Listing To The Right

Posted on Mon Jun 15th, 2020 @ 12:46am by Captain Bethsabée Leroux & Lieutenant JG Mattias Constantine

Mission: Mission 3 - 100
Location: Deck D- Communciations Center
Timeline: Day 32, Month 2, Year 0 11:00
1672 words - 3.3 OF Standard Post Measure

Mattias was the last person on her list of people to talk to and it has taken a lot longer than she had wanted to as everything just kept interrupting. Beth finally allowed herself a few moments and stepped into the Communications centre marvelling the difference from the destruction of a few days ago thanks to the Vrav. “Good Afternoon Ensign.” She called seeing the man sat at the console working on the now familiar translation process. "Bit hot in here isn't it?" She added already feeling the heat. Engineer really needed to fix that.

"Oh, hello commander," Constantine had only just noticed his visitor. He rubbed his temples to relieve a bit of the tension that was bordering on becoming a full blown headache. As he turned to stand up, he realized in horror that he had unzipped the top half of his uniform, working in his undershirt to combat the heat the seemed to invade every single cubic centimeter of the workspace. The uniform alteration, as well as his now half-empty bottle of water sitting in a puddle of condensation, had been half-measures in mitigating the conditions. However, the uncomfortable fact remained that he needed to be in the comms center to do any work.

"Apologies ma'am," Matt quickly slid his arms back into the jumpsuit and pulled the zipper back up. "Is everything alright?"

"At ease Constantine," Beth said quickly seeing him trying to correct his uniform when she was starting to consider that it might actually be a good idea to alter her own. "Everything is fine with me." She assured silently moving over to the pieces of paper that were stuck around and started to repeat a few of the words. "Very clicky isn't it"?

"Certainly the most percussive of any language I've ever studied, yes," Matt nodded. His handwritten notes seemed to be scattered around the room in a haphazard fashion, but they fit the schema of the way he thought and worked. "Lexi and I managed to get something useful out of the Vrav translator. The assumption that a good chunk of the frequencies used in their language are beyond the human audible range was a good one. I'm just working through in the band from fifty to two hundred kilohertz. It is truly fascinating," he explained as he wiped away a bead of sweat from his brow.

Beth continued along the line of notes trying to say a few of the words but it was impossible to make it sound like she had heard on the view screen. "O'Connery and yourself seem to have it as much in hand as you can be. It seems fascinating." She easily agreed turning back to look at him. As Chief Communications Officer it was what filled her with excitement trying to learn new languages but she was pretty sure this one they were going to have to leave to the translator due to it being beyond the audible range of what they could hear and speak.

"Yeah, Lexi is pretty awesome," Matt responded with a nod. He only stopped himself from gushing forth the other superlatives his brain associated with her in the nick of time. Perhaps the heat was having a bigger effect on him than he originally thought. "Uh," he resumed, peeling away from his inner dialogue, "I was having an issue with the declensions of the nouns and pronouns as we would know them. Has Lieutenant Sovar had a chance to study the Vrav in more detail? Do we know about genders and cultural structure? It would be a huge help with the translation matrix."

Beth very slowly raised an eyebrow at the way he spoke about the young woman and barely contained her smirk when he must have realised who he was talking too and what he was talking about. It was going to happen but she had not considered the pair at all. "He has not mentioned anything to me. Perhaps you can discuss it with him?" The woman mused trying to keep some composure for them both.

"I will, commander." Even though he was thoroughly hydrated at this point, Constantine unscrewed the cap to his water bottle and took another drink of composure fluid. "I look forward to working with him. There are some Vulcan dialects that I still have issues with, so perhaps the lieutenant will help me. I have to admit, I didn't know about the officer exchange program until I got to the Atlantis. What's he like, Lieutenant Sovar?"

"It has been a long-standing programme but I was unsure if it would continue with the Atlantis before I came here. Leah was adamant she wanted it onboard." Beth took a moment to compose herself and wipe her forehead on her sleeve. She smiled at the question. It was a question that she could answer sure but it would unfair of her to give an opinion to blind someone else's opinion of another person. "I am afraid Ensign you will have to discover that for yourself." She said with a small smile as she spoke Vulcan to him.

"Wow, extremely impressive control of the sibilants and plosives in the Vulcan language ma'am, I haven't heard sounds that crisp in a long, long time," Matt replied in Standard with a tinge of awe in his voice. He switched to Vulcan, and though his mastery of the language was respectable in its own right, he had an accent that meant he would never be mistaken for a native speaker. "Logic is the beginning of wisdom," he fumbled the word for wisdom ever so slightly before switching back to Standard. "Eh, either way, I guess I'll schedule something and meet him soon."

It was fun to shift languages and there were so few on the ship that allowed her to do that. Carter, Constantine, O'Connery were the ones who did not even bat an eyelid at her doing it as it gave them space to practice or allowed them to speak home languages. "It helps to not have standard as your main language." The woman commented on her french accent more pronounced for a moment before she toned it down. "Roll your tongue slightly when you say wisdom. Maybe you and O'Connery need to spend more time together, she is pretty good at Vulcan." She teased just a little.

"I, uh, well," Mattias unexpectedly stammered, understanding for the first time that his crush was becoming obvious to others. The natural progression of thought carried him to the realization that any rumor on a ship the size of Atlantis would spread through the entire crew in a day. Maybe his face was flushed or maybe it was just the heat, no one could be sure, but in the pause, he gained some of his composure back. "Lexi's got a knack for this, that's for sure. Actually, commander, that reminds me. Are you planning on delegating more of the responsibility in the communications department as you transition to command?"

Beth smiled at the man innocently as he stammered through his words in a very un Mattias way. She let him compose himself and listened quietly to his words. "Well, Constantine aren't you very attuned to my thoughts today." Beth took the other console chair and sat down next to him growing serious for a moment. "I am planning on it. I am going to be delegating to you." Beth said simply. It had to be him, there was no one else that it could be.

"Understood," Matt nodded. So Lexi was right, he thought back to the conversation they had the previous evening. Time seemed to stretch out indefinitely as he considered what his "promotion" even meant. The truth of the matter was that he and the other members of the crew were a long way from home and currently being chased by a relatively unknown alien species from whom they had stolen a precious resource. However, it was also true that they had the oath to fulfill their duty as Starfleet officers, even if it meant that they might never see their homes or their families again.

One thing was certain in Constantine's mind. This was his new family.

"Thank you, commander. I am happy to help however I can," Constantine finally spoke.

Beth was patient as she watched the man process and think it over what she was saying. It was an easy choice for her even with him not being as good at Vulcan as O'Connery, he had the right mentality and that was what they needed right then and there. "Good, then Lieutenant." The woman held out the pip to him that she had somehow not lost in the walk from her ready room to the communication centre.

The look on Constantine's face bordered on incredulity, but he managed to keep his jaw off the floor and his mouth shut as he accepted the pip from his commanding officer. He looked down and to his right, catching a glimpse of the solitary metal pip affixed just above the teal piping on the shoulders of his uniform. Reaching one hand inside to pin the pip into place, Matt took a moment and held his hand over both pieces of smooth metal.

"Well ma'am, I'll be listing to the right for weeks now with this weight imbalance."

"I am sure you will be." The Commander smiled just a little at him as she stepped back. "I will leave you to your tasks then Lieutenant. But please make sure you take a break out of this heat and get Engineering to look at the air con hear." Beth ordered as she wiped the sweat that was running down her face away. It was impossible to not be hot with the flight suits plus the heat.

"Understood, commander. Thank you."

OFF:

Commander Bethsabée Leroux
Commanding Officer
NX Atlantis

Lieutenant JG Mattias Constantine
Chief Communications Officer
NX Atlantis