Posted by Lieutenant Commander Natasha Knight (Chief Medical Officer) in Starfleet Academy - First Cadet mission

Posted by Captain Dante Knight (Commanding Officer) in Starfleet Academy - First Cadet mission

Posted by Captain Dante Knight (Commanding Officer) in Starfleet Academy - First Cadet mission

Snip

Kelly could barely contain the skip in her step as she approached the shuttles. She had this mission in the bag. Reaching over to Dante’s shoulder, Kelly punched him repeatedly in the shoulder with a gleeful little laugh. “You are going to love me forever for this Knight. Ask me why.” The sentence was not a question but a statement.

“Do I have to?” He replied, making sure that he sounded unimpressed but secretly curious as to what she had managed to pull off. If there was some kind of advantage that could be gained from something that nobody else had considered, Dante was sure that Kelly would be the one to arrange it. It was why he always picked her as his XO, she might be a little gung ho at times and put ten rounds in a six shooter, but she could deal a Ferengi out of his lobes with spare change.

“There are two missions today,” she spun around walking backwards as she talked to Dante. “One to Bajor to transport a few high ranking officers to a conference and one to Risa to drop off some and I got the Risa one.” Kelly jumped up in the air like cheerleader speaking with a high pitched voice.

“How did you do that,” Nat asked wrinkling up her forehead in confusion. “Risa is like a three-day trip and we can’t be gone that long.”

“We can if it is duty related its approved and I had lunch with Cadet Hank Dexter to ensure everything is in the bag.”

Lt. Commander Natasha Knight.

“What does Dexter have to do with anything?” Dante asked Kelly while they stepped up to the shuttles, Dante looking around to check on the arrival of the rest of his command team. “Dexter is licking Perkins boots trying to get assigned to Fleet Operations, but he has no authority to actually do anything.”

“No, but when he was looking at my north forty I was able to access his computer. I put in the crew manifest giving us the Risa assignment and weeded out the..” Kelly didn’t finish the sentence. Dante would know what was on her mind with almost psychic clarity.

Dante swung around and came to an immediate stop, the look he gave Kelly was clear, even without raising an eyebrow. “You edited my manifest and dropped them didn’t you,” it was rhetorical of course, he knew damn well she had. “Kelly, I picked them specifically so we would get the job done. Why you gotta go and stick your fingers in pies that aren’t even baked yet, huh?”

“Oh don’t look at me like that. I am not giving up a day of unsupervised and uncharged shore leave because you wanted to bring Halston, Beckern, and Gertz. Yes they are absolutely the best but one day you will be a captain and you won’t get the best. Think of this as a double layered training event.” Kelly did not even flinch when Natasha and Dante looked at her. Halston was a top notch candidate and McLaren supporter however he was a career climber and by the books guy. Berkern and Gertz were as stunningly beautiful as talented. While Kelly had no doubts about Ric’s affection to her, one did not just hand someone a bag of potato chips and say just take one. Temptation was an evil beast. Why even give Dante or Ric eye candy? The Tellarite and Rigellian female cadets were smart and competent. It also helped that they were so not Dante or Ric’s type The last thing Kelly needed was for Dante’s wildcat to go off in a pressurized tin can in space.

“Right and the intelligent eye candy had nothing to do whatsoever with the manifest fiddling, gotcha. Now of course it’s just you and Nat that are the eye candy, right? Double layered training my ass, you just want to make sure the competition heats up outside the ship, not inside it.”

“Oh, baby the only heat going on in this ship will be Team Erins and Team Knight. Speaking of that,” she punched his arm, “call dibs on the cabin first.” Ric has been gone for two weeks and you need to man the throne. God, I love being the XO,” she winked at him.

Taking a PaDD from one of the ground crew, Dante began to flick through the list of pre-flight checks. “We got the USS Firefly for this Op,” Dante paused and scrunched his eyebrows up, looking at Kelly. “Isn’t that the old cruiser that was mothballed and dragged out of storage a few months ago to be used as a target in Aggressor training? I thought Perkins was going to use it to test unconventional tactics against Standard Federation defence techniques with a hand picked crew at some point?”

Cadet Knight

“Yes and we are it,” Kelly threw up her hands in a premature victory. “That is how we get to Risa. Follow me cappy.” Taking a command stance Kelly laid out the plan in more detail.

“You’re yanking my crank, right?” Dante said flatly. “We are the target in Aggressor training in an old hulk of space junk while transporting VIP’s to Risa, and you dropped three of my top rated hand picked crew cause two of ‘em have a nice butt. Seriously woman? What on Earth would possess you to do that outside of your regular crazy?”

“Brilliance. I am managing our careers,” she looked at him like he was crazy. “We are in the command track. That means they can and probably will try to stick us on freighter runs in the ass end of the galaxy. I am going to make sure we have a few bargaining chips to throw on the table to ante up for better postings after graduation. How freaking amazing will it be to add to our resume when we pull this off. Also you know when we started it was just me and you right,” her voice took on a wifely tone about to leture a husband on what he was missing that was of vital importance to prove her point. “Now I gotta make sure there is a spot for Ric and Nat. Roster duty is the XO preview and now I gotta look out for four people instead of two. You can thank me later.”

“Oh and remember last week when I was on the driving range?” Fluttering her hands about Kelly signaled this was a rhetorical question meant only to set the stage for what came next. “Well, Fergus Perkins was on the spot next to me guffawing like a damn donkey. You know that laugh he has.” Inhaling deeply, Kelly let out a series of choking forced laughs that seemed to emanate from her stomach like she was retching up dinner.

“Sexy babe,” Ric replied approaching Dante’s team on the tarmac. Winking he made a series of clicking sounds with his tongue as gave Kelly a thumbs up.

“Like that,” Kelly winked flirting at Ric before looking back at Dante. “Any way I couldn’t leave well enough alone. So I asked the Commodore next to me on the other side what was up with the nimrod next to me. After I got a bit o’ the lecture about minding my own business and attending only to things that concerned me the commodore told me that Perkins was making a side wager that he was creating a new Kobayashi Maru program and no one in the Academy was going to be able to defeat it. Dante,” Kelly looked at him pleadingly, “you know we have to do this. I am not going to leave this academy and countless cadets after us dealing with some half assed program that is not going to teach us anything but only serve to point out how smart he is.”

Running his hand over his face, Dante looked at Natasha and shook his head. “And she still, despite putting us in as guinea pigs for Perkin’s new No-Win Scenario, dropped my crew cause they have nice butts. See what I have to work with here? I bet their replacements like hairy toes and blink with their nostrils. Okay so what about Dexter, how did he fit into it all again?”

“So that is where Cadet Dexter came in. I got the training PaDD, altered a few things and got us assigned to the Firefly. Perkins thinks the crew is not going to be suspecting it but we are. After that we drop the diplomats off at Risa for thier conference and we get a weekend of fun and sun. Let’s go.”

Natasha Knight, CMO

Walking out after Kelly and Ric, Ethan turned around and walked backwards facing Nat and Dante for a moment. “I’m sensing some tension here,” he said with a smirk, his hands moving from side to side, palms down. “You sure you wanna bring Captain Plucky along for this one? Maybe she will behave if you let her choose what phaser colour we use on this mission huh?” With a laugh, Ethan turned and made his way into the shuttle behind the first two leaving Nat and Dante on the tarmac.

“Heard that,” Kelly’s voice echoed in the metal casing of the shuttle down the ramp to Dante and Ethan. “And dude would you rather look left and see a stunning blonde next to you or a dude. That is why Dante is CO material. He knows what is important and what makes a crew function. How do you think we got Berkern and Gertz? It had nothing to do with Dante’s smolder at the bar and charming wit convincing them how stunningly…talented they were.”

“I think we got them cause they wanted to be got,” Ethan replied, “till you dropped them harder than than a prom date that kisses like a goldfish.” Stepping into the shuttle, his voice echoed like Kelly’s had. “And anyway, you said something about a stunning blonde on this mission, who you talkin bout Willis?”

“You know,” Dante said, looking at Nat, “I think Perkins is going to get that program shoved so far up his jacksie, that he will be speaking in computer programming for a week despite us winning or losing.” He sighed and grinned slightly. “Damn her for changing my team, we’re going to need them on this one.”

“Your smolder,” Nat raised an eyebrow and crossed her arms. “Was this the night you said you didn’t want to go out but ended up showing up at my dorm room drunker than a skunk claiming ‘Oh baby I scored the dream team tonight?’” Nat completely trusted Dante in the romance field but in the not to get thrown into prison field, she had her doubts.

“Yes,” Dante admitted, then raised his hand with a pointed finger. “And it really wasn’t my fault this time, that wench of my XO has a mouth that humms harder than a warp core and before I knew it we were at the bar scouting talent. For any future mission we had coming up.” He added hastily seeing the glint in Nat’s eye at his description of ‘talent’.

“Tell me baby what did you say with those lips of yours that turned Berkern and Gertz to Team Knight and stopped them from being a free lanced command team.”

“Well, that’s a long story and I don’t really remember it all. Remember how drunk I was when I got back? There might have been a drinking contest where if they lost they had to be my subordinates, for a mission, Nat.”

Cadet Knight

“For your story you will fill in the details for or the mission because I am slightly confused. Let’s hope my confusion clears up if I need to give you medical treatment.” Natasha turned and moved rapidly into the shuttle. She wasn’t as mad as she was amorous. This little story bomb would make Dante work a bit harder later and that was always a bonus for her. While her steps we firm and rapid, the smile was also large and sly on her face. This was going to be the best mission ever.

Natasha Daye…cadet

Dante watched Nat walk up the ramp and enter the shuttle, tapping his hand against his thigh as he looked around the launch pad. One way or another, this crew was either going to give Perkins a pasting that would be talked about for decades, or would end up on a beach drunk somewhere accused of stealing a near-derelict Starfleet cruiser. “Saddle up!” He called out, to nobody in particular considering his entire Command Crew had already left him on the loading ramp by himself.

Cadet Knight