Posted by Ensign Karina Niles (Doctor) in Meanwhile… on the Station (for those awaiting the ship)

Posted by Lieutenant Ky’Laria (Scientist) in Meanwhile… on the Station (for those awaiting the ship)

Posted by Ensign Karina Niles (Doctor) in Meanwhile… on the Station (for those awaiting the ship)
Posted by… suppressed (1) by the Post Ghost! 👻

<snip>

Looking toward the place where the footfalls would become a person passing into view, Ky’Laria gently thumbed a control on her terminal and the projection winked out. Her gaze tracked the human woman. Starfleet, Ensign, she said internally. Fixated on the Commander’s office, where she seems to think she will raise a fuss. Classic Ensign behaviour.

The Kuras continued to quietly examine her as she passed down the spacious hallway. Uniform fits… perfectly, she thought, an arch of spots above her eye emoting slightly along with a tiny head gesture, meant for no one. Well put together. Took the time to make that happen. A doctor, she surmised, glancing at a stripe of blue. And young. So, has either everything… or nothing, to prove.

The woman was about ten paces from the Commander’s office door when Ky’Laria decided, Let’s find out, and rose gracefully from her marginally comfortable seat. “Ensign,” she called out, gently but loud enough to hear, depending on how narrow the woman’s tunnel vision had become.

(OOC: Forgive me; I’m guessing “pretty frickin’ narrow.”)
Karina’s ears perked at the call. It wasn’t a demand, or even an order. It felt more like… a warning…

Six paces, five, four, three “En-sign.” A more ‘superior officer’ sort of tone which she hadn’t wanted to employ in this situation. But… sometimes people just don’t hear you.

If Ky’Laria had sounded like a superior officer to Ensign Niles, she certainly at the moment hadn’t looked the part - at least, not in the Starfleet sense. Clad in a second skin of dark grey fabric at joints and mobile areas, with a coarse cross-weave pattern and a certain synthetic sheen, the outfit was inlaid with thicker, black pads or plates covering vital and flatter areas; clearly, an outfit designed to protect in some manner of a hostile environment. Utilitarian boots covered almost to the knees, and a harness for gear attachments was worn over the chest, all in black. Modest shoulder pads appeared ornamental but compact enough to stay out of one’s way; these too were black, but trimmed in silvery metal around their edges, and bore two broad golden strips across their length.

She slid her hand terminal into a pouch on the right of her stomach, and her light azure-skinned hands came to rest near a vacant weapon holster at each hip. “Your ship is still gone,” was all that she said.

-Squadron Subadmiral Ky’Laria (CO, IUF 19th Battlecruiser Squadron) (… outgoing)

The first rank call out had made Karina slow her stormy pace to merely a hurried one. The second calling had slowed her to a walk and when she approached the speaker, the words then brought her to a halt.

“So there is still no word?” Whatever had been in her mind to say, or do, was gone. It was one thing to think that one could storm into a Commanding Officer’s presence and demand to know what was going on. It was quite another to do it.

“Not as far as the station commander knows,” came Ky’Laria’s matter-of-fact reply. There was no effort to conceal the thorough sizing up that Ky’Laria was conducting on Karina at that moment, probably because of how habitual it was for the Kuras to do so with any new meeting.

She didn’t wilt, so much as change her questioning. She was still determined, and steady before the woman. She had learned swiftly to not be intimidated by rank. It was a job hazard. As a Doctor, she had to be able to outrank the ranked, if not by status, than by actions. If you couldn’t make a Captain calm down and ‘listen’ to you, it could cost their lives or the lives of others. It was with that same tone she spoke to the Sub Admiral. “I had come to see if there was word. I just returned from another shuttle check. They aren’t within reading range. I just don’t understand how a ship could just ‘disappear’. Even if they were halfway back to Earth, we should have some idea of where they were.”

At some point, training had kicked in. Karina stood with her hands clasped behind her as if at parade rest. And she was still holding her head high without being obstinate.

Karina
Doctor

Ky’Laria had taken a moment to consider the Ensign’s line of reasoning, and her eyes narrowed. “What do you expect to accomplish with the sensor palette on a shuttlecraft, that is beyond the capabilities of the long-range and lateral sensors on this station?” she challenged.

Eventually, the Kuras’ body language relented as she recognized a facet of herself in this young human; a medical doctor, probably, running around and trying to work in fields totally outside her own? Strutting up, proverbially locked and loaded, to barge into the station commander’s office and… accomplish what? Aside from a lack of meticulous planning, and wanting perhaps for a dash of cunning, Ky’Laria wondered if perhaps this human’s heart was a little bit Kuras after all… “Unlikely, of course,” Ky’Laria told herself. “But… worth the moment I’ve chosen to spend.”

Sliding her right hand over the utility pouch where she’d put the hand terminal, she unclasped it and retrieved the device again. Thumbing the main power control, she spun it on her palm and held it out to the Ensign. “More than your shuttles will ever tell you about this region of space,” she explained flatly. “But almost certainly still not enough to tell us where our ship has gone.”

With a mix of a smirk and a grimace, Ky’Laria reached up and crossed her arms, grasping the shoulder caps of her uniform and unclasping them. “And would you please, just… stand easy? Now that I am here, I’m a Lieutenant. I was supposed to report to Athena today,” she said, stuffing the ranked shoulder caps awkwardly into her holsters for the moment.

“I need a glass of water,” the Kuras declared. “Come; bring my terminal, and we can sit somewhere and fail to find our duty stations together,” she said, making her best attempt at a cordial invitation after a few years of re-immersion in her own, socially forceful culture.

-Lt. Ky’Laria (Sci)

Karina paused as the woman before her spoke. Her initial reaction had been that of someone speaking a near overly rehearsed speech. Not that she had passed that, her gaze became a bit more focused on the woman before her. She saw the spots and was intrigued. She had never come across such a body image before. Perhaps it was tattooing, or an anomoly of some strange cross breed. The tinted skin and slightly pronounced teeth also lent one’s mind to see more than a mere human.

She stepped up to take the offered terminal and watched as the high ranking insignia were pocketed like a costume change. The outfit the woman wore bore out further inspection as well. More than a work out suit, yet not quite body armour, Karina got the impression this was more than some mere security officer come from training, or some scientist looking for more efficient enviro suits.

“In answer to your first question, I have been on the ship long enough to realize there are times when ships and stations and even whole planets can be obscured and hidden from sensors, but still be visible. If the ship was in danger in one of those moments, I had hopes my own eyes would break the dilemma and I would be able to send for help. But I have checked as far as I dare, alone, in nearly every direction. There is one more, off the port quadrant, I shall try tomorrow. But I do not hold much help at this point.” Despite her resolve to look tomorrow, there was still a hint of defeat in her voice near the fringes. Perhaps not even to the point she was aware of.

“It is natural, to wish that one could do more to influence a situation,” Ky’Laria replied sagely over her shoulder. “And one who wishes to have power beyond their present limits, is most likely to find opportunity make it so.”

Never one to shirk when her mind hit a moment of query, she spoke up as she moved in the direction the woman beckoned. She wasn’t sure why, but she wasn’t ready to merely give up and walk away. “You said our ship… I take it you will be joining the Athena when they get back? The punctuated word held a conviction of certainty any seer would have been proud of. “In what capacity?” She moved up in slightly exaggerated strides till she was beside the woman. She was suddenly thrilled beyond words that she would get to see the medical records of the woman. Before being equal in pace, Karina had taken another study of the woman. It had been a long time since something… or in this case, someone had taken her notice. And she wasn’t sure how she felt about that.

Karina
Doctor

Unseen, Ky’Laria spared a brief smile at the sound of the young Ensign’s purposeful footfalls in pursuit. “I will be joining the Athena when they get back,” she repeated as her smile slowly faded.

Pausing until the human had caught up, she looked over at her, and briefly again looked her over, before continuing, “I am a science officer… at least, in Starfleet.” Pausing to reflect on something which seemed to amuse her, she soon added, “I had the opportunity to study the Federation’s outlooks on astrophysics and biochemistry, at the Academy. I even obtained some of those quaint, four-year degrees!”

She held out her hand, gesturing at the terminal which Karina was holding. “On the subject of astrophysics, that is the foundation of my inquiry into Athena’s disappearance.”

They came upon an intersection, and Ky’Laria quickly rounded the corner to the right, stopping a few paces later at a turbolift. “Are you well versed in astrophysics, Ensign..?” she trailed off, making unspoken inquiry as to her unlikely research partner’s - intern’s? Draftee’s? - name.

Lt. Ky’Laria (Sci)