Callsigns and First Impressions

Posted on Tue Jul 28th, 2026 @ 3:30pm by Lieutenant Junior Grade Ralen Vessa & Lieutenant Pete Mitchell & Lieutenant Phyllis D'Lar & Lieutenant Junior Grade Nick Bradshaw & Lieutenant Junior Grade Hadassah Rey & Ensign Stryvek & Ensign Edruj Daughter of Thrawn

2,106 words; about a 11 minute read

Mission: Mini Mission-Adjustments [USS Orcrist]
Location: Main Flight Deck, USS Orcrist

Vessa found the flight deck before she found half the rooms she was actually supposed to know about.

That said more about her priorities than her sense of direction.

The Orcrist’s main flight deck was alive in the way proper flight decks were never quite allowed to be on reports. Technicians moved between craft with toolkits and diagnostics, gantries shifted overhead, power couplings hummed beneath the deck plating, and the air carried that warm metallic bite of systems being tested hard before anyone trusted them with lives. It was noisy, busy, half-organised, and full of people pretending the whole thing was under control.

Vessa liked it immediately.

She walked the line with her jacket open and her hands loose at her sides, taking in the fighters, support craft, launch markings and maintenance crews. She had already read East Mark’s files. She had looked over the assignment blocks, watched the readiness board update, and found three different places where the official schedule was probably lying to make someone in Operations feel better.

Files were fine. Decks were better.

Ships told the truth if you knew where to look. So did pilots.

East Mark’s birds were sitting clean enough to make her suspicious. She stopped beside one of them, looking over the hull with narrowed eyes, then crouched long enough to check the undercarriage and landing stress marks. Someone had done good work. Someone else had polished over the parts that usually told better stories.

“Pretty,” she muttered. “That’s never comforting.”

She straightened and glanced across the deck toward the other assigned flight sections. Edoras. West Mark. Her two opposite numbers were somewhere aboard, unless Starfleet had decided that empty chairs improved morale.

Lieutenant Pete Mitchell was the name that stood out. Every pilot had names they knew before they ever shared a deck with them. Mitchell was one of those. Starfleet’s Top Gun programme had a way of turning skilled pilots into rumours with service numbers, and from what Vessa had heard, Mitchell had spent years making both instructors and regulations sweat. Half the stories were probably exaggerated.

The irritating part was that the other half probably were not.

Phyllis D’Lar she knew less about, which made her more interesting. West Mark Flight’s numbers looked clean, but clean records could mean discipline, careful reporting, or a talent for not getting caught. Vessa was willing to respect any of the three until proven otherwise.

She took one last look at the fighter beside her, then moved toward the pilots’ ready area off the flight deck. It was not a briefing room, not really. More useful than that. A place for helmets, coffee, half-finished checks, bad jokes, worse advice, and the kind of conversations senior officers only heard about later in sanitised form.

Good.

That was where flight leaders actually met.

Phyllis was sitting in a chair, chuckling over a book she was reading. When the door opened, she looked up and grinned. Then she set her book down to focus her attention on the newcomer. "Hi there. You must be our new flight leader. Ralen Vessa, right? Welcome aboard. I'm Phyllis. Phyllis D'lar. Welcome to pilot country."

For half a second, Vessa just looked at her.

Not rudely. Just long enough for the surprise to register before she smoothed it over. Phyllis D’Lar looked more like someone who ought to be holding a sun hat and giving firm opinions about flowers than commanding a flight section, which, Vessa had to admit, was already interesting.

Then her mouth curved.

“That obvious, huh?”

She stepped properly into the room and gave a small nod. “Ralen Vessa, yeah. East Mark.” Her eyes flicked once toward the book, then back to Phyllis with a warmer edge than before. “Pilot country, is it? Good. I was hoping I’d finally found the part of the ship with the least amount of pretending.”

That made Phyllis laugh. A loud, happy laugh. "I'm not laughing at you. I'm laughing at the idea that pilots don't pretend. Oh, we don't gloss over our opinions, but I've heard more cock and bull stories from pilots than just about anyone else. Except maybe Marines. But it's usually about flying, so the rest is true enough. I saw the notification about your transfer here and Starfleet has to send photos so we'll recognize you on sight. I'm absolutely certain the others will be happier to see your face than mine."

Vessa’s eyebrows lifted a little.

“Starfleet sent photos?”

For the first time, she looked genuinely concerned.

“I hope they used the Academy one. Or the transfer file one. Anything official.” She paused, then added, dryly, “If they pulled anything from Risa last summer, I’m transferring myself back off the ship before Mitchell gets here.”

Phyllis laughed again. "No. Sorry. Nothing that interesting. It was your last official Starfleet photo. Although you could always save the Risa photos in case you need to get out of trouble."

Then she laughed again. "If I ever had photos like that, all I'd have to do was threaten to show them and the admiral would pardon me just so I'd burn them."

Pete stepped onto the Flight Deck with a crooked smile of sorts. It had become his trademark. "Sorceress. Still making magic. Every time I see you I realize that you do not look a day over two hundred." He dropped into a chair and kicked his feet up.

"Still know how to flatter the women, I see," Phyllis teased. "Good to see you again, Maverick. How are things?"

Vessa stayed where she was and let the exchange play out.

She had heard the name Mitchell before. Everyone had. Maverick, apparently, and he carried himself like someone used to being in charge. He hadn’t looked at her yet. That stood out. Either he was ignoring her on purpose, or he didn’t think she mattered.

Both told her something.

Her gaze shifted to Phyllis for a second, amused despite herself.

“Sorceress,” she repeated quietly. “Right. I’m starting to think I walked into the part of the ship where everyone gets a dramatic title.”

She leaned back slightly, arms folding loose across her chest, not interrupting the reunion but not fading into the background either.

“Don’t mind me. I’ll just stand here being the new one until someone decides if that’s a problem.”

"Nah. Come and sit down. You're part of the club, or team, or whatever you want to call it," Phyllis said, waving her hand to the rest of the room. "I'm called Sorceress because the way I fly is pure magic." Her laugh clearly indicated she didn't take herself or her call sign seriously. "I was born and raised on earth and I've been a pilot almost as long as there've been planes."

Vessa gave a small, amused nod and moved to take one of the seats, dropping into it with the easy lack of ceremony common to pilots everywhere.

“Scorch is less poetic,” she said. “Advanced flight training. I brought a trainer back with most of the port side burned black after doing something an instructor had very clearly told me not to do.”

She glanced between them, mouth quirking.

“The landing was fine. The report was dramatic. The name stuck.”

"It's better than some I've heard," Phyllis replied. "And you can spin it any way you want."

Then she turned to Maverick. "So, care to tell her how you got your call sign?"

Pete smiled as his TSO Nick Goose Bradshaw sat down next to him. "I was given the name Maverick during Top Gun training. Rules don't apply to me..." Nick raised a hand to cut Pete off. "Hey, Mav, you can't..." He sighed. "He follows the rules really ma'am." Goose began and held out his hand toward Ralen. "I am Nick Bradshaw, everyone calls me Goose."

"That's because all he does is mother you." Pete chimed in with a smile.

Stryvek and his TSO Edruj walked in. They appeared to be the largest off couple there was. A tall lanky Vulcan male, and broad Klingon woman. They took a seat at the table. Both acknowledged Ralen with a nod.

Hadassah walked into the room and gave everyone a quiet smile before taking a seat next to Phyllis. She noticed the new pilot and nodded to her.

Vessa looked at Goose’s hand, then at his face, and took it.

“Vessa is fine,” she said. “And don’t call me ma’am unless I’ve aged badly in the last ten minutes.”

There was no real bite in it, just a quick flash of warning wrapped in humour. Her gaze shifted briefly to Pete.

“Rules don’t apply to you. Right. I’m sure Starfleet loves that.”

The corner of her mouth lifted before she could quite stop it. She had heard enough about Maverick to know there was probably truth buried under the performance, which made it worse.

As the others came in, Vessa gave each of them a nod in return, taking in the Vulcan, the Klingon, and Hadassah without staring. The room was filling up fast now, all callsigns, reputations, and people who looked like they had stories attached.

She leaned back in her chair.

“Good. So, this isn’t a quiet introduction, it’s a warning.”

"Around this lot?" Phyllis laughed again. She did that fairly often. Even when flying. "It's definitely a warning. But then, pilots have always been a special breed. Special breed of what, no one's figured out yet."

Stryvek raised an eyebrow in that way only Vulcans did. The way that showed both curiosity and superiority at the same time. "I believe that I am a typical specimen of my species. As is everyone here. I do not see the logic calling us special breeds."

Vessa looked at Stryvek for a moment, then her mouth twitched.

“See, that right there is what makes Vulcans special.”

She leaned back a little, eyes bright with amusement.

“Someone hands you a perfectly good insult, and you stop to check whether it’s biologically accurate.”

"But expected of a Vulcan," Phyllis couldn't help adding. "Which, one could say, proves his point." She almost added like his ears, but she refrained as he wouldn't get the joke.

"Know what I think?" Phyllis paused and looked around. "I think we all need a drink. Then we need to toast our latest arrival. I get the feeling she's going to be a fine addition to our little gang of misfits."

Vessa’s face lit with the first truly uncomplicated approval she had shown since walking in.

“A drink?”

She sat forward, grinning.

“Finally. That’s the first good thing anyone’s said to me since I came aboard.”

Her eyes moved around the gathered pilots before settling on Pete.

“Lead the way, Sorceress. Maverick can buy the first round. Apparently rules don’t apply to him.”

Phyllis laughed and slapped her hand on the table before standing. "That's only true with women who think he's too cute for words. But yes, let's get a drink. A real one. No synthohol."

She flashed a grin to Maverick. "You know where to go, so we'll follow your lead. Especially now that you're buying the first round."

Maverick stood up and started to leave. Goose for his part turned to the ladies. "You have no idea what you have just done." He said as he followed Maverick out and massaged his temples. "Hey Goose, I think they have lost that love and feeling." Maverick said as his smile broadened.

"You know, Mav, you make me appreciate Klingon opera." Phyllis laughed again as she and Hadassah stood to follow the others.

Stryvek and Edruj stood up and both according to their species seemed perplexed. "Bloodwine it shall be." Edruj said after a time and followed everyone out. "Tales will be told, and the songs will be sung." She added. Stryvek simply followed everyone. At the very least this would be an excellent way to see the crew interact.

A post by

Lieutenant JG Ralen "Scorch" Vessa
Deputy CAG
Flight Commander, East Mark Flight
USS Orcrist

Lieutenant Pete "Maverick" Mitchell
Flight Commander, Edoras Flight
USS Orcrist

Lieutenant Junior Grade Nick "Goose" Bradshaw
Tactical Systems Operator, Edoras Flight
USS Orcrist

Ensign Stryvek "Legolas"
Pilot, West Mark Flight
USS Orcrist

Ensign Edruj "Gimli"
Tactical Systems Operator, West Mark Flight
USS Orcrist

Lieutenant Phyllis D'Lar "Sorceress"
Flight Commander, West Mark Flight
USS Orcrist

Lieutenant JG Hadassah Rey
Tactical Systems Operator, West Mark Flight
USS Orcrist

 

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