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
Posted by… suppressed (4) by the Post Ghost! 👻
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

There. She hit the nail on the head and it hurt. She winced at the last thing Alita said and tried to push it aside. “That must make family reunions challenging, but for visiting places you always have a place to stay,” she said working to regain her equilibrium that had so quickly been knocked out of kilter. Asking how she came to this ship was a futile venture; people went where they were assigned in this military arm of the Federation. Still, if one was on one Starbase one tended to get assigned to them unless one had either a very good experience, or a very bad experience. Still, Darklis was working off of what she had been told much more so than her experience. Her life experience was .. well, both accelerated and limited in scope.

She looked at the XO. She was young herself. And to be a first officer must have meant either connections or ability. For the lack of either data point Darklis settled on ability. Her own rise was more bumpy and perhaps leaning more to the connections part even though she couldn’t point at anyone for a fact. Still there had been a flicker of something in the XO’s eyes at the mention of Wolf 359. For many it meant a silent blame as though the survivors of the colony were, in fact, contributors to their pain simply by means of geography. A family. Every family had a black sheep. Would she be considered one for multiple reasons? Oh for the love of chocolate, snap out of it, DC. “I’d like that, Commander,” she said, for however long it would last, she mentally added. “If I may, Commander, what are your expectations for me?” Darklis had never had a ‘staff’, or a real starship position. Thrust out into the void as it were to flail or get those grav boots connected to something firm. She would be striving for the latter. The former seemed so .. silly and undignified whenever she thought of it.
- Darklis, CSO

Alita looked at Castle for a few long seconds. Here was a young woman newly promoted to Chief Science Officer. Funny, she somehow reminded Alita of herself. How had she risen so quickly? Nowhere in her record was the term Mission Officer used so obviously that wasn’t it. Connections, ability, Alita would decide to go with the latter, better to choose ability in any case unless it was blatantly obvious not to be the case. She knew that such things could be lonely and hoped she could help Castle find her place on the wolverine.

“First and foremost, I expect you to expect the unexpected. The Wolverine is a small ship and we do a lot of cross training here. You never know when you might need to sub in for another department because someone is injured or sick. I expect you to care for those in your department as if they were family or, at least, someone you don’t hate. I expect you to think out of the box and go above and beyond your training because that’s what we do here on the Wolverine. You may be put in positions you never thought you’d be put in 6 months ago but, again, that’s what we do on the Wolverine.”

• Alita, XO/MO

OOC: Oh I like that post!
IC:

Mentally Darklis recalled something about cross training with medical. She would have to see who had actually done that thus far and where they were at with it. A tic appeared at her cheek, not from her recovering condition but more so in that she tended to not do well around blood. Hers it seemed was okay. Anyone else sent her head swimming. At best. “I look forward to getting to know them, Commander,” she said. That much was true. These would be her friends and colleagues and perhaps more. She had an idea of how to break the ice on that. Six months ago. She was rather certain that six months ago would not be repeated. “One thing that I’ve found is that there are too many variables to anticipate what may come. Adaptation is key, whether on a ship or with others.”

“Commander, if I may ask, when addressing me. DC seems to work best with others, unless you prefer rank when addressing others. And second, as CSO do you prefer me on the bridge or the science lab?” It wasn’t that she minded to be called either name. Both were not precisely common names and came from the ancient gypsy heritage of her family and with her mother who was big on names and meanings of which her siblings were also blessed with. It just seemed to make things .. easier .. when communicating and added a bit of informality. Darklis knew she was in a military environment which was hierarchical and there were things that went with that, she was still young and there was something more .. personal about the use of her name, or at least abbreviations.
- Darklis, CSO
- Darklis, CSO

Alita had a feeling she was going to like this one.

“DC will do fine. I think the Captain will even find it acceptable. Anybody from outside the ship we can deal with later. Like I said, like a family. You will find any number of interesting characters aboard the Wolverine and nobody will mind. As for where you should be on the ship, that depends on the day now doesn’t it? I think aboard the Wolverine, you can be wherever you need to be most of the time. The bridge usually works. Do you actually prefer the science lab?”

• Alita, XO/MO