music. D@mn that smile. It drove all the girls wild during training, and the years of service hadn’t lessened it’s power apparently. And that accent. She grinned, ah well, Helena could enjoy it for the moment. She lifted his hand making him twirl her around. “You deserve to celebrate, you’ve worked hard for this.” Helena was not a professional ball room dancer, but she never wanted for partners when she decided to go dancing. She was a woman comfortable in her own skin and enjoyed the fun. That just added to the appeal.

Lt Laursen

Marceau was completely oblivious to the effect his smile may or may not have had on girls, now or previously. He let her twirl and then put his hand gently on her waist in a typical dance form. It wasn’t the place for ballroom dancing, really, but that was the only kind of dancing Marceau knew anything about and even that he wasn’t great at. Even with his questionable skills, he had no trouble finding a dance partner. A consequence of his looks, not that he realized it. It didn’t take long for Marceau to let go a little and he was clearly having fun dancing with her.

~ Captain Renault

There was no rhyme or reason to Helena’s steps and moves, but it went along with the beat of the music. Marceau wasn’t a bad dance partner, especially once he let go a bit and stopped thinking too much. He had an ear for music, but granted this wasn’t classical. Helena rested her hands on his shoulders as her waist swayed under his hand. The floor was crowded so there wasn’t much room to move about the space, except where they were standing, but Helena wasn’t one to just sway on the spot, and apparently neither was Marceau. The music went through a couple of song changes, but Helena didn’t seem to care, she was having too much fun.

Lt Laursen

Marceau wasn’t overthinking it so much anymore, just letting himself move with the music. It was fun, more fun than he thought it would be when Helena suggested it. He noticed the song had changed a few times a while later but didn’t consider that meant it had been a while. He’d lost track of time.

~ Captain Renault

The nice thing about the whole thing, was Marceau was a gentleman. He wasn’t handsy and he wasn’t drunk. They were two close friends having a good time. Helena doubted Marceau was aware of the looks they were getting and the speculation. It just made her laugh. And tonight would be their last night on Earth for awhile. Might as well enjoy it. The song changed again, this bar seemed to favor all kinds of older music, to ‘It Looks Good’ by Home Free. The rhythm slowed a bit, but the song was catchy.

Lt Laursen

Marceau was absolutely not aware of the looks they were getting or he would have been completely embarrassed. But tonight he was boarding a star ship, and tomorrow he would be taking it far away from Earth. Then the song changed to a slower, but catchy song and Marceau smiled at Helena. “This is a nice song, isn’t it?”

~ Captain Renault

“MmmHmmm....I like it. A little flirty, let’s you get closer, but not one of those agonizingly slow songs that makes everyone stop dancing.” As if to prove her observation, Helena swayed her hips with the music as she moved from foot to foot, closing the distance a bit, turning a spin until she faced him again. “Been awhile since we’ve done this, I forgot how good you were at dancing.” Granted it had been once when his ever present girl friend hadn’t been around, but boy had she heard it from the girl the next day. It was one of those weird traditions where they highest ranking cadet was supposed to kick things off, and well, Miss Perfect had been perfectly late and Marceau had been forced to improvise.

Lt Laursen

Marceau smiled again, moving in a little closer as she did. He blushed slightly and shrugged at her comment, “I just do what feels right. You are good, too. Very good.” Marceau remembered the moment she was thinking of. It was like Prom for cadets, and Lucy wasn’t an officer, she hadn’t really wanted to go in the first place… When twenty minutes had passed, and Lucy still hadn’t shown up, Marceau had been forced to pick someone else, at the dance. He’d picked Helena. It was something that had come up in one of his last fights with Lucy. He’d accused her of showing up late on purpose, and she’d shot back that she didn’t want to get in the way of him and Helena. A comment that had thoroughly confused him.

The compliment surprised her a bit, “Thank you.” Helena always thought Marceau and Lucy were a bad fit. Lucy wasn’t a bad person. On her own, Helena liked her just fine, but she wasn’t the kind that saw her partner as an individual but only an extension of herself. Helena blamed that on her parents, the way she was raised. Lucy was involved in a lot of things and did a lot of good, in her way. Helena knew they had broken up, but she’d never asked why. She figured if Marceau wanted to share that he would.

He didn’t want to think about that, though. Not now. He wanted to enjoy the moment, to celebrate with someone who’d been his close friend for a long time. So he told his brain to shut up, looked down at Helena and smiled, “I agree. Not so slow as to make it… awkward. Just the right amount of flirty.” His accent made itself known on each of the ‘r’ sounds in his statement.

~ Captain Renault

Helena laughed softly and looked up at him shaking her head slightly, “Marceau I swear if you don’t stop dropping that French accent, I’m going to get malaður by the other women in this bar, and a few of the men too.” If he could drop that accent she could too, and she slipped in the word for mauled in Icelandic. Just because she could. Of course after all these years they were both used to the other slipping in words or phrases from their native languages.

Lt Laursen