"First Mission"

Cerys glanced up from the science station with a faint, curious smile.

“Do we actually know what we’ve been hauling around all this time, or is it one of those things I’m better off not asking about?” She tilted her head slightly. “And has anyone heard when we’re getting a mission briefing? Alpha Centauri is far too interesting a place to arrive without at least a little mystery attached.”

The turbolift doors swooshed open to unload the red-clad tellarite. Even by tellarite standards his eyebags were sunken, as if his eyes were hiding in the caverns of wrinkled skin. Braffin sat down at his station with a barely concealed yawn, taking a moment to blink in the marble on the viewscreen.

"Wonder what these flight controllers are gonna be like." He had shown a habit of doing that over the past few days: thinking aloud. Thankfully nothing rude came out this time. "Hopefully not like that weasel on the Firesword," he grumbled a moment later. Well, nothing too rude...

Raikon sat at his duty station, tapping away a report on the ships first endurance warp 6 run while keeping a eye on the live readings.

Regarding the full manifest of items the Vanguard had been transporting, Iryna answered Commander Lektar seated to her left without looking up from her console.

“Da, da. Lots of tings. Big tings. Smoll tings.”

The words came out absently, almost automatic. A moment later a yawn escaped her before she could stop it. She tapped at the flight controls with no real urgency, just enough to confirm the attitude control thrusters were still holding Vanguard steady in position.

The soft hiss of the turbolift drew her attention. Crewman Dagh stepped onto the bridge—her Tellarite counterpart in the flight control department.

“No. Not like furry leetle veasel,” she replied in a flat, deadpan tone, her thick Russo-Ukrainian accent blurring the edges of the words until they nearly ran together. She spun the chair just far enough to give him a brief nod of acknowledgment. The gesture was polite enough, but the heavy blink that followed made the sleep deprivation obvious.

Gamma shift—her first aboard Vanguard since transferring from one of the Alpha Centauri outposts—had been long and relentlessly dull. A handful of minor course corrections. A few adjustments to the reaction control thrusters. Mostly just reading through the endless engine-maintenance reports. The quiet had drained what little energy she had left.

Mercifully, it was almost over. Lieutenant T’lol would be along any minute to relieve her.

Then the turbolift opened again and Commander Griffith stepped onto the bridge.

Iryna’s hazel eyes flicked toward him for a quick, appraising glance. A second later she spun back to face her console, suddenly very busy with the controls, determined not to give him any reason to comment on her wandering attention.

“Good morneeng, Comandeer.” she said over her shoulder to the moderately-tall XO. -

OOC Notes: Specifically mentioned @Shirik Lektar, @Dagh bim Braffin @Greggory Griffith, @T'lol

"Glad to hear she's holding up, Commander.  I'll be eager to read the full report." He warmly nodded at Raikon as he turned back to the Engineering console.

Shortly behind the Commander's arrival, the turbo lift once again whooshed open quietly. Stepping onto the bridge; One green haired, Vulcan Lieutenant, hands clasped behind the small of her back. T'lol paused for a moment, taking in the bridge.
Personally she thought the sudden transfer from Starfleet HQ had been slightly rushed, they'd had plenty of time to inform her of her new orders long before Vanguard had actually reached the station after all, which would have allowed her to report to the commanding officer ahead of her first shift. Orders, however, were orders.
In her brief scan of the bridge, her eyes alighted upon the highest ranking officer present and moved to the Ops Officer.

"Lieutenant Commander Lektar? Lieutenant T'lol, Chief Flight Control Officer, reporting for duty." The Vulcan spoke softly, but clearly, standing ready at attention. There was an undeniable catch in her accent, specifically the way she pronounced the rank. LEF-tentant, not LIEU-tenant.

It’d been little more than four hours since the emergency subspace communication from Admiral Calloway had come in. Lea’s orders had changed, and she now found herself assigned to take command of an entirely different vessel than the one she’d originally set out for. Circumstances, as Admiral Calloway had explained, were of such an extraordinary sort that the situation demanded a certain degree of adaptation on his part, and more importantly, on hers. Of course, it had frustrated Lea, as she’d spent the previous two weeks getting properly acquainted with the personnel files and schematics of the Intrepid-class USS Ticonderoga, only to be given command of the Nova-class USS Vanguard and its personnel instead.

A part of her thought to refuse the orders, not because she didn’t appreciate the opportunity to command the Vanguard, or that she felt slighted by missing out on the Ticonderoga, but rather because she wondered if this was the Universe’s cosmic way of telling her to delay accepting command just a bit longer.

After all, she’d refused several previous offers.

But then a little voice at the back of her mind convinced her otherwise. Alexandre always had a way of finding the silver lining whenever things seemed dour, and she could imagine him trying to spin the 'cosmic interference' narrative on its head; after all, what if this had been the Universe’s way of making sure she ended up in the right place?

Lea stifled a laugh, smiling a bit broader as she glanced at the crewman standing beside her in the turbolift cabin. “How long have you served aboard the Vanguard, Crewman Jones?” she asked him politely, the soft lilt of her French accent lingering in her voice. He had been assigned by the on-duty transporter chief as an escort.

“Not long, Ma’am,” he replied.

Lea nodded appreciatively, affording him a generous smile as the whirring sound of the lift came to a halt. “Thank you.” She stepped forward as the doors parted at the seam and, with a confident stride, emerged onto the bridge of the Vanguard. The scarlet-red of her uniform shoulders and the four golden pips on her collar caught the light, easily identifying her as Captain. With a wry smirk, Lea caught the tail end of something being said by the dark-skinned woman seated at the Chief Operations station. “I don’t believe that to be the case, Commander,” she responded, her crystal-blue eyes gazing across the bridge to gauge at least some of her crew.

“Commander Shirik! This is Captain Chevalier,” the crewman explained as he followed after the Captain, a small PADD in hand that contained transfer orders for the newest Captain of the Vanguard. He briskly moved past Lea and approached Shirik.

Lea once again afforded a courteous nod, this time at Commander Shirik. - (OOC Notes: Specifically mentioned @Shirik Lektar, @Greggory Griffith.)

Shirik managed to refrain from rolling her eyes as Achaea jumped to his feet.