Just Breathe

Posted on Wed Oct 15th, 2014 @ 2:38pm by Commander Eliana Masters & Lieutenant Commander Adria "Tempest" Desoro
Edited on on Mon Nov 24th, 2014 @ 7:37pm

Mission: Bloodpath
Location: Starbase 80
Timeline: After Initial Reports

[Unknown Location]

“C’mon, just pedal a little faster, you can do it!”

A young girl looked down, trying to concentrate on keeping her balance. The challenge of the day put forth by her sisters had been learning how to ride a bicycle. A moment ago, her father had helped her to keep balance by holding her shoulders upright, but he was too far away to be of any help now.

“Don’t look down Ellie, look where you’re going!”

The girl drew a short breath, refocusing her attention. The soft grass below would cushion her fall. In the distance, the sound of the clocktower signalling the passage of another hour floated through the air. Birds chirped along with the melody - even the clouds seemed whiter and fluffier than usual that day.

Her sisters cheered and clapped as she rolled away. The unbridled joy of learning a new skill, of finally “getting” it left a wide smile on the girl’s features. The feel of wind through her hair, the warmth of the sun shining down - for a brief moment, the universe aligned and everything went right for a young girl on her bicycle.

Then, a slight distraction. What happened?

Time to wake up.

“What?”

I said, time to wake up.

[Starbase 80, Flight Operations Office]

“Ma’am, are you okay?”

Masters woke with a start. She had not intended on falling asleep in her office, but the moment she laid down on the sofa, it was all over. There was always more she could do, always more that she could accomplish, more that she could give but eventually, this took its toll. At some point, even the most selfless individuals have to take a few moments for themselves. Eliana was no exception.

“Mmm, fine. Just dozed off for a few minutes. What’s happened? Anything important?”

“No ma’am, nothing new. Preparations for the upcoming missions are going as planned. To be honest ma’am, you could probably take a few hours and we would be fine. We have a great team. When was the last time you had anything to eat?”

Eliana stopped for a moment and thought. When was the last time she had put anything in her body other than coffee? It was a valid question, and the difficulty in producing a response was answer enough.

“I’ll be in the observation lounge for a while. You know how to reach me.”

It was always quiet in the observation lounge. There were plenty of kitchens and good food nearby, but the lounge itself was largely unoccupied. Masters had found it a wonderful place to recuperate and recharge. A quick stop at the delicatessen was the only break in the journey from work to relaxation.

Adria had been going far more than she expected since their recon flight had launched. Tired and hungry her next stop happened to be the Observation lounge. Placing an order before approaching a table with a lone hooded figure. "Seems we had the same idea."

"Oh, good, it's you," Masters pulled her hood down and revealed a rather disheveled look. Steam rose from a thermal contained full of a vegetable soup. "I meant to get in touch and thank you and your staff for everything they do to help us. I, uh, know it isn't much just to say it, but if you need any help from us, all you have to do is ask."

Taking a seat Adria started her meal. "My apologies for interrupting a short break. As far as the thank you, its in my job title to strap my behind to a bunch of explosives and battle the enemy. But your notice is appreciated. More often than not we go out there do our jobs, only to sleep if we can and do it all over again. Its nice to know someone else notices from time to time." She paused briefly.

"You know how it is," Masters replied. "We have to look after each other out here. Friends are far and few between."

Even though Adria was smiling the long hours showed. "There is something I could use your help with," she took a sip of her drink then continued, "We have problem that seems to be compounding itself at the moment. As it is we're short qualified pilots and now some of my pilots are temporarily grounded by medical."

"We're short too, I think everybody is. I've got some crews that are sick and tired of seeing each other, but there just isn't a way to solve the problem. Most of our instructors are the only ones qualified to fly thr bigger stuff, and with the heavy hauling going on with the project on the surface plus the preparations for this humanitarian aid mission, there just aren't enough people." Frustration was evident in Eliana's voice. "I'm stressing out over it, but don't tell anyone. I don't even know why I'm telling you."

Masters ate in silence for a moment before realizing that she has probably said too much.

Again.

"I'm sorry, I don't mean to vent. It's nice to have someone that will listen. If you just smile and nod, I shut up eventually.'

"You aren't the only one," Adria commented, "The more my crews are forced to fly short handed the more fatigue becomes a real factor. Aside from that we only have so many people qualified to swap birds. Like yours most of us who are happen to be instructor qualified on the fighter side. We risk being able to support everything we need to if the situation gets any worse." She took a bit then added, "You should see my office I have a lovely dart board up there. Not sure if makes the decision process any easier but it does make for an interesting form of stress relief."

"We've got an egghead that came up with some sort of algorithm that does ours. He says it's supposed to take in pilot's preferences, but there's not much of that going on right now. I hate it when flying turns into work, but it's starting to get that way for some of our folks," Masters lamented, taking a long drink of water. She took an equally long breath, releasing it slowly and letting some of the stress dissipate with it.

"I remember when I was assigned to a starship, I had so much downtime that we were starting to give lessons to anyone who wanted to learn. We need some of those man-hours right here, right now."

Adria shook her head, "I can't say I've had an assignment thats been that quiet. In the long run though we're going to have to see what we can do to improve things for both of us."

"Mmm, yes," Eliana nodded in agreement. "We're going to have to pull doubles for a while until we get a crop of instructors trained and ready to go. I suppose that's all that can be done. Unless another ship comes through and some pilots are willing to transfer on, that's going to be our best move I think."

"Yeah I'm already pulling doubles or more. But yeah I get what you're saying. Its safe to say we don't have any other options. However as I said before we can't just ignore the situation either." Adria paused, "Full fighter pilots take longer to train properly under ideal conditions but we don't have those either."

Misery loves company, and the two pilots were never going to make an exception of the idiom unless they could come up with some sort of idea. Instead of piling on, Ellie stayed quiet for a moment, trying to absorb as much encouragement and energy as she could out of her simple meal.

"How much of the training between our departments would you say is common? I mean, if you had to give it a percentage," Masters finally spoke.

"All the basic stuff is so I'd wager 30-40% possibly. Everyone other place I've been so far I've had easy access to fully trained pilots from the fighter school pipeline."

"What if we consolidated the basics into a common program?" Masters proposed a solution. "There is some commonality as you said, and it definitely would help with the limited personnel situation that we have. Tell me, what's your first reaction?"

Considering the proposal for a moment Adria nodded, "I think that idea has some good potential." She figured it was a good start to finding a more permanent answer.

"Okay, tell you what, I'm going to find someone to oversee this and I'll get back together with you and we can nail out the specifics. Necessity is the mother of all invention, and we certainly have a need, yes?"

Adria nodded an acknowledgement, "Precisely I may be a qualified instructor pilot myself but I have enough on my plate as it is already. Finding someone to oversee this idea is exactly what we need for it to succeed."

"Alright, sounds like we have a plan. I'll be in touch," Masters replied simply, gathering the remnants of her lunch before returning her attention to the conversation at hand. "Thanks for letting me bounce that idea off of you, I appreciate it."

Finishing off her meal Adria nodded to Masters, "Not a problem. I appreciate the chance to brainstorm potential solutions to the issue with you. Most within the flight world know me as Tempest or my friends call me Adria," Getting up to leave, "Time for me to head back to duty. Thanks again Commander."

"My friends call me by name. Ellie even, if the nickname is your sort of thing," Masters called after her. She did not wait for a response, as she too had work to attend to. The ability to talk to coworkers and have conversation was a big improvement from her last posting. Life was good.

The doors slid to a close behind her. The search was on.

OFF:

Commander Eliana Masters
Director of Flight Operations
Starbase 80

Lt Commander Adria Desoro
220th CAG
Starbase 80