First Impressions

Posted on Tue Aug 30th, 2011 @ 11:10pm by Captain Benjamin Byrne & Provisional Lieutenant Commander Narayn Ballard & Lieutenant JG Maeik Gaius PhD (NPC)

Mission: Kingdom Come
Location: Guest Quarters - Nevarra Palace
Timeline: MD09 - 2220hrs

[ON]

Gaius and Ballard stood silently in the corridor, waiting patiently for the door to unlock. They stared straight at the door, each unsure of what to say to the other. Ballard hadn't managed to really glean anything from the banquet, besides the need for some basic training in etiquette amongst some of their hierarchy. Gaius, on the other hand, had managed to have a number of relatively in-depth conversations with his table about Nevarran history. He was feeling quite smug about the whole affair.

As the door opened in response to the two officers' chime, Benjamin nodded in greeting to them, moving to make room for them to come in. The neck of his dress uniform had been undone, allowing his neck more room for the air he had wanted to gulp down it, and overall diminishing the overly formal look of the pure-white captain's uniform. "Gentlemen," he said, as they entered before returning to his seat on the plush couch. He'd taken the opportunity before he returned to the ship to review some of the Nevarrans historical and cultural files. The console he was reading through was attached to a series of arms that extended from the post at the end of the couch, allowing him to pull the screen round in front of him, or push it off, out of the way - the latter of which he did now, allowing the two officers his attention.

"Captain." Ballard replied, before turning to his companion. "I don't know if you'll have met our Contact Specialist yet? This is Lieutenant Maeik Gaius. He's a Galactic South citizen and is, according to Starfleet, an expert in the region."

"I'm afraid I've not had the pleasure, Lieutenant," Benjamin said to the more junior companion. "Glad to have you with us. I take it you've been enjoying your time here on Nevarra so far?"

"Very much so, sir." The Lieutenant carried with him two PADDs and, quite unusually for an officer wearing dress uniform, he had a tricorder on his hip. "I've had a number of very rewarding discussions with the locals in the city and some of the lower ranking officials."

"Glad to hear it. What do you make of them so far?" the Captain asked. He was genuinely curious to get the opinion of an officer with a registered speciality in contacts with new or foreign species, and wondered what his assessment so far of the Nevarrans would be, especially after seeing them from such a different vantage point than he had thus far been shown.

Gaius hesitated for a moment, "Honestly sir?"

Benjamin nodded his head in a slanted motion. "You have permission to speak freely," he said, just mocking the phrase itself enough to let the man know that it needn't really be said.

"I've never come across a species that knows so painfully little about their own history. Every story and anecdote I was told seemed to be at odds with the previous one. It was almost as if they're taught a different version of history in schools. I honestly don't know what to make of it. What they told me about their isolation seems to marry up with Commander Ballard's findings though. They believed it was in response to disease and socio-economic conditions on Nevarra. However, I can't find anything significant in the records to suggest that there was ever any major disease outbreak around that time."

"Then perhaps you'd like to join me on my little trip tomorrow," Benjamin said, as he grabbed the screen he'd been reading off and re-positioned it to allow the other two officers to take a look. "The Nevarrans have granted me permission to spend a few days in their Archives while we're here, and I'm not going to pass up on the opportunity," the flare for archaeology from his childhood and his parents' chosen profession had started to seep in through his words and mannerisms. "They're buried deep underneath the capital, and the main chamber is supposed to be about a kilometer high, with the walls stacked with data storage modules."

"If you were female, sir," the Lieutenant stated, somewhat forgetting his place, "you'd just have described my perfect date."

Benjamin couldn't help himself but laugh. "I'm afraid I'm going to have to disappoint you there," he said through a smirk. As he forced himself to stop his laughter, he reached over and grabbed one of the PADDs the Nevarrans had loaned him, and transferred a bit of data to it. "There's a schematic for the archives, or at least what I can find of them. The lower chambers are apparently natural cave formations, and there have been too many for anyone to put in much of a concerted effort to map them in centuries. We'll be leaving the ship at oh-nine-hundred."

"That works for me, Captain. I'll be ready." The Lieutenant said, clearly brimming with excitement.

"Then I'll see you at oh-nine-hundred," Benjamin said, smiling as he stood, nodded his head to the two officers, and turned to call for the Endeavour to beam him up. He'd promised Sarah he'd spend some time with her and Jacob tonight after the dinner.

-------------
Captain Benjamin J. Byrne
Commanding Officer

Prov. Lt. Commander Narayn Ballard
First Officer

&

Lieutenant JG Maeik Gaius (NPC)
Contact Specialist
Played by Ballard

USS Endeavour NCC-86105