A New Old Friend

Posted on Wed Feb 24th, 2010 @ 8:57pm by Captain Alexander Gunning & Lieutenant Commander Nilani Prax

Mission: Commissioned
Location: Science Lab - Deck 2 [USS Jackal]
Timeline: MD : -1 (One day before launch) - 1503hrs

[ON]

The commanding officer of the USS Jackal wandered the littered corridors of his ship. It was beginning to get ridiculous with the number of engineers which had supposedly been reassigned from other projects to ensure that the little Defiant would be ready to go on at the second time of asking. However, he had to admit that he was enjoying the ease of manoeuvrability around the ship. No area of it was more than two minutes away from the rest. It made a pleasant change.

The charcoal doors of the science lab slid apart with a reassuring hiss before locking halfway with a dull thud. Oh, fantastic! he thought before grabbing the first passing engineer. "Now look here, Chief. I need this door fixed before the new science officer comes aboard he, I mean she, is very exacting and if you think you'll get an earful from me then just wait until she can't get into her science lab."

"Oh, go easy on him, Alex," Nilani said, as she turned from one of the stations in the lab upon the sound of her old friend's voice. Omar's old friend she privately reminded herself. She had still only been joined for a few months, and was still getting used to it. "I can fit through," she said, throwing the engineer an almost mischievous smile.

"You might be able to but the minute we have a bloody scientific sample coming through the doors, I don't want to have to use a site-to-si-" he stopped mid-sentence realising that the woman who had just spoken to him was, in fact, Nilani Prax. He was more than a little knocked from his guard. She wasn't what he had expected at all. He allowed a smile to peel across his lips. "Prax? Good to see you!" He declared before turning a steely gaze back to the engineer. "I'm serious. Get it fixed. Now."

"How you doing, you young devil?" Nilani asked, as she moved forward to give him a hug, seemingly ignoring his hard attitude on the engineer - Omar had always remembered him to be strict on those under him when they weren't doing things the way he needed them done.

"I'm not bad," he replied embracing her then pushing her back a little in order to get a better look at her. "But look at you, you old fool. I've never seen you looking better."

"Thanks," Nilani grinned. Running her hands down her sides as she looked down at herself, she said, "I much prefer being a woman, you know. There's much more... grace in it."

The commander laughed as he watched her, knowing what an eye for the opposite sex Omar had. "I never thought you'd describe it with the word 'grace'. What was your previous assignment Nilani; I don't have your file to hand?"

"Victory," Prax supplied. "And hey, don't forget; I'm a completely different person to Omar now. I'm allowed to say 'grace' if I want to," she joked.

"Very true, Nilani. My apologies." He replied with a smile. "Victory. Sovereign Class isn't it? The Jackal must seem like a bit of a come-down from that."

"Perhaps I like it cosy," the Trill replied, her mischievous grin still in place as she teased the man who felt both a stranger and an old companion.

"Well you're going to have to," he beamed back, handing her a PaDD. "You'll be sharing quarters."

"Ooh, who've I got?" Nilani asked, looking through her PaDD. "Is it anyone I can tease?"

"It's a female crewmember. Unfortunately given that most of the staff are still to come aboard or even report to me for duty, it's really too early to say who you'll end up with." He smirked. "Although I'm sure whoever it is you'll find some way to tease them."

"I think I'm going to have some fun here," she said, continuing to read through the data on the PADD. After a few moments, she felt she should stir up some conversation again. "So where did you go to after the Farragut?"

"I got myself assigned to the USS Galaxy." He replied, feeling his voice go softer with the nostalgia in his voice. He had loved that ship and all its crew as if they were his family, which was natural after such a long time. The Heath had never quite lived up to it in the same way. "I was there for years before I finally got assigned to the Heath as Commanding Officer a couple of years ago. What happened to you after Wolf? I thought I'd never hear the name Prax again until I was looking through the development list for the Defiant Project and there you were."

"Melissa Prax is what happened," Nilani replied. "Prax's sixth host. She was a starship designer for the Trill military, but occasionally I used to get contracted out by the Federation for their design projects. I helped some of the design aspects for the Defiant and the Sovereign, you know."

"I see. Any chance of you putting that experience to good use to make sure that these useless engineers get the job done properly and," he paused for some kind of effect, "promptly?"

"Oh, I'm sure I could entice some liveliness out of them," Nilani grinned, tossing the engineer working on the door a look so mischievous it looked positively evil.

"Good to hear. I'll let you whip them into shape." Alex was pleased that his new... old friend hadn't lost the drive that Omar had. "I need to go and check whether they've put my chair back in yet."

[OFF]

Commander Alex Gunning
Commanding Officer
USS Jackal

Lieutenant (JG) Nilani Prax
Chief Science Officer
USS Jackal