Hitchin' a Ride, Part 1

Posted on Mon Feb 16th, 2026 @ 8:00am by Lieutenant Urvasi Elandorn & Commander Ash Randall & Starfleet NPC

3,968 words; about a 20 minute read

Mission: 7. Guile
Location: Runabout Holana
Timeline: 2439-08-13, 08:00

The cockpit of the Runabout Holana was a far cry from the controls of a shuttlecraft. The latest Rio Grande Class runabout deployed to DS9, the Holana's control center was like being inside a high-tech command center instead of the control room of a family camper van in space. It didn't have the grandeur of the Enterprise's Bridge, but it held a passionate energy that was unmistakable. Even though it was not too dissimilar to the cockpit of the older Danube Class, there was something about being at the helm of the Holana that was comforting and exciting all at the same time.

Passing through the hatch from the living module, Lieutenant Commander Leic Pragal quickly walked over to the leather-trimmed flight controls on the port side of the room. Sliding into the firm chair, the Cardassian's fingers hovered over the control console, the LCARS interface chirping its soft melody as he checked on their trip to Bajor. It was a three hour flight from DS9 to the Bajoran homeworld and Leic was happy to make the trip. As much as he loved the station - he was its Chief Engineer after all - he was happy to get away from time to time. It gave him the chance to clear his head.

His ash-colored fingers slid across the transparent aluminum controls, adjusting the throttle to make them travel a little bit faster toward their destination. He glanced to his right at the tactical display, showing the status of the micro-torpedo launchers and the shield harmonics should they be needed. It was unlikely, but he always liked to be prepared for the unthinkable. It made him feel like he was worthy of such a critical assignment as DS9.

Glancing over his eyes went to the massive forward window that looked out toward the stars. The reinforced canopy arced downward, making it feel like he was suspended over the abyss of space, peacefully floating amidst the stars. Then the engines accepted his command. The impulse engines kicked in, causing the stars to shift as the vessel sped up in its journey. The deck plates vibrated slightly beneath his feet as the inertial dampeners compensated for the increase in speed, a solemn reminder of the power upon which they traveled.

Looking to his right he saw that the remaining auxiliary stations were dark for now, his passengers in the living module behind him. The black screens gently reflected the glow of the HUD that overlaid the windows. A soft glow played over the panels from the recessed lighting, a gentle glare on the clear coating. It was peaceful in the cockpit, peaceful enough that you could hear the rhythmic hum of the Warp Core built into the upper spine of the craft. It was like piloting in a dream.

A rapid series of beeps from his console pulled him to the waking world. Leaning forward, the Cardassian read over the display's wall of text as quickly as he could. It was a reminder, they were nearing their destination already. It was hard to believe, and a little sad for the Chief Engineer.

Reaching up to his chest, he gently pressed the delta shaped badge, "Pragal to Commander Randall."

"Randall here, Pragal. Go ahead." Came the almost, immediate, response.

"We're approaching Bajor, Commander, I thought you'd want to know," Leic explained as he typed on the controls, his fingers dancing over the obsidian-colored display.

"Right." She replied, after a few seconds. "Thank you. Naptime is over." She added, with a little chuckle before closing the channel.

In another bunk, dressed spacer leathers with a life support belt around her waist, Urvasi had been pleasantly napping while waiting to perform the test flight maneuvers. Her ears, in hearing Ash's voice, pointed to the wiley Tuansee as her mind quickly went through the layers from her dream running through a beautiful tree road to reality where she was present in the shuttle. It was only a few moments from the words to her sitting up and opening her eyes, "Ready and willing, Ash."

"Excellent. Should be fun." The engineer replied, with a toothy grin and stretched, from the tips of fingers the tip of her tail and then yawned. "Puberty sucks." She announced. "Bouncing off walls one minute and ready to fall asleep the next is, sooooo, annoying." She added, following up the statement by issuing a loud, ascending, raspberry to punctuate a descending, double, thumbs down, gesture.

Urvasi tilted her head and replied first with a yiffer, then with a question, "Wait... Puberty? Sooo, I gather your race is pretty long lived?"

"Yeah..." Ash started to respond, giggled, and then scowled for a second before shaking her head. "...ummm, anyway, six or seven hundred years isn't uncommon from what I gathered when I studied my people but I think we can live a lot longer than that if we want to." She admitted, and looked pensive for a few seconds. "In human terms I'm about 14 or so, physically. The only plus I no longer look like a, grey, plush toy." She joked.

Urvasi thought a moment, then nodded, "Okay, so, your mental age is way farther along than your physical age, and... *yiffer* grey, plush toy? You will have to show me a photo... if it doesn't bother you. On age... wow, that is a long time. Well, if you want to talk about it later, over drinks, dinner, girl's night out, my race lives over 270 Terran Years while Ensign Yumerieva's race lives to 200. So, at my side, while I am Terran years 39, I am actually 21 Anararhs my race time, still a young adult. Oh, Vulienrey are young adult at 12 Anararhs to 49 Anararhs, so consider me in my mid 20's Terran wise, I think? Anyways, anyone you can pair with on the Enterprise to help you through? In our Adolescent years, we are usually in dorms with one male and three females to allow for learning, interaction, and understanding difference. Nothing intimate wise, just mutual hand pleasuring, but it helps, especially with good guidance from instructors."

"Tuansee are not supposed to be alone and a population of Tuansee, from small groups to millions, have a connection...a telepathic link that is built through familiarity, so no Tuansee is ever alone if there is another Tuansee that they've been familiarized with, either directly or by affiliation through the familiarity of another." Ash explained. "I didn't have that before visiting their colony and I was, somewhat, the worse for it. Now, though I am considered an outsider, I have been welcomed into that connection and I am not alone, in my head at least, and I can sleep now." She added, with a sigh. "we'll have to talk about it some time."

The tension held within Urvasi's shoulders visibly went away. She replied, "I'm happy to hear that, and sounds good." She nodded towards the front of the shuttle, "So, when is our turn?"

Ash pointed her right thumb back over her shoulder towards the cockpit door. "Oh, this isn't the buggy we're taking for a spin." She replied, with a little bit of a giggle. "What we're going to test is waiting for us to arrive." She added, with a couple nods and then a big grin. "We get to run through its paces something...well, different." She finally summed up and tapped her badge.

"Commander Progal, we're up -n-attm back here. Mind if we sit in up front for the last bit and do some sight seeing." she asked, a note of humor in her voice.

In the cockpit, Leic’s focus remained tethered to the Holana’s systems. To anyone else, the faint vibration in the deck plates was just background noise, but to a trained engineer, it was a diagnostic language. He liked the tangible logic of the Rio Grande Class; it was a puzzle that stayed solved once you tightened the right bolt. He didn't turn his head with the comms channel, but he did allow himself a brief, private exhale. The conversation drifting from the living module was precisely why Leic preferred the company of a warp core. Machinery was predictable. Biology, especially the diverse biology of a 25th-century Starfleet crew, was messy, loud, and frequently overshared. When Ash’s voice chirped through the badge again, requesting cockpit access for "sight-seeing," Leic’s fingers paused over the environmental stabilizers. He preferred his workspace quiet, but he wasn't a tyrant. Besides, the mission required cooperation, and he was nothing if not efficient.

"The cockpit's open, Ash," the Lieutenant Commander replied, his voice a steady baritone that carried the precision of his Cardassian heritage. "Just mind the tactical override on the starboard side. I’ve calibrated the sensors for the Bajoran atmosphere, and I’d prefer not to have to recalibrate them because someone leaned on the console."

A yiffer burst out from Urvasi as she grinned towards Ash, saying, "No touchee touchee, Ash."

If they answered he didn't know because his attention returned fully to his instruments at that moment, his ash colored fingers gliding over the controls as the runabout received clearance from Bajoran Space Central. He shifted his weight, making room without actually leaving his seat. As the hatch slid open and the duo entered, Leic kept his eyes on the forward window. Bajor was beginning to swell in the darkness, a marble of clouds and continents that represented so much historical weight - weight that Leic tried not to think about too often as a Cardassian in Starfleet.

"You’re just in time for the descent vector," he said, gesturing vaguely toward the auxiliary stations that were now flickering to life as he transferred monitoring permissions. "And to answer your earlier excitement, Urvasi, we are approximately twelve minutes from the orbital dock where your 'buggy' is moored." He glanced at Ash out of the corner of his eye, a faint, dry smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth. "I hope your 'different' craft is as well-maintained as this one. I’d hate to have to spend my shore leave on Bajor putting a tail-pipe back on a prototype."

He turned back to the controls, his movements economical and fluid. "Commander Randall," he called out, not needing the comms now that they were likely within earshot. "Permission to begin the atmospheric entry sequence? Or do one of you want to take the wheel for the 'scenic route'?"

Her ears focused on Leic as her tail end moved expressively. Urvasi requested, "Commander Pragal, might I take the helm? I would love to get us through."

Leic’s fingers hovered over the primary impulse manifold, the amber light of the console reflecting in his dark eyes. He didn't immediately move. He viewed the helm not as a seat of glory, but as a finely tuned interface of physics and engineering. Handing over his "clean" flight path to someone else, especially someone who had just been discussing "yiffing" and adolescence, was an exercise in professional restraint. He glanced at Urvasi, noting the expressive movement of her tail. The biological exuberance was a stark contrast to his own still, methodical posture. He checked the telemetry one last time; the Holana was currently riding a perfect gravitational curve toward the Hathi Peninsula.

"The Rio Grande class is more responsive than other runabous," Leic cautioned, his tone dry but not unkind. "The inertial dampeners have a microsecond lag if you bank too hard during the transition from vacuum to thermosphere. Keep your pitch at 32 degrees, and she’ll treat you well." He tapped a sequence on his board, slaving the primary flight controls to the station beside him before sliding his chair back to give her room. It was an economical movement, wasting no energy. "The floor is yours, Urvasi," he said, folding his arms across his chest. "I’ll stay on the environmental and structural integrity monitors. If I see the hull stress climbing above 15%, I’m taking her back."

Urvasi performed a slight bow of respect with gratitude as she said, "Thank you, and I understand." She sat down into the seat and read over the controls. She undid the unlock, then sat there for a few moments, feeling out the ship.

"Commander Randall," Leic said, glancing back toward the Chief Engineer of the Enterprise as the first faint shudder of entry vibrated through the deck. "We have a new pilot. Brace for the 'scenic route.' I've got the sensors locked on the orbital dock; we'll be in visual range of the test craft once we level out at thirty thousand meters." He watched Urvasi's hands on the controls with the silent, intense scrutiny of a man who could hear a misaligned bolt from three rooms away. As Urvasi took the controls, Leic turned his gaze back to the massive forward window. The thin, glowing ribbon of Bajor's upper atmosphere began to shimmer against the black of space. It was the moment where engineering met the elements, where the friction of ionized gas tested the shield harmonics he had spent the morning calibrating.

With her initial feel completed, Urvasi reached out to create a grid on the HUD as she now did a flight telemetry check of control responsiveness. She shifted the Holana to the left a couple of degrees while maintaining forward course, then to the right, then up, then down. She did away with the gridlines as she returned to the original bearing with a fluid grace of an experienced pilot knowing a ship.

"We're in good hands, Commander." Ash asserted, from her Auxiliary seat. "The Lieutenant piloted the Sundweller at, ill advised, Slipstream speeds yesterday. I do not believe she'll have any difficulties here." The Chief Engineer added, not elaborating on just how the Sundweller was capable of slipstream in the first place.

"Slipstream," Leic repeated, his voice maintaining its flat, Cardassian cadence. His brow ridges twitched upward ever so slightly at the mention of Slipstream. As an engineer, the word alone triggered a mental cascade of structural load calculations and quantum phase requirements. If this Sundweller had been pulling those kinds of maneuvers, he was suddenly much more interested in the project awaiting them.

He settled back into his seat, his arms crossed over his Starfleet uniform. While his posture was relaxed, his eyes remained locked on the secondary diagnostic feed. He watched the plasma build-up outside the forward canopy as the Holana bit into the upper layers of the Bajoran atmosphere. The orange glow began to lick at the edges of the transparent aluminum, casting flickering, fiery shadows across the cockpit.

"Entry interface in five seconds," he noted, more for Urvasi’s benefit than his own. "Watch the thermal bloom on the nacelles. The Rio Grande vents heat through the secondary pylon assemblies—if you feel a shudder to the left, it’s just the baffles clearing. Don't over-correct."

Urvasi's tail flicked into an upwards motion, steadied, then went back to its gentle flowing movement behind her. "Understood, and thank you for that heads up, Commander."

The runabout began to vibrate—a steady, teeth-rattling hum that signaled the transition from the silence of vacuum to the resistance of air. Leic’s internal clock was counting down the milliseconds of dampener lag he’d warned about. He didn't look at Urvasi, but he could feel the shift in the craft's energy as she took command. He respected competence above all else; if she could handle slipstream, she could handle a standard planetary descent.

While it looked like Urvasi was motionless, she was actually feeling out the vibrations with her vibration sense hairs, using that initial entry time to feel more of the 'who' the Holana was rather than just the 'what'. She matched the rise to the readouts, then performed a very, small, waggle of the aft section. There, more was known... and, timed. When the venting occurred, the ship did not variate from its course. Urvasi used very fine movements to exactly compensate for the left shudder with a right shudder exactly timed. She shifted the controls a little further into the decent, deciding to keep hull stress exactly just under 10%, allowing for sudden shift needs, but yet allowing the time of landing to be just ahead projected time. She said to both, "Thanks, this is just the enjoyment I desired, flying with Holana is great."

Leic remained perfectly still, his arms crossed over his chest, but his eyes were a whirlwind of observation. He didn't just watch the LCARS displays; he watched Urvasi. Specifically, he watched how her physical responses - the flick of the tail, the stillness of her posture - translated into the telemetry of the Holana. When the atmospheric venting occurred and the ship didn't so much as twitch, Leic’s mouth thinned into a line that, for a Cardassian, was the equivalent of a beaming smile. She wasn't just reacting to the ship; she was anticipating its mechanical sneezes. That kind of intuitive compensation was rare, even among veteran Starfleet pilots.

"Ten percent hull stress. Precise," Leic murmured, more to himself than anyone else. "You’re riding the edge of the envelope without fraying the seams. It’s... efficient." As the plasma fire outside the forward canopy faded from a violent orange to a soft, hazy violet, the vast blue expanse of the Bajoran oceans came into view. The vibration smoothed out from a rattle to a low, melodic hum.

"Pressure is holding at ninety-eight kilopascals. Shield harmonics are steady," Leic reported, his fingers finally uncrossing to tap a correction on his side-panel, fine-tuning the oxygen mix to compensate for the exterior heat. "We’re through the worst of the ionization. Visual coming up on the Jalanda City orbital dock in three... two... one."

As the Holana leveled out, a silver needle appeared against the sapphire horizon. Moored at the furthest exterior pylon was a craft that stood out like a jagged diamond among pebbles. It shared the aggressive, swept-back lines of the Delta Flyer, but its scale was jarring. It was no larger than a standard shuttlepod. It looked less like a transport and more like a warp core with a cockpit strapped to the front.

Leic leaned forward, his professional curiosity finally overriding his stoicism. "There is the test craft, Ash. I assume that is the 'different' experience you promised? It’s essentially a locket-sized interceptor. I’d like to get a look at its propulsion assembly before you two try to break the Warp barrier with it."

"That will be up to the proud parents of this baby." Ash replied, quietly, her eyes locked on the tiny craft.

"Fortunately, I know them better than you do," the Cardassian joked.

He glanced at Urvasi, his expression unreadable but his tone holding a new note of professional respect. "The orbital dock is signaling berth seven. Keep that fluid grace through the final approach, Lieutenant. I’d hate to have to recalibrate the docking clamps because we got distracted by the shiny new toy."

Ash chuckled at the comment and shook her head.

Urvasi's eyes only flicked once to the craft, then back to the viewscreen and instruments. Her entire focus was getting the ship to softly land and setting into the docking clamps without a hiccup. She responded to Leic with an ingrained response, "Commander, Helm, Berth Seven, Heard." Using her TK, she brought up the station's berthing sequencing and then shifted the Holana in a graceful arc towards berth Seven. She checked that the gravity plates were still active in the ship, and then as she got near to the berth, she performed a rear over nose maneuver even as she rotated left 180 degrees. The Holana's speed continued to shed as the ship got near the clamps, now facing outward from the berth. Verifying their position with instruments, Urvasi also spatially tracked where they were within her mind's compartments. The Holana settled with nary a bump into the docking clamps, their sound and vibration now felt clamping onto the runabout. Urvasi powered down the flight controls and locked them, and only then did she totally relax and turn around to fact the two others in the cockpit. Her ears were focused on Leic, whiskers at a forward 45 and down 45, head tilted slightly, as she genuinely asked, "I hope that met with your desired satisfaction, Commander Pragal?"

Leic didn't answer immediately. He remained focused on his auxiliary console, watching the final dissipation of thermal energy and the green "Confirmed" icons indicating the docking clamps had achieved a 100% seal. The "rear-over-nose" maneuver was a flourish he would have deemed unnecessary on paper, yet he couldn't deny the mathematical cleanliness of her execution. He finally looked up, his dark eyes meeting Urvasi’s. Cardassians rarely smiled, but the tension in Leic's neck had vanished.

"The structural integrity field didn't fluctuate by more than 0.02% during your final rotation," Leic stated, his voice a calm, resonant baritone. "And you settled into the clamps without triggering the station's inertial compensator alarms. On Deep Space Nine, I usually have to replace the docking ring gimbals every six months because pilots treat the station like a target and the clamps like a net." He unbuckled his harness and stood up, the fabric of his uniform smoothing out as he adjusted his posture. "Satisfactory is the wrong word, Lieutenant. It was efficient. In my department, that is the highest form of praise."

Urvasi blushed lightly as she performed a light Vulienrey bow with a "Thank you for that praise." She stood up to get ready for leaving the Holana.

He turned his head toward the forward window, where the diminutive Flyer-style craft sat gleaming under the artificial lights of the orbital dock. It looked even more formidable now that they were stationary. Its hull was a deep, matte charcoal that seemed to drink the ambient light, and the nacelles were tucked tight against the fuselage, giving it the appearance of a predator coiled to strike. "Now," Leic said, gesturing toward the hatch. "Before you and Ash take that... whatever it is... out for a spin, I intend to crawl into its service manifold. If it’s as fast as Ash claims, I want to make sure the power conduits aren't going to liquefy the first time you hit the throttle."

He glanced back at Ash with a dry, knowing smirk. "Since I know the 'parents' of this project, I know they tend to favor performance over safety margins. I’d prefer not to file a report explaining how I lost two of the Enterprise's finest to a blown plasma relay. Shall we?" he asked, his tail-end sentence clipped with the professional impatience of a man who had a new engine to dissect.

Ash looked to Urvasi, a question behind her eyes, and shrugged, ever so slightly. "After you." She said, with a gesture of her hand and moved to bring up the rear following after Leic. "There are always risks. Most accidents happen when the risks are not known or not, properly understood or prepared for." She mused, aloud.

Urvasi yiffered lightly at the two differing styles of the Engineers before her. She replied to Leic, "A second check over, especially from someone in the know, is always welcome, Commander Pragal." She shifted around and led the way off of Holana and towards the Stealth flyer. She did not know if fighter or scout, but it was a stealth something. It reminded her of an ancient flying craft of Terra, the SR-71 Blackbird, one of the fastest aircraft with the highest altitude fast flying for a long time, used for recognizance. She moved over to start studying exact layout of nacelles to impulse to thrusters with placement to start understanding maneuverability.

TBC: Hitchin' a Ride, Part 2

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