<The time is now 0600 hours. Merry Chirstmas, Lt. Loran.>
Garek awoke slowly. He didn't remember programming that awakening message. Maybe the captain or commander set it up. After all, it was a holiday. He wiped some sleep out of his eyes and sat up. He was planning on taking the Lambda Flier out on its first flight today. K'Lara said that she would tag along to monitor the Warp core and the cloaking device.
He slowly went through the motions of getting ready for his maiden flight. Wearing only his boxers, he grabbed a towel off of a nearby chair and went to go take a shower. As he was drying off, he had remembered that he still needed to check the power up of the warp core and the cloaking device together. The last thing he would need is a critical overload, causing the systems to scramble. Seeing that it was nearly 0615, he remembered that Ensign Galen should be coming on duty in about 15 minutes. Garek figured that Galen might like to help him with some work, before he went on his duty shift. Garek picked up his communicator pin off of a nearby table, and tapped it. "Ensign Galen, this is Lieutenant Loran. Where are you right now?"
[I'm on my way to Engineering, Sir. Is there something I can help you with?]
"As a matter of fact, there is something. Meet me in Shuttle Bay Two."
[I'll be there in a minute.]
The doors of Shuttle Bay Two opened with a mechanical hum. The Lambda Flier could be seen, everything powered down. Ensign Galen was walking along the shuttle, running his fingers over its smooth surfaces.
"You want me to leave the two of you alone for awhile?" Garek smiled at his Assistant Chief Engineer.
Galen turned around, surprised. His face turned slightly red. "Hello, Lieutenant. I didn't hear you come in." He looked at the craft. "So, what have you called me down for?"
"I need your help on the warp core of the ship. Come on around." Garek walked around back, and tapped in an access code to the Flier. The back door swooshed open and he stepped in. Galen followed right behind him.
Galen whistled, and did a 360 while looking at the inside of the personnel area. "Very nice. Much better then those Type Eight cargo shuttles." He didn't see any warp core columns. "Where's the warp core?"
Garek smiled. He tapped a button and a small ladder came out of the ceiling. A roof panel opened. There, the warp core could be seen, laying flat.
"Remarkable," Galen said. His mouth starting to hang open. "But how do you keep the dilithium crystals from falling out?
"Watch." Garek stepped up the ladder slightly and pressed a button. A small "basket" (NRPG: For lack of better words) came down with the dilithium crystals in it.
"I don't know what to say." Galen smiled, and then pressed the button retracting it into the assembly.
"I'll power up the core. You monitor it." Garek walked forward into the cockpit.
Commander Lataro walked onto the Bridge. He looked to see K'Lara sitting at the helm. She turned and smiled at him. Lataro returned her smile. He then looked and saw Captain Maruu sitting in the Captain's Chair.
"Captain, Lieutenant Loran said that he is ready for the presentation."
"Already? The boy is ahead of schedule. I like it. What does he need?"
"Well, he just wants us to pay attention. K'Lara, I thought you were going on this one with him?"
K'Lara turned to face the two. "I wanted to stay here and see the cloaking device work. You can't do that from out there."
"Will he be able to handle everything on his own out there?" Maruu asked.
"I'm sure he will. He's a perfectly competent pilot, and an amazing engineer. Even if he is only twenty-five."
Maruu smiled. "Is that supposed to mean anything? I'm only twenty-eight!" The three looked out the forward viewscreen.
"He left the shuttle bay," Valdago said from Ops. He was quietly rooting for Garek, hoping this thing would work.
A shuttle, larger then a Danube-class runabout flew past the bridge at high speed, and settled about 100,000 meters off the starboard bow of the Virgo.
"I'm going to have to talk to that boy about fly-bys." Maruu smiled. Open a hailing frequency to the Lambda Flier.
"Frequency open, Sir," Valdago replied, tapping his console.
"We're ready whenever you are Lieutenant." Maruu looked out the viewscreen.
[I'm ready to go over here, Sir. Beginning sequence now.]
With that, the Lambda Flier gradually phased out of existence, leaving a hole in space. The bridge crew was awestruck. Finally, another cloaking-capable ship in the Virgo's control.
"Excellent work, Lieutenant. Could you show us some of the craft's maneuverability?"
[It would be my pleasure, Sir.] The ship decloaked and began to throttle up. It wound and winded its way through a group of nearby asteroids. Garek brought the ship into a roll, and winded between another set. He then came back to his original position.
"And finally, I'd like to see a display of the ship's weapons capabilities."
[I'd thought you'd never ask, Captain. I'll take out a few asteroids for you.]
Maruu looked at his First Officer. Lataro was smiling at the the Lieutenant's last transmission.
The Lambda Flier maneuvered around quickly and began firing on a nearby asteroid with phasers. It then launched a spread of both photon and quantum torpedoes. Finally, it fired with phaser cannons, tearing the asteroid apart. The Lambda Flier then took up position at its original position.
"I don't know what else to say but excellent work, Lieutenant. You just bought yourself an extra three days worth of holodeck rations. Report back to the shuttle bay."
[Aye aye, Sir!]
Lataro could hear the excitement in Garek's voice. It had been awhile since Garek had actually had time to himself. Most of his time was dedicated to the Virgo, the Lambda Flier, or sleep. He felt happy for the kid.
"Now that we have two operational cloaking crafts, I think that we should put Garek right to work on a cloaking device for the Virgo." Maruu grinned.
"You're a mean man, Captain," Lataro said, returning his grin.