A Job Offer
Posted on Sat Sep 6th, 2014 @ 7:29pm by Lieutenant Yzhara
Mission:
Vagrants, Vagabonds, and Thieves
Location: Archanis Flight Training Center, Chief Instructor's Office
"Come in, come in. Please have a seat, Lieutenant." A man with slightly grizzled, but distinguished features motioned for Yzhara to have a seat in front of him. His office was made of the same wall paneling common throughout the station, but it was covered in pictures of his family and framed diplomas. The man may have been a pilot at one time, but now his life seemed to be mostly academic in nature. He seemed to be at a point in his life where it was okay to be idle.
If there was one thing Yzhara hated, it was being idle. Of course it wasn't her call to make, but she had been against being assigned to the station. She needed to be moving, to have someplace to go. Although she had only been on the station a couple of days, she was already getting antsy. Her ship, the Diligent-class Montreal, was given a temporary berth, and since the station's command staff was still trying to make sense of the sudden arrival of a new garrison ship, it was going to remain temporary until something could be sorted out. That suited Yzhara just fine. That meant that she could keep her quarters on the Montreal and not move to the station. Living on the station just felt too permanent. When it was time to fly, she wanted to be ready to fly. In fact, Lieutenant Yzhara couldn't imagine any pilot wanting to sit still. When a pilot was at the controls of his or her craft, that's when they were at home. Any other time was just being idle.
While Yzhara was a pilot, she was odd in one major sense. Yzhara was blind. Well, mostly blind. Well, more like sort of blind. She was an Aenar, a sub-race of the Andorian species. Thought to have died out many centuries ago, they were rediscovered on Andoria in the mid 22nd century. Some of the Aenar interbred with the Andorians, which further thinned their numbers, but many of them chose to breed only with other Aenar and keep the bloodline "pure". But the true Aenar, the ones without a significant amount of Andorian in them, were born blind. They had evolved this way. Unlike their Andorian cousins, the Aenar had developed a higher mental acuity, granting them some telepathic ability. Reading minds and transmitting thoughts were possible with practice, and something that Yzhara struggled with, the primary use of their abilities replaced their eyesight. Aenar evolved a way to "see" with their minds, detecting the universe on a level beyond the visible spectrum. Many had asked Yzhara to describe the way she saw. The only thing she could come up with was that it was like explaining the color red to someone who was colorblind. It was easiest to just accept that she could see and not try to comprehend it.
Her non-working eyes were not a handicap as far as she and Starfleet were concerned. It in no way affected her ability to do her job. But if there was one thing that she enjoyed, it was making people think that she couldn't see, especially when she was at the controls of ship. It really made the cadets nervous. Maybe it was best that she didn't teach starship flight control for that reason, but she was good at her job, and it helped her keep from just being idle. Even when the cadets were behind the controls, she was constantly watching and offering help. She'd only worked with a few cadets so far, the latest being Cadet James Anderson, who was now in the starfighter portion of his rotation. But this was the first time that she had been offered an opportunity as an instructor. And she was just about to meet with the flight academy administrator.
The Aenar accepted Lt. Commander Quintan's invitation to have a seat. Her exceptionally pale skin and white hair, accentuated by her empty pale eyes, were in stark contrast to the dark colors of her Starfleet uniform. Even in Starfleet, seeing an Aenar was rare since most of them rarely led the frozen wastes near Andoria's northern pole. But the head instructor seemed to take it all in stride. "Welcome to the Archanis Flight Training Center, Lieutenant. I'm Lt. Commander Hoyt Quintan, Chief Instructor. I'm so glad that you could take time to see me." He offered a hand towards her.
I wasn't doing anything else, Yzhara thought. If it had been a junior officer or someone not familiar with her, she would have played up the blind angle and made them feel embarrassed for wanting to shake her hand. But since not only was Quintan a superior officer, he was well aware of her credentials. She accepted the outstretched hand, though her blank stare remained focused on the wall behind him.
Quintan finished shaking her hand and walked around to the far side of his desk and took a seat. "So, Lieutenant, how much do you know about the AFTC?"
"Not much, to be honest," she replied cordially. "I did most of my training near the Core. But from what I do know, this center is one of the leading flight academies in the Galactic South, if not the Federation." She at least wanted to show that she had done her homework. This was a job interview, after all.
"Quite right. Having some of the best students certainly helps, but we wouldn't be there without good instructors," Quintan boasted, obviously quite pleases as the head instructor. "I understand that you've had some students working with you."
"I have a couple of times. Most recently I worked with Cadet Anderson. He did well, though we didn't always see eye to eye," Yzhara answered matter-of-factually.
It took Quintan a moment. "Well, I'd imagine that you don't 'see' eye to eye with a lot of people, do you, Lieutenant?"
She allowed herself to crack a smile. "No, not exactly, sir."
"I've also heard that you scared the bejeezus out of him on the way to the Montreal." Hoyt had had also done his homework. Yzhara was well known for not necessarily taking a direct route when she wanted to show off.
"Maybe I did, but I still turned it into a learning experience. Once we reached the ship, I had him talk me through docking procedures, calling out distances and headings. He may have been panicking, but it taught him to be aware of his surroundings and stay on top of things even in a crisis. You've seen my flight record. You know that those cadets were in no danger." That was true. He had seen her record, and he was fully aware that she had control of the situation. As long as Yzhara was at the controls, there was little danger of that shuttle crashing. Even a miscalculated order from Anderson wouldn't have been a disaster since Yzhara was watching her controls the whole time, and even corrected him a couple of times. She believed in learning by doing, as did her flight instructors.
"No one is disputing that, Lieutenant. And I guarantee that the cadet hasn't forgotten that flight. I'm sure you know that he's working with our starfighter section of the training center now."
"I had heard that, sir," Yzhara replied. "He'll make a good pilot wherever he ends up. But I'm sure that's not the only thing that you wanted to talk about." She didn't need to be able to read minds to know that much.
"You're right. Since I heard theMontreal was being assigned to the station, I wanted to see if I can entice you with a little offer. How would you feel about joining the faculty and teaching?"
"Word travels fast, I see. I don't know about that, sir. I'm not really a lecturing type."
"Oh, you're instruction would be all practical, hands-on exercises. You might spend time in simulators, but rarely, if ever, in a classroom. We have people to handle the classroom work, but we need someone with a hands-on approach to spend more time one-on-one with the students."
"I'm still assigned to the Montreal, and I need to be available if a mission calls for her to leave the station. That needs to come first."
"Absolutely." Hoyt Quintan understood that deployment needed to take priority over her teaching duties, and he had no intention of trying to keep her from that. She was valuable as an instructor, but she was just as valuable in the field. "Of course, your duties on the Montreal come first. This would be more of an as-needed/as-available type of position. We have other instructors who could do the job, but they don't have your unique perspective.
They don't fly blind, she assumed he meant. "I'll have to think about it."
"Think all you want. If nothing else, consider it as something to keep you busy when you're not on a mission."
Yzhara's antennae twitched. He had done his homework. She gave a polite smile. "I'll keep that in mind."
Lieutenant Yzhara [P: Von]
Chief Flight Operations Officer
USS Montreal
Lt. Commander Hoyt Quintan
Chief Instructor
Archanis Flight Training Center
NPC played by Liarra Von
