Artemis: First Day on the Job
Dori
Lily was working on setting up a new experiment in Stellar Cartography; it involved her going back and forth a lot, and enabled her to keep an eye on the empty space that was Joanna’s lab. She wanted to make sure the new scientist felt supported on her first day in the labs, and so every so often she would make a little detour to check and make sure Joanna hadn’t shown up yet. It wasn’t until halfway through the day that she saw the other woman, but she wasn’t surprised. She was used to seeing people come and go at all hours.
Joanna had been off to a rough start, even before she woke up that day. Her encounter with her sister had been a disaster as always had been. She often wondered why she even tried to be civil with her. After the cup of tea and several anti-hangover supplements she still woke with one...and it was a ringer. She had done her best to look professional but honestly she wasn’t even sure that her uniform was on straight. She entered the lab area to see no one.
“Small miracles be praised” she muttered as she looked around, her sister’s keepsake still wrapped and under one arm. She had requested a safe be put into her lab area and that it be ready by morning. She turned the corner then feeling a spike of pain in her head slumped against the wall groaning. “Damn you mead...if you didn’t taste so sweet I would drop you in a second.” she groaned.
Lily had finished the setup of the experiment, and had decided to make one more round to the lab where Joanna was allotted before she headed down to astrophysics. She was pleasantly surprised to see the woman in question standing there. “Hello.” she said. “I hope you’ve found everything to your requirements?”
“Don’t know…” she offered “I haven't looked at it yet” she let out a sigh then looked at her “Lily right, sorry about last night...now before I go a step farther I must ask one question...probably the most important one in the history of important questions…” she started
“Go ahead.” Lily said, her eyebrows arching in interest.
She took in a deep breath and exhaled “Is my uniform on properly” she asked
Lily looked it over briefly. “Yes.” she said.
She let out a sigh then smiled “Oh thanks heavens….” WIth that she turned and opened her lab area and smiled. Most of the equipment she had asked for was there, though some items were not. Most of her studies went towards old pieces of tech so her tools were older as well. “Ok so far so good….and what random piece of tech did they send this time as a joke.” she asked herself as she glanced around. She set the black cloth wrapped item down then looked for the storage safe...it was not there. “Well drat” she muttered then poked her head out. “Well most of it is here, just missing a few wishlist items” she stated
“What are you missing?” Lily asked, her brow furrowing.
SHe glanced around again looking for it...only finding a toaster with the label “Section 4/1 relic” on it. “Well I had some pieces of equipment I was working on back at the Forge” she explained “Should have arrived right after me but you know how Starfleet is when it comes to Borg tech...6 months of work all gone” she muttered
“I can talk to Ops if you like. We’ll make sure your things are found.” Lily said. “Do you have a list?”
She accessed the terminal and pulled up her list of items. Some did have flag notices on them for being too large or dangerous...as well as on a federation black list. “I miss the private sector...fewer real regulations” she muttered “So what was ment to be in transit.” She pulled the list up “Most of my tools I use for Borg research, a slightly damaged Transwarp coil” she started “I was looking into finding a way to unfuse them, two borg arms with assimilation tubes intact for study, and Yorric...can’t work without poor old Yorric.” she laughed at the sick yet amusing joke.
Lily laughed. “A fan of Shakespeare?” she asked. “Send a list of what you’re missing to Ops, and I’ll go down and follow it up. Dr. Cordoba would blow a gasket if she learned you were missing essential research tools, and we can’t have that.”
“There are other things missing but the Federation confiscated them” she stated “They don’t like the idea of someone working with a Regeneration Alcove, a neural transceiver or the nanoprobes” she though for a moment “I can understand the last one...ah” she opened a drawer and smiled to herself “you can take Yorric off the list” she stated hefting the macabre item from it’s hiding place “I found him” she offered as she set it and it’s stand on her desk opposite the workspace “Alas poor poor Yorric your still mighty ugly for a Vorta” she joked
Lily’s eyes grew wide. “They assimilated a Vorta?” she asked, almost incredulous. “That’s... impressive.”
She glanced back and nodded “Yes I guess even the Borg need sycophants in there ranks” she offered up “What's amazing is this skull if you can believe it is over 300 years old...and it was found on Earth” she stated “I was on a team that was in the antarctic circle and we found wreckage from a borg ship...this poor fool was buried under it….” she looked at her “Not only does it show that the Borg already had a path to the Gamma Quadrant before we did but also that rumor that Captain Archer’s ‘Robot men” really existed…” she smiled “and as I said proof that the Vorta aren't totally useless to someone at least”
“Talk about a turn for the bizarre.” Lily muttered.
She smiled as she arranged the few items she had in her lab to set up for her project “Yeah tell me about it..most things with the Borg are” she said “THough honestly this is the prize I have been working on for awhile” she offered as she pulled the small jewellery case from her pocket and walked over to Lily’s lab table “So have you ever wondered how long some cultures have been out there?” she asked as she flipped it open, revealing the compass “Ballpark guess how old is this?” she said offering it to Lily “Your best guess”
Lily took it and studied it carefully. “This isn’t human made.” she said. “It could be as old as a thousand years, knowing the age of some cultures. I couldn’t even begin to make a hypothesis, so I’d guess 800 years.”
She always loved showing this little piece off “Try older, like older than mankind” she offered as she pulled out a tricorder and flipped the setting until carbon dating came up “I’ve never been able to get a exact reading on this...the energy field that it has on it makes int next to impossible, even without the lodestone installed in the center” she offered
“Compasses can be tricky to measure, I imagine.” Lily replied. “Given the calibration to a specific place, and the materials used. Older than humanity, eh? That’s something. I was wondering if it could be Bajoran or Vulcan.”
“No and no” she stated “They didn’t make it either” she fired up the tricorder and scanned the wayfinder. As usually the machine had some issues but it spat back the 2 million years reading. “My father believed in a space faring race that existed long before man, maybe a had warp travel before the Vulcan did” she offered “He called them Pathfinders, we only ever found a few of there relics and those were hard to keep in one piece…”
“I didn’t know anything had ever been found. There’s a class about them at the Academy - I believe it was the famous Captain Kirk who uncovered evidence of such a race.” Lily replied, handing the device back.
“Maybe” she offered “Kirk did have a sense of finding things.” She set it down then reached into the case pulling out one of several stones that were packed in and lined up beside the hole “Watch what happens when you add one of these” she placed the small orange jewel onto the center of the arrows. Suddenly it lit up and an orange arrow projected down and around the corner. “Well someone has a bad case of avarice…” she explained then looked to Lily “Sorry these things used small nanotech infused crystals called lodestones to do various things” she offered “The orange one will show anyone in the energy bubble the way to the nearest source of such...other stones do other things.”
“Interesting.” Lily replied. “I wonder who it’s pointing to.”
“Yes indeed...I usually don’t follow them...not since the black stone” she looked at the onyx colored stone and frowned at it “Black rarely every worked until one day it lit up and with a rather terrifying screech….It lead to the XO quarters on the USS Broken Horizon...in time to see him turn a phaser on himself..” she swallowed hard “Apparently the Black stone shows you when someone is close to death...it took a lot of convincing to make sure no one found the Wayfinder then...the Federation rules would have probably had me hand it over.” she offered
“Yeah... probably a good idea just to put it away.” Lily agreed.
“Either way...best to get started...I guess on something” she offered “No clue what as all my research is well linked to missing items.”
“Why don’t you get to know the ship a little, unpack, relax, and I’ll see what’s happened to your missing items.” Lily offered.
“I will probably do that...just need to know...do you have a storage safe I could use today?” she asked
Lily frowned. “A storage safe? There might be one in the main office. I flit between Stellar Cartography and a small area where I work on equations for a theory I’m working on - optimistically referred to as Astrophysics - so I don’t have a lab like this. Let me check the office, and assume that there is. Get together what you need and I’ll be right back.” she hurried off.
Joanna watched her go then picked up her sister’s “keepsake” and unwrapped it. The Klingon weapon was still as deadly as ever, and freshly sharpened judging by the smell of the metal. “One day...just one day you will trust the ship with this not hide it.” she muttered.
End