Certifiable

Posted on Tue Mar 3rd, 2026 @ 1:30am by Ensign Noah Balsam & Lieutenant Commander Victoria Cross

Mission: Port of Call
Location: Pathfinder Station, Simulator Room, Deck Blue 28
Timeline: Mission Day 21 at 0800

[Pathfinder Station Simulator Room]
[Deck Blue 28]
[Day 21 0800 Hours]

Another furtive look back over his shoulder, and Noah Balsam spread a thin rumpled grimace over his too-wide mouth. The engineer in him respected that the Sojourner's Bridge was unavailable to them right now. Whether it was merely exposed to space or was wholly absent, Noah didn't know. But he also knew, as an Engineer, he desperately wanted to see the refit. But he didn't have the clearance. Or the vac suit. And he'd had quite enough of vac suits for a hot minute.

Instead, to be proctored, the test had been shifted to aboard Pathfinder Station and its simulators. Some day, it would be a space to test Delta Quadrant assigned personnel on the intricacies of the nearby species, polities and cartography. But those days were in the future. So the space had been available. And Noah's assigned proctoring for his Bridge Certification was happening here. Subrek's attack had thrown off many things on Sojourner's schedule. This was just one.

Noah was technically still on shoreleave. But he'd dressed in uniform, eschewing his gray sweats and t-shirts. Now he sat in an unbelievably real-feeling holographic simulation of the Sojourner's Bridge- albeit the "old version." No surprises on the refit, no spoilers, it seems. Noah had frowned at that when he'd entered the space. He'd found it empty.

Noah wasn't sure what to expect- if Cross was in an observation booth and would be throwing dilemmas at him from there. or would she be on the Bridge with him? This was his first go at the Bridge Cert training. It would just allow him to serve at a console- probably Ops or Engineering- and most likely during a night shift. He was too low on the totem for day shift.

So again he looked about furtively from the seat he'd taken in the aft area with the Main Ship/Status Display before him. "Hello?" He finally asked, hunched, hands folded and pushed through the gap of his thighs. "I'm here?" he said. His dark eyes swung. "Am I early?"

About a minute passed, and the bridge came to life. Captain Kodak entered the chamber, coffee mug in hand, followed by Victoria, Emni, and the other command level staff, save the Chief Engineer. Kodak ran his fingers through his beard, and then, just as soon as the world became animated, Victoria stepped forward from her post and things froze mid-moment. "Ensign, my name is Lieutenant Commander Victoria Cross, and I'm here to help prepare you for your Bridge Certification test. I know we haven't interacted much, but I don't want you to worry. Nothing we're going over today wasn't drilled into your head at the Daystrom Institute.'

She removed a PADD from her jacket. "Ensign, a lot of Bridge level work is reactivity, and as a Starfleet officer, you know that the only thing we can expect in life is the unexpected. Often routine voyages have to deal with sudden cosmic filaments. or a Q wanting to show off her new piano skills she picked up, or what have you. Today's command level functions test will involve SOMETHING, but you're going to decide what."

"Excuse me."

She turned around, and audibly made the effort into murmuring under her breath as she worked with her hands on something chest level, before turning around, an an old bowler cap in her hand, filled with colorful sheets of paper.

"Ensign, close your eyes and take one sheet of paper."

His face moved from apprehension, to curiosity. Cross was well-known among the "yellow shirts" as a bit of an eccentric. But what yellow shirt in a technical trade wasn't? "Um." He hesitated at the brim of the hat and for a moment drew his fingers back to bite at a fingernail, thinking. There was nothing to tell beyond the fact that he was staring at an anachronism. Paper was somewhat uncommon. "OK..." He breathed out. His hand circled. His eyes closed.

He finally reached in and pulled out a piece of the paper. Between two fingers, he extended it out to Victoria to take. "Did I win?"

Victoria took the slip of paper with a smile and looked it over, reviewing the code with her personal notes. Though she kept a chipper expression, there was a minute growing of concern in her eyes, but she straightened up and took the slip and nodded, uncertain at first, before giving a thumbs up. "Yep!" She uttered, turning away from him to turn back to her console, and activated a hologram emitter to bring up her command controls. With a deep sigh, she pressed in a sequence, reading off of the notes.

"There's a command-level issue in Deck 3," Victoria said softly, "Captain Kodak, Lieutenant Commander T'Nai, and I will be .." She rubbed her eyes. "We're going to be seeing to it, depriving the bridge of command level staff. You will be the highest ranking individual. You will be required to rely on your training and the Computer to guide you. Note that this circumstance is not likely in a Mission, but it MAY happen, because ANYTHING may happen, and you must be prepared to think on your feet. The exercise begins now."

Victoria made her way into the elevator, followed by Kodak, T'Nai, and anyone of higher rank than Noah. She offered Noah a vulcan salute, and the doors came to a close. A few moments later, there was a jolt in the ship, and the power flickered in a cycle across the bridge. A warning blared, and the lights went into low power mode.

Inside the 'elevator,' which hadn't actually moved, Victoria stood alone, and bounced her heels. She took a glance around the fake elevator shaft.

The 'command staff' was stuck, as planned.

Back on the Bridge with his lower-ranked holographic team, Noah stared briefly at the pulsing, languid symbol of a Condition Gray- low power mode. He swallowed. He blinked and ahemed in his throat. "Ok..." his voice was too soft. He blinked again. "O-okay we-we need to get power back online and get our command staff back. I know this-this sounds big but we can do it." Noah tried to encourage his holograms. "Tactical. I-I want you to work with CONN. Use that panel," Noah pointed at the turbolift door. "To manually get the uh doors open. Report in when you have that. Ops... you and I are going to try and reroute shipwide communications." Noah's lanky legs moved in to Ops and he stood over the officer. The panel was, thankfully, enough alike to when he'd done his exploratory shift at Ops when he was a Cadet."

"Let's check primary and secondary power first..."

Tactical, a fishlike alien with tubes connected to her throat filled with a clear, bluish fluid, nodded, the tendrils on her throat jiggling as she did so. She hurried to work on the panel to try to manually override the doors. Ops, a Tellarite with a frown on his face, huffed and looked over the low-power console of operations. "There's not much power to draw from. Maybe we can refocus power from one of three places? Science, Medical, or Shields? What do you think is best?"

"Pull from the shields if you need to..." Noah said. The ship had no sign of being in danger. Medical was always a priority if the ship was in alert status. Science, that was sensors. "But you should be-be able to just pull it." Noah said, meeting eyes with the Tactical Ichthyoid. "All-all turbolifts and essential shelters have a backup battery inside the access of the manual controls. Pump it a few times then press down. That should be enough."

Victoria inside the elevator shaft checked her nails, and removed a small pair of clippers from her pocket to try to pry ot a loose hangnail from her ring finger. She succeeded, and put her tweezers back into her pocket. She crossed her arms behind her mid-back and bounced on her feet. The truth of the matter was, she was just a few feet away from Noah, though with the holograms in play, she couldn't see him. She checked her control PADD and read over the specs of the program. He was doing great, but she had a curveball to throw. Or a handful. Noah was gonna get hit by a whole bunch.

"Here, uh, l-look," Noah traced a tertiary power conduit run from the fusion reactors to the emergency defense shields. "Hard route," his fingers tapped at keys, sliding, pressing, drawing new attention. "Computer, reroute tertiary junction 768-recursive to shipwide communications in subprocessor beta. Reboot and activate shipboard systems."

"Unable to comply. Enter authorization code and command override prefix." The computer stated.

"Authorization Balsam Iota 71 Charlie Delta 6 Ampersand. Emergency code..." His lips moved, his eyes closed and he had to try and remember. "Um... pause..." His hands rested on the console. "Oh... uh, emergency code 717." 717- the ship's command staff were cut off and actions had to be taken by junior officers, which while it allowed changes recorded them and prepared a data packet to Starfleet Command for a hearing. Whether the command team ultimately deemed it necessary for on them.

"Junior officer access. Authorization will terminate in ten minutes, or when command level authorization is received." The computer warned.

The ichthyoid crewman nodded, activating the backup battery. After a few pumps with her webbed hand, the battery charged, and the doors to the turbolift opened! Victoria was still stuck, halfway in a stalled turbolift car, but she was able to climb out with her crewmate's assistance. She stood and dusted herself. "Noah, a command level staff member is now present. In a proper situation, I would delegate to you and work with you all in resolving the matter of the bridge and trying to get some communication and normalcy back, and then proper investigation and procedure can be followed as the ship is restored. You did great. I heard everything. Excellent, excellent recall of emergency code 717 and staying cool under the pressure."

Noah dropped in to an attentive stance, a vestigial norm from being a Cadet, as he was spoken to by his superior- and proctor. "Yes ma'am," he nodded.

"Panic is the number one fuel of failure and it always, always makes situations worse. There's a time for panic, and there's a time for cool heads. Computer, reset program."

The Sojourner was back tot normal. Lights were on. The command staff were present.

Noah watched with a vertigo whirl, fade and fade in the Bridge reset along with its holographic characters.

"So. this life benefits from people who think fast and think on their feet. In my planning of this test, I programmed a few different scenarios, That said, it's up to you. Some of them are a little wacky, some are frightful. 'Command being trapped in an elevator' is a little silly, but it could also easily be 'Command is dead, and you alone can bring control back to the Sojourner' from a different perspective, so, in the spirit of that, I would like to run another test with you."

"Understood ma'am." Noah nodded once, keeping his eyes respectfully on her. Inwardly he wondered what the next exam would be. Standard Bridge operations and protocols was a vast subject, and while it had parallels, it was its own creature compared to duty in the ship's computer core. If he wanted to serve on the Bridge- either at Ops or at Engineering- he needed to learn them all. He felt a light quiver in his spine, his old sense of anxiety and apprehension about any test. In his mind something was saying this was all just a test. Could he do it in real life?

Victoria planted her hands on her hips. "You've gotten this far, I'm sure you're going to do great." She pulled the bowler cap from behind her back and offered it over, but first jumbled up the paper slips inside. She lifted her eyebrows and nodded towards the hat. The hat. Filled with different scenarios. "I promise you, I took out the elevator one, and the 'holodeck malfunction' one. The rest of these are pretty serious, but it's all just a matter of perspective."

From around his back the Ensign curiously tilted his head at the return of the hat, and whipped around his arm to pluck another paper from he hat. Between two fingers he extended it out to the Commander. "Hopefully we're not attacked by the Q..." he murmured with good nature, albeit with a flicker of concern that that might actually be an option.

"Oh, no, no. There's no Q, not here." She laughed. "The simulation we're about to undergo is.." She took the slip of paper, "Oh. A space derelict. Okay. The nature of this trial is to react to the unknown. The derelict is an ancient abandoned starship found in the system that will affect the ship's systems. Since you did great on the elevator mishap, I have a feeling you'll be up to the task for this. You'll have a full command staff of holograms to assist you, but they'll also be issuing commands, just like they would in the mission."

"Yes ma'am," Noah responded. His eyes set on the MSD at the back of the Bridge, and his station. His lanky legs took him to it. There was no chair so he stood, bent at the waist and fingers spidered out at the ready. Or as ready as he could be. He waited for the Commander to begin his second simulation of the day... and of the test. If it went OK, he'd be able to serve on the Bridge at the Engineering Station. "Ready." He said with a glance back.

A Post By:

Lieutenant Commander Victoria Cross
Chief Ops Manager

and

Ensign Noah Balsam
Systems Specialist