Filling the (Generational) Gap

Posted on Fri Feb 24th, 2023 @ 11:04pm by Lieutenant JG Kirral Nagata & Ensign Vivienne Conrad

Mission: Character Development
Location: The Shuttle Bay
8588 words - 17.2 OF Standard Post Measure

Kirral had been a busy officer her first few days on the ship. She'd met her section Chief before even unpacking her bags, and was already catching up on the status of Astrometrics and her duties before she'd ever slept in her own bed. Those days were filled with fun and interesting crew interactions as well, the young Lieutenant JG seeking to establish herself and really get everything she needed in line to continue her research and maybe make some friends around the ship that could help with that.

But, as she found herself in the shuttle bay, quietly alone for once in one of the Athena's two assigned craft and tinkering with the onboard sensor systems, her mind drifted to something she seemed to be missing. She'd met a plethora of other officers, some enlisted, but nearly all had been superior in some manner or to some degree (from the XO down to her chance encounter with the Security Chief in the mess hall). And yet, by her recollection, she had not met any of the ship's officers that should be considered her peers. Ensigns, other Junior Grades, not even go-getter Lieutenants that fell into her age group. Her promotion had been something she was extremely proud of, but it all seemed to be moving so fast in retrospect, and here was proof; All of her focus on work, on her duties, seemed to have her falling in with a crowd that was generally a decade her senior.

And so, silently, while her diagnostics ran, she pulled up the crew manifest on her PADD and filtered her query to find those that might help her break this trend. Not that she was overly social as a general rule, but even one such acquaintance might get her mind off this annoying tangent, refocused on her work. The list was small, as expected, and it didn't take her long to find the right candidate. Kirral tapped her combadge. "Lieutenant Nagata to Ensign Conrad. I have a few questions about one of the shuttles. Are you available to come to the bay?"

If there was ever someone who had perfected the art of socialising alone, it was Vivienne Conrad. Not intentionally, though the ensign was far from reserved when it came to expressing her opinion and that didn't always make for easy friendships. Straddling two departments didn't help matters, neither really seemed to know where she fit and despite the fact that she seemed to get shunted more towards Engineering currently, the personal angst that was rife as a result of the previous Chief's disappearance was more than enough to earn a roll of the eyes. The slightest whiff of melodrama always brought out her sarcastic side.

And so, when she was roused from her semi-stupor, currently swinging from a self-erected hammock in the main living area of her quarters, by a request from a voice attached to a name she didn't recognise, Conrad's first reaction was a mixture of curiosity and suspicion. Why were new people contacting her? About shuttles no less, the one aspect of her job that seemed the least of anyone's concern except her own.

She tapped her comm. badge after a second's hesitation. "That depends. Is the question, 'can we sneak it out for a joyride?' because the answer to that's not as fun as you might want it to be."

Kirral found herself smiling at the response she got. Surprised, flabbergasted maybe? Definitely not what she had expected as an initial response in the least. Sitting forward in her seat, as if addressing a currently present conspirator, Kirral tried what she hoped was a surprising angle herself, lest she get blown off as any other superior officer trying to pull rank for a mundane task. "It is not, Ensign, but what if I could have us authorization to take it out for a short trip by the time you arrived anyhow?"

Conrad considered that for a moment, the slight scrunching up of her features hardly visible via audio commlink but lack of audience rarely thwarted the woman. There had been some memo or another about changes to leadership, that much she was aware of. Not only had Engineering picked up someone to replace Keating, there was a new chick in the big seat already ruffling feathers. Vivienne wasn't the type to hold out much hope when it came to the sensibilities of the senior staff but if there was any chance the rules around shuttle maintenance had relaxed enough to actually include proper logbook upkeep...

"Enlighten me, would this involve an element of signing your own docking release and working out an explanation later?" Her tone was direct, and though it wasn't deliberately disrespectful, it carried a lack of compromise for the honesty it preferred. Conrad understood how the command hierarchy worked, she just had an engineer's penchant for seeing how much she could disassemble it before it ceased to operate, or at least started to complain.

"Already have my explanation. I need to see how my adjustments for testing impact the shuttle's sensors and then we get to test the collision safety protocols by narrowly dodging a few test buoys. Think you're up to the task?" Challenge issued. No need to ever even hint that it might be an order. So what if her tests weren't quite ready to go, or she didn't quite have the authorization yet. That's why she was busily putting in the request with flight control as the two spoke and the shuttle chimed a successful calibration test on its own consoles.

By the book? Check. Prudish? Probably a lot more often than she'd ever admit. But incapable of fun? Come on, it's not like she was half-Vulcan or anything. And little as she knew her new, abrasive friend just over comms, risk-taking was always part of a good gamble. And, if she was lucky, she could rope yet another crew member into being a research assistant with almost no fuss. They could deploy a few of her little replicated buoys, chat, and maybe she got an external tour of the Athena's sensors while she was at it. How was that for multi-tasking? She found herself sitting straight and smug, as if competing with herself and emerging victorious. Question was, which side won?

It sounded like the kind of venture that would wind up inside someone's office with an sentence that opened with, 'Ensign Conrad, are you aware...?' There had been enough of them peppered throughout her life, some of them absent of rank, for Vivienne to have had a master's awareness of nearly every transgression and subsequent 'better choice' in the book, but it wouldn't have surprised anyone who knew her that the only fault she could currently pick with the Lieutenant's plan was that it was interrupting her nap.

A faint scoff of resignation could be heard, the comm. link left open because why ruin a perfectly good reaction by keeping it politely to yourself?

"You want a coffee while I'm at it?" A distinct thud, followed by a partially-muffed curse suggested that extraction from a hammock was far more complex than getting into it. "I'm bringing donuts."

The long pause with curious background noises did seem to serve whatever purpose Ensign Conrad had for it. A reaction of confusion and a questioning tone, primarily. "Are you alright, Ensign? The offer is kind, but I have already had my morning meal, and I do not drink coffee. But bring what you wish. Working on that authorization now."

She sounded almost chipper at the end there, a sort of 'See you soon!' tone conveyed without the addition of musical notes at least. In the spirit of things thus far, she left the channel open while she worked. Always multitasking, she submitted the request for a shuttle flight and started the shuttle's pre-flight checks all at once, adding only a bit of pep to her proverbial step so that her pilot arrived with little to complain about. Or less at least.

Walking through the corridors slurping from a mug of coffee, with her uniform jacket tied around her waist, on the way to pilot a shuttle she wasn't even sure she was actually allowed to fly, was exactly the kind of thing that would have featured in a book recounting Vivienne's most common exploits. It certainly wouldn't have surprised anyone who knew her, which on this crew amounted to exactly zero people. The last few months had been weird; she arrived in the midst of everyone freaking out about one thing or another and it almost felt like nobody had taken the time to even slow down and ask her name. Then she'd been expected to moonwalk around the bridge of a ship that had started to leak Romulans at an alarming rate and that might possibly have filled her quota for Top 10 Things to Nearly Mess Up Before Your Senior Officer Even Knows Your Name, but the Captain had turned into a terrorist. That was awkward to say the least.

When the shuttlebay doors eventually parted to permit the pilot's entry, she had already inadvertently serenaded her new co-conspirer with half-remembered lyrics and a voice that actually might have been pleasant to listen to if it weren't for the inordinate amount of pauses, elongated silences, and eventual muttered asides that Vivienne had not realised her audience was still listening to. To the woman's credit, her problems didn't seem to involve other people, just turbolifts that took her via routes that confused her, and one solitary broom that had apparently been left out for the sole purpose of hitting her in the shin.

Vivienne stood in front of the shuttle, squinted up through the front viewscreen, and dropped her shoulders in a visible sigh that already conveyed defeat. Of course it was a Romulan. It was always a Romulan.

Kirral's head tilted curiously at the neatly disheveled Ensign that appeared through the view screen. "Not what you were expecting, Ensign? Could say the same. Tried to envision you through noises and your singing voice the whole way here. I think you have an optional career choice there if Starfleet doesn't pan out." It was easy enough to continue at the level of banter they'd so far settled into, even if there was a tinge of anxiety or... disappointment? when she caught that shoulder droop. Thus far, Conrad seemed the type to not smoothly get along with superiors, or maybe authorities in general, but what if this was just because the blue shirt staring back at her had a stark, bobbed haircut and pointed ears?

She'd felt that insecurity most of her life, ever since she really began to understand what being Romulan meant in the Federation, definitely once her peers did too and, sometimes, got vocal in teaching her themselves. She'd grown over the years to trust others, give them the benefit of the doubt, and to stamp out those insecurities in favor of showing them who Kirral was as a person, instead of pushing them away because of perceived stereotypes. But all the same, in this one little instance, she couldn't help letting that emotion surface briefly before she had to force it down. All smiles again, she stood and moved to exit the shuttle, taking a u-turn at the end of the ramp to greet the Ensign in person. "You look... ready? Authorization secured, she's all ours for the next 2 hours. Though Control seemed to hesitate when I put your name on the form as pilot. Thoughts, Miss Conrad?" More potential teasing to keep Vivienne on her toes.

It warranted some clarification, should the topic ever arise, that Vivienne's reaction to Romulans again wasn't quite the standard. Risa wasn't a popular destination for the displaced species, though she'd met a handful that way without ever getting the opportunity to develop much of a concept of temperament. Oh, they had reputations, and if you got them drunk enough, they were also highly intriguing in a more kiss-and-live-not-to-tell kind of way, but the kind of Romulan that wound up on a pleasure planet probably wasn't going to be indicative of standard racial practices.

She'd also had limited contact with those who sat on the Starfleet side of the fence, once again never having found much opportunity to confront the need to build a better picture of cultural norms. Her entire reasoning, the impetus behind the fleeting yet unhindered display of weary resignation, boiled down to the details of the previous mission and the fact that several of the crew still seemed to be a little annoyed that a group of oppositional Romulans had tried to detach their heads from their shoulders. Which Vivienne understood, but if they were inclined to get very stupid about there now being one on board, she was going to find a lot of reasons to find their company exceedingly tedious. Vivienne had on time for racism; in her experience, everyone had the capacity to be more trouble than they were worth at one point or another.

By the time the potential wave-maker had disembarked to approach her, Conrad's hands had found her hips and her casual attitude radiated with an odd sense of confidence that didn't appear overly confrontational. She squinted at the question, pursed her lips in implied confusion, and lifted a hand to settle against her chest, the universal symbol of heartbreak. "You crash a shuttle into the side of a space station once..." Dark eyes full of wry humour studied the Science Officer for a moment before Conrad felt the need to add, "That's a joke, my flight record is unblemished." It was about the only aspect of her service record that was.

"I know. I double-checked." Kirral seemed more than casual with that information, just snooping on Vivienne's record while the woman had entertained her over combadge in her trip down to the bay. Straightening her uniform top once, maybe as a little reminder to the Ensign that maybe she should wear her own, or maybe just out of habit, Kirral offered the other woman her hand to shake. "Lieutenant Kirral Nagata, Astrometrics Officer. I look forward to seeing what you can do out there, Ensign." As she spoke, her head canted to one side, straight hairs flowing with gravity and more fully exposing one of her elongated ears.

If one thing could possibly highlight the innate and fundamental difficulties that Vivienne had with military command structures, it was evident in this transaction entirely. She wasn't great at gauging alien genetics, but Nagata was approximately her age if appearances were any indication and yet there was that wall again, right up to her face. How were you meant to have normal, meaningful interactions with people when a tiny symbol of implied superiority pinned to a lapel upended the power dynamics before the first greeting had ended.

She wasn't exactly an expert at disguising the roll of her eyes, though the untangling of her uniform top to yank the sleeves in the right way was a decent cover. "What's our pleasure cruise going to involve?" Stick to facts, just do the thing she was being ordered to do despite attempts to dress it up as something else. Try not to let her mouth get in the way. The request had intrigued her at first but the immediate dip into 'I say, you do' was so familiar as to be instantly the last thing Vivienne wanted to be donating her free time to.

The hand offered went untaken, the reaction was... unexpected. A surge of anxiety, maybe frustration, boiled through her, greenish tinge flushing her cheeks as she retracted the offer. Was this part of the look she'd received earlier? Something similar? Or maybe just how lax Vivienne seemed to be in tone, voice, appearances, maybe that was just the wrong way to interact with her. But how else did two Starfleet officers interact? Maybe her pretenses would help soften that blow, if simply being ordered seemed counterproductive? Kirral slid that hand back to her side and turned to enter the shuttle again as she spoke. "Just those little tests I spontaneously set up. I wasn't planning on doing them, but, truth told, I went looking for someone my own age to meet on the ship. Senior officers are great, but they're them and I'm me, you know?"

One brief, daring look past the edge of the shuttle toward her comrade was given again, almost as if the Romulan had been spooked or was afraid of the reaction. "Just so happened to be a pilot off duty and I thought I could make up a few tests, get some minor work done and... talk." She broke eye contact then, slipping inside the shuttle and into the passenger's seat to focus her eyes and attentions on the LCARS console, finishing up her little impromptu test prep. She had half a mind to consider the flight controls herself, run the buoys whether or not she was doing so alone. A contingency in case she had been too formal or just too forward and awkward in her confession.

Stood outside for a moment longer than anyone who was waiting for her reaction would have found comfortable, Conrad's face had contorted into a scowl of confusion. For someone who preferred shooting straight from the hip, she didn't always know how to take it from others these days, having been more or less reconditioned through her time at the Academy to be suspicious of anyone who seemed too much...well, like her. Some had been genuine and she'd figured that out eventually; too late, in some cases. But other times, it was a mockery, or a premeditated attempt to lure her into some sort of behaviour that would result in future manipulation. In the case of a very small group, 'Blackmailing Conrad' had practically taken over as their undergraduate focus. The fact that it had occurred in this instance so immediately after the initial attempt at formality had the same retaliatory backlash as a ill-timed swing at a boxing bag that swung back before you had a chance to realise you needed to duck.

Maybe Romulans were weird.

Stepping up into the shuttle finally, the pilot's face appeared through the hatchway wearing much the same expression, tempered slightly by a mystified inability to decide if she believed the Lieutenant or not. "This is your version of asking someone for a drink?"

Kirral found herself smiling at the Ensign when she finally came aboard, shoulders lowering, and a relieved breath passing in as a prequel to actual words. "Sort of? I don't really drink though." As if that was a complete answer, she notioned to the seat beside her and got herself comfortable again. "And I assumed based on the manifest that you didn't just get to be a pilot by picking a whole potential career track out of a hat. I gambled on you actually enjoying flying. So... was I right? You get to fly, I get to run some tests, and maybe I find another person on this ship who knows my name and, hopefully, finds me interesting enough to get to know. And vice versa, of course."

That last bit got another look over the Romulan's shoulder, just enough to catch Vivienne in her periphery briefly, judging her reaction with all the caution she'd exercised previously. Now that she was here in the situation, it sounded less cut and dry, more silly in her head. But they were here now, so second guessing her attempt to make new connections wasn't really an option now. Best to just go with the flow.

What was it they said, be careful what you wished for? An entire career, (which admittedly consisted mostly of the education leading up to it), wishing that people in uniform could take themselves a little less seriously at times and Vivienne was suddenly confronted by the reality of what it looked like when someone did. Abruptly. Out of the blue. With limited context. The pilot couldn't honestly say that she related to the 'pluck a name out of a hat and apply Best Friend Status' approach to dealing with a sea of strangers but it was at least a strategy. What had hers been? Watch with bemusement as an entire department thrived on whatever centralised drama was currently brewing? Being assigned to Flight Control but, as yet, not having enough hours to actually take the helm, Conrad's allocated shifts to Engineering might not have constituted her entire workload but it had been her best opportunity to work in teams.

The whole bunch of them were crazy.

"I'd just load up a dartboard with faces next time," came the eventual quip as the Ensign stepped her way into the pilot seat and instantly jostled it to ensure it settled into a position that she found optimal. "That way, when you inevitably land on one of the many impossible-to-avoid special cases, you'll at least have sticking them in the face with something sharp to look back on fondly." Vivienne's tone was dry and, as per usual, her humour didn't translate in a way that avoided uncomplimentary dismissal of people who technically outranked her.

The response got a bemused smile out of the Romulan, head tilting to one side as she focused on the panels before her, doing all of her analysis and testing prep on the fly now that it was actually happening. Should she have taken days to set it all up perfectly? Probably. But a few test runs couldn't hurt, even if just for proof of concept in her methodology. A good scientist did their due diligence, a great scientist adapted and took advantage of opportunities whenever they came up. "If it is any consolation, I did not look at faces in perusing the rosters. I did not wish pleasing aesthetics to influence my decision before learning about the person themselves."

Green eyes shifted to regard her comrade as the woman settled into the seat and adjusted, her head nodding a silent 'ready', even if Miss Conrad wasn't looking at her directly. "So far, only the one name has come up for keeping a close eye on. An Ensign Fenn? I would take such with a grain of salt, but it was the Chief of Security who gave the information so... Point taken." She had more questions then, wanted the conversation to continue, but somehow felt like waiting until they were underway was better. Maybe she just always had to be doing something, even when she was talking? Those buoys weren't going to launch themselves, were they?

"I've input an optimal pattern for placement of the test buoys, the helm is all yours, Ensign." There was that use of rank again, but she tried not to make it sound like an order, more like an honorific, a title that Vivienne had earned and thus was spoken as such. Rough around the edges she may be, by first impressions, but she still managed to graduate Starfleet Academy and earn her commission. That meant something to Kirral, even if it meant something different to the pilot (or meant very little at all).

There was an ease of stance, a fluid flow of motion, that consumed Vivienne once she took the pilot's seat. It was usually fairly clear, at least to the unbias, that any claims that she didn't have enough hours to man the helm of a warship was likely a gross underestimation of her skill and an overly pedantic way of trying to scope out the extremities of her track record before she was given full reign to drive them all into an asteroid in a huff. Even as Nagata spoke, the flick of switches and calibration of displays to exactly the right orientation for her preference had made short work of what had already been preset. Preflight seemed second nature, so much so that powering up the engines became the secondary consideration to pulling a face at the Lieutenant's limited dissection of crew dynamics.

"Fenn's all right." It was an unexpected voice of support not at all corroborated by observational evidence of Conrad's interactions with the man. "Gets distracted easily, can't decide which head to think with sometimes, but anyone bothering to notice would realise he's bored because he's under-utilised." It was a revelation nobody had realised Vivienne had worked out because nobody ever expected her to have an opinion worth seeking. There were parallels, however, to the way the crew treated Kateyo and the way Vivienne herself had come up through the Academy. It had been those instructors not set in their ways that had allowed her to flourish, and who had supported her ultimate graduation, because just like her admittedly-testosterone-obsessed colleague, Conrad didn't perform her best when only her worst was expected.

Not that Kirral had the experience or wisdom to take Vivienne's insight at its full value, but she still found herself watching the other woman closely. Easily distracted, often thinking with things other than her head, rendered bored if she wasn't constantly living up to her potential or buried in some challenge of her work? The vast majority of her reaction was a sheepish smile, a hand raising to tuck some hair behind her pointed ear as she relaxed into her seat and relied on the inertial dampeners to keep her in place while Vivienne got them airborne. "Sounds familiar. The ears..." Why had she started the statement there? It threw her off, made her readjust to put the train back on the tracks in the proper location.

"I grew up with the scrutiny a constant factor in life. The best I could hope for was to go unnoticed by inattentive sorts, after that? Being mistaken for a Vulcan. But I had plenty of situations where emotions flared, fists flew, and, usually, I won those scuffles and got reprimanded for it. Always started with the ears though, right?" As she spoke, as the shuttle moved, she reached to tap a button and close the ramp, then another to start the bay doors cycling to let them out, being a good co-pilot. "I decided early on at the Academy that I wouldn't let appearances and conjecture dictate how others saw me. I pushed myself into social situations or to just get to know those I shared classes and projects with, instructors or cadets. And sometimes... that required being creative about how I did it. I didn't attend parties or go to everyone's favorite bars or join any extracurriculars. But I found ways to make sure people knew Kirral before they knew the Romulan in their midst." She added flare to that last part, like an advertiser selling a suspenseful holovid.

Everything looked good from her end, scaled armor plates before them in the view screen sliding apart to an impossible field of endless black dotted in bright whites, blues, yellows, oranges, and reds. "Fenn sounds like fun. If... intimidating, socially."

A derisive snort from the helm did its fair share to undo some of Conrad's earlier understanding. "I wouldn't go that far, and I wouldn't catch yourself saying as much in his presence." Kateyo lived authentically and Vivienne could respect that but there was a hell of a lot of difference between supporting a man's right to stretch the cookie-cutter a little and actually finding him tolerable. As it happened, Viv had found herself amused despite herself at his antics but he didn't need to know that.

As the small shuttle eased itself around to bring its bow into line with the Lieutenant's projected coordinates, Conrad read the road ahead with a shrewdness that already sought to catalogue focal reference points and then glanced only briefly across at her co-pilot. "Ears, attitude, intense dislike of Parrises Squares..." She turned her gaze back to her work. "Starfleet doesn't have a whole lot of time for the bits and pieces that hang outside their mould."

"I'll have to let you know how it goes if I ever meet him." She shrugged gently, relaxing in her seat as the comforting walls of the ship gave way to an endless void for them to play in, motion only really apparent by the view of the Athena when they finally circled around to move to the placement zone. "Never tried Parrises Squares, never found sports a good outlet for my emotions. I was always afraid of getting too competitive, hurting someone... And there were no star charts on the courts to study."

As the projected coordinates neared, Kirral moved to her station again and keyed up the launch sequence for the series of buoys. "I'd say I get it, given my unique circumstances. But my family, at least my human family I was raised with bleeds Starfleet. Stepfather, little sister and brother, all in the colors somewhere. Was born and raised on ships, literally and figuratively."

At the appropriate intervals, she pressed a button on her screen, a pleasant acknowledgement chime followed by a soft thud of the launcher releasing its payload. Four in total were launched, forming a small pyramid. "Alright then, now the fun part. We warp out on a vector parallel to our false asteroid signature, turn around, and see how close we can get. Signature shows a 2 kilometer object, but worst case we bump a buoy, it bounces, and we adjust to not end up 'inside' the rock next run. Sound good?" With a brief pause there, she looked at Vivienne, head tilted quizzically. "So what about you? Why did you join? Feel free to shut me down if that's too personal or anything... lose a bet?" She teased with a light tone and smile.

"Can't fly better ships if you don't jump through the hoops of the folks who own them." It was a succinct response that leaned heavily into honest admission. There were other hazier aspirations, such as her mother's ties to Starfleet and a weird sense of wanting to connect with that lost side of her heritage now that she was old enough and independent enough to have choice about it, but Vivienne wasn't as convinced that an exposition dump about her life was warranted. With her gaze still alternating between the viewport and her flight path adjustments, the pilot added, "Just didn't count on there being this many hoops."

"Ah, so it's all about the fanciest ships. Always piracy? Could ask the Orions if they're looking for pilots. Probably a lot less strict on the dress codes too." She chipped in at the end there with an almost hopeful note directed at the Ensign next to her, still wearing her uniform top around her waist. Thus far, Kirral had made no mention of it, and even in joking didn't carry on with the observation, much less segue into getting all uptight about it. She understood (or at least empathized). The shift on the screen from black to streaking white as the shuttle went to low warp speeds caught her eyes for those intervening moments between the tease and more.

"So do you think you'll get your hours, maybe a good tour at the helm, then go civilian with the qualifications? I can already tell you're a natural. Not that hauling civilians or cargo sounds like too much fun... Science vessel maybe? There are non-Starfleet operations that do exploration and research. Suppose I don't need to tell you though, sure you did your homework before biting the bullet and applying to the Academy." She tapped a few keys now and then, checked readings and sensors, took some notes on her PADD, and then back. Seemed both of them were only devoting as much attention to the actual task as was required, the rest of their brainpower on the conversation at hand.

There was just so much talking. Conrad wasn't adverse to conversation, she'd survived more than a few of the busy seasons trapped behind a bar before heading into orbit on the resort fleet to spread her wings, metaphorically. Talking was not only inevitable, it was practically the top entry on the job description. It was more that this particular chat had been prefaced by the sentiment 'I chose you out of a list to be my friend' and thus carried a weight of expectation. She didn't bother to hide her incredulity as she glanced across at the other woman, though the continued speculation that fell from Nagata's lips made interjection overly challenging.

And then there was a break. A peace offering. A sliver of an opportunity to contribute.

"Or I could just annoy everyone and stick around."

Because that was an option. She might not have been born-and-bred in the uniform, lickety-split poised ready for a glorious ascent up the promotional ladder, but it was possible that she just wanted to fly starships. Especially warships. The potential also existed for her to hold some sort of preference for not taking up a criminal's lifestyle and risking inevitable jail time, or worse, just for a little freedom behind the helm. As for spending her entire day surrounded by scientists...

There were worst prospects, but the current situation wasn't immediately advocating it as the most attractive.

Still, the Lieutenant was trying and this was certainly more than anyone else on board had tried to engage her. With a slight deflation of her defensiveness, Vivienne's shoulders relented and she shook her head as if dismissing a notion that already left her weary. "I did my time flying in circles, back and forth around a single system for the express purpose of allowing some rich bastards an opportunity to 'ooh' and 'aah' at another patch of space much like the last. Risa has no fleet outside its pleasure cruises; Starfleet at least flies with purpose."

There was genuine surprise in Kirral's follow-up tone then, her eyes shifting back and forth between Vivienne and her console repeatedly as if trying to judge how she was doing thus far. Talking too much? Too little? Was she just annoying? It was an odd way to try and get to know someone. But the woman had capitulated, gotten on the shuttle, and even entertained the Romulan in her ramblings so far, so results... inconclusive. "You worked on Risa? I've only ever heard stories. I'd never even set foot on a planet until the summer before I started at the Academy. Took one step after beaming down, smiled at my mother, looked up at the sky... and lost my lunch in a fancy, trimmed bush nearby. Don't think the groundskeeper ever forgave me for that."

She found herself looking back at one of the buoys then through the view screen, checking her numbers. Successful test? At least the numbers seemed good, calibrations good. Had they already gone out and come back? It was like the scientist in her was on auto-pilot while Kirral blabbed away, blissfully unaware. "Stick around long enough, you may just annoy your way to a cushy desk job, so I'd be careful how far you push it, hm?"

For once, Vivienne permitted a momentary distraction long enough to fix her co-pilot with a sceptical frown. The final warning had failed to register, confusion anchoring her further back in the scientist's prattle. "I thought you pulled up my service record, didn't realise you hadn't read any of it." An earlier remark about pleasing aesthetics now seemed to be something that had probably warranted more thought and attention than Conrad had originally given it but she couldn't even remember the reference entirely. Turning her attention back to her primary focus, the human consented to explain.

"Grew up there, somewhat. Dad remarried, suddenly stopped bouncing between spaceports and then it became all beaches and tropical jungles and having to learn how to swim real fast." Leaning closer to the viewport, Conrad cast her eyes upwards as if seeking confirmation, and tapped several keys to ensure course adjustment as she sat back. "Spent a couple of years once I qualified for the licensing flying the orbital cruisers they take out and around some of the nearby nebula. Starfleet's not perfect but it hasn't come close to boring me to death yet." There was a pause. "Mostly."

"I read a little off the roster, stopped at duty title. Doubt this would have worked with a culinary specialist, and is it weird I'd rather learn the information by talking like a normal person than reading your profile beforehand like some job interview?" Another adjustment, another loop out and back again. Closer, and her data was still good, accurate. But most importantly, it was repeatable thus far. "Few more runs should be good, then we have... 25 minutes of flight time to use as you see fit."

Then, she found herself listening, absorbing information as her other senses focused on the tests. She took it all in, made a point to show that too without just... replying for the sake of it. Useful information, good to know if she was going to get to know Miss Conrad on any level beyond duty and the superficial. After making that pause known, stirring the words in her head, she finally set down her PADD and looked at the other woman. "Parents, right? Far as I can tell, my father was just a fling with my mother. Though the care a human woman needs to carry a half-Romulan to term makes me think otherwise. Still... married my stepfather when I was barely 3 or 4. Sister came not long after and we managed to get orders on a Galaxy-class because of our family size. I'd love to see Risa some day though. Holodecks can only take you so far, and I bet the underlying thrum of starship engines isn't a thing on a real beach."

"Mom died before I learned to walk." It was a blunt statement, delivered in the kind of tone that suggested Conrad knew it was a proverbial bucket of cold water but that was a better warning than anything that would come from a pursuit of the Parents are fickle line of thinking. "Took Dad over 10 years to settle down. I probably didn't appreciate it at the time but staying in one place and going to school like any other kid didn't hurt me none." In fact, it was the only way she had been even partially ready for what the Academy had thrown at her. Had she attempted to join with only the nomadic lifestyle of her early years to draw reference from, Vivienne didn't refute the fact that she probably wouldn't have last out the first year.

There was a face there, a reaction that was only briefly in the open before Kirral tried to hide it behind her short bob of hair, in her work on the console, anywhere really. "Sorry, I hadn't realized. My father... was only in my life sporadically, but I cherished every moment I had with him. And my stepfather was... normal, at least." Her features scrunched, struggled to find the right words to try and salvage her blunder. "Made my mother happy though, I think. What about your stepmother? Sounds like she did some good? Hopefully for both of you. I can't imagine... I lost my father when I was 16, didn't seem to matter that my mother's husband was there, he was never a good substitute. Not really. Especially after."

One thing that occurred when people found out you were partially-raised on Risa, Vivienne had found very early on, was that your interactions very quickly became peppered by stereotypical expectations. When you added on top of that the reason for you being there at all stemming from a remarriage and the appropriation of a stepmother, people expected the worse. Vivienne had no memory of her mother. There were holoimages and stories her father would tell but nothing visceral to connect it all together. The hardest thing about Kiasi entering their lives was having to share her father and, even then, whatever adjustment period had seen her rebel against the idea and struggle with feelings of abandonment had been relatively short-lived. Risians were highly intuitive people and Kiasi, far from resembling any sort of cliché, worked security at the spaceport and held a small craft license that very quickly saw her encapsulate a role model that the young Vivienne naturally aspired to. They were friends. That's all the older woman had ever pushed for and it worked.

"Kia is fine," became Conrad's way of summarising all of that. "Works law enforcement, Dad's Head of Operations and Logistics at the commercial spaceport. They've both got themselves sorted." For the first time, the pilot glanced across and seemed to chew over her next words before they formed into a question of her own. "How'd your Mom meet a Romulan anyway?"

She nodded at the response she got. Mostly, she was just glad she got a normal answer and Vivienne wasn't looking at her with a mixture of befuddlement and annoyance for maybe broaching a sensitive topic in such a way. "Sounds a bit like mine then. Brother and sister following in their stead, both taking up cushy commands in fields they love." She trailed off there though, considered further avenues and then reconsidered them. Another increment of time passed, and they were... "Done! Last test. Enough data to be confident in my modifications, to calibrate the sensors on the Athena... 28 minutes to spare, look at that."

She sat back now, even let her chair swivel a bit as she set to work on her PADD, collated data and chewed through it like a culinarian might a hand-crafted sandwich. The question caught her off-guard, but she fought the instinct to act surprised (or defensive). "Well... Way she tells it, she was just a young, fiery Ensign delivering supplies as part of a diplomatic mission in the Badlands, and he was a roguish 'Vulcan' in the colony. Turns out he was Tal Shiar, doing whatever it is they do. Don't think she ever believed him." She pursed her lips momentarily there, considering further words as if they would be sensitive, like before, but only for her, really. "She was always weird on the details, and father was... a Romulan. So I just had to take what they gave me, evaluate them both from their present condition rather than scrutinizing the past. If that makes sense?"

A non-committal shrug from the pilot seat indicated it probably didn't matter too much if it didn't. Families were complicated. "Just don't be too surprised if people around here are a bit jumpy at first." Somewhere in the ether, a dozen angels handed in their badges and announced early retirement, finally done with the responsibility of making Conrad avoid broaching sensitive topics with all the care and delicacy of a sledgehammer. "Had a part-Romulan in my quad at the Academy, never could quite figure out what everyone's problem with her was. But we did just get off a mission where a bunch of them took out a few security personnel, and there's always that one or two who can't differentiate properly. You run into any trouble yet?"

It was an odd manoeuvring at best, an olive branch dressed up somewhat as an attempt to help mitigate ingrained racism that offered a sense of ongoing camaraderie Conrad hadn't really demonstrated a fondness for so far. It was at this point that people generally lost a handle on her, lead too far down one path to favour abandoning it easily and yet finding themselves increasingly unable to make their first assumptions stick. It may have helped were it possible to see how she interacted with the people most important to her, at least able then to determined she called anyone on behaviour she found weird. Behaviour wasn't the same as personality though, and slightly awkward social choices didn't equate to someone being deserving of outright bigotry. Conrad had standards.

The candid answers about Romulans seemed to catch Kirral off-guard for a moment, looking up from her PADD at the woman across from her. Whatever Vivienne chose to do with their remaining flight time, it didn't seem to concern the Romulan, buried in her data or their conversation. For all she knew, the pilot was steering them directly into a star and she likely would not have noticed then and there. "I... No, no trouble. I had no idea about recent events though. Other than the Captain's predicament, sort of thing relevant to my arrival timeframe. I suppose it would pay to look back at incident logs now though."

She found herself puzzling over that information there, chewing on it as she settled back in her seat and faced forward. She wasn't the sort to let a mystery linger either, not by a longshot. Some might have waited until they got back to the ship, still others might have blown it off and not cared. Kirral was in neither of those categories. She needed to know things, especially if they were pertinent and she had immediate access. So she sat forward and tapped out on her console, accessing the Athena's records and beginning to read right there with her brow creased in concentration. "I know what my people are like, know histories, cultural index references, accountings from my parents. I... After Hobus, I had a lot of time in a brig to read, and I think that was my first deep dive into that half of myself." She spoke candidly, though there was some quietness to her tone that spoke to her taking care with a topic she found sensitive. Vivienne was hardly a ship's counselor, much less a trusted friend quite yet, so the urge to close off completely was held off only by the necessity of their proximity until the shuttle was safely back inside the ship.

To the best of anyone's ability to tell, be it the co-pilot inside the cabin or the Flight Control officer watching the shuttle's trajectory from the ship, Conrad was steering them aimlessly in a lazy figure-8 loop. It was partially due to there being nothing in particular on the sensors that grabbed her attention, and also because the sensation of flying didn't always require a concrete destination to be desirous. As had got her through over a year of monotonous flight-paths, just the sensation of being left to dangle amongst the cosmos was often enough to render Vivienne introspective. Like a child let loose on a pushbike to enjoy a summer's day, she meandered, and focused the bulk of her attention on pulling a face that seemed genuinely perturbed by people's cast-iron thinking.

In the end, she shrugged.

"People read my dossier down far enough and start to assume I'll happily twirl my pants around my head for just about anyone." Stereotypes regarding Risa weren't much better than any other, they just tended to produce more favourable opinions. "And then they find out I'm human and get confused, as if it's somehow impossible to be a product of both cultures without being beholden to either." For the first time, the pilot glanced across at her companion and offered a wry smile. "For the record, I've just about sorted out the pant-twirling. Down to easily three or four times a week." A joke. From the ashes, a lifeline at last.

Kirral smiled across at Vivienne with the joke, though there was a delay there that suggested she didn't quite catch it at first, or maybe was surprised to hear it from what she'd come to expect out of the other woman thus far. "I was more than once asked at the Academy if I knew how to get ahold of Romulan ale. I contemplated trying to get something to pass off like... absinthe, or something truly vile, but I never followed through." She decided then and there to relax for the remainder of the journey, eyes leaving behind the data for just a bit to take in the stars outside and the ship itself in contrast against such a black background. She never tired of such sights, always a 'space cadet' as her mother liked to call her in teasing. Luckily, Kirral took no such poking from a self-professed plant lover and botany enthusiast as anything but understanding affection. That and she knew her mother's desk in her Captain's quarters was littered with little potted plants that her children got her for birthdays and holidays as payback.

"What about combat? Have you seen any up close yet? Or... studied all those fancy maneuvers named after people with far too many pips that pop up everywhere at the Academy in statues? Athena is capable of some pretty amazing feats in that regard, I hear."

"Plenty of time in the simulator but this is my first posting since graduation." There was a gruffness to Conrad's tone that hinted at underlying resentment. To her, it seemed a very circular argument that had no actual resolution. To be trusted behind the Athena's impressive helm, she needed flight hours and experience. Simulation practise counted but real-time training was more desirable and she was hardly going to get that if they wouldn't let her sit in the big seat. If they'd been that worried that she couldn't properly fulfil a Flight Control role, they probably shouldn't have put her on an actual warship as her first assignment.

"Well, not that I'm hoping for a fight or anything... but I hope you get some real flight time in. I'll put a nice note in my report, if you'd like. Don't consider it sucking up or anything, but I genuinely picked a good pilot for gathering my data. If I need to run further tests later, would you care to be my pilot? Who knows, may even be able to get you on Athena's helm if I ever get to use her for testing." Her smile was genuine, though even Kirral couldn't guarantee anything she was saying. Still, she was pleased with the data she'd gathered, and Vivienne had been very good at running the tests to get her accurate measures. And in the end, a skilled pilot would be crucial in testing such measures, no matter how many sensor or engine adjustments she had done. Always came back to the organic element. "Thank you, Vivienne. For indulging my odd request, and being a good partner in science. And for talking with me."

Unaccustomed to direct praise in any decent quantity, Conrad took a moment to respond. With her expression frozen in a rigor mortis of baffled uncertainty, and eyes darting back and forth between instruments and the viewscreen as if either had an explanation for her sudden change in fortunes, the pilot's featured twitched through several variations of hesitation before she risked a glance sideways.

"Yeah," she finally agreed, sounding no where near certain. "Good talk."