Lee Carter was in a good mood. She was looking forward to taking her turn at the helm of the station's newest attachment, the Steamrunner class USS Arizona. Though not a state-of-the-art ship like a Sovereign or Prometheus, still, she had been upgraded considerably by Starfleet before being shipped way out here to the edge of the frontier. Lee was anxious to put her through her paces.
As her footfalls rang hollowly through the nearly deserted corridors -- it was 0550 hours -- Lee mentally reviewed the Banshees' schedule for the coming day. It would be a busy day, there were many last-minute details to take care of before they set off on their two week voyage in the new ship. She planned to get the morning roll call out of the way as quickly as possible so they could get to the real work right away.
Nearing the door to the Banshees' conference room where the team held its routine morning briefing, Lee prepared a cheerful greeting for her teammates. The doors slid open to admit her, she strode brightly through the entrance and surveyed the scene beyond and --
-- stopped dead in her tracks.
The cheerful greeting died unuttered on her lips and her smile faded, being slowly replaced in turn by expressions of surprise, confusion, puzzlement and finally, annoyance. She checked the chrono on the PADD she carried -- 0600 hours -- right on time.
Where was everybody? Her team was never late for the morning briefing. Well, Kimmie was occasionally, sometimes Jo, but never Sam or Max! She couldn't believe they'd picked today of all days to unanimously decide to play hooky.
Dumbstruck, she slumped in a chair near the front of the room and wondered at the irresponsibility of her crew.
Two pairs of legs clad in dirty coveralls extended from the underside of the master control console in the engine room of the Arizona. Muffled, indistinct voices, one male, one female, issued from the open access panel. Suddenly, a loud BONGGGG echoed through the entire engineering compartment, followed by an even louder "OW!!!" from the male voice.
"Sorry," giggled the female voice.
The larger pair of legs worked their way out the panel opening, and the head of Garek Loran emerged. He was rubbing it furiously with his hand, trying to ease the pain of where it had made "first contact" with the inside of the console.
The smaller legs squirmed out right after Garek, and the highly amused face of Kim Tycho appeared. "You okay?" she asked, trying to see if there was any visible damage, while at the same time trying to keep from laughing out loud.
"No," grumbled Garek, still rubbing his head.
"Here, I'll fix it," said Kimmie. She shifted her legs under her to get from where she was sitting to a kneeling position, then took Garek's face in her small hands and planted a little kiss on his boo-boo. Backing away a little, she sat back down and surveyed the results of her handiwork. Satisfied that the effect she'd wrought was the intended one, she smiled and absentmindedly wiped the grease and grime from her forehead with the back of her equally grimy hand.
Not having seen that little kiss coming, Garek had been rendered momentarily defenseless against the charms of this young girl sitting on the floor beside him. He wondered briefly at these feeling he was having for her, but his cocky exterior quickly reasserted itself.
He smiled back at Kim and said, "I love it when you get all grimy like that."
Kim looked at her dirty hands, then wiggled her eyebrows suggestively at Garek.
Jo Schmidt had wasted no time this morning -- she'd even decided to skip the morning roll call. Lee would be annoyed, but she understood Jo's passion.
Jo had buried herself in all the available data on the area of space the Arizona was scheduled to patrol for the next two weeks. There wasn't very much data -- that's one reason why they were going -- to get more.
There was the Briar Patch of course. That phenomenon alone was enough to keep them busy charting and exploring for quite some time, but she was sure they'd find plenty more.
She'd heard the Stellar Cartography lab on the Arizona incorporated Borg technology brought back from the Delta Quadrant by the USS Voyager, and that the viewing matrix was a total-immersion holographic chamber instead of just a room with a big viewscreen.
In some ways, this upcoming mission would be even more challenging than her tour-of-duty aboard the USS Trailblazer exploring the Delta Quadrant. The distances involved weren't as great, but the Briar Patch was a volatile place. Who knows what would happen?
Shaking her head clear of these happy thoughts, Jo bent back to her work.
"So, how long you gonna be gone for?" asked Rick, the handsome and mysterious manager of the El Taco.
"Two weeks," sighed Sam Beckett with exaggerated sadness. "I just thought I'd stop by. You know. Just in case...."
"Tut-tut," said Rick with great assurance. He took her hands in his and patted them comfortingly. "Don't even think such things. Nothing will happen to you."
"You're right, of course. But...." Her voice trailed off. She knew that he knew that she was playing the 'helpless female' here.
"And if ever one hair on your head was harmed I would know, and then neither all the powers in heaven nor monsters from hell could prevent me from swooping in to your rescue." Rick smiled his most charming smile. He knew that she knew that he was hamming it up.
"My hero," smiled Sam sweetly. She timidly reached across the table where the two of them were sitting and ventured a brief tough to Rick's cheek, then stood to leave. "Well, gotta go!" she said to the young man. She downed the remainder of her schplict -- her cyber-implants neutralized the odious beverage instantly -- and walked out the restaurant. She could feel Rick's eyes following her until she turned the corner and walked out of sight.
Normally quiet and shy in the extreme, Sam had for some reason become smitten with Rick, in spite of the fact that she hardly knew anything about him, and she could tell that he liked her too. This wasn't the first time the two of them had played their silly flirting game, and her teammates teased her mercilessly about it.
Maybe when they got back from their mission, she'd get him to ask her out on a date or something. At the very thought of that though, she blushed -- her shyness again.
Max Vasser ducked her head as she walked under the nose of her Banshee fighter plane, outstretched fingertips caressing its cool metal surface. The fighter was parked on the deck of the station's small craft hangar in preparation for its transfer to the USS Arizona, and Max was making a visual inspection of the ship's fuselage and hardpoints prior to taking it out, making sure that all the battle damage it had acquired during the Son'a battle had been repaired.
Since a Steamrunner class starship was a lot smaller than a space station, only one of the YF-6100 Banshee fighters had room in the ship's hangar, and Max had been chosen to fly it. The other pilots of Banshee Squadron would be on board as well, working in various other capacities -- Carter would be piloting the starship -- but she was glad to be the one assigned to her familiar old cockpit.
She had one foot on the ladder leading up to the cockpit and was planning to climb into the pilot's seat when a familiar voice stopped her: "There you are! I should've known." It was Lee.
Max set both feet back on the deck and turned to face her commanding officer. She'd skipped the morning roll call -- the first one she'd missed in her life -- so she expected Carter to be angry. Instead, Carter surprised her by giving her a rather wry smile.
"It figures," said Carter. "The only thing that can keep you from a scheduled briefing is your plane."
"It needed me," shrugged Max, relaxing when she realized she wasn't being chewed out. She reached out and patted her craft on its side. "Besides, I figured the others could tell me what the meeting was about later on."
"They weren't at the briefing either," said Lee.
"Oh," chuckled Max. "I guess we're all a little excited about the mission."
"Mmm. Why would that be, I wonder," said Lee. "We've been on countless missions. Why is this one different?"
Max pondered the question for a moment, then placed her hand on Lee shoulder, looked her in the eyes and said, "Because this time we'll be going as explorers, not warriors."