| May 10th, 2155
| Main Bridge, Discovery NX-04
| 0925 hrs

Commander Dewitt Cayne stepped onto the bridge of the Starship Discovery, expecting a scene of more chaos than the one which greeted him. An engineering team was hard at work fitting the situation table and a small disagreement had broken out between two of them.

"Captain Curtis?" Cayne asked them, cutting the argument short.

One of the dissenters looked up from his work and motioned toward the door at the far side of the bridge. "She's in her Ready Room." He replied curtly, before adding a reluctant 'sir'.

"Yeah, thanks." Cayne was nonplussed as he moved through the compartment, noting the expectant gap where the Captain's chair was due to be installed. Approaching the door to the Captain's Ready Room, he reached out to press the chime. The door's opening mechanism was present but the chime had not yet been installed.

He knocked instead.

"Come in!" Christina shouted. The comm. system throughout the ship was complete, aside from a few individual panels. Unfortunately one of them was the one tied in with the chime to her ready room door, so she had to shout enough to make herself heard through the thick metal hatch that separated her private office from the short corridor leading to the bridge.

Cayne stood stoic at the door until he realised that the vague whimper he had heard from through the hatch had been the Captain permitting his entry. He pointed toward the panel as he entered the room, suggesting that it should go to the top of someone's list.

"Commander!" the captain said, standing up with a smile on her face as she saw the man that the portal had opened to reveal. "Welcome aboard. I only had the news that my request for your transfer was authorised five minutes ago. I had no idea you'd be onboard so quickly."

"Well, Captain, there's no reason to hang around once the call comes through." Cayne took a look around the small cabin. It was quite homely for a new ship and a new assignment. "Sorry, Sir. Did you say your transfer request?"

Christina tilted her head to the left as she watched the commander's facial expressions. "You seem surprised," she said after a moment. "You don't think you're worth me asking you to be here?"

"I wouldn't say that," Cayne said, despite that being the exact thought going through his mind, "I was just led to believe that a posting to the NX project wasn't exactly on the horizon for me."

"You were chief armoury officer on Intrepid for, what? Four years? I've met Captain Ramirez, and believe me, if he didn't feel you were good enough for him, you'd have been turned around and back out of his airlock quicker than you could say 'Vulcans have pointy ears'." Curtis shrugged as she moved around her desk and lowered herself into one of the armchairs wedged into the far corner of the room. "And the way I hear it, the only reason you weren't selected for Challenger was because their armoury chief had been on the waiting list for a lot longer than you." She paused as she smirked at the man, hoping behind it that his disbelief at being wanted for this post wasn't telling of his talents to hold it. "Of course, if you'd rather go back to writing targeting algorithms for the guys at Jupiter Station to test, I'm sure I could arrange it."

"Well, they do have pointy ears." Cayne replied, shuddering a little at the thought of those damned targeting algorithms. There was nothing he hated more than watching spaceborne projectiles hit a small target with no pay-off. "The way I heard it on Challenger was that they didn't want an armoury officer who discharged his weapon in the street."

Dewitt Cayne had found himself on Jupiter Station after an incident in the Presidio in San Francisco. After witnessing a man being beaten half to death by a gang, he had fired on the group, attempting to stun the perpetrators rather than waiting for the police. It was one of the jurisdictional issues faced by Starfleet personnel on Earth. For some reason they were treated almost like civilians.

"I'll let you into a secret, Commander," the captain said almost conspiratorially. "No starship captain recruits their tactical officer to sit on his ass any more so than we recruit our comm officers to be mute."

"You might well be onto something there, Captain." Cayne nodded sagely at the Captain's assertion. "It would give us a quieter life though."

"You're in the wrong line of work if you want a quiet life." Christina stood from her chair again and made her way towards Dewitt in the centre of the room. "The galaxy is a crowded, noisy place, and we're going to be right in the thick of it. I trust I can count on you to be at my side while we're out there?"

"You can count on me." Cayne was captivated by the steely determination in the Captain's statement. He'd heard rumours that she had an astonishing countenance about her. A lot of the NX project captains were little more than glorified mechanics who had risen to their position more through their commitment to the project but Curtis clearly had it all; not only the experience and know-how but also the ability to inspire a crew.

| May 10th, 2155
| Main Bridge, Discovery NX-04
| 0925 hrs

Commander Dewitt Cayne stepped onto the bridge of the Starship Discovery, expecting a scene of more chaos than the one which greeted him. An engineering team was hard at work fitting the situation table and a small disagreement had broken out between two of them.

"Captain Curtis?" Cayne asked them, cutting the argument short.

One of the dissenters looked up from his work and motioned toward the door at the far side of the bridge. "She's in her Ready Room." He replied curtly, before adding a reluctant 'sir'.

"Yeah, thanks." Cayne was nonplussed as he moved through the compartment, noting the expectant gap where the Captain's chair was due to be installed. Approaching the door to the Captain's Ready Room, he reached out to press the chime. The door's opening mechanism was present but the chime had not yet been installed.

He knocked instead.

"Come in!" Christina shouted. The comm. system throughout the ship was complete, aside from a few individual panels. Unfortunately one of them was the one tied in with the chime to her ready room door, so she had to shout enough to make herself heard through the thick metal hatch that separated her private office from the short corridor leading to the bridge.

Cayne stood stoic at the door until he realised that the vague whimper he had heard from through the hatch had been the Captain permitting his entry. He pointed toward the panel as he entered the room, suggesting that it should go to the top of someone's list.

"Commander!" the captain said, standing up with a smile on her face as she saw the man that the portal had opened to reveal. "Welcome aboard. I only had the news that my request for your transfer was authorised five minutes ago. I had no idea you'd be onboard so quickly."

"Well, Captain, there's no reason to hang around once the call comes through." Cayne took a look around the small cabin. It was quite homely for a new ship and a new assignment. "Sorry, Sir. Did you say your transfer request?"

Christina tilted her head to the left as she watched the commander's facial expressions. "You seem surprised," she said after a moment. "You don't think you're worth me asking you to be here?"

"I wouldn't say that," Cayne said, despite that being the exact thought going through his mind, "I was just led to believe that a posting to the NX project wasn't exactly on the horizon for me."

"You were chief armoury officer on Intrepid for, what? Four years? I've met Captain Ramirez, and believe me, if he didn't feel you were good enough for him, you'd have been turned around and back out of his airlock quicker than you could say 'Vulcans have pointy ears'." Curtis shrugged as she moved around her desk and lowered herself into one of the armchairs wedged into the far corner of the room. "And the way I hear it, the only reason you weren't selected for Challenger was because their armoury chief had been on the waiting list for a lot longer than you." She paused as she smirked at the man, hoping behind it that his disbelief at being wanted for this post wasn't telling of his talents to hold it. "Of course, if you'd rather go back to writing targeting algorithms for the guys at Jupiter Station to test, I'm sure I could arrange it."

"Well, they do have pointy ears." Cayne replied, shuddering a little at the thought of those damned targeting algorithms. There was nothing he hated more than watching spaceborne projectiles hit a small target with no pay-off. "The way I heard it on Challenger was that they didn't want an armoury officer who discharged his weapon in the street."

Dewitt Cayne had found himself on Jupiter Station after an incident in the Presidio in San Francisco. After witnessing a man being beaten half to death by a gang, he had fired on the group, attempting to stun the perpetrators rather than waiting for the police. It was one of the jurisdictional issues faced by Starfleet personnel on Earth. For some reason they were treated almost like civilians.

"I'll let you into a secret, Commander," the captain said almost conspiratorially. "No starship captain recruits their tactical officer to sit on his ass any more so than we recruit our comm officers to be mute."

"You might well be onto something there, Captain." Cayne nodded sagely at the Captain's assertion. "It would give us a quieter life though."

"You're in the wrong line of work if you want a quiet life." Christina stood from her chair again and made her way towards Dewitt in the centre of the room. "The galaxy is a crowded, noisy place, and we're going to be right in the thick of it. I trust I can count on you to be at my side while we're out there?"

"You can count on me." Cayne was captivated by the steely determination in the Captain's statement. He'd heard rumours that she had an astonishing countenance about her. A lot of the NX project captains were little more than glorified mechanics who had risen to their position more through their commitment to the project but Curtis clearly had it all; not only the experience and know-how but also the ability to inspire a crew.

"Glad to hear it. Now, shall we see about making this ship of ours space-worthy already?"

[post?]