A View to a Killjoy

Posted on Thu Jan 3rd, 2013 @ 6:19pm by Lieutenant Three of Seven & Captain Nathan Cowell MD

Mission: Funzone
Location: Captain's Ready Room
Timeline: MD1 0830 hours

"Bridge to Three of Seven, report to my Ready Room as soon as you can."

It never failed, the moment you cracked open the casing on a faulty gel pack to try and re-sequence the bio-neural fibers there was a call at the comm and all hell to pay if it wasn't answered. And no way for Three to know whether this was urgent as in the environmental controls have failed and they're building snowmen on the bridge or 'urgent' as in this damn blasted replicator still can't make a decent cup of prune juice!

Such was the life of a Starfleet engineer. Once again, Three would forward his proposal of how a Collective neural link would vastly eliminate the redundancies in communication and remove the mystical aura that seemed to surround what was perceived as 'urgencies of the present moment' so that drones could re-sequence bio-neural circuitry in peace.

By his estimations, such proposal had a point-zero-zero-zero-seven chance of being considered for longer than the time it took Admiral Cowell to read the top line on the padd. And a forty percent chance against the Admiral reading that much.

Arriving at the bridge in the blue-stained coveralls, the gel-laden drone quietly made his way over to the side door and found himself soon after standing in the Ready Room with the man himself.

"You wanted to see me, Admiral," Three commented upon arrival, placing his sticky hands behind his back as he assumed his usual, neutral expression.

"Yes, though I didn't expect you to be covered in blueberry sauce. Never mind all that, have a seat. How long have you been on my ship, Three? Two years? Something along those lines?" Nathan began, sitting behind his desk with his feet planted on the surface of it.

Inclining his head slightly, the small drone stepped further inside the man cave of the admiralty, taking the offered chair. Regarding the query that had been asked, the answer would have been available in his file. It seemed unlikely that question would be the purpose for the meeting, however, it went without saying that Admiral Cowell never read crew bios. "Twenty-three months, seven days, and fourteen hours, sir," the drone supplied mechanically.

"So about two years... I thought so," Nathan nodded to himself, "I have a problem, my good drone. With Colonel DeVries somewhere out there in the galaxy bring who know's what kind of pain and agony to whoever that bastard Haverson left her with... I'm without a First Officer. And with the chaos going on in the ranks, I'm not knee deep in senior staff I know and trust."

Nathan pulled his feet off the desk and leaned forward, "What I do have, Three... is you. Out of all the crewmen on my ship, I've known you pretty much the longest... except Marion but she's not exactly command material and she and I know it. But you... you have your shit wired right... literally. You've got your department's respect... hell, you play games with them for fuck sakes. I see potential in you, young man... so I'll tell you what I'm going to do..."

Random calculation: There was a sixty nine point seven percent chance that Three was not going to fully appreciate whatever it was that Admiral Cowell was 'going to do.'

Nathan plucked a dark object from his desk and walked around the desk to stand in front of the drone, "I'm giving you the job of Second Officer, and I'm giving you a bump. I thought about two full pay grades up, but that's hard to justify, even if I'm an Admiral in Captain's clothing. So just one... that's easy. All I have to do is hit submit."

Even as he outwardly indicated his willingness to speak on the subject by opening his mouth, the drone was composing an appropriate reply of exactly one hundred relevant talking points which he hoped would be sufficient in order for a re-determination of facts. For example, Lieutenant Junior Grade Akron had also...

"And before you try and decline, it's already a done deal..."

Jaw hanging open, the drone now found all one hundred points moot.

The old man dropped the box he was holding into the drone's lap and returned to his desk, "Next order of business... this business about the Funzone."

Apparently a more salient subject for the purposes of their meeting. "Funzone, sir?" the drone echoed simply, simultaneously performing an indexed search of any identical or related terms in recent memory. "I am not familiar with... Funzone," Three relayed finally.

"The place we're going," Nathan said impatiently, "Didn't Marion transmit my speech on the bridge to you? Oh it doesn't even matter because most of that was bullshit anyway. This floating amusement park we're going to isn't exactly the happiest place in the Quadrant. They bill it that way, and for the most part I'm hoping the crew at large doesn't have to get dirty with what I'm about to tell you, but the fact remains... this isn't strictly a pleasure cruise."

Speech... Sheepishly, Three realized that he'd tuned out the commentary the moment it had begun to broach the idea of recreation. Off-duty periods of rest provided adequate time for humanoid regeneration. The concept of a 'vacation' was... inefficient. And for some reason, it never came up in Engineering. In fact, thinking about it for a moment, Three wasn't certain when the last time was that Dungeon Master had left Engineering for other than a maintenance call. And, now that he had olfactory sensory perception, Three made a mental note inquire about the periodicity of the petty officer's personal hygiene regimen.

Leaning back in his chair a bit, Nathan continued, "This cruise ship in space has been 'misplacing' passengers left, right, and center for the last month or so. No one knows if they're dead, kidnapped, or just lost in a fantasy world and they don't want to come out. All of that is irrelevant really... we're supposed to find out which it is. The reason I billed this to the crew as a vacation is, obviously, the crew is in sad shape. If most of them can board the Funzone and have some fun and do it ignorant of what you, me, and a few select other people are doing... all the better. And yes, everything I'm telling you is classified. I don't have to tell you not to spread it around, you follow directives better than all that. But I do want you to hand pick a team of your best men. Once we're on this Funzone boat, you'll be in charge of getting us unrestricted access to places we're not supposed to have access to. Real James Bond shit, kind of like what the Colonel did with Section 31, but less murdering..."

Three's mental laundry list of topics for research later was growing the more that Cowell spoke. Funzone, Starfleet protocol for clandestine operations, James Bond, Section 31, Colonel DeVries' professional history with either of the forgoing topics...

"I understand, Admiral," Three answered simply. "I will comply with your instructions and prepare an appropriate team."

"I knew I could count on you, boy. Well... get to it! We'll be there in about twelve hours, and I expect you to be ready to go by then. Hop to it, Number Two," Nathan smirked.

Rising to his feet, the drone inclined his head at the invocation of an unfamiliar diminutive and contemplated its possible meaning before dismissing the matter as trivial and instead proceeding back to engineering. Even with everything that had been discussed, there was still the dissected gel pack waiting to be re-sequenced.