The vast, holographic orrery of Stellar Cartography swirled around Lieutenant Aurin-Ah as he rubbed his chin with a single, pseudo-scaly knuckle. His other hand glided over the console, pivoting the point of view. His vivid blue eyes turned almost black as the whole field turned a bright, hostile red, carved through with what appeared to be channels of blackened smoke.
He pinched the screen, and the USS Christa McAuliff herself appeared, a bright band of higher resolution and softer color around her indicating her sensor range. The angry red cloud seemed to ripple and pulse around the outline of the ship, leaving a swirling wake, as if passing through water laden with sediment, or delicate smoke.
"Hmm," he hummed quietly, pivoting the view, comparing the ripples of subspace from the live sensor feed to the travel corridor. The
Nebula-class's larger, more powerful warp field and greater mass magnified its wake far beyond what he had become accustomed to on the geriatric, much smaller
Miranda. On the one hand, he would have to work much harder to create subground states, but on the other hand, the increased power and simply the physical deck space for more instrumentation and equipment opened the doorway for any number of avenues of research.
He began to mentally fill out the requisition forms, one taloned finger turning a circle over the console. It sent the room spinning in a way that would have been nauseating to most terrestrial bipeds, but which only stimulated his highly developed optics, and gave him the momentary, if illusory, sensation of free flight. Then he caught himself, stopping short.
He wouldn't have to have anyone sign off on anything. He was
Chief Science Officer. His staff were sending requisition forms to
him.
It was all still a bit dazzling, after years of elbowing for laboratory space, betting sensor cycles on hands of poker, and the metaphorical knives-out, cutthroat battles for dish control. He had had enough projects backed up that he had designed a device to flutter the engines to prompt them to drop out of Warp for a maintenance check, just so the
Jane Austen could drop to impulse and clear out the queue. He had
almost built it, out of frustration. Almost.
Tempting as it would be to monopolize it for his own purposes, he had a staff to think of, now. A staff he hoped he could keep from elbowing, gambling, and figurative shivving as much as he could manage.
His mind hadn't had too long to wander to his more mundane duties before his comm badge chirped, his chronometer warning him of an upcoming meeting of the senior staff.
Senior staff.
He could not help but bunch one cheek behind his beak, a learned gesture akin to a human smirk.
Entering a few points of data onto his PADD, and departed into the bright hallways of the
USS Christa McAuliffe, leaving the room in darkness behind him as he made for the Turbolift.
[ +- ] 'Curiosity is our most valuable tool.' -Lieutenant Aurin-Ah, Chief Science Officer, USS Christa McAuliffe
Aurin-Ah (who is content to go by Aurin in all but the most formal company) is an Aurelian, an avian humanoid, with oil-black plumage, highlighted by streaks of green at his wingtips, and in eyebrow-like highlights over his striking, solid blue eyes. Tall, for a human, he is average height for his people, with a slender, wiry body, stature magnified by both long legs and long neck. His face is dominated by a vast, hawklike beak, though he has learned to be quite expressive with both cheeks and eyebrows, and the occasional perk of facial plumage.
Over his shoulders, like a stole of office, he wears an open blue coat, loosely fastened at the waist, a symbol of his role as a scientist. Beneath that, he wears a version of a regulation uniform, cut off just below the knees and above the elbows. His feet are bare, a concession to his large, predatory talons, which are kept neatly filed and rounded to both spare the carpeting and to put the rest of the crew at ease.
More delicate claws emerge from the dusty, yellow-tinted pseudoscales of his hands. His right hand and forearm bear the scars of some disease or exotic energy burn, whitish lines carved in fractal, vein-like patterns that fade halfway to his elbow.
His service record indicates long but largely uneventful consecutive tours of duty aboard the USS Jane Austen, a vessel that performed deep space exploration near the Neutral Zone. While his studies are, like any good Starfleet scientist, wide-ranging, and the Jane Austen's mission outwardly exploratory, it is easy to see that his specialties in sensory apparatus and subspace theory would be a great strategic asset along the frontier still prowled by the Romulans, where a constant game of technological cat-and-mouse is played around cloaking devices and ever more sophisticated sensor networks.
The length of his service to Starfleet might suggest a higher rank for a competent officer, but he seems to have been passed over for promotion, the Jane Austen's findings published under a series of Chief Science Officers who served above him. A deeper reading of his record would reveal numerous transfer requests that were denied, until the Jane Austen was decommissioned for extensive refit, and its Captain retired from Starfleet service.
Aurin-Ah is generous in spirit, and somewhat garrulous, but is reserved about his own inner life, and is sometimes taken by melancholic moods. To lift his spirits, and those around him, he has a habit of celebrating the more jovial secular alien holidays, of which there are more than enough to fill a calendar year.
