Posted by Civilian Mikhail Slovenski (Early Education Specialist) in The Ties that Bind (Tag Oliver)

Posted by Lieutenant Oliver Loughty (Acting Chief Science Officer) in The Ties that Bind (Tag Oliver)

(snip)

Sharah was in her new quarters, the lights off lying in the dark. Quiet and darkness didn’t help her headaches, but she tried anyway. Today the new design of her quarters hurt too much and she didn’t want to look at it. Oh she loved the work En Asam had done, but she was just feeling sorry for herself. She felt lonely in a ship with thousands. And the redesign was a constant reminder of what she working for, and usually it helped. Today was just harder than most others and she didn’t want to ask the doctor for the alpha wave inducer again.

She heard the call coming in and didn’t move at first. She’d talked to her brother and her parents already. She didn’t expect Joseph to call now. He was busy wrapping up his work on Challenger. The only person it could be would be Cmdr Ballaris or maybe the research division with more questions for her? “Computer, who is it?”

“LT OLIVER LOUGHTY.” came the computerized female voice. Sharah jumped up beyond happy, making herself dizzy from moving too fast, and reaching her desk she dropped into the chair, “Computer answer, put it on the screen or whatever!” The brightness of the screen in the dark made her blink. “Computer, Lights” and they came on making her blink again. And on the screen was one of the most beloved faces in her life. “OLLIE! Where have you been? I know on some kind of tour, but where? What did you do? When did you get back? I want to know everything!” Enthusiastic as ever, despite the fact she was tugging at her hair and looking like she hadn’t slept in awhile.
Lt jg Sharah Fayth, USS Ark Angel

“Wow easy their kid!” He said holding up his hands feeling her wordy assault as if she was in the room, he knew all to well what that felt like. “I mean everything is ALOT but I was around you know finding people just like you eager and enthusiastic to start their career in Starfleet as a scientist! Boring really!” He smiled enjoying the sight of her, it had been far to long since they last spoke and even longer since they last saw each other. He had hoped to rendevous with the Ark Angel but it never came close. “So The Ark Angel huh? A fine ship, how are they treating you there?”

• Lt Oliver Loughty

Sharah crossed her arms over her chest and pouted at him. “Boring? Really? If it was so boring why didn’t you answer your messages?” Pouting never worked with Ollie, unless she was really sad. And she was far too excited and happy to hear from him to be sad at the moment. “Where did you go? Anything interesting? Anywhere really cool? New experiments? Did you recruit anyone or did you scare them with your man eating plants?”

“Well I went to all the major federation planets and some smaller colonies who had requested the tour to come.” He chuckled, “And you know me I’m alwaysinteresting so yeah I mean I think I found someone who ould give you a run for your money, but they still have a long way to go!” Olly thought about the conversation he had with Lexi and the Taco disaster.

“So we’re just about to finish our tour and one of the Cadet prospects, the ones who have been pre-selected for the Academy before we even got their wanted to show us what she had been working on, this thing was huge and honestly the engineering was probably far better than the science” He held op his hand, “Ofcourse I didn’t say this because you know I’m all for about learning from you mistakes but anyway…” Oliver sipped his drink before continuing,

“But anyway, the idea behind the machine was to simply be a replicator that wasn’t restricted to an alcove in the wall, he liked computer science what can I say? So to demonstrate he was like ‘here’s an apple’ and to be fair to him it did what he said it would he could stand anywhere in the room hold out his hand and bang there was the apple, Ofcourse I thought well I fancy a Taco right? So I asked ‘Can I give it a go?’ since I figured I’d endorse it and cure my hunger at the same time.”

“So I ask the computer ‘Can I have a Taco?’ and the usual response came asking for which type, flavour, spice level the usual and I simply thought Stress test and I asked for a sample of every possible taco on file… I mean you should have seen the look on this boys face. If sheer horror was one he had it because the next thing that started happening was Tacos were just materialising out of thin air at an increasingly fast rate, I’m not talking about just the usual taco shell there was Birria, Barbacoa, Carnitas hell even the soft shell type. The room was very quickly getting filled and those who had already seen the danger fled but there’s me fascinated by this machine just standing there being pelted by Sour cream, Salsa, Guacamole everything down to Klingon Vegan Tofu!

The more Olly talked the more Sharah began to laugh. Olly was so far from serious but the picture of him covered in taco toppings and being entombed alive in thousands of them was more than she could stand. She laughed so hard she had to wipe a couple tears off her face. “Oh my, what happened to the cadet?”

“So tell me about the Ark Angel! She’s the sister ship of the Atlantis right? Huge right?” Olly had looked into Sharah during his time away and while he didn’t mean to ignore he found his days so filled that he often simply forgot but he did see her transfer and did all the research for the Angel.

She nodded, “Yes Ark Angel. She’s huge Olly. Well Atlantis is the same, but it’s SO big. It’s a little overwhelmed compared to Challenger and Europa. There are a lot of people here. It’s hard with the noise, but I really like it here. Everyone is really nice. And THREE arboretums, Olly! Three of them! Oh and we have this CRAZY Andorian Frost Beetle Lily and it’s locked in its habitat, and it’s huge, like can eat a whole person huge. And it attacks the glass walls every time someone walks by it. And one of the smaller ones we’ve turned into a kid’s garden, or we’re trying to, and the other one is all medicinal plants because of my research. You remember how I said the Beauregard was angry all the time and liked it. This lily is So. Much. Worse! It’s lonely and angry and hungry all the time. I have to put on an environmental suite and cover myself in it’s nectar in order to go into the habitat with it. And even then it tries to eat me.” She stopped suddenly and grinned.
Lt jg Sharah Fayth, USS Ark Angel

“An Andorian Frost Bettle Lily! Not even I have one of those!” He smiled, “You’ll have to send me some seeds when you can next and maybe i’ll send you the details of our current experiment which I was rather interestingly introduced to when I arrived, it a plant that literally goes invisible when it’s dry and is tough as nails and well let’s say in the few hours I and one of my officers were talking it had grown trapping us in the laboratory, it was only when her daughter came in seemingly swinging well what we thought flying at the time did we realise what had happened!”

• Lt Olly Loughty

“We have several seedlings that have to be removed. They create a combined consciousness and so I need to get them out before the problem gets worse. I can send one along with some seeds if you like. They are quite the handful though.” She listened as he explained about the new plant, “You got trapped by a plant? Only you Olly. You’ll have to tell me more about it when you’ve finished your investigations. I wonder if it could be used as building material if it’s as strong as you say. Could you coax the shape it grows into? Or is it very hostile? Wait…did you say one of your officers? Did you get promoted again? I hadn’t heard.”

They really had a lot to catch up on. “I was offered the position here because of the research I was doing on emergency medications. The reports were published in both the medical and science journals last month. And then…Olly, Cpt Andone, she promoted me to Lt jg, and made me Chief Science Officer. I have no idea what I’m doing. I’m a doctor, which I mean is a type of scientist, but there are SO many different fields and I’m in charge of all of them now. Some of them I didn’t even know about, well know anything about. And I have ensigns coming right off Challenger or other cadet tours, and I’m supposed to … to what? I’m supposed to guide them? Me? I can feel how nervous they are, I can’t help it, and I feel the same way, and I’m supposed to make them feel better, more confident? I feel very ill prepared for this.”
Lt jg Sharah Fayth, USS Ark Angel

Bump