((Cetacean Ops, Blythe))

Since his first dip with his aquatic crewmates Captain Tyler had made a habit of coming for a quick 15-20 minute swim every few days. Whenever he did, whichever cetaceans were off duty at the time would come and hang out and chat with their CO. They would speak in the refined and regal way like they had durin his first swim. Though they still acted like cheeky goof offs whenever a humanoid who wasn’t in the ‘circle of trust’ was around, they always kept it more cheerful and upbeat whenever the CO was in earshot.

Currently, it was his 3rd officer and Joe who were off duty. As Tyler had come to learn, he had unknowingly raised Joe’s station within cetacean society. By dint of the fact that he had commanded a Starfleet vessel, Joe had become a rock star in his culture, and by association Tyler himself was often mentioned in the same breaths. The speed at which this notoriety had come about had shocked Tyler when Joe had told him the story. He knew that cetaceans rapidly shared information with eachother, but this seemed excessive. As Joe had told Tyler a few days prior, it was often the matriarchs and elder females of the various species who were the chatty and gossipy ones., and they were the conduits for the flow of informstion for the cetacean races

“So what was the deal there yesterday Mee IH? When you dropped us out of warp for 20 minutes to run that level 2 diagnostic on the beam sensor array? Thats a major system to shut down in the middle of a transit.” Tyler side stoked to the pool wall

Mee IH, whose voice sounded like Christopher Walken when Tyler was in the ‘circle of trust’ instead ofnthe normal squeeks and whistles that thebcomouter translated “Ahh, yes, I filed a report, with the XO, at the end of my shift about that. Joe had noticed a lag, in the beam sensor array, that was causing our calculations to drift, erroneously. Before allowing the problem to persist, and potentially endangering the ship, I ordered the actions I did because, if I had not, Joe may have missed a piece of space debris that could have damaged us. Seemed wise, you know, at the time” Mee IH then took a slurp of the ice cold Malibu from the tube that dangled from the ceiling.

“Yeah, I called up t’Mee IH here when I noticed an 8 inch chunk of something wiz by us on the port side that I hadn’t even seen for Kirk’s sake Cap. It was weird, so we figured we could make up the time if we stopped, but we would not make up time if we let a 1 foot wide hunk of space junk smash into us while were at warp seven…the kinetic energy could kill us all fa f$&#& sake.” Joe said.

“I see, very prudent decision then in that case. Well done Commander.” Tyler nodded in approval. This was the value added that cetaceans brought to the table on all starfleet vessels. Their natural sonar senses still functioned at high warp, and this is why cetacean ops was crucial to the safe navigation of ships at high warp. The cetacean sonar sense actually worked more quickly and efficiently then the ships own sensors. This allowed the aquatic specialists to ‘sense’ smaller space debris that the sensor could not, and the cetaceans helped operate and focus the navigational deflectors as needed while at warp.

Just then an engineering crew came in with a grav sled. Tyler turned and smiled when he saw the techs arriving. He had authorized Lt. Tesa to replicate 3 sets of the flipper mounted repulsors for the cetacean officers. He’d be damned if he’d leave his officers confined to the pool and limited water tunnels on the ship. The repulsor units would allow the cetaceans to move freely about the ship.

As he had noticed in the memo he had been reading, the device had existed for about 16 years already. For some reason, even though the prototype testing had gone well, Starfleet hadn’t yet seen fit to deploy the equipment to the fleet for further evaluations(citing concerns over ‘discipline’ and ‘crew morale’). Well, that was going to stop now, Tyler thought.

The CO hoped out of the pool and said to his aquatic officers with a smile “Starfleet command might ignore your requests Commander, but if they’re reasonable, I certainly won’t. These techs are here to help calibrate some flipper mounted repulsor units for all three of you. You’ll be able to move around the ship when ever you want now”

Joe said, sounded dumbstruck “You mean the prototype flipper things that let us fly around. Are you f$÷<=ng kidding me boss? Its about time. Oh, thanks buddy!!!” Joe the dolphin said gleefully.

The older, more experienced and reserved Beluga Mee IH just bobbed up and down for a moment staring at Tyler with his mouth closed and eyes fixed. No one, not even his long time friend Joe had noticed, but Mee IH, actually shed a tear of joy in that moment.

He realized that they may have just been lucky enough to serve under the one Captain in Starfleet, that actually gave a shit about changing the way his species was treated by the Federation. He would tell his grandmother the story of what happened a few hours later, and within a few days, cetaceans across the fleet began whispering to eachother in hushed tones about their ‘pal on the Blythe’.