Start of the journey...for some

Posted on 05 Jun 2012 @ 12:33pm by Lieutenant Aria Rice
Edited on on 05 Jun 2012 @ 1:44pm

930 words; about a 5 minute read

Mission: Episode 01 - Project Sienna
Location: Enroute Starbase 152
Timeline: MD 7 - 1400 hours

[On]

"Hey...hey, girl..."

The voice sounded muffled between the heavy drums, guitar and high pitched lyrics and the girl, or more woman, grimaced. She pulled the ear piece out and the voice got stronger, as the music faded when she pulled the earpiece away,

"....turn that down, will you?"

She looked at the man, an older Lieutenant, and flashed him a quick smile. "No sweat," she turned it off and looked around the shuttle. Several people seemed to relax and she grimaced. Great, Aria. Just great. Maybe she had been playing the music a bit loudly but she hated the silence of shuttles. And this shuttle was full of people who were happy to just stare into nothingness. She looked back at the man who had talked to her and gave him an apologetic smile. "Sorry...I didn't realise it was that loud."

"It's okay," he said and took her in. Aria wasn't unused to eyes on her. Off duty she liked her weird clothes and with the black hair (fake colour) and makeup (black strong eyeliner, liquid. Eye shadow pale silver, just a hint. Lip-gloss in nude), as well as her uniform (Security standard, mustard), she had to be a strange sight. She saw the man take in her rank and the colour of her uniform. And when he smiled, she knew it wasn't going to be a nice conversation. She just knew these things. "You in Operations?"

"No," Aria shook her head and smiled weakly, tucking a stray hair back from her ear, into the tight ponytail. "Security, actually."

"You can't be security...you look about 14," he laughed, good natured as well, but Aria wasn't that keen on laughs like that.

"23, actually. Not that a lady tells," she said and met his eyes. Flight. She could spot it a mile off, the way he held himself, the uniform colour of course...a man used to be on a bridge as well, so a ship pilot. Judging by the way he smiled, she would say a bigger ship too. Meant he was cocky, at least in the face of a recent graduate from the Academy. "More to Security than just muscles. If we have to tackle people to the ground, we've usually not handled the situation well."

The smile on his face faded a bit as he watched her. "Still...I suppose you have to fight dirty, being only...small."

"I don't have to fight dirty, I have a phaser on stun," she said softly and frowned, shifting as she looked out of the window, studying the stars. "Besides, why are you interested in a lowly Ensign? Off to fly some big ship?"

"How did you guess?" he asked as he leant closer, pleased as he had the chance to talk about himself. She wasn't surprised, he seemed like the type. Not that she was stereotyping people. Okay, maybe she was a bit. Sort of had to nowadays. Saved a lot of aggro.

"I just did. More to Security than muscle," she said and chuckled weakly, closing her eyes as she sighed. "Besides, you act like a bridge officer but your rank is too low...meaning you are used to being on the bridge. Narrows it down a lot. But once you have that and the colour of your uniform, you're sort of left with a helm officer..."

He grinned and clapped his hands. "That is...pretty good. Regular Sherlock Holmes, huh?"

She looked at him and smiled weakly. She wondered briefly if the author of Sherlock Holmes had thought his character would still be mentioned, or acted on the holodeck. Okay, clearly not. Since he had tried to kill the character and succeeded. Pity about the demanding audience and general resurrection though. She focused her eyes back on the man. "No. I'm not...but most people would have spotted that...I'm nothing special."

"Well..." he ran his eyes over her for a moment, measuring her head to bottom. "Where are you going then, Security girl?"

Aria bit her lip and smiled weakly, looking at the stars again. "The USS Galileo," she finally said and she was truly curious what was going to be said now. It was a research ship; most people knew that. What gossip did he have?

"Ah, heard of that one...the small Nova science ship...should be a good size for a girl like you. Isn't it run by that Orion woman? Always amazed me..." he said with a deep laugh.

Okay...Aria had a lot of tolerance for chitchat and even just rubbish talk. She watched him with annoyance. "What? That an Orion could manage a ship, or a woman?" she shot at him and watched him pale as he realised what he had said. "Dude, it's a ship, with a Starfleet Captain. Once the uniform smacks on, what is underneath it doesn't matter...serve the rank, serve the uniform, serve the person if you want...but you know what? All that matters is the Fleet..." she said and unclipped herself, standing. "'scuse me, I've had enough of scuttlebutt for today..." she moved over to the seat furthest away from anyone, absolutely anyone.

"Hey! Girl! What is your name?" the man had remained seated, but was leaning forward to look at her.

"Aria," she put the earpiece in again, taking a deeper breath. "Aria Rice..." she said the last in quiet whisper and put the music on again. And this time, she didn't turn it down again.

[OFF]

Ensign Aria Rice
Security Officer
Soon to be a crewmember on the USS Galileo

RSS Feed