Leaving the mess, I kept hearing my name float up in the conversation. I made a point to ignore it. Reaching the corridor, I let out a sigh of relief as I was now out of ear shot of the damned gossip brigade. The Shingen easily had the most active and rabid gossip network I'd ever encountered on a fleet ship, which is saying a lot given the level of crap I'd heard about on Milliways sometimes.

I swung past my quarters, and checked my messages. There was something from Mouse with a note about how I should have put in a change of address with the post office, and he doesn't appreciate having to forward my mail for me. Also, when would I have some leave to come back and visit. I tossed back a quick reply that I had no intention of stepping foot on Milliways again if I could avoid it, but if he wanted to coordinate leave somewhere like six months down the road, I'd be happy to meet him somewhere. Also, I asked if he was reading my mail before forwarding it, and if so, was this anything interesting?

As tempted as I was to open the message Mouse had forwarded to me, I knew that I couldn't waste too much time before showing up down at the flight deck. Johnson hadn't had much left on his plate when I made my hasty retreat, and Cryn had stopped eating after I'd poked fun as his replicated gagh. He did claim to appreciate the real thing, so I wonder if he'd even been to Valanna's in San Fran. So I reluctantly made my way down to the flight deck.

"During her debriefing, she mentioned a program Spiegel put together for her to monitor comm channels. I'd like to get a look at it," Cryn said to Johnson. I entered the flight deck just as he was saying this, his back to me, and frowned slightly. Johnson was first to acknowledge my presence with a nod in my direction. I did the same so as to not break into their conversation, but apparently they were going to draw me into it anyways.

"Voralis was just telling me about a comm program that Lucas made for you," Johnson directed at me. I'd gotten so used to hearing everyone just call the dork Spiegel that it still throws me off to hear anyone use his given name. My face must have reflected this as the look that Johnson directed my way expressed confusion.

"He prefers to be addressed as Spiegel," I corrected, making an effort to be polite about it. This only seemed to confuse the Admiral more, as his mouth twisted into a slight frown.

"Mr. Spiegel didn't seem like the formal sort," he commented back at me, and I shook my head slightly.

"Just call him Spiegel, no mister attached." I explained, following Johnson and Cryn as they headed towards the Obama. As we reached it, Johnson stepped aside with a gesture to indicate he wanted me to go first. I awkwardly smiled as I moved past him, and darted inside without waiting for the door to finish opening. Demonstrating more patience than I was typically capable of, both men waited for the door to open all the way before they followed me in, giving me a chance to start settling in before they were there to watch and evaluate. I sat at the right front console, and pulled up the configuration I'd saved during the last trip in the Obama.

"How does the customization interface work?" Johnson asked as he settled into the chair to my left. I'd just started the preflight check, so I only spared a moment to reach over and trigger the customization mode on his console. Cryn was standing just behind me and to my left, so that he could easily look over both mine and the Admiral's shoulder, and without looking back, I could tell he was doing just that.

"For someone who complains about fleet consoles and training being so human specific, your console isn't that far off from fleet standards," Cryn observed after a couple moments observation, to which I shrugged.

"First ten years of my life were on Luna, I can't help it if I picked up some human habits," I dismissed. While I was saying this, Cryn placed a hand on the back of my chair and leaned forward to take a closer look at my console. Glancing back at him, I saw his eyes were directed to the lower left corner where I had a couple of programs displaying readings for me.

"Is that Spiegel's program?" he asked pointing it out among the group he'd been looking at, and Johnson finally turned his attention away from trying out the console customization. As I nodded, I elected to send the program to the main display to avoid having the two men move too far into my personal space. "You mentioned it would crash if someone it didn't recognize were too close, but it's running fine with us here." Cryn observed, and I glanced over my shoulder to find his eyebrow raised.

"When I opened it, it identified both of you from internal sensors, and asked if you were authorized. It gave me your name, rank and serial number," I explained, and indicated I was talking about Johnson, then turned my gaze to Cryn. "But it couldn't give me anything more than your picture and security clearances. It did list off some interesting security groups I haven't seen since my time with Delta Force and Terra Nova." Cryn coughed, then frowned, but Johnson had an amused look across his face. "I knew you were a spook," I couldn't resist ribbing him, and he retreated to the chair on the other side of Johnson.

"What would it take for me to get a copy of the program?" Cryn finally asked. I let a sly smile play across my lips and let him sit in silence a moment before answering.

"Spiegel really should give me a commission, I've spread more of his creations than he has," I quipped, not actually answering the question posed to me.

"Except for his book," Cryn corrected, and his tone of voice told me he was trying to regain an advantage in the conversation.

"I heard they're giving copies of the book to undercover agents for Starfleet Intelligence," Johnson commented.

"That'll really stroke the dork's ego." I initiated the takeoff sequence as I said this. "It tickled him pink enough when the Bastard started carrying around a copy of it with him."

"Bastard?" Johnson asked with a furrowed brow. Cryn chuckled a little.

"That's what she calls Shan," Cryn explained, and Johnson frowned.

"Therav's a good officer," he objected.

"He shot me in the back in a bar on Milliway's, sir." My statement was brisk and not without a tinge of anger.

"I'm sure he had a good reason."

"Apparently he was trying to keep me from getting into more trouble than I'd already found myself in," I all but growled. The Obama cleared the docking bay doors as I said this, and I pulled her sharply up, keeping the roof of the craft about a meter away from the outer hull of the Shingen. Johnson held onto the edge of his console, and Cryn steadied himself by holding the arm of his chair. "I don't care what his reason, there is never a justifiable excuse to shoot someone in the back. Ever."

"You turned the inertial dampeners down, didn't you?" Johnson asked as I banked the craft right and headed out to the open space just past the ship.

"Airsick bag's available from the replicator, pattern Diziara Greenhorn Four," I explained as I laid in a course. Cryn chuckled as Johnson looked back at the replicator a moment, but eventually elected to stay seated. I hardly paid him any mind, as I was laying in a course so I could focus on the holographic extension to the console.

"So, is it the fourth version of an airsick bag you've created?" Johnson asked, commenting on the pattern number. My laugh surprised him, and I took a moment before I responded, so I could display the stock holographic interface options on the main screen as I scrolled through the list.

"Do you know how to count on your hand in binary, sir?" I finally asked him as I paused on one that was labeled Stearman PT-17. Cryn smiled slyly as Johnson went through the motions to count out to four, ending up with only his middle finger extended.

"How subtle," was all Johnson had to say on that. I locked in the Stearman configuration, grinning widely as the console in front of me morphed into one that resembled the instrument panel in a PT-17 Stearman biplane. Analog gauges, switches and the control stick all laid out like I remembered it, and my hands wandered a moment without actually activating anything.

"Corey actually sent me the pattern when I'd complained about the greenhorns making messes in the shuttles I'd fly for away missions," I explained as I started actively adjusting the panel. Reassigning this gauge, adding that display, relocating the odd switch, there were so many things wrong about the preconfigured layout. Whoever had designed the adaption of the antique craft's panel to Starfleet technological needs clearly hadn't flown the biplane in question.

"Corey Waterhouse?"

"Yes sir."

"Will you stop calling me sir?"

"Yes, Sir." I felt like the Cheshire cat as my grin managed to double in size as I ribbed Johnson. Cryn chuckled softly, and Johnson looked from me to Cryn and back again a couple times.

"Waterhouse should have been an Engineer," he finally said, probably realizing that I was just needling him at this point. I couldn't help snorting in amusement.

"Yeah, that's pretty obvious to the most casual observer. It's Jack's fault he's a pilot instead."

"Figgins? How do you figure?"

"Went through the Academy with the pair of 'em." Finally satisfied with the configuration I'd settled on, I saved it and took the Obama out of auto pilot. "Corey freely admitted that he went through flight training to keep an eye on Jack and help him out, and he didn't have the time to spare to double major. I know he could have done it, if he wanted, but Jack and I would have seen almost nothing of him outside of class. It would have made my downtime horribly boring."

"Wasn't Jack in Red Squad? Why would he need looking after?"

"Corey and I shoe horned every last bit of education into him that he needed to maintain the grades for Red Squad," I explained, and tested the Obama's response to the stick by throwing her into a barrel roll. Johnson opened his mouth to object to this statement, so I continued talking. "Corey didn't care for the elitist attitude of the group, and I was too much of a trouble maker for them to let me in. Jack about had 'em sold to accept me, but then Admiral Paris went and spoiled it by making me punch him."

"Interesting take on that event, Owen tells it differently," Cryn commented with a chuckle. Before I could retort, Johnson took control of the conversation again.

"Jack's been a department head on the Monitor for a while now, he's shown no indication of needing as much help as you're implying. And Corey only recently transferred in, so he wouldn't have been able to prop Jack up into the position."

"Once you get the information into him, Jack holds onto it especially well. He had to eventually figure out what it was that Corey and I did to get him to retain information, and figure out how to do it himself. He's certainly not stupid," I explained, and started running through some of my favorite maneuvers. I tried to bite back my smile as I noticed Johnson glancing back towards the replicator.

"So, if you're not saying he's stupid, what are you saying is wrong with Jack?" Johnson finally asked. I pulled the Obama up short, and turned her back towards the Shingen.

"Nothing is wrong with him. He's just got a learning disability, and doesn't respond to the medications most people take to handle it," I explained with an annoyed sigh. Conversation came to a dead halt with this statement, and I fussed with the holographic controls a little more. "There's a little bit of a lag, but it probably wouldn't take much effort to iron it out," I finally declared. "So, are we going to get to keep the Obama for a little bit, or are we going to have to send her on to someone else soon?"

"I had to pull quiet a few strings to get you the first crack at her, but I'll do what I can to keep her here for a while. They're working to build a second one, so depending on how quickly that goes, it might take some of the pressure off to hand this one over," Johnson told me.

"They're going to upgrade the phase inducers on the second one, to the specs that Spiegel and Noelle recommended in their reports, right?" I asked, a slight frown on my face.

"As far as I know," Johnson answered. "Though knowing engineers, it's entirely possible they'll insist on not doing it and just posting a warning against playing near tachyon eddies."

"I don't know an engineer worth the air they breath that would dare do such a thing," I shot, possibly a little defensively. This brought the conversation to a halt, and I sat back in my chair, letting the Obama pilot herself from the course I'd laid in.

Eventually Cryn and Johnson started interrogating me on the ship's customizable consoles as if I was the one who wrote up the specs or built the damn thing. Even though I managed to satisfy their questions, I was wishing I'd insisted on bringing Spiegel along to field these questions. I saw some of the notations he'd made on the copy of the specs he'd been reading over in the mess earlier. At least my experience with holoprogramming helped me on fielding the questions about the holographic interface.

When they finally decided they'd had enough, and I was clearly growing weary from having been cooped up in the ship with them for so long without even my normal music to help balance things out, I laid in a course back to the Shingen. That's when they really blind sided me.

"How long has it been since you last got promoted?" Cryn asked me. His tone was innocent, but a quick glance in his direction made it clear he was up to something. Johnson's attention snapped up from his console as Cryn said this.

"You tell me. You're the one who went over my extended dossier with a fine tooth comb," I shot back.

"Nearly seven years," Johnson helpfully answered for me. Wondering what they were getting at, I turned to look at them both. Johnson had produced from somewhere a little box and had popped it open. A little gold pip, to replace my black one, was sitting in the box. "You're more than overdue."

"I think she was convinced she was going to die a Lieutenant junior grade," Cryn commented with a chuckle, and Johnson grinned at me. I was sitting in my chair slack jawed, and Johnson handed the box over to Cryn. I could tell there was more said in this gesture than I could decypher, but at the time I was still blind sided so it didn't even occur to me to even attempt to parse it out. Cryn changed out my pips for me, and Johnson told me that he had some good spirits tucked away if I wanted to celebrate later. I made a polite reply that neither accepted or declined the invitation, and the rest of the way back to the Shingen I was quiet.

Though, once I'd parted company with the Admiral and Cryn, I did hold my chin especially high to show off my new rank.

The arrival back to the Shingen wasn't too bad, given that we'd been to the mirror universe and back, and of course they had to take precautions that we really were ourselves and not our doubles. Noelle took it quietly and patiently, but it was clear she was relieved when they finally decided they could leave her alone, let her get on with recovering from the abuse Maddie put her through. Spiegel bitched and moaned through the whole process. It wasn't exactly a cake walk for any of us, but the True New Yorker came out in the dork during the ordeal. It wasn't good enough to suffer quietly through the indignities and insults of the welcome we were receiving, but he had to make it clear that he was receiving the worst of it. I know for a fact that he got the lightest and kindest touch, I think Marla likes him for some reason and doesn't realize he has a very strict no crew mates policy.

We'd written our reports on the Obama on the way back to the ship. There was a good amount of downtime with the distance we had to travel back to the ship, and without the stops at the various bars we had on the first half of the trip, it felt like it stretched out quite a while, so those are likely the best reports Spiegel and I have ever filed. It was probably pretty safe to assume that copies of the reports were distributed to everyone who had reason and authorization to read them, well before we actually made it back to the Shingen. That would explain why within 24 hours of our making it back on the ship, Admiral Johnson and his entourage arrived and noises were made about a proper debriefing.

Spiegel volunteered to go first, probably to get it over and done with, to better enable him to get back to his routine in Engineering. Since we brought him back from Andor, and his multiple year undercover assignment, Sharad had found himself tucked into Johnson's entourage. He got the task of debriefing Spiegel, which went fairly casually based upon Spiegel's mood and what he was babbling about when he got out. We didn't actually talk about the debriefing, but Spiegel had new topics for his book, and was talking about his cascade virus again, which lead me to guess that Sharad had approached these two topics during the debriefing. I had assumed that Johnson was just going to have Sharad conduct all the debriefings, so I was a little surprised when I entered the room to find a man I didn't know waiting for me. The debriefing itself was odd enough that I feel compelled to lay it out as accurately as possible so I can better analyze it later.

( Briefing Transcript )