What are you, again?

Posted on Mon Mar 8th, 2010 @ 7:33pm by Lieutenant Commander Nilani Prax & Commander Dietrich Reinhart

Mission: Commissioned
Location: USS Jackal Bridge
Timeline: One Day before Launch, 1824 Hours.

::ON::

Nilani strolled onto the bridge, hands behind her back as she ambled her way along the corridors of the small ship, nodding politely to the crewmen who passed her. She's managed to motivate the crews working on the science labs to get them all finished to final specifications hours ago, and had decided it would be a good idea to get to know the place she'd probably be spending more of her time, since science was taking on a number of the duties usually reserved for the operations department on larger ships; the bridge.

As the hatch opened onto the bridge, she saw the man she recognised as Lieutenant Commander Reinhart, the ship's XO. Smiling to herself, she moved over to him to introduce herself.

The German was busy looking over the navigation files. It was important to keep the database up to date, and more important point there is no point in space which does not move and that no sane person could calculate galactic drift and warp speeds and deflector compensation by themselves. But I can at least shoot from the hip, he decided to himself, particularly looking at the changes around the Antares. But the reflection in the panel showed a young woman approaching from the rear of the bridge, and the faint teal collar he saw in the mirror image was enough to give him a guess. But assuming things makes an ass out of you and me, Dietrich, his conscience told him. Instead, he pivoted in his chair and looked back. "Guten tag, Fraulein."

"Guten tag, Kommandant," Nilani replied, noting the man's use of the terran German language. She only knew a couple of phrases of the language herself, but while Torin was on Earth, he'd always tried to take an interest in the native languages of anyone he came across. "Ich hoffe, dass Sie gut heute sind?"

"Indeed," Reinhart returned without much of an accent at all, "I am well, today. And how are you, Lieutenant?"

"I'm doing well, Commander," Nilani replied, glad that they'd switched over to English. That really was the extent of her German. "I trust that the engineers haven't given you any... problems with the helm?" she said, indicating the large console that the commander had been working on.

"No. I've learned quite a bit working with them, actually," he put his arm on the console to help him stand up. It was only then that he realized he did not know the person talking to him. He took a step forward and extended his right arm, and with a smile said, "I am Dietrich Reinhart."

"Prax," she said, grasping the XO's hand. "Nilani Prax. I'm aboard as Alex's science officer."

"Well, you already guessed that I am aboard as the helmsman," he shrugged. A Trill, interesting. I really need to look more into biology and symbiosis, because that is just unbelievably weird. Being naturally curious, he was going to try and pry into the mind of this young girl as much as he can, just to learn first hand. Or second hand. Or third hand, I guess. He kept smiling, seemingly forgetting Prax was a science officer. That would be his next step, he decided. "What is your speciality, Miss Prax?"

"Currently?" Nilani asked, letting the man off for forgetting what she'd just said. "Exobiology, Exoarchaeology, Astrophysics and Molecular Biology. But in my time I've been a smuggler, a general, jazz player... hell, I've even been, well... partly human."

And again, he was taken back for forgetting the woman had years of experience. And it would prove to be a difficult task to remember that the young blue-shirt was indeed also the experiences of many generations, and many more to come. Dietrich was sure that over time, he would become accustomed to it and stop thinking of Prax as the spotted girl she appeared to be. His thought process still couldn't hide the fact that he was utterly confused as to what exactly to say, but he figured that something simple will do. "Do you ever find that Karma bites you in the hind end?"

Nilani chuckled a bit, as she perched herself on the edge of one of the nearby consoles, resting her hands on her knee. "Sometimes," she replied, as she cast her mind back into Prax's memories. "My second host - Kronat - he was a general in the Trill military. Made quite a few enemies in his time. One of them ended up running my next host into hiding, then eventually into Starfleet." She couldn't help but notice the long pauses inbetween each of her answers and the German's next question. She could only assume that it was down to the fact he was trying to get his head around her joined nature - something her previous hosts had become used to, but was new to Nilani. Still, she enjoyed throwing the commander one revelation after another, to see how he took it in - she wondered how he would react when he realised that at least one of her previous hosts was a male.

"So, because you share the memories of your past hosts, do they have to approve of your relationships first?" He thought, trying to pick apart the host-symbiotic relationship even more. He was hoping that he wasn't offending her. And indeed this was not his first real experience with a Trill, but the first real conversation he would have with a joined one.

"It's... not quite like that," Nilani replied, looking up to the ceiling as she tried to think how to best explain it. "I have all the distinct memories of my past hosts, but they don't exist as specific personalities inside me. Kronat, Torin, Omar... they're all dead, but their personalities are... blended with Nilani's. We're all one person."

"Oh," was all that Reinhart could muster. He was not quite sure what to say, or still how to take it. He could only imagine that Nilani felt really tired all the time, what with being generations old. Or perhaps it had no burden on her at all. A lot of memories in one person. A lot of time passed. How the hell does that work. "I think I understand now," he lied. But with her facial expressions and body language, he couldn't tell if she was annoyed with him or not. Between her "age" and her spots, that brings a whole new meaning to the term cougar. Dietrich finally smiled, laughing at his own joke. "So how do you know Ale---I mean Commander Gunning?"

Nilani allowed herself a smile, amused despite herself at the Commander's apparent discomfort with trying to understand the relationship between host and symbiont. In truth, until she became a joined Trill herself, she had had similar questions, though she had more of a background for the knowledge having grown up among the Trill. Turning her attention to the XO's latest question, the memories of Omar rose fondly in her mind, and her smile grew slightly. "Omar was XO of the Farragut, back when Alex was just a junior officer there. Quite a good young tactical officer, if I remember correctly."

"So you were his boss, and now he is your boss," there was not much she could say that would add to the confusion, but that pretty much kicked the bucket. "He was all right, a busy guy on the Galaxy During Battle Group Omega's deployment. A hard worker, definitely. This is not his first ship, so I am certain we will be seeing some good come out of him with this flying cannon." He looked around the bridge. "I have not really familiarized myself with the ship yet. Where do you sit?"

"Well," Nilani said, as she stood to look around the bridge at each of the consoles. "As long as Starfleet hasn't changed it from the original specifications too much, science should be... this one." She stepped over to the one at the fore of the bridge, starboard side, deciding not to confuse the XO too much by telling him that her last host had worked on the development team as a contractor for the Defiant class.

Reinhart picked up on one thing, "if I remember correctly." What does that mean? Did she do this in a past life. I am not going to ask. He looked at the station, checking out the monitors. The sensor pads were not activated yet, but the subsystem loops were still running. And hence, the computers displayed noise, random non-entities that just took up computing power. Over all, it looked basic. It was much like most of the rest of the tiny ship. "Looks like you'll be able to do some real deductive science work here. Quite the challenge to someone of your background in science."

"Oh, I'm sure I'll find something to keep myself occupied," Nilani said, as she powered the console out of standby, the subsystem loops being replaced by active runtimes, the screens showing a varying array of sensor readings from the shipyards around them. "Just because we're in a flying shotgun, I'm sure Alex won't be too adverse to investigating a few anomalies along the way."

"Looks like you'll find a black hole or two," he looked at the sensor readings. "I am sure we'll find something. Our AOR" (Area of Responsiblity) "is Galactic South. A lot goes on down there, on the rim."

"Thorians and Gorn will certainly make a difference from Klingons, Cardassians and Romulans," she replied. She'd already had a brief look at the generic area they'd be operating in, but she brought it up on one of the larger screens at her station. "Looks like we've got a lot of unexplored space too..." She knew that the Defiant class was built as a warship, not an explorer, but she still hoped they'd get a chance for some exploring of their own at some point.

"We will go where the Federation sends us. And most certainly, we will perform our duties to the best of our abilities." He looked at the hatch, where the Engineers were bringing in Commander Gunning's replacement chair. "Let me buy you a coffee and you can explain more of this symbiosis."

::OFF::
______________________________________
This post is brought to you by:

Lt. Cmdr. Dietrich Reinhart
Executive Officer, Chief Flight Officer
USS Jackal

&

Lt. (JG) Nilani Prax
Chief Science Officer
USS Jackal