Alpha Shift

Posted on Tue Feb 8th, 2022 @ 9:30am by Lieutenant Aiko Kato

Aiko woke up with a startle as her alarm went off.

Her alarm typically never went off unless...she was running late.

As she rubbed the sleep away from her eyes, she looked at the chronometer and quickly jumped out of bed upon realizing what time it was.

She was going to be late...she had only fifteen minutes to make it to the Bridge to start her shift.

Do I still have some of the sedatives in my system? Aiko pondered wondering why she had slept in. Usually, her body was accustomed to waking up at a particular time. She wondered if she was still feeling the side effects of the sedative. It was either that, or the shore leave time spent on Cait had been long enough to disrupt her typical sleeping patterns. She had also had trouble falling asleep from the night before...so that could have factored into it as well.

The reason was moot now, she concluded. She had to get moving, and get moving quickly.

She took off her sleep wear, removing her top and kicking of her pajamas pant off to the side in one fluid motion. She dashed towards the shared restroom facilities, and more specifically, the sonic shower, grabbing her toothbrush and toothpaste as she went.

It was only when she was in the shower, feeling the gentle but obvious subsonic vibration of the shower nudging away dirt off her naked form that she realized from the low but noticeable hum of the ship's engines that the Washington was at high warp.

Aiko had now been on board the Sovereign class starship long enough to be able to tell subtle variations in the humming sounds of the ship. She could tell when the ship was at impulse- sometimes she was able to tell if it was low or high impulse speeds. She could also tell when the ship was in low or high warp speed.

She was puzzled that the ship was at high warp speed however. She knew the Captain was eager to get underway, but she had assumed that it would be at the start of alpha shift. Apparently, the Captain had ordered the ship to get underway during gamma shift.

That told her that the new mission, whatever it was, was likely urgent.

All the more reason you shouldn't be late doofus, she mentally chided herself.

Satisfied with the limited time in the sonic shower, Aiko quickly rinsed out her mouth with water from a nearby faucet. She glanced at the holo mirror in horror at the state of her hair, which was in disarray from having just woken up. There was no time to fix that now, she surmised. She simply pulled it back as best as she could and put a hair tie around it so that it hung down the back of her neck.

There was also no time to touch up her appearance. She only had time to quickly lotion her face and body. She went back into the small wardrobe in her quarters and withdrew her duty uniform and began dressing herself. Luckily for her, this was something she had mastered after many years in the military and so she was dressed in seconds.

She dug her feet into her standard issue boot, and fixed her combadge to her chest. Next, she grabbed a padd and walked to the holo mirror in her quarters to take one look at herself to make sure that she was at least semi-descent despite just waking up ten minutes ago.

Satisfied, she headed into the shared living quarters. Her roommate was likely going to be on her way home soon, given that she worked gamma shift.

Aiko went over to the replicator and ordered a hot raktajino in a travelling mug and a granola bar before she started out the door only to bump into her roommate, Neela, sending the smaller framed Bajoran into the ground.

"Hey! Watch where you are going!" Neela protested.

"Sorry Neela...running late for my shift," Aiko replied. She stopped only long enough to help Neela up and check that she was unhurt before she started down the corridor. Somehow, Aiko had managed to avoid spilling a single drop of her raktajino, which greatly pleased her.

Neela, partially recovered from the physical collision, looked up at Aiko and after her as the latter headed away quickly. "What else is new?" she stated rhetorically as she smiled. "You should be fine though," she continued. "I left a bit earlier and Ensign...what's her name, was at the helm station when I was leaving."

"Thanks," Aiko shouted back. "Love to chat, but I gotta run."

Neela nodded and walked into the quarters only to pop out a second later. "Hey! Aiko! I thought you said you were going to clean the quarters today. It's your turn you know."

Aiko, who was now jogging to the nearest turbolift, turned around while jogging backwards to face Neela. "Promise to do it after the end of my shift, scouts honour."

"That's what you said yesterday!" Neela screamed back.

But by now Aiko had rounded a bend in the hallway and increased her pace to a sprint to catch a closing turbolift door. As luck would have it...or perhaps it was the intervention of one of the individuals on the turbolift, Aiko managed to catch the turbolift cars.

She nodded to everyone in the lift even as she had to pause to catch her breath while taking hot sips of her raktajino in between.

She spotted the familiar faces of the usual suspects from alpha shift, including the Executive Officer. There were a few missing faces, most notably Celes and Ayana.

Knowing those two, they were likely already on the Bridge, just as the Captain likely was already there. Aiko thought back to what L'Rissa had shared with her about Ayana and the Captain and felt herself blush as she pictured the two officers in bed together.

Clearing her throat, Aiko took another sip of her raktajino, this time unintentionally sipping for too long that she burnt her tongue and reflexively spit out the contents onto her tunic.

"Well...that's just fracking great."