Nitala was lying in her bunk reading a book, after their last mission was successful there was nothing much to do at the moment. Others moved throughout the bunk hallway going to either their bunk or going to work on something or other. A few moments later she heard her PADD ding which caused her to raise her eyebrows before picking it up and reading the context.

“What?” She said aloud which was meant to be inside her head but it escaped her lips. She looked around to see if she could see Ensign Jeden nearby. When she finally spotted her she walked over to where she was. “Did you get any orders popped in?” Nitala asked looking at her.

Jeden was lost in thought as she stepped up to her bunk after finishing an hour of laps in the pool when Nitala appeared beside her causing her to jump slightly. “Nitala,” she said in surprise, hand on her chest, “you startled me.”

Taking a moment she grabbed her PADD and glanced through it. “Yeah…,” she started then stopped and let out a groan, “I hate the cold…” she said as she read through the orders before pausing, “Seriously, we need to find wreckage from a borg ship.” With a sigh, she turned to Nitala, “Those the orders you meant? Got to love the lower decks…”

She nodded not looking forward to going in the cold let alone recovering items from a Borg wreckage, not after the events of Frontier Day. At least she knew she wouldn’t be the only one who would be going. 

Tav sighed contentedly as he slid his last photo into place on the wall of his bunk. A place for everything, and everything in its place, as his mother used to say. Tav didn’t mind the limited personal space afforded to him as a fresh-faced ensign. Some of his friends from the class above him had complained about the living quarters when they got to their first billet last year, but Tav had grown up with not much more than a bunk bed and a locker, so this suited him fine.

Tav had just settled down with his PADD to start reading up on Galaxy-class specs when a priority message popped up in front of the tech manual: his first assignment! Tav sat up so fast he smacked his forehead on the bunk above him, and then tumbled out of his rack without skipping a beat. He was excited to talk about his first task on the Columbia, but Tav didn’t know anyone yet. He’d barely met his division, and remembering a dozen names upon hearing them once was not Tav’s strong suit… 

Tav scanned the faces of his fellow shipmates scattered around the bunk hallway. Holding up his PADD, he asked the room “I, uh, have a two-part question: A, is anyone else about to go trekking through the snow for Borg parts, and b, is this normal?”

Nitala looked at the young Ensign and held up her hand. “We are,” she replied. “Well, anything’s possible with Starfleet to be sent on unusual assignments.” She added with a grin though she wasn’t fond of the idea of going on a frozen planet to gather Borg parts. 

Jeden looked over at Tav and nodded, “It will be fun, though the borg has poor taste, a nice tropical beach would have been more fun.”

Talibah stepped out of the Don shower and reached for her hairbrush as she heard her PADD ping with an incoming message. She walked over to the table where she left it and ran the comb through her hair and picked it up. “Oh bloody hell. Time to find the others and see if they know anything more. “ She quickly got dressed for the start of her shift.

Tav turned to focus on Nitala and waved at her as he approached. “Yeah, I suppose that’s true, just didn’t expect to be worrying about assimilation on my very first away mission. I’m Tav, by the way! I mean, Ensign Tav Maddox. Tav is fine though. Or Maddox. Or Mads. My friends used to call me that at the academy.” Tav stuttered out in rapid fire. “On the other hand, might be pretty sweet to get my hands on some advanced tech! So far the most exotic piece of equipment I’ve been elbow-deep in was a Ferengi impulse drive. I think even the stem bolts were gold-plated.” His tone changed quickly, the hint of fear of the Borg morphed into excitement as he contemplated tinkering with some green and black gadgets!

Talibah entered the bunk hallways looking for familiar faces to check in with. Seeing a small group of ensigns and overhearing one of them mention Borg tech she made her way over to the group and cleared her throat.

“You too?” Nitala asked looking at Talibah. “This is going to be a very strange mission though I am not particularly looking forward to it.” She said with a wince and wrinkled eyebrows. They chatted amongst themselves for a few minutes about the mission. “We better get bundled up and head down to the shuttlebay,” Nitala suggested as they were due to depart shortly.

“Yeah, looks like we have just enough time to get the cold weather gear out of storage and other supplies,” Jeden said as she slipped her uniform jacket over her shirt. “Best get some phasers as well, with our luck there will be drones looking to tango.”

“Y’all ever danced on Dirigo III? The colonists there came up with this zero-g dance called ‘Flight Pursuit.’ It’s like a zero-g tango!” Tav exclaimed, probably to himself. He quickly downloaded a few engineering reports on Borg tech to his PADD, grabbed his favorite pair of working gloves out of his locker, and turned to the group. “I’m going to go grab my tool kit from engineering. Does anyone else need gear or kit that they want me to grab? If you grab me a medium jacket and a phaser, I’ll grab your tools and meet you in the shuttlebay.” 

“Sounds good,” Nitala replied as they all split to get prepared before meeting back up in the shuttlebay.