Sleepless night

Posted on Thu Dec 24th, 2020 @ 7:25pm by Lieutenant JG Miraj Derani & Commander Sthilg & Ensign BF 345078 (john Snow.) [Sthilg]

Mission: MISSION 0 - History Speaks
Location: Elysium hangr Bay
Timeline: Rest and Relaxation, MD1 0345
2310 words - 4.6 OF Standard Post Measure

[ON]

With a gasp, Miraj woke. It took her a moment to realise she wasn't back at the academy. She had been dreaming that it was finals and she hadn't gone to a single lecture, read a single book, or done a single practical all year. And she was late into the exam to boot.

"Computer what time is it?"

"The current time is three oh four AM."

She closed her eyes, willing herself to go back to sleep.

It didn't happen.

With a sigh, she threw back her covers and got out of bed. Belting her robe on over her long nightgown, she knew there was no point trying to sleep. there was only one thing to do when she couldn't sleep.

The Elysium's primary hangar bay was desserted. The ship was docked, and the skeleton crew wouldn't be bothering with it on the night cycle. She padded over the cold duraniam floor to her where she had parked her pride and joy, the customised waverider shuttle, Queen Anne's Revenge.



Sleek and aerodynamic where most shuttle were boxy,; painted glossy balck where most were white and grey, she looked out of place, a swan amongst seagulls. Miraj loved her.

"Hey, baby," she coed to it as she ran her palm over the lock, and opened her. "How are we doing? Getting on with the others okay? No one being mean to you?" She stroked the sleek walls as she stepped inside and flopped down into what had once been the science station, and now was just a generic LCARS console. "We should plan a trip. Where do fancy? There's not much out here. Just Antede. Maybe we can get there in their hurrican season. Fly some interesting atmosphere? Or just a quick toe dip along Pacifica's jet streams?"


Medbay.

Snow bleeped slightly to himself as he looked at the incoming data. With sickbay being empty he'd plugged himself into the ship's data to monitor the crew's life signs. Noting one of the crew listed as high risk was walking around the hanger bay when she was assigned to dayshift. Rather late to be up as the doctor would say.

Decided he'd pay her a visit the small blue machine informed the duty nurse before activating his internal teleporter and within moments was in the ship's hanger bay. Floating over to the customized shuttle the small machine took a moment to admire the machine. The federation did have some truly beautiful crafty. Not wanting to startle her he quickly replicated a module to create a knocking noise before opening his vocal archives. " Hello Ensign Miraj Derani are you okay? " He said in his strange way of speaking. Each word sounded like a recording of the word being played back rather than him actually speaking it.

Miraj had been lost in the expanse of nothing around Pacifica, and she jumped at the voice. it was obviously synthetic, more so than most computers used. It was just outside. She put her head out of the open hatch. "Er, hello?

" Greetings." Snow said blinking the light on top of his sensor softly. " I am nurse BF 345078, but you can call me Snow." The little robot said as friendly as he could.

For a moment, she stared at the hovering robot, its pointy end reminding her of a nose, lie little mechanical mole. That it was a robot didn;t phase her. She pretended her ships were alive, a robot was no stretch. "Hi snow." She wondered what a nurse would be doing down here. "Are you lost?"

"Negative." The excom replied. " The ship's computer detected increased heart rate and given you're down here when you're assigned to day shift i decided to investigate." It explained.

"Oh. I couldn't sleep." She stood back from the door, "Why don't you come in, there's plenty of places for you to sit." Miraj went back to the seat where she was planning her trip.

" Thank you." Snow replied as he floated in and hovered over to the nearest seat. " Why couldn't you sleep?" He inquired as he lowered himself down onto the seat.

"Bad dream," she admitted. "Not really a nightmare, but it just stresses me out enough that I can't get back to sleep. I'll be fine with a little bit of flying. I'm going out later, but for now, I'm just planing a trip. If i get sleepy, there's a bunk back there."

" Regulation 203 says you shouldn't be behind the controls of a craft for another three hours." the small robot quoted from his database. " But Starfleet regulations can be overruled for medical reasons." He said as a small cable detached from his body. " if you plug me into the controls i can take control of the ship in the event of an emergency."

Miraj looked at the robot. "I'm not sure that's a good idea." She said slowly. "Queen Anne's had a modification or two. Neither of you may enjoy that."

"How modified is she? " the bot inquired.

"Well, she's had a warp engine installed, the enhanced sensors were gutted to add extra suped up avionics for the higher performance and more inertial dampers. The software been hacked to get rid of the safety limits. On factory fresh, they're very soft because they're normally piloted by scientists who've never flown aerodynamically and are more likely to fly straight into the ground than hit level and make a decent cruising altitude. There's a couple of extra thrusters. The deflector dish is overclocked or something. I didn't understand half of what my brother's friend said when he fitted. Astrogation is okay, but the navigation library was copied from the Stranger Tides so its not standard. A bunch of other stuff."

"Impressive." the machine let out with a slight bleep. Given his origins, he knew a fair thing about engineering though quite a lot had been removed to allow his medical database to be installed. "Bt-456709 would love to get a look at her schematics and code."

Miraj wasn't sure who he meant. "I don't think I know your friend."

"Sorry. Bt-456709 is one of the twenty-five of my people who joined starfleet to show our willingness to aid the federation. He's joined the corp of engineers." the robot explained.

"Oh. Well, if he comes to visit, bring him down. He can have a look if he likes. We can take her out for a spin." Miraj offered. "We love to go flying together."

"I will." the small robot said as he replicated a Starfleet medical monitoring device. " if you want to fly and don't want me connecting to the ship than i insist you wear a monitor."

The pilot looked at the robot. "I'll be fine. Its only a little early." And then she proved his point by yawning, deep and long.

" Nurse's orders. Monitor or I will have to drag you back to sickbay. I may need a minute or two to work out how I can do that." The small robot said honestly.

"Yes, sir." she said sheepishly, but hid a giggle at how something only a little bigger than a football could take her to sickbay.

The small robot let out a beep as she took the monitor. It took him a few micro seconds to connect with the device and get a full scan off her health. " All set." he said happily.

"I won't be long," she promised, and moved to the pilot seat for takeoff.

The robot let out a bleep in confirmation as he activated stabilisers to work with the ship's cockpit so he didn't go flying around in takeoff.

"This might feel strange, but there's no repulsorlift installed. or VTOL." Miraj took a grip on her steering column and Queen Anne started to roll towards the opening bay doors, and glanced over to the small robot. "Buckle up, I'm not going to bother turning on the gravity." Then she shoved the stick forward and the waverider shot forward, leaping out of the false gravity and into space.

The small robot observed the female as she flew her bird as fast as she could. He couldn't feel the gravity or gee force that was surging through the craft, but she seemed to be very much enjoying it. Maybe when it was just her and the ship she felt at real peace. Her vitals would suggest that; her pulse dropped, her biochemistry showed rises in oxytocin and seratonin, and falls in epinephrin and dopamine.

She angled the nose, and the waverider cut into the atmosphere of Pacifica, dropping like a stone as gravity took hold. Miraj was giggling, thrilled at the dive, but a second of wrestling the stick, they were flying even and dropping through the outer atmosphere and heading towards the stratosphere.

Buzzing a weather satellite, the Queen Anne fell into the jetstream and hurtled across the sky. Miraj liked to think she could feel the wind running across the hull, lifting the wings and carrying her higher. She turned to John Snow. "This is how you fly. Wings, air, speed, lift. Not in a brick fitted with an anti-grav."

"So I can see." The excomp replied as his senors ran the data into him simulating the experience she was having. " Are you feeling okay?" he asked already knowing from the data but the academy had told him to make sure to talk to his patients.

She dropped the ailerons on one side and sent them into a long corkscrewing roll, over and over. "Oh. Absolutely."

Snow let out a slight beep of concern as he kept his body upright. " You have quite remarkable skills as a pilot. how long did it take you to achieve this level of skill?" he bleeped.

Miraj shrugged. "I've been doing this for a while. I've probably got well over 20,000 hours at helm. Though most of that is just going in a straight line. Probably about five thousand hours of good stuff. And a bit more mucking around in flight sims."

" Longer than I have been functioning. " the bot said with a slight beep that may have been a hint of both wonder and remorse.

Miraj leveled up, and started to descend a bit. Being upside down was more fun closer to the ground. "I've just always been fascinated. Since I was old enough to reach the panel. You can log a lot of hours when you've been trying to do things since you were potty trained."

" Interesting." Snow said lowering himself slightly into the seat. " Were your creators..." he began before correcting. " family pilots?"

"I hope you've locked yourself down," she warned, pulling back on the stick the horizon sliding down the windscreen as she went for the full loop. "My dad was a pilot in Starfleet before I was born. And my mother was," she realised that having met her mirror counterpart, Lianej's piloting was undeniable, "is, also pretty good. But I learnt from Dad. He'd sit me on his lap and let me push the throttles on the Forlorn Hope before I could read. It just kind of spiraled from there."

Snow slid back before he managed to stabilize himself even if he was upside down after her piloting maneuver. "Why did you not learn from your mother?" He inquired.

The ground was clearly visible through the top part of the wind screen, lush jungles "I've never met her. She left me with Dad when I was still a baby. Her skill I just know from reputation." The waverider started descending. "But between them, I was kind of destined for this. I don't even have to think about it."

" Well, you clearly seem to be her daughter. I had no parents merely being constructed on my people's adopted homeworld." The excom added as he righted himself.

"Doesn't who constructed you count?" They leveled out on to a flat plane, and she glided up another thousand feet. She wanted a bit more room under her for the next one.

"There is alpha and omega, the two excoms who created our world, but I was created in the colonies construction program. It is hard to put into words into an organic sense." Snow replied with a beep.

Miraj pushed the stick hard down, and Queen Anne and the negative-g forces tried to pull both of them into the air, thwarted by seatbelts and John Snows stabilising bolt. But instead of pulling up again, she kept pressure on the stick so they were inverted, and the lush jungle of the interior of one of Pacifica's many islands was clear to see through the windshields above their heads. "I guess its not quite the same." she decided.

" There are a lot of things I find strange about organics. " The excom said as he processed an idea through his head. " I wonder would it be possible to build a suit of some sought so i could try flying like you can."

"All things are possible," she assured him as the ship pulled up hard again, and her buches hung perpendicular to her head, "I'm sure someone in engineering will help you out."

" i will have to note it down in my notes for inquiring at a later date." The robot added.


The second loop finished she levelled out, and yawned. "Good. But I think I'm ready to go back to bed now. You?"

" I need no sleep. I require fifteen minutes in the recharging station every 48 hours." The Excom replied.

"Well, I'm not so fortunate." She turned back towards the bright point of light that was ll that could be made out of Elysium. "Time to go home."

" Indeed." The floating robot said as he watched her dock the ship. He then followed her back to her room before returning to sickbay.

[OFF]