Design Flaws

Posted on Mon Dec 28th, 2015 @ 4:06am by Captain Charybdis MacGregor

0 words; about a 1 minute read

Mission: Taking Chances
Location: USS Bonne Chance, Deck fourteen, Main Engineering
Timeline: 2265
Tags: Charybdis,Fiona,uniforms

"Lieutenant Charybdis, please report to Engineering."

The request was not unusual... Science and Engineering, despite being entirely separate departments, were often found working hand in hand on a multitude of levels. Maintenance and repair of the sensors, for instance, was the responsibility of the Engineering department. However, calibration, fine tuning, the installation of specialty pallets and operation was the responsibility of the Science department. Thus the Red and the Blue were often found in cahoots, working side by side on projects in camaraderie.

This time, the request had come from the ship's new chief engineer, one Lieutenant Fiona McCray. Her distinctive accent marked her as an ethnic group of Earth, but it was one of those closely related to another that Charybdis was never quite certain where the distinction lay, so she tended to gloss over the details rather than risk offending. All that she knew for certain was that the Chief Engineering officer was rather... petite, and that she had called for the Chief Science Officer personally.

The Blue and the Red always supported one another, so down to Deck 14 she went, with a smile.

The pint sized chief looked up from a control panel at the distinctive whooshing of the door. Her eyes widened slightly at the smile on the startlingly lovely science officer's face. In her experience Vulcans tended to be almost funerary in demeanor.

She answered with a smile of her own "Hello Lieutenant, and thank you for comin' down here so quickly, I hope I didn't interrupt anything but I wanted ta talk to you before the debriefing." She stepped out from behind the dias hand extended in the typical human greeting.

As she stepped out the science officer could see that the shorter woman had on a modified version of the uniform of the day. The red scant was belted just above the hip and worn over a pair of black trousers that were tucked into a pair of flat not quite regulation black boots.

"Not in the least, Lieutenant," replied the statuesque Vulcan with a smile... in her uniform boots she had to be hitting one point eight meters, Fiona estimated as she shook the offered hand. She noticed right off that the science chief did not bend over to come to her level, as one did with a child- instead, she stood up straight and simply met her at her own level, which was infinitely preferable. "My projects are all caught up and I am at your disposal. Do you have a title that you prefer... Chief, Lieutenant, Spanner Jockey...?"

A joke? Definitely not funerary, this one.

The Chief's grin widened with genuine delight. "'Queen of all she surveys' has been taken so I will be quite happy with either Fiona or in formal situations Chief," she chuckled softly. "You are not what I was expecting....and it's a most pleasant surprise!" she took the offered hand and shook it warmly. "Do you have any preferred forms of address?"

"Thank you! I am never what anyone expects from the pointy-eared science officer, but it is nice to hear that the surprise is a pleasant one. They call me a V'tosh ka'tur... I don't reject my emotions, I just manage them. You know, like the rest of the universe..."

"As for forms of address, Lieutenant if you are in an official capacity or I'm in trouble, but Charybdis..." She pronounced it a bit slowly, stressing the 'kaar-ib-dis' syllables, "will do fine, Fiona." She smiled warmly and cheerfully... either she was in a particularly good mood or she was just perennially possessed of considerable good cheer.

"So what can I do for you this afternoon? Some project designed to bend the laws of physics, draw some more power from the energizers, regulate the matter/antimatter flow for effect, field test a new invention...?"

If she wasn't careful someone was going to mistake all that exuberance for enthusiasm.

This time the words brought out a full scale laugh of delight. "Oh, nothing quite so ambitious... but possibly world changing!" Fiona cocked an eyebrow at the science officer, who returned it in kind. "I was in the tubes earlier and it occurred to me that our uniforms are ill-suited to any sort of manual labor." She waved a hand towards her modified uniform and said " So, I came up with a solution and thought I would enlist a fellow female officer to help me pitch it to the Captain"

The Starfleet siren walked slowly around the engineer, studying the modified uniform with a critical eye before coming back to stare at her chest.

"If I may make a suggestion, perhaps a crossover flap in the front... it is such an inconvenience to zip these up in the back, and an easier access would be a convenience that you may as well include while you are making recommendations, if the suggestion is not unwelcome."

The engineer nodded. "Aye... good suggestion! I just leave mine zipped and wiggle into them... bloody damned nuisance!" She tugged a small P.A.D. out of her hip pocket and made a note.

"Consider me enlisted, Chief. I've two halves of a uniform in my closet that isn't good for much else after a few days in Engineering... and while I myself particularly enjoy the tactical advantages of my own uniform on the bridge, I am not engaged in nearly the acrobatics and tight space maneuvering you are called upon to perform daily."

"Hmmmm bring those scraps to the meeting for me to use as exhibit A?" the tiny redhead gave the science officer a puckish grin.

"I can certainly manage that... Hades, I can wear it if you'd like. So what else can I do to aid this particular mutiny against Starfleet sexism in the engine room?" Charybdis asked with a sly grin.

That puckish grin grew wicked. "Oh... I don't know... can you do a handstand? Or would a gravity experiment like that damage yer dignity?"

The restrained smirk that spread across the science officer's face was priceless. She delicately set her own PDD down, then held up her index finger.

In a whirl of motion, she dove a few feet forward, landing on her hands, which she then turned into a splay-legged split, legs forward and back, which she then reversed to exchange the leg positions. She spread them the other way, one over each shoulder, then raised them back upright. Crossing her feet at the ankles, the held herself up with one hand and peeked out from under her skirt, which by this point had stopped obeying gravity only because it could not get over her prodigious bust, and looked at the engineer. Her briefs were the only thing maintaining any semblance of dignity as everything from her chest 'down' was completely exposed.

"So could you hand me a wrench...? the acrobatic alien joked, and in the background Fiona distinctly heard the sound of one of her engineers' heads impacting with a conduit with a 'klong!'.

Fiona's applause was cut short by the 'KLONG'. Her laughter turned to a growled "Chalmers... write up that accident and have someone make sure yer brain isn't leakin' out on my nice clean deck! The rest of you... carry on!" She turned back and grinned at the nimble vulcan "Do that again in the meeting and I'll buy you the best dinner we can find around here"

The handstand turned into a graceful cartwheel to deposit the science officer back on her feet, then she wriggled as she maneuvered her skirt back into position to cover her rather abundant curves, a task for which it was not completed qualified. She draped a hand over the shoulder of the engineer and grinned.

The engineer cast a stern glare at her crew and they suddenly found themselves busy being elsewhere, evidently the tiny tyrant had already established herself.


"Are you familiar with the Earth delicacy, 'the Cheeseburger'...?"

Fiona grinned up at the Vulcan "Very! ....I thought your people were strict vegetarians" the words weren't so much a statement as a question. "Have you ever tried one with bacon?"

A quick glance at the time made her give the science officer a nudge towards the door "Let.s collect your uniform shards and head to the debriefing." she chuckled at the thought " I think this is going to be the start of a beautiful friendship!"

 

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