Change of Pace

Posted on Thu Oct 18th, 2012 @ 6:11pm by Petty Officer 1st Class Mizatan Fij [Byrne] & Petty Officer 2nd Class Charles Rhodes

Mission: Klingons on the Starboard Bow
Location: USS Endeavour - Mess Hall
Timeline: MD08 0810hrs

It was still early morning for Mizatan. He had been assigned to the Beta shift, which suited the Ktarian fine. Rather than an 0800 start, he'd been shifted over to a 1600 start, with a clocking off time of midnight. That didn't give him much time before he went to bed, but it meant that he could enjoy a much fresher state of mind during his off-hours, by getting up in the morning.

"We've entered warp."

Mizatan looked up at the sound of Rhodes' voice. The two had become somewhat friends since they had come aboard, and the brig officer was also on a beta shift. He had also commented at one point how terrible such a uniform shift system was; anybody watching the crew movements would know the exact times when the entire staff switched over. Fij had learnt to ignore such rants, but took notice at the sudden announcement.

"It looks like we're heading into the Corridor," he said, using the colloquial term that the crew had picked up from the officers stationed around Cestus to both confirm and elaborate upon Rhodes' own statement. "The captain must have been given orders to increase speed once we cleared the system."

"Yeah, that or he's just gotten bored with sitting still," the ever cynical Texan responded. Leaning over the table - nearly knocking his coffee off - he said in a needless and barely confidential tone; "You know, I heard that once, when he first got the New York, the captain went to arrest a bunch of Ferengi on a moon in a pre-warp system because he was bored of waiting for his away team to report back."

"Hmm," Fij responded, non-committally. He had learnt that Charles Rhodes was one of the odd fellows amongst humans, who many had commented dryly they had wished left behind in the twenty-first century. He seemed to take half of the things that he was told at face value - except where ship security was confirmed, in which case he had no shortage of alternate opinions to offer - and often elaborated or mis-told a story that he had heard to others. Fij hadn't read the captain's past mission logs, but he guessed that even had such an event occurred, it wouldn't have been because 'the captain was bored'.

He returned his attention to the PADD he had in his hand as he picked up his mug to take another gulp of the hot, stimulating liquid. He was still trying to study Commander Maddox's new computer system, published in last month's series of Daystrom publications, and designed around a similar concept to an android's positronic brain. He'd managed to get a grasp on the most basic concepts of it; enough for him to be able to start tracking down processes to their respective, isolated systems, but he knew nowhere near enough to want to even consider adjusting or modifying the architecture any. Even if it was just a theoretical exercise for a computer system that didn't physically exist, Mizatan had always been brought up to give his mind suitable mental challenges to keep him from losing his edge.

"Do you ever put that thing down?"

"I will," Fij responded, not taking his eyes off the PADD. "When I figure out the commander's structure."

"He's studied androids for his entire life, Fij! I bet it would take you your entire career in Starfleet to figure out his system." Severely over-exaggerating, Mizatan thought quietly. "Heck, I don't know why we're even here. That Commander Maddox could probably design a program to run the entire ship himself, and better than we can."

"I'm sure that if that were true, we'd all be at your home on Earth eating those burritos you're always on about."

"Heh, you wish, my friend. My Ma only makes the good ones for family; there'd be no chance any of this crew would get any out of her." Another bad habit Mizatan had learnt to ignore in Rhodes; he tended to contradict himself. A lot.

Just last week, when he first boasted about his mother's breakfast burritos, he had made the grand claim that she'd jump at the chance to feed them to as many mouths as were on the ship.

"Well, I guess I'd better just stick to my coffee, then," the NCO responded, taking another gulp from his mug, and effectively ending the conversation.