Posted by Lieutenant Darklis Castle (Chief Science Officer) in Darklis - Checking in with XO

Posted by Lieutenant Commander Alita Claire (Executive Officer) in Darklis - Checking in with XO

Posted by Lieutenant Darklis Castle (Chief Science Officer) in Darklis - Checking in with XO
Darklis .. technically preferring to be called Castle, stood in the lift as it made its way up from her quarters on Deck 5 to the Bridge. She took a deep breath and unballed her fists with effort. A full Lt. At 23. Now a department head in charge of almost a dozen others. The normally confident woman contained a certain nervousness with this undertaking that, while small, was a step ahead and up. Her parents were unhappy with her in her pursuits in life. Her siblings were cautiously supportive. Neither of them all trusted space. So why did she? Bouncing a little on her heels, the lift came to a stop and the doors swished open. Cooler air wafted in and she took in the bridge for a moment only, stepping in before the doors closed on her and making her look like a schoolgirl.

The bridge was different than any she had seen. Sunken rather than elevated she stepped down into it rather than up. It had a feel of weight to it, armored, even though the lines of it defied that impression. Glancing along the aft auxiliary consoles around to the forward support stations she frowned. She had found her cabin and dropped everything, making a change into uniform and freshening up, but couldn’t deduce which was ‘hers’. Hers. That was another misnomer. She served here. She didn’t own anything. She was part of the greater whole. The independent collective. A crew member. Still .. which was hers? Another time .. her eyes looked about. Nobody in the Captain’s chair. Not unusual as they were attached to a space station. A crewman with a basket of isolinear chips - seriously!? - was heading to the lift - he had better not be one of hers. She stepped aside and, as he looked up she mouthed ‘Commander Claire’? He glanced at her pips that still had their shine, and then nodded toward another woman bent over one of the rear consoles with another crewman. Engineering by the look of him.

Stepping down Darklis softly cleared her throat as she approached the Commander. “Commander Claire?” she said. Once she had her attention she continued, “Lt Castle reporting. Permission to come aboard?”
- Lt Castle, CSO

Alita straightened up and turned at the new arrival. She had been expecting the new CSO but wasn’t a dictator when it came to arrival times. Shuttles would do what shuttles did or whatever her travel plans were.

“Ah, welcome Lieutenant Castle. Glad to see you found the Wolverine. I assume you’ve found your quarters? Let’s proceed with your check in.”

She glanced to the main viewer to see the panorama of moving objects about the space around the station. “Starbases are busy places. It took a little hunting to locate my quarters. They are nice,” she added. In truth she had been surprised at the size of it and something not shared. Her personal effects were small and would only dent the space provided. At the same time she found the quarters sterile, lifeless. It seemed to be a parable as it were of her own state - that, in scientific terms, having potential energy, providing it was released.

With that, Alita nodded to the engineers she had just been speaking to and moved to her station.

“So, where have you hailed from? I like to know where we’re stealing our best people.”

“My family and I grew up on Wolf 359. Originally a long time ago we had some Romanian gypsy blood, but the family was one of the first waves of settlers at Wolf.” Indeed there were some seven generations that lived, worked and died there, some of them dying far too soon. The original settlers in the Castle family had gone there escaping something. The tales ranged from a bribe to fleeing a debt or persecution to a dare to an eloping to simply adventuring. And everyone seemed to have ‘the’ truth, even if it was never the same story. It drove her mind crazy in wanting the definitive story. Yet the one who may have known, Great Gran Miri, purported to have had the diary of the then matriarch Sabina, perished in the Borg battle there ten years before Darklis was born.

“More recently, before my appointment to the Wolverine, I was attached to the Daystrom Institute in Okinawa and served aboard one of its science ships, the Matrix. She was a kind of galactic storm chaser.” It was a ship that was far traveled through space punctuated by adrenaline filled rides through anomalies, storms and the like. Darklis liked it. Perhaps not the last storm the Matrix had negotiated, however, a Class 6, Ion storm that left the Matrix virtually dead in space, having bit off more than it could chew. It was still in the repair yards. “And you, Commander?” she asked.

That last was said with a light and easy manner and a smile meant to lighten the mood.

• Alita, XO/MO

Darklis Castle, CSO

Alita’s eyes met Castle’s for a brief second. She had many memories of Wolf thanks to Grandma Anna. That was where Anna lost Peter and the trajectory of the whole family changed. That is why Anna was now on a Betazed colony, drifting in dreams and memories, never to return to full consciousness and reality again. Thinking back on that for a second, she jerked back to reality. This was not the time nor the place for such memories.

“For the last hundred and fifty years or so, my family has been sprinkled throughout the galaxy. Most of it is connected with or serving in Starfleet. Myself, I pretty much cut my teeth on a few space stations but settled here on the Wolverine. I’ve made my way up through the ranks and now I’m the first officer. This ship definitely will turn into a family if you let it. That can be a good thing in many ways.”

• Alita, XO/MO