StarDate 241503.07 Joint Log: Security/Tactical Officer and Security Specialist

Posted on Sat Mar 7th, 2015 @ 6:16pm by Ensign Sizb

1,857 words; about a 9 minute read

OOC: This is a backlog that takes place before the Endeavour departed from Deep Space Five.

Kyra yawned as she stepped into the security office at 0530 hours and reached out for the morning reports. The overnight dispatcher, a grouchy Bajoran Petty Officer, wirelessly handed her two Padds, one with the night's report and the other had a list of new personnel assigned to the Endeavour's Security Department. Looking over the list on the second Padd, Kyra realized that most of the people on the list had already arrived, the sole exception being a one Crewman Recruit Sizb. There was also a footnote stating that Sizb had departed from his training facility before receiving a promotion that had already been approved. Looking up from the report, Kyra raised an eyebrow towards the Bajoran at the desk.

"Has there been any update on where Crewman Sizb's location is?" she asked.

"Yes, Ma'am, he was passed through the boarding hatch two minutes ago. He was instructed to get settled in his quarters and report here to you or the Chief by 0630."

Kyra nodded and tapped her comm.-badge. "Heartly to Crewman Sizb."

Sizb looked over the spartan quarters he had been assigned, his irritation at having his luggage stolen abating somewhat.

The standard humanoid-issue bunk had been replaced with a Gorn one, which was nice; a heated sandpit, covered when not in use--though the Gorn had evolved in swamps and jungles, they preferred to bury themselves in something warm and dry to sleep (he had a moment's nostalgia as he suddenly remembered the arguments he'd had with his father over their race's origin--he'd been a staunch believer in the Greatmother and the Original Egg, and hadn't appreciated Sizb's attempts to explain how Gornkind had actually arisen from earlier reptilian archosaurs. "If we came from lizards, why are there still lizards?" he'd asked, in the belief that was an irrefutable point. Sizb had eventually stopped trying, to the relief of most everyone concerned).

While in training, he'd made do with a standard bunk; while Starfleet DID take great pains to accommodate species with different physical and psychological needs, recruits were also expected--at least within their own particular biological limits--to be willing and able to adapt to new situations as the need arose. He'd adapted to it, just as he had the velcrolok sleepsack they'd used in Null-G training, the sleeping bags they'd used on field maneuvers, and the hanging sleepracks they'd used on that one planet with the truly unpronounceable native name and the miles-high trees where animals on the actual ground surface had lifespans measurable in minutes before something bigger, uglier and nastier came along to kill and eat them, lay eggs in their faces or just generally smash them into paste because they were really bored, but he couldn't say he'd actually grown to like any of them, and it was nice to see he'd be comfortable here.

He glanced over the divider that separated his half of the room from that of his (so far) unseen roommate--judging from the extremely sparse decor on that side, he MIGHT have been an Orion, since like Gorn they preferred warmer, more humid conditions than most humans preferred, but he could also have been one of the Vulcans who decided they liked moist tropics and had settled in equatorial Brazil on Earth, or on the Meisner Penninsula on Centaurus.

"Hrrrm...what sort of practical jokes would break the ice the fastest?" he found himself wondering.

Before he could think muchHis combadge chirped. ""Heartly to Crewman Sizb."

He tapped it. "Sizb here, sire--I mean, sir," he said. *Still making that dumb gaffe even after all this time, humans don't go by the nobility system, so it's always 'sir' or 'ma'am,' if you're being formal* he told himself "I'm just getting settled into my quarters," he said. He'd considered answering in Anglish, but while he was fairly fluent, his accent was still pretty atrocious and the combadges sometimes conspired with it and his hissing Gorn vocal tones to make it unintelligible--better to let the translator handle it.

"Report to me at the security office as soon as your gear is secured," Kyra said before she signed off. Switching to the Padd with the night shift's report, she left instructions for Sizb to be sent directly to her once he arrived before she stepped into her office to read the report.

"Aye sir," he said. He didn't have much gear right now, since the bulk of it had been stolen, but ehhh. The books and video disks couldn't be replicated, but...everything else was replaceable. He pulled the holos of Zzakk and Rroolz from his uniform pockets and put them on the nightstand beside the sandpit, and walked to the door, which slid open.

"Excuse me--Sizb, is it?"

He hissed, startled, and leaped backwards in a crouch, his claws instinctively extended and his fangs barred. Standing there in the doorway was the same young human female who had walked casually off with his carryon on the station. Instead of civilian clothing, she was wearing what appeared to be a Starfleet crewman's uniform, the most common uniform on any starship. Her hair was long, slightly wild and curly, and was that peculiar shade of red Sizb had seen some humans sporting.

Sizb started to hit his combadge, to report the intruder, to report the thief who had stolen his gear, but before he could, she shoved something in his face. His carryon, he saw. " So anyway I tried to fence it, but the video disks aren't readable on a modern machine and the book didn't actually have a value since he currently doesn't have a contact who wants ancient books and I was in kind of a hurry and besides, who wants gorn chewsticks anyway? And I didn't want to be rude so I had Teebs fix the book and decided to bring it all back to you before you left, and since you're into old movies I picked some more up in an Orion smuggler's rig I hit on the way...

The intruder's hair transformed from it's ginger-red to a shocking, candy-pink color, with white stripes. She blew a lock out of her face. "Yeah, yeah, I know. I'll hurry it up, 'kay? Just be patient a lil' longer. So anyway the smuggler had a hidden hold and a bunch of slaves, and I sort of fired off an anonymous message to base security since slavery is a fake idea and no one should own someone else unless, y'know, it's consensual, which probably defeats the whole idea of owning someone, doesn't it but really, what grownups do in the privacy of their own home is all cool and the gang as long as everyone's on board with it..." To her hair, she said, "Look, just be patient, we've gotta be polite, 'kay? No, I'm NOT gonna forego social conventions just because...oh, all right."

Sizb stared at her, his jaws open slightly. Out of all the things he could have said right then, all the things that he SHOULD have said or done...to a complete intruder no less...the only thing that immediately came to mind right then was:

"You're...talking."

"YES!" she beamed and clapped her hands happily. "We're talking! Me speak, you listen, then you speak, ME listen! It's like a galaxy of conversation!"

"To...your hair."

She pouted a bit. Her hair turned green, with blue highlights. "Well, yeah," she said. "Doesn't everyone? I mean, you're not racist, are you? What do you have against hair?" She looked up at her locks, which seemed to have become oddly...droopy in the last few seconds of the exchange. "It's okay, it's okay," she cooed. "I'm sure he didn't mean anything by it. I mean, he doesn't even HAVE hair, and it wouldn't be as awesome as you even if he DID. He's probably just jealous..."

The hair seemed to perk up. It transformed into a shiny, shimmery, silvery-gold sheen that put the purest latinum to shame. "Okay, now...oh, when I got on board, I found some holes in your security software. So I went ahead and patched that and I left a messageor you guys, you really need to keep up with current OS updates. LCARS is FAIRLY secure, but c'mon, you're still fighting a race against everyone else in the galaxy who cracks systems. Teebs is always on his customers to keep their systems up to date, you guys need to talk about security sometime. Well, anyway, sorry about the whole 'stole your stuff' thing, I hope you enjoy the movies, and maybe we'll see each other around and we can talk about them, now I gotta go change costumes, bye bye!" She turned around and trotted down the corridor. Her hair had become long, incredibly curly, and its silver-gold shimmer was almost...luminescent.

Sizb stood there for a second and then trotted after her. But the corridor just around the corner was...empty.

After a long second, he said to himself in a wondering tone..."What...exactly..just happened?"

After several minutes of waiting, Kyra decided to meet the new Crewman halfway. She wasn’t the most patient woman in the universe, and since she had a lot to take care of before her shift ended and wasn’t in the mood for an extra long shift, Kyra was less than pleased to find Crewman Sizb less than fourteen feet from his quarters staring down an empty corridor. She walked up to the short Gorn and stopped just a single step away.

“It’s best to report in as quickly as possible, Crewman Sizb,” Kyra said as she folded her arms across her chest.

"Yes sir," he said. "I apologize, for what it's worth, but..err...I do have a fairly good reason for being late, though." Very quickly, Sizb outlined everything that happened, from the incident on Deep Space Five to meeting the same individual in the corridor only a minute or so before Kyra appeared.

Kyra frowned as she listened to the Crewman’s report on the intruder. With the Endeavour docked at a Starfleet facility, anyone wearing a Starfleet uniform was more or less allowed entry through the boarding airlock. The intruder could be anywhere on the ship, or even almost to the airlock by now.

“I’ll need you to go to the Security office and put together a report on this intruder. After that, you’ll have patrol duty on Deck Eight,” Kyra said as she tucked a strand of hair behind an ear.

"Yes, sir. At once, sir," said Sizb, and hurried to comply. He trotted into the nearest lift, trying to ignore the nervous urge to rub his slightly itchy hands together, to settle the tiny filaments on his palms down--ancestral urge to climb the nearest wall to escape danger, he thought ruefully, irritated with himself over managing to annoy his immediate commanding officer. Maybe later, he thought, he'd check out a rock-climbing program on the holodeck, try to burn off some nervous energy. Much later. "Security office," he said aloud.

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