A Pocket Full of Posies

Posted on Sat Feb 12th, 2022 @ 9:56pm by Lieutenant Percival Bálor Ph.D & Commander Grace Vetur & Lieutenant JG Elizabeth Stone

1,172 words; about a 6 minute read

Mission: The Bandits of Black Rain
Location: USS Ontario | Deck 01 | Conference Room

It was just another manic Monday until it was not for Lieutenant Percival Bálor. He had been waiting forever on a shipment to have arrived, but that shipment was not coming. The cargo courier vessel was no longer able to rendezvous with the Ontario, something nobody else really was bothered by because this was a more personal undertaking. The cargo contents were for the Science Department, Percy's department, and his special deliveries were usually for some cooky experiment of his.

He was, however, fed up. Calling Commander Vetur into a conference meeting on somewhat short notice was a bit brazen, and he was not too certain how she would respond, but he made his way up the deck one several minutes before his requested meeting time, and planted his butt firmly in a seat after preparing his formal complain and a proposal.

Of course, Percy was not going to face this entirely alone. He had also requested that Lieutenant Stone, Siren as she went by, to this impromptu conference meeting. He gave her nothing to prepare for, and simply requested her attendance. She was part of his proposal.

Siren followed Percy into the conference room, after passing over the helm. She knew better than to ask what this was about before the XO was here, but she did raise a brow at him. "Tea?" She offered, heading to the replicator.

Percy scoffed and sighed. "Yes, please," he said clearly something weighing somewhat heavily upon him. "You wouldn't happen to have a flask tucked away of anything...stronger?" Of course he was just teasing a bit, but a drink sounded pretty good.

"I'll take a mug of Deka tea, hot," added Percy.

Grace walked in, looking resigned. "Hello. Do you want to give me more information before this conference call?"

"Sure," replied Percy as he waited for Siren to return with tea. "I'm sorry for wrangling you both in like this. I knew a guy once who would cry wolf just to get some interaction, and it rarely was all that serious, but I'm not here to bait or lure either of you. I have a genuine issue."

Percy looked specifically at Grace. "I had a shipment of Zenite that was supposed to be here several days ago. A cargo courier was going to rendezvous with us, but that isn't going to happen because some yahoos disabled the cargo vessel and stole most of my Zenite. It is not that easy to come by, and I need it" he explained. Percy anticipated an inquiry. "Yes, it is for plants" he added.

"And what do you expect me to do about it?" she asked. Grace could do very little about a missing shipment.

Percy pushed a PADD over to Grace's way. "Approve my request to take a shuttle and retrieve what's left of the Zenite, and given I cannot go alone, and my shuttle piloting leaves something to be desired, let me take Lieutenant Stone. Please. This Zenite is more important than I could even begin to explain."

Grace carefully looked at the request. She didn't think it was as important as he claimed, but she saw no reason to deny it, either. "All right, but you owe me for this."

Percy smiled and chuckled. "Commander," he said playfully. "We've already had this discussion. I can't turn every headache causing officer aboard into fertilizer for you."

"Turning yourself into fertilizer may solve one problem, but it will definitely cause another," she responded with a half-smile and a twinkle in her eye.

Siren was momentarily offended. She had just been offered up as a chaffeur. She was about to say something, but then realized...She had an opportunity to be off the ship, in a small craft. It wasn't a fighter; but she liked Percy and it would give her something a bit more intimate to fly. "I take it I'm here to be the chaufer?" She smiled.

"Yes," admitted Percy. "I need someone who can pilot a shuttle better than I can," he said and he took the PADD back after Grace was done with it and approved his requests. "Thank you, Commander Vetur. That was all I really needed from you, just the approval."

"All right," the commander said. "Just come back in one piece--with the shuttle intact." She stood and nodded to the two and excused herself to let them work out the details.

Percy smiled at the woman. "Looks like you and I will have some time to ourselves coming up," he said to Stone. "Doesn't seem like Commander Vetur is going to raise any concern or fuss over it."

Siren just nodded. "It will be nice to get off the ship for a bit." She commented. "How dangerous is this going to be, really?" She asked, once they were alone.

"I laid everything out for the Commander. My shipment was on a cargo courier that was attacked. It was piracy short and simple, disabled the vessel and stole most of the Zenite. That cargo vessel is pretty much dead in space last I heard from them."

"Ok. Just needed to know if I needed to hide knives on myself." She teased. "When did you want to leave?"

"In a few days," replied Percy. "I do not want to go into a region of space that's plagued with piracy, and not study who or what we may be dealing with. The Commander did not seem to care much about my Zenite, but it is really important stuff. With everything I'm working on right now, I need it."

"Ok, well I know who you can talk to about any information on the area." Siren smiled. "We should actually both get a debriefing on the flight lanes, so I can plan the safest path."

Percy nodded. "My shipment was coming through this route," Percy said as he brought up a star chart on the PADD and traced a route. "Skirting the Draedex system. It look like they were just about clear of it when they were attacked. My top concern is getting what's left of my Zenite because I need it to take care of a blight on some of my medicinal crops."

"yes yes your Zenite." Siren commented, paying more attention to the route he'd pointed out. She couldn't care less about zenite, she wanted them back in one piece. She made a copy of the info so she could study it later. "Anything else I should know?"

The Chief Science Officer shrugged. "Yiv and I had a really nice date the other night, but I don't think you care much about trivial personal life stuff," Percy replied. "Let's just work and see what we come up with. We can tentatively aim to disembark in a few days assuming nothing comes up." With that, the impromptu meeting came to an end.

____
OFF

Lieutenant Percival Bálor, Ph.D
Chief Science Officer
USS Ontario

Lieutenant JG Elizabeth Stone
Chief Flight Control Officer
USS Ontario


Lieutenant Commander Grace Vetur
Executive Officer
USS Ontario

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