"Stacking the Deck"

Iryna’s hands continued to dance over the console as she countered one denied input after another, her frustration giving way somewhat to amusement at the computer’s stubborn commitment to safety protocols.

“Da. Da. Sometimes you need hit it with big-sized wrench,” she said in reply to LeBlanc’s musings about the truck needing less-than-finesse coaxing. “This is many times standard procedure back home. I have other tinkerer friend—he is big-boss tinkerer on Sutherland now, my last ship. He calls it the Russian method.” She shrugged, not quite seeming to grasp the humor in that, at least not overtly. “He also said that sometimes you must use force on it, and if it does break, it must have needed to be replaced anyway, no?” she added as LeBlanc cautioned against overriding the sensor calibration. Her eyebrows lifted inquisitively as she glanced over her shoulder at him when he came nearer the console.

Then, as the challenging smirk appeared, those same brows dropped quickly, her eyelids narrowing as she tried to match the easy temperament he had shown from the get-go. A gentle smile tugged at the corners of her lips as she deftly entered a few commands. An instant later, without warning, the shuttle lurched just enough to be felt as the docking clamps gave way and the Maverick began to dip downward. “Good test for warp drive, too,” she added as the hum of the shuttle’s warp core filled the cabin. Iryna knew that even though the Vanguard was at warp, so long as they stayed inside the field bubble they could maneuver well enough to test the systems.

Of course, it was not exactly standard procedure either.

And given the diminutive size of the Nova-class and its accompanying warp bubble, there were not exactly hundreds of meters of room in which to do it—but as far as she was concerned, it was still plenty for any pilot worth their salt.

“You should take seat,” she teased with a wry smirk.

Iryna ran through the readouts populating the display in front of her and spotted a few diagnostics showing the RCS input subroutines were out of sync and in need of a fresh update. She began isolating each thruster and calibrating them manually in turn. For the faintest moment, when LeBlanc mentioned his upbringing, her attention wandered back to the open farm fields just outside Sevastopol, and she felt a longing for home. The reverie did not last. A claxon from the console pulled her back as she accidentally over-adjusted the calibration.

Blinking, she came back to herself and began retuning the input. “Yes. Olga was grandmother, and she was stubborn, like mule. Like computer.” Iryna motioned to the display, and sure enough, on cue, it gave her another sharp claxon as it rejected her latest calibration of the selected thruster module. The readout warned against the increased increment of the firing cycles she had set. “Ni! Roby, yak ya kazhu! Dosyt’ ihor!” she spat in minor annoyance as she re-entered the instructions, determined to beat the override working against her.

“She too had farm. Beetroots,” she added as her hands worked quickly. “I never like them much. Even in borscht.” Then she glanced back over her shoulder at LeBlanc. “It sounds like truck was also stubborn, like Olga,” she said with a smile—only for the claxon to sound again and pull her back.

“Blyat!” she exclaimed in frustration. - (OOC Notes: Provided translations are as follows; “Ni! Roby, yak ya kazhu! Dosyt’ ihor!” in English is "No! Do as I say! Enough games!" and "Blyat!" in English is basically "F***!")

Iryna nodded in agreement with LeBlanc’s appraisal of the aroma lingering in the Maverick’s cabin. “Da. Da,” she added simply, her fingers running over the console as she ordered the computer to begin diagnostics on the flight systems.

“That is good.” She acknowledged his report on the flow of power through the craft—meaning the warp core was functioning within parameters. “Reaction control thrusters passed check. Impulse engines and warp drive are spooling up, but so far seem okay,” she added, reading the data aloud as it streamed across the displays in front of her, confirming that while the air inside the Maverick had gone stale, the rest of the systems were anything but. “Olga—I mean, computer—shows flight systems are just within optimal readings. Need minor fine tuning,” she explained, tapping in a few adjustments.

“Hmm?” Her attention lifted from the readout as LeBlanc’s question caught up with her. “Oh… umm, I’ve been flying since I was little girl,” she said, smiling softly as a bit of reverie hit. “My father was transport pilot,” she added simply.

“Always, have you been tinkerer?” she countered, glancing back over her shoulder.

“Da. Da. Bridge is good. You crawl on hands and knees later,” she replied, deadpan.

The moment her boot sole met the carpeted deck of the Maverick’s interior cabin, Iryna stopped. She glanced about and wrinkled her nose ever so slightly, as though she had caught a moderately unpleasant scent.

“Air is stale,” she complained.

She wondered for a moment how long it had been since anyone had actually stepped inside the Maverick. Even if it was the most capable craft embarked with the Vanguard, that did not change the fact that it was also the de facto captain’s yacht, and those were rarely chosen for away missions. Iryna recalled once receiving a written warning for commenting aloud on how stingy captains could be with their “personal” vessels. It had not been the complaint itself that earned her the write-up so much as the particularly colorful analogy she had chosen at the time.

Her distinct lack of a verbal filter often clashed with more timid sensitivities. “Stink like station holodeck after crew take long mission,” she added succinctly, drawing on that same lack of filter as she tried to pin down the particular odor permeating the cabin.

“Atmospheric processors are off,” she surmised, stepping over to an ancillary console beside the sciences station on the starboard side of the craft. A few taps of her carefully manicured fingers produced a series of chirps. A subdued hum soon rumbled from somewhere inside the Maverick, and the air began to cycle. “Better,” she said with satisfaction. “Begin diagnostics on sensors and weapons,” she ordered, looking back over her shoulder at LeBlanc. “I check flight controls.” A few steps farther into the cabin, she slid into the forward-most station and ran her fingers over the console to bring up the conn.

Turning to face her assigned engineer as he stepped through the doors into the access compartment, Iryna allowed her gaze to pass once over him before it settled on his face. One hand lifted to the side of her own.

“Da. I am early.” She acknowledged him, her eyes shifting upward toward the computer’s voice as it joined the exchange between herself, Korn, and LeBlanc. “I was trying to become more familiar with Waverider shuttlecraft before you arrive. But, nyet!” She rolled her eyes at the annoyance of being stymied by a hatchway. Her hand left her face, palm turning upward as if commiserating with the poor roll of the dice that had produced this situation. “Lieutenant Korn was just—” she stopped herself when LeBlanc began entering his own authorization code.

“Olga opyat’ zauspryamilas’,” she said softly.

Sure enough, between LeBlanc arriving on time for their scheduled work and Korn’s live review of her security codes, the computer answered with an affirmative—the first Iryna had heard since she first tried to access the Maverick.

“Figures,” she added quickly.

“Thank you, Lieutenant Korn. And you, Lieutenant LeBlanc. Now…” she exhaled deeply.

With the matter seemingly resolved, Iryna was content enough to cross to her discarded tricorder, bend to pick it up, and turn back to the hatch. She touched the small console set into the frame. The double doors parted with an audible thunk at the center, then receded into the surrounding deck. Wasting no time, she set one calf-high boot onto the first rung of the descending ladder, then the other, half of her disappearing before she stopped and looked up at LeBlanc. “Come. Come,” she said, trying to lead the engineer down into the waiting craft.

“Konechno. Dlya krasivogo muzhchiny Olga vsegda poslushnaya,” she muttered under her breath, her head tilting from side to side to underline her sarcastic annoyance with the computer and its perceived slight against her as she made a silly face. - (OOC Notes: For convenience, I will provide translations of Iryna's Russian/Ukrainian muttering. “Olga opyat’ zauspryamilas’,” in English is "Olga’s gotten stubborn again." and “Konechno. Dlya krasivogo muzhchiny Olga vsegda poslushnaya,” in English is "Of course. For a handsome man, Olga is always nice.")

Iryna had taken to leaning against a bulkhead inside the small, square compartment, the hatch leading down to the Maverick still decidedly—and rather obstinately—closed. Arms crossed over her chest, she stared up at the decking above, waiting impatiently and lost in somewhat annoyed thoughts. She had not expected the sudden chirp of her combadge at Lieutenant Korn’s call, so when the noise echoed in the confined space, Iryna jumped in place.

“Bozhe!” she exclaimed in her native tongue, pushing off the bulkhead and glancing around for a moment before a slight blush rose to her usually pale features.

“Da, da, Lieutenant!” she answered after slapping a hand to the delta pinned to her chest to open the channel. “Ehm, I am waiting for Engineering team member to arrive. We do maintenance on shuttle Maverick.” She cleared her throat.

“My access to shuttle is no good. Perhaps security code is bad?” she explained. - (OOC: Specifically mentioned @Zaje Korn, and non-specifically mentioned @Scruffy LeBlanc.

“Stacking the Deck”

Lieutenant Iryna Nakhimova
Lieutenant JG Schubert "Scruffy" LeBlanc

Stardate: 58807.15, 15h57
Location: Deck 03, Waverider Maverick Loading Ramp Entryway

***

“Blyat!” Iryna exclaimed in annoyance as she tossed an engineering tricorder haphazardly across the decking, the device clattering with an echo throughout the relatively confined space which granted access to the descending ladder that fed down into the Vanguard’s de facto captain’s yacht.

The Maverick was a Waverider-type shuttlecraft designed specifically for the Nova-class.

And for the last fifteen minutes she’d been standing at the periphery of the access hatch, trying and failing to get it to open. There’d been some sort of hang-up somewhere and the computer hadn’t recognized her clearance, and Iryna suspected it had something to do with all the crew changeover on the Vanguard. She had hoped to get a head start on reviewing the systems aboard the craft prior to the arrival of whichever sad-sack engineer had been tasked to assist her, but as the time neared 1600, that seemed unlikely.

To a degree, she rather resented being assigned a babysitter for what she considered routine maintenance. After all, she knew craft like this well enough on her own, and could handle most baseline engineering tasks. “U semy nyanyok dytia bez oka,” she muttered aloud, recalling an old proverb her grandmother shared, about how too many nannies meant the baby would go unseen. She kicked a boot against the nearby bulkhead, her gaze shifting upward to the decking above, taking deep breaths as she tried to calm the tempest within. “Computer, please unlock this craft. Authorization code: Nakhimova, alpha-two-wiktor.” She tried once more, hoping that maybe being polite might make a difference.

A decidedly negative-sounding chirp later, the computer’s response followed. “That authorization code is not recognized. Please repeat authorization code or contact Chief Security Officer Zaje Korn for access.”

“Suka!” Iryna replied as she crossed her arms over her chest in defeat. - (OOC Notes: Specifically mentioned @Zaje Korn, @Schubert "Scruffy" LeBlanc.)