Post by Admin on Mar 31, 2016 5:57:41 GMT
Gone Fishing
Postby DeirdreMcGowan » Sun Sep 28, 2008 8:14 am
Deirdre was far from all atwitter at the thought of a high tension mission during which the best they could hope for was some delicate negotiations. At worst, they could end up at war with the Tholians. She'd never been a cheerleader and this scenario certainly wasn't going to be her first time at picking up pom-poms.
The Aquarius taking the lead position in Zodiac Fleet meant that the communications system would get a workout, and computer processing levels would be higher than usual. She'd sent Truelight down to the core to run some heavier diagnostics on it, the complications of which had her juggling auxiliary processing units and memory banks to keep the ship operating at 100% while the main computer core's capacity was diminished during the inspection.
They'd barely finished by the end of her shift, and there was enough still on the plate she'd put in some immediate overtime. With the necessity of keeping a close watch on the area to keep the Tholians from interfering, sensors would be a high priority. As a dedicated fleet they would do data sharing from all the scanning, which meant that the newly repaired connections between the communications array and the computer core, as well as the connections from it to the science labs would be heavily put to use. She'd spend the first three hours of beta shift putting those links to high capacity tests, and sending in crews to fix the snaggles in the works. There had been few problems and she was thankful for that, but it was clear that the Aquarius wasn't as efficient as she knew it could be.
Had she known the nature of the mission while they were travelling to the rendezvous she could have worked to improve that a little, and even thinking about it made her brows furrow. Damn all the secrecy to the nethermost regions of hell and back again, she thought. She ran a bloody department on one of Starfleet's flagships, for heaven's sake. Her people were quite used to her running them through the gauntlet to improve systems just because, so she certainly could've had the department working on the minor upgrade without letting them in on the Big Secret.
She wouldn't blame Quintus or Le-Gran on it though, as likely as not some skittish desk-jockey back in San Francisco had worried that there was a Tholian spy or some such nonsense aboard, and couldn't risk even letting the senior staff in on the upcoming mission. Though indeed she had her head stuck in some piece of machinery or other a lot of the time, it didn't mean she was oblivious. She'd noted in her time in service, even starting at the Academy, that Starfleet had grown more secretive and bureaucratic than it had ever been before. She'd heard professors complain about being entangled with paperwork, high-ranking officers practically ignored even with official requests, and even the blood-thirsty Federation newsies were having more and more trouble getting interviews and information.
Even with as good as she could be at fixing things, Deirdre had to admit the solution to that one lay far beyond her scope. So she would do what everyone else did, and just bitch about it. She'd let types like Le-Gran deal with it. They lived in the Federation after all, so she certainly didn't have to worry about conspiracies or other unthinkables taking over the government.
After she'd finally been able to tear herself away from Main Engineering for the day she headed back to her quarters to clean up. She rarely left her quarters out of uniform, but after putting in a solid twelve hours today she'd be damned if she wasn't actually going to put duty on the back burner for a while. She headed to the lounge in an ankle-skimming dress, a glimmering green the shade of an Irish field after a spring rain.
Entering the lounge, she smiled at the low hum of activity that washed over her. It would be good to be sociable without having to be a party hostess, and even better not to have a buffet loaded down with enticing entrees tempting her. She stopped up to service area and ordered a Guinness, and then after her first foamy sip turned back to look for a table.
Zak had seen her enter, and nearly sloshed his own glass of chardonnay on his own civilian shirt. He'd never seen her out of uniform, though he certainly spent a fair amount of time after his first glance of her imagining ways to get her out of it. Like most men he certainly had an appreciation and affectation for skin-tight dresses and short skirts, but the long flowing dress that settled just right over her delicate frame seemed just the thing for her. She looked like some Celtic Queen come to call on the commoners, beautiful but brimming with energy and a purpose glinting in her eyes. As her gaze settled on his little section of the room he threw her a wave, and when she smiled at him and headed his way he had to shove down the itch to trumpet out a victorious war whoop.
“Looking for some company, Lieutenant?” She asked as she stopped by his table.
“Absolutely,” he said, gesturing to the seat across from him. “Please.”
“Good, so am I,” she said, taking the seat. “Thanks. You're Howard, from Operations, aren't you?”
“That I am. You're McGowan, from Engineering. Of course you get the points for knowing who I am, as your identity isn't exactly in the Obscure Personnel section of the trivia box like mine.”
“I make a point of knowing who I might have to trample to get my way,” she said, laughing. “Yours was pretty high on the list, hoarding all the requisitions forms.”
“Remind me to add to that pile a requisition for full body armor. For me.” He smiled over at her as she laughed. “That was quite the speech you have to your people the other day.”
“Twas nothing,” she insisted modestly. “Even Santa's elves need a little 'ra-ra, go team' every now and then, as the fat man always gets the credit even though they do all the work.” She sipped from her pint. “So, Lieutenant...”
“Zak,” he interrupted. “I'm off duty, so apparently are you, so call me Zak.”
“All right,” she agreed. “Zak then. Do you normally stare shamelessly at other people during social gatherings or did I catch you on a bad day?” She smiled over at him sweetly as she asked, though her eyes glinted more in amusement.
“Ah, haha...” He scratched his head, ruffling his hair a bit. “No, not normally, no,” he conceded. “I wouldn't call it a bad day, either. You just... caught me.”
“I see,” she said, trailing a finger along the rim of her mug. “Well, since I caught you, do I release you back into the pond or do I reel you in?” Smirking at the look of discomfort on his face, she chuckled. “Come now, Zak. This is the 24th Century, let's not be so shy about it. Even the most oblivious woman could've seen you holding back the desire to howl like a wolf.”
“That,” he said after a moment of pursing his lips, “is not exactly... well maybe a little. Anyway...” He drained the rest of his wine. “I had a physical after coming on board the ship, of course, and the doctor said I was very healthy.” As her brow furrowed, he laughed. “Meaning, that there's no reason I shouldn't have a purely healthy, normal reaction to seeing an attractive woman who, may I remind her, was at the center of attention.”
“Hmm,” she hummed. “Well, I suppose I can forgive the biology of the beast.” She took another sip of her Guinness, looking at Zak over the brim of her mug as she sipped. “At least when I turned around and saw you today you weren't drooling.”
“You only get to catch me off guard once,” he lied. No need to mention he'd practically knocked the table over seeing her come in, as she obviously wouldn't appreciate it. “So, is that why you joined me today? To grill me?”
“Of course,” she said, her lips curving up in a smile that could be both sinister and sensual. “I usually cook what I catch.”
“I think,” he said, poking his own chest, “that I'm about medium-well at this point.”
Laughing, Deirdre considered him. He had some nerve, but some charisma as well. She was too pushy in her own right to like being aggressively pursued, but neither did she want a man who played hard to get or one that was too in the clouds to realize he was being looked at. Zak Howard just might be in the right vein, if she decided she wanted to draw a sample.
“I suppose I can take you out of the pan, then,” she said finally. Now it was time to learn a little more about him to see if he would be worth the sting of cold water that taking a dip into the dating pool would cause. “So, tell me...”