The Adventures of Tyler Bardot

Stephen

Tyler wondered if this was what it was like to ride the subways of old back on Earth. Like she imagined her ancestors may have, knowing that her Mother's family had hailed from New York. She was dressed in civilian clothes and set out to really explore what it would be like to live on Starbase 86 assigned there as a pilot. Though she was primarily a fighter pilot she was told her unit, in particular, was also called upon to pilot other craft for more sensitive missions, and to be honest while she found flying shuttles and runabouts a lot less fun the purpose could definitely change that.

She had only been aboard the station for a little less than forty-eight hours now arriving at an odd hour that had caused issues in gaining her quarters and getting settled. It led to a lack of sleep but luckily she'd been given some time to recover from that and explore before officially beginning her duties here on the base and in the space around it.

Tyler had never served on such a large base before that had required something like a tram to transport you around and frankly she thought it was cool. Her previous flight assignment had been training, planetary based, or ship-based. She essentially figured that her duties would be much the same as they'd been when she'd been assigned to a planetary base but with the flair of sort of feeling like she was aboard a ship as well.

So far she had decided that it had not felt anything like a ship, it was too large to feel that way, instead, it felt like a small city. Perhaps a city that was on a planet not meant to hold life, a planet that required a dome, as if maybe terraforming was taking place just outside... her imagination was starting to get the best of her as she realized that she had not gotten off at her stop and the tram was now moving forward again. She sighed... once more around, she figured.

When she finally made it around in the circuit to the stop she had intended on getting off on she was sure to quickly disembark standing at the door waiting. Afraid that somehow the doors would close on her before she could get off and require yet another ride around the facility. To be honest, if that were the case she would have likely just returned to where she had started and called it a boring night. She got a few strange looks from others who saw her hasty escape from the tram. She smiled at them and then looked at some signage before selecting a direction and heading that way.

When she finally made it to one of the major promenade areas full of civilians, businesses, and few uniforms she took a breath. It was just like the air anywhere else on the station but somehow it seemed more satisfying... this would certainly be more fun than being on a ship for this reason. She liked the missions of shipboard fighter units but there was just so much you could do outside of a holodeck. Here the possibilities were much greater and she appreciated that.

Back when she was in Flight School her classmates when talking about assignments they were looking for dreamed of being on a ship with a large group. Some thought Tyler was odd that she hadn't found that appealing but quite frankly she liked space she liked having options. She didn't mind being on a ship but she preferred being in control. She didn't want want to be on a bridge being told which way to turn, pushing buttons because she was ordered to, she wanted to be in control of her own craft and make her own judgment calls. She knew that eventually in her career she would be ready to move into starship operations but in a manner that would allow her to prepare for command and make those choices for an entire ship and for many people, not just her.

Seeing a business she was somewhat interested in she came to a stop to browse through the window, an item in it catching her eye, she was about to turn to walk toward it when the person walking behind her collided with her. She turned and smiled at the annoyed-looking woman who was about her height and size.

"Sorry about that," she said, with a grin. "Newbie..."

"Well we move to the side before we just stop walking in the middle of a passageway here, got it?" she said, boldly confident.

"You bet," Tyler said, motioning the grumpy woman past her. "After you..." Tyler followed behind her as the woman continued on to wherever her destination was. "What's the best place around here to hang out and meet some new people?"

The woman ignored her.

"Do you not know? Are you new too? Or do you not like friends?" Tyler continued on.

The woman came to a stop to turn and give Tyler the evil eye but Tyler ran straight into the back of her as she had been glancing through yet another set of windows as they walked.  She grunted when she collided with the woman and then it was her time to scowl.

"You know you should really not stop short like that, people will walk into you," Tyler said. She watched the woman's expression changed trying to decide if she was about to get hit, yelled at, but then she smirked as the woman shook her head and a smile appeared.

"Five doors down on the left," the woman said, before reversing her course and going in the opposite direction of Tyler. Clearly, she wasn't taking any chances about running into her again. Or dealing with her questions or at times overbearing personality.

Tyler watched her walk off wondering what she did on the station, would she collide with her again, and then turned to begin walking again almost colliding with someone coming out of the business. "Excuse me," she said, blushing and she started off going to the fifth business on the left... wondering what she'd find there... and hoping to find some company.

Stephen

The small group of Valkyrie class fighters took off from Cassiopeia Outpost and got into formation heading into the The Triangle for patrol duties. Originally from Starbase 86 the group of eight fighters all belonged to the wing lead by Lieutenant Tyler Bardot. Only half the normal strength of the wing they would be breaking up further into four teams of two with each fighter flying with a wing-man to accomplish their mission. With the outpost having picked up on up what seems to be multiple freighters traveling through the area at very high warp speeds. The fighters picked up speed finally broaching the warp speed line once they left the station's protected zone.

"Anything of note?" Tyler asked her backseat.

"Just the known civilian traffic ma'am and two Starfleet Shuttles inbound to the outpost, ma'am," her Weapons Systems Officer reported. 

Tyler had not had a regular back seat since arriving at Starbase 86 due to some personnel issues but she was assured by the Air Group's commander she'd have one when the next crop arrived for assignment.

"Alright guys, time to split up... report when on station for your patrol sectors," Tyler ordered her fighters. As her and her wingman banked naturally together toward their starting waypoint. At the very least her wingman had been the same since she arrived. He was quiet and she didn't know much about him but they seemed to work well together and had easily anticipated each other's moves since she had arrived. She honestly wasn't sure how he wasn't given the wing but was glad she had been able to move up either way.

"What does the skipper think we're going to do if we find these freighters?" her backseat asked.

"Beats me," Tyler said. "I guess try and track them as best we can... but I hear they go pretty fast, no way we'd be able to keep up."

"I heard they go better than Warp 9," the WSO responded.

"Yeah, they do," Tyler agreed, with a sigh. "As long as we can pinpoint an origin point and direction of travel I guess that's better than nothing. They'll get a platform better able to manage here as soon as they can or as soon as we have better intel I'm sure."

"Likely," the WSO agreed.

"I'm sure there are some other activities out here that are suspect," Tyler mused. "I hear they're going to be sending some arrows out from 86 to the Outpost as well. So we'll likely end up trying to intercept some other bad guys and have them conduct boardings or something. But what do I know?" she said, shrugging, not that her WSO would have been able to see the gesture from his seat.

"Prim and Thunder have reported they've reached their patrol sector and are beginning operations," the WSO announced.

"Roger," Tyler said, simply. "We should be in ours shortly," she said, not that he wasn't aware. She increased speed to their cruising speed of Warp 3.

"New activity on the scope," the WSO said. "Looks like a civilian vessel flagged as a federation vessel. Speed is approximately warp five headed toward our patrol sector, ma'am, sending it to your screen."

Tyler looked at the computer's best guess as to the vessel's flight plan and let out a "hmmm," as she thought about it. "Looks like if we go to max speed we should be able to get an intercept on it based on angle. Lets go take a closer look shall we?" she said.

"You're the boss ma'am," the WSO said. "Still too far out for any more data."

"Here we go," she said, increasing to max speed and adjusting the fighters heading. Sure they likely weren't heading toward anything interesting but might as well practice the hunt when it came time for the real thing. Besides escorting federation traffic in a troubled area of space was one of their missions.

"I'll redirect sunshine and her wingman to meet up with us," the WSO said, hitting a few keys and switching radio frequencies.