Welcome To The Fight

Posted on Fri Jul 3rd, 2026 @ 4:31pm by Lieutenant Cyrin Xanth & Captain Nycolas Temple

Mission: A New Day at Midnight
Location: Deck 1 - Ready Room
Timeline: During “A Good Distraction”

ON

Sitting in the dark of his Ready Room, Captain Temple was painstakingly reviewing the footage coming from Omipro, their destination for the Pandora’s first mission of their new rapid response service. The attack on the Federation colony had been as brutal as it had been quick; a squad of black-clad warriors running through the streets of the small city, seemingly carelessly shooting down anyone they came across. A frown formed over Nyx’s worried brow as the footage played from the beginning once more. The attackers were heading towards a central civilian building; a museum of artefacts that had found when the colony was established on the planet, according to the Federation’s database.

‘What could they want?’ He mused restlessly to himself, replaying the video once again.

Just outside the door, Cyrin Xanth took a second to compose himself a little. He'd come almost straight here after beaming aboard a couple of minutes ago, the only delay was the quickest of stops at his quarters to drop off his duffle bag. He hadn't even had time to actually look inside more than an instant. The idea was he wanted to make as good of a first impression as he could with his new commanding officer. Start on the right foot, as the humans said, and the captain was human so maybe he'd appreciate that idiom if it came up. Cyrin scrubbed at his face with a sleeve to try to make sure he'd gotten all the tears off, took a couple of deep breaths to try to settle his nerves.

It didn't help. It never did. These weren't bad nerves though, they came from excitement, as shown by the grin he couldn't keep off his face as he reached out to press the door chime, announcing his presence through the tone that rang into the captain's office.

Nyx looked to the door with a curious frown. “Computer, pause playback. Illumination to 100.” He commanded. Silently, the lights inside the Ready Room rose to their normal levels, showing the sleek black and white room. With a straightening tug of his uniform tunic, Temple sat upright in his chair and with a clear throat called out, “Enter!”

Before the doors were even fully opened, Cyrin was slipping through them, a big smile lighting up his face. "Hello!" He walked right over to the desk, sat down. Thought for just an obvious moment, then stood back up and reached across that desk to offer his hand. Human tradition, he knew. "Cyrin Xanth. Reporting as ordered, sir!" His grin grew even wider, making him appear painfully young, so pleased with himself he remembered the proper protocol. "Transferring from the Celeste. It's a pleasure to meet you."

Nyx returned the warm, friendly smile as he took hold of the Lieutenant’s hand and clasped it between his own. Formalities were not his forte. “Welcome, Lieutenant Xanth, to the Pandora. You’ve arrived perfectly on time.”

"Really?" He looked a little surprised, then pleased at the reaction. "Well." For a moment he wasn't sure what to say, but just shook the other man's hand, probably a bit longer than the norm. Eventually he released the shake, sat down, though he practically bounced in the chair with barely restrained excitement. "Nycolas Temple, right? I only had a minute or two to read a little bit of your file. Thank you, for accepting my transfer." The words started just tumbling out, almost a torrent. "I know you probably had your pick out of dozens, maybe hundreds of applicants, with more experience and rank and all that. Honestly I was surprised to get the orders. Did you owe Captain Carter a favor or something maybe?"

Nyx chuckled to himself as he leaned back into his chair. He was gently reminded of Vecon Fick, a similarly energetic and talkative young officer he had the joy to mentor once years ago. He loved this kind of spirit in his crew. “Please, call me Nyx. When it’s just us, that is. Captain when on the Bridge.” He tapped at his console screen and brought up the Lieutenant’s credentials. “No favours required. You’ve come highly recommended; you have the experience and the skills I needed. What I look for in my officers on the Pandora is a curiosity, an ability and a desire to explore, to learn, and to figure shi - uh, stuff - out.” He gave a smile. “That’s what I needed for our mission and I chose you for that reason.”

That actually made the short Trill pause for a long moment as he processed the unexpected introduction. The man wanted him to use a nickname? That was so...personable. Whatever little bit of trepidation that Cyrin might have had about formalities was swiftly forgotten with such a simple, friendly statement like that. For a second, he looked stunned, and then shifted back into a big grin. "Nyx! You got it. I'm fine with either name. Cyrin. Xanth. We're the same." And immediately forgot the additional ask, the 'Captain when on the Bridge' bit. It'd be a work in progress, for sure. He laughed at the near-slip, and nodded knowingly. Humans had some excellent curse words. "I love figuring stuff out. I guess that's sort of a prerequisite, for my job. What is our mission, by the way? I mean, I read about the rapid-response assignment. But we're travelling pretty fast and in a particular direction, so I figured we were trying to get somewhere specific, and soon."

“Certainly are.” Nyx replied with a heavy nod. He turned his console screen all the way around to face the Lieutenant, as he switched the view back to the mission briefing. “We are heading to the White Diamond Nebula, a small system on the outer fringe of Federation territory. There’s a colony on the planet Omipro which was randomly attacked several hours ago. We have a dozen confirmed deaths and many more casualties.” The video played silently in front of them, the chaos of the attack evident on the screen.

At last, the scientist began to slow down, at least his mannerisms and speech. His mind still whirred along as he watched the recording. He didn't say a word the whole way through, but leaned forward intently, blue eyes narrowing slightly. The smile swiftly left his face, replaced by a serious, grim thinning of his lips. When the playback was done, he reached over and tapped the console a couple of times to make it start all over again from the beginning, but a little slower.

"I think I've seen this building before, Nyx," he said softly, pointing as the recording showed the marauders forcing their way in. "A museum, right? Omipro. We never made it over there, on the Celeste, but my shipmates talked about it. They specialized in...I don't remember the name of the civilization, but it was not so very old I think. Fifteen...twenty thousand years ago?" He sighed softly as the flashes of weapons fire came again, disturbed by the carnage, but not letting it interrupt his analysis. "In close quarters like that...there must be so many wounded. But, why raid a museum of all things? What were they after?" He glanced up to his new captain, worry etched into his face with the way his brows drew together.

“Yes,” Nyx replied, eyes darting to the young Lieutenant. He had clearly done his research, which both relieved and impressed the captain. “The colony was formed after an archeological exploration. The museum was used to house the artefacts that had been discovered from an ancient species. But we’re talking some tools, house hold items, a few decorative bowls. Nothing of great financial value, from what we know.” He sighed deeply and leaned back again. “Unfortunately in all of the chaos, there hasn’t been a full stocktake of the stolen items as yet. We do know they took something, however.” The video changed to a jumpy, hand-held camera, which was gingerly peering from around the corner of an another building. It showed the masked assailants exiting the museum and being picked up by their ship. The video paused, two of the warriors were carrying a silver case between them. “There.” Nyx said pointedly at the screen.

The Trill had a bemused look on his face. Financial value? It didn't make much sense to him. Citizen of the post-scarcity Federation, such things really didn't come into his way of thinking. Oh sure, he owned a few slips of gold-pressed latinum, a tiny fortune built up from late night gambling on the Celeste, but they weren't valuable in any way other than how they related to games of chance and fun. "Imagine...hurting, even killing people, over pieces of history," he sounded deeply offended. "It isn't right. I take it we haven't heard from the curators at the museum what was in the case either." It wasn't a question. He sat back in his chair, subdued and concerned, silent for another stretch as he gazed down at his hands.

"I'll do a crash course on the Omipro civilization before we arrive. And I need to meet my team, of course." Already he was making plans, breaking down the tasks ahead into manageable chunks. His eyes refocused on the taller man, still bright, still full of energy, but now it was like the tautness of a wound-up spring rather than a chaotic storm of chatter. "One benefit of having a smaller crew compliment than normal, I'm sure the duty roster will be faster to fill out." He had indeed done his homework, having read the unique refit the Pandora had been through, including the expansion of facilities and the slight shrinking of personnel. "Anything else you'd like me to work on in the meantime, Nyx?" Already it felt natural, the ease in which he could slip into this rapport, and though the situation was serious, his confidence in his new commanding officer was just as high.

“Speak to Lieutenant Commander J’Oh - that’s Christine J’Oh, on crew assignments.” Nyx said, “She lead the initial onboarding process and helped set up the current roster. You will have a compliment of forty officers in Science. Of course, it’s your team now, so feel free to change as necessary. For the mission, we’ll need a strong focus on alien anthropology and archeology, so familiarise yourself with the laboratory equipment on Deck Seven. We have a lot of fun tools to play with but you don’t have a tremendous amount of time to get settled in.”

Cyrin nodded a little distractedly at the orders, his mind still focused on those horrid flashes of energy weapons fire from the recording. He shivered, though the temperature was quite comfortable. Indeed, he'd seen that roster of forty, though he hadn't had time yet to actually go through any files, and hoped that the selection process had been thorough. They were going to need the best and brightest with a smaller team, though he was sure that everyone was going to be just wonderful. "I'll get started right away. With talking to Christine and my staff. Getting to know the Omipro." He fiddled with the little box in his pocket, the going away gift from the Celeste he'd received not even an hour ago. "Why do I get the feeling we're really, really not going to like the answer when we figure out why they went after old relics?"

Nyx tilted his head and let out a breath, “You’re not wrong. This wasn’t just an opportunistic raid.” Nyx clapped his hands together, something he often did to regather his thoughts. “Now, one important thing about the Pandora’s new operating jurisdiction is that we may not be able to see through the entire investigation. Our main priority will be to secure the colony, help the injured, and find out what we can. We’re the first responders first and foremost, if there’s another emergency to respond to, we will need to pass on our intelligence and move on.”

The clap made him glance up again, and he found a sardonic smile coming to his lips, "I guess that just means we better work hard and fast. Heal the wounded. Protect the innocent. Bring justice and order back to the world. Doesn't seem like so tall an order." Cyrin chuckled a little and firmed up his shoulders. Indeed, it was a lot of work ahead, whether or not they were to be the ones to solve the mystery. "Anything I should know about Commander J'Oh, by the way? Or any surprises in the Science team maybe?"

“I haven’t met much of the Science team yet. Again, J’Oh may be able to give you a recommendation for ACSO, but it’s best that you assess the team yourself.” Temple said. On the question of Christine, he just smiled a little. He knew Christine as the wife of his oldest Academy friend, knower of far too many embarrassing stories about him; one of only a few guests at his very small wedding, and one hell of a foul-mouthed, always winning tennis player. But this was not the time to discuss his personal friendships; he would have to allow Cyrin to discover these qualities on his own. So, Nyx chose the professional response, ”Lieutenant Commander J’Oh has a tireless work ethic, she runs her departments like a machine, brings calm and operational harmony to every ship. She’s started on her path towards Command and has taken on the Second Officer role, so feel free to use her as a mentor and guide for yourself and your career.” There was a slightly mischievous twinkle in his eye. “And by all means, feel free to take up a game of tennis with her. She loves to practice.”

Wondering what this 'tennis' was, Cyrin nodded in response, "Sure, I'll do that!" He had no idea what kind of pain he was in for most likely. "All those suggestions. Talking about the team, getting some advice about command, and the game." As much as he wanted to dive right into his research into the Omipro civilization first, he knew he had to do the social bits first. Meet the team, meet his superiors, make sure everyone was situated first before he got lost in the work. The Trill was quite self-aware, at least since his Joining; he knew he got a bit hyper-focused on things, he knew his command style was a bit undisciplined and unstructured. If left to his own devices, he could bury himself in research, or experiments in a lab, forgetting he was supposed to actually lead and delegate. Cyrin would be looking towards the more senior of the senior officers to help him learn the things he wasn't so good at. He continued to chat away, "I probably should get started, but I know I'm supposed to wait for the 'dimissmissed', right? Captain Carter really tried to drill that one into me, and I think I was up to about a 50% rate of remembering it. Which was much better than when I first came on board. I actually walked out of a couple of meetings those early months after getting assigned a task, without waiting to hear what hte rest of the team was up to. I don't do that anymore, don't you worry, and-"

There was a gently interrupting chime over the Captain’s comms badge, breaking the Lieutenant’s stream of thought. “Captain Temple, we have passed outside Federation borders. Our target destination will be reached within an hour.” Came Lieutenant Liana J’Oh from the Bridge.

Temple smiled to Cyrin, “Sorry, I asked them to let me know when we passed the border.” He apologised as he tapped his badge, “Thank you, Lieutenant. I will relieve you soon.”

“Aye, sir.” Liana said firmly.

Nyx wasn’t sure where to pick up from Xanth’s thoughts. “I’m not a fan of ‘dismissed’, I prefer a simple thank you instead. Each Captain has their own style, so a big part of this transition will be learning our way of doing things, while also finding what works for you.” He gave a shrug, “But… You’re part of the command team now, so it’s also my job to learn your way of doing things, too.”

Cyrin had barely processed that last part. "An hour?! I should... not enough time to..." He popped up out of his seat and stared at the door, and almost, almost dashed out of the office after having just explained that he didn't do that anymore. The scientist practically vibrated with barely-restrained energy, like a coiled spring that would explode out at any second. He had to talk to J'Oh, and his staff; inspecting the labs could come later he guessed, unfortunate that, but would he have time to even begin to cram about the museum, relics, and culture they might need to investigate. He turned round eyes back to his new captain as he hesitated and said, "It is really nice to meet you, Nyx. Uh...'thank you'?"

Bewildered, Nyx could only stammer out a “Thank you” in response. He wanted to say that it would still take a few hours of travelling through the White Diamond Nebula before they got to Omipro; he wanted to say that Lieutenant Jarok would have to secure the site and then Medical would have to treat the injured before the investigation could begin, giving Xanth plenty of time to get settled in first before he was called upon, but Nyx chose to keep quiet. Something told him that this guy liked to move at warp nine. Some officers function better under time constraints after all. Nyx considered this as he looked at the officer and chose to be nice. “Relax, Lieutenant. You’ve got time. Not a lot of time, but not only an hour. Go, do what you need to do.”

Relax. Right. The Trill did try. He took a deep breath, nodded - and his eyes stayed wide, his restrained energy like a building warp core containment breach waiting to happen. Not just an hour, but not a lot of time. All thoughts of actually seeing his quarters, unpacking his personal items, maybe getting a bite to eat and calling his parents fled right out the airlock. Relax indeed! "Will do, sir!" he even remembered the tiniest bit of decorum as he got that final permission to withdraw, and literally dashed out of the Ready Room fast enough that he had to turn sideways to get through the doors that weren't fully open by the time he passed through. "Bye!" came the follow up call too before the doors began to close again.

OFF