Posted by Commander Roman Alden (First Officer & Chief Science Officer) in side - sim: Honoring the Ardent

Posted by Ensign Rand Farquharson (Yeoman First Class) in side - sim: Honoring the Ardent

Posted by Commander Roman Alden (First Officer & Chief Science Officer) in side - sim: Honoring the Ardent
Posted by… suppressed (1) by the Post Ghost! 👻
She had put this plan into motion months and months ago, when Randy was still Alden’s yeoman, and Randy and Roman were butting heads and arguing like spoiled toddlers. Yes that’s how Rand saw it. Rand had spent enough time around officers to know that lost work was considered one of the worst possible things to happen to an officer’s career. Roman had let slip that very first day he’d asked her to help in the lab, that he’d lost all his notes, all his work, all his animals on the Ardent.

All those months ago, Roman had told her he had lost his entire research project previously. And then when, some time later, Roman had told her about the Ardent, well, it was pretty obvious where his project had gone.

The animals and samples could never be recovered, but the files could be. She had made an inquiry to a friend back at SF Command, who had found that the wreckage of the Ardent had been sent to Surplus Depot Z15. Rand then got in touch with the depot and found that the ships computer core had been sent to Luna Shipyards. The core was able to be physically reconstructed, but Luna did not have the facilities to restore the digital date. That led Rand to inquire to Starfleet Command’s Fleet Operations Center, Department of Starfleet Corps of Engineers, Sol Sector. It was there she finally tracked down the data. After a few trades, and several months the team was able to reconstruct the data that had been lost. This included personnel records, ship’s logs, officers’ duty logs and personal logs, and being a science vessel there were a lot of science logs. Roman’s included. Well he’d been the CSO so they were all his, technically.

The files were sent to Roman, but a few days before she received word from Eng Corps that they were sending the files out, so Rand was on the lookout for it. She intercepted it and moved it all to a data disk. She warned Randy, just in case, and then finished work early that night, and after changing out of her uniform she knocked on Roman’s door.

Rand

Roman had forgotten all about telling her about his lost notes. He thought about them, from time to time, but he’d remind himself it was gone, and he knew of no way to get it back. The Ardent had been destroyed. It had taken Engineering time to get life support systems in stable working order. The computer core had not been repaired in favour of life support and Sickbay systems. There hadn’t been much left to do. He still couldn’t technically finish the project, not without the final samples he’d lost. He wasn’t sure he’d want to, though, without Jay, who he’d done nearly all the work with.

That day hadn’t been overly busy for him, and he was glad for that, he’d been more tired lately. Not like those first days, when Rand had first caught the mistakes in his reports, but he was having some trouble sleeping. He’d gotten off duty at his usual 1800, changed out of his uniform, and then let Pipkin out and spent some time playing with her. It was earlier than he expected that he heard a knock at his door. He assumed it would be Rand. Very rarely did anyone else come to his quarters. He set Pipkin on his bed and pressed the button to let the door open.

~ Roman

Before the door opened, Rand tried to make sure she didn’t look nervous. She was nervous but she didn’t want Roman worrying over what was making her anxious, she wanted him to…well focus on himself. It was like the night she’d confronted him about his reports, should she be doing this or just leave it alone? When she’d first gone digging for the reports it had been a way for Randy to show his usefulness as a yeoman, rather than an annoyance, and a peace offering of sorts. Though even then Rand had known they would never stop arguing.

Now, knowing what she did about what happened on the Ardent she wasn’t sure she should have done this. And she’d ‘tampered’ with the mail. She’d argued that it was marked with containing personal logs and got the comms officer to put it all on data disks, for privacy. They were sent to Roman, but the logs and files wouldn’t be here though if she hadn’t gone asking.

She needed a part to play, to keep her from worrying how he would react to her meddling. Elizabeth? No not the right scenario. Catherine? Yes she’d confronted Heathcliffe about his behavior and habits, but no, she was cruel about it. Guinevere? No too fantastical though a good option if coming from the Roman Empire stand point. Arabella? Yes that was a good choice. But as the door opened, Rand couldn’t bring herself to hide behind a role, not with Roman. He didn’t need her to play a part, put on a mask, be the perfect character for the situation. He needed someone who knew how he felt about it and would be with him, more than anything to be his friend. She was glad she had stopped and grabbed their dinner tray.

Roman smiled and stepped out of the way so Rand could come in. He smiled at her and followed her further into the quarters as she set the food down and sat on the bed.

She smiled at him as she passed through the door and set the food on the table, and then walked over to sit next to him, giving Pipkin her attention. Rand was relaxed enough around Roman now, despite the data disk burning a hole in her pocket, that she was comfortable enough to kiss him when she saw him. But never in public.

Rand

Rand had seemed a little nervous, but it must not have been because of him because the first thing she did after giving Pipkin some attention was kiss him. So he assumed that little bit of nervousness was because of something during her duty shift. “How was your day?”

~ Roman

Rand smiled and let out a sigh, it had been a good day overall. “Short. I think I will document today in my duty log. Today was the first time I have not had to return any reports for corrections or clarification, none were missing, no delays in subspace communications, no shortages or miss-stored materials, no missing or wrongly filed reports, and no mix-ups with the laundry. It was like a mini vacation.”

She had seen him a couple of times today, mostly when she was working with Nibbles. In fact, she’d been able to stay longer than usual and give Nibbles extra attention. “How was yours?”

Rand