Organized Chaos

Posted on 23 May 2019 @ 8:56pm by Master Chief Petty Officer Mila Rasputin & Commodore Harvey Geisler

1,527 words; about a 8 minute read

Mission: Truth and Justice
Location: Ready Room
Timeline: MD 3 || 0800 Hours

Mila left the Administration Complex with her usual assortment of PADDs for Harvey, even though they were not as many as there had been. With the Black Hawk in the Convergence Zone, they hadn't had an update from Starfleet since they had entered it. Still, she was his Yeoman and it was her duty to give him what he needed to know.

Upon arrival at the Bridge, she looked towards the center chair automatically to see if he was there, then headed for the ready room where she pressed the chime to announce her arrival.

Unlike the highly organized Mila, Harvey sat at his desk, surrounded by a pile of padds. Normally, there were nowhere near this many, perhaps just about forty percent of the amount. The entire intelligence department was pouring over the data they'd collected, and cross referencing it against the computer dumps from the ships that had escaped the Zone over the last few years. While Harvey did have faith in the department, he wanted to review their findings closely himself, as well as examine what he could before they arrived at their next destination. He was so lost in thought, he didn't even notice his reflexive answer to the door chime, inviting whoever was at the door to enter.

The Russian marched in and frowned at the pile of PADDs around Harvey. It was her instinct and Administrative side to go and de-clutter it immediately, but she didn't know which ones he was was finished with and which ones wasn't. "Captain, why am I bringing these to you in order of importance, only to be seeing mess like this?"

"Hmm?" the Captain looked up, his eyes sullen and dim, but not enough as to not disguise the familiar deer-in-headlights look. It registered a moment later what she had meant. "This is no mess," he simply explained. "This is organized chaos."

"You are to be killing me," Mila said with a sigh. "Tomorrow, you are getting PADDs in whatever order I am receiving them and no notes. Let us be seeing how you are liking chaos then."

"Killing you?" Harvey pointed to one small stack to the far side of the desk. "Those are the signed reports, as well as approval of next week's duty roster and so on. This," he waved at the cluttered desk, "is raw intelligence from Kalisa."

"Then be raising my access levels and I am to be helping with it," she said. "I am having eidetic memory and can give summarized snapshots in data form when I am being done with it."

The Captain grunted, handing over a padd which contained a starchart with cryptic notations. "Don't let Joey find out about this. She'll keelhaul me, all the while drafting you into the Intelligence department."

Mila accepted the PADD and looked at it. "This is being star chart," she said. "Not text. Are you wishing me to draw it from memory with notations or be making text version of it?"

He blinked, then looked down at his organized chaos. Harvey could have sworn that the information he handed over was of the technology that they had acquired on Kalisa. No, that was definitely the star chart, which was adjacent to the data he wished to present. He picked up the correct padd and handed it over. "Try that instead. Though, if you do want to see if the chart has anything else of note other than Penduli or Kalisa or Alpha Trios, you are more than welcome to say so."

"I will run cross reference once I am having access to everything," she promised him as she handed the star chart PADD back and accepted the other one. "And it will be filed in order of importance,. not in order of chaos. If I am not interpreting order of importance enough, are you having guidelines for what you are specifically looking for?"

"Anything about where we're going." Harvey rose from his chair to approach the replicator with his cold cup of coffee. "Anything about what's happened here. Historical. Political. Technological. Anything. Something cataclysmic happened in this Zone, we've seen that first hand. And the punishment for it has robbed dozens of civilizations of the right to live a better life. I want to know why."

Mila listened to what he wanted and memorized it. "Da. I will be prioritizing those. How much information are we getting from planet away team was on?"

Harvey pressed a button to recycle the liquid and cup into something fresh. "Roughly fifty teraquads. It was all their tricorders and spare memory chips could hold. Ensign Mackie even said it was less than one percent of the entire archive."

"Fifty...teraquads?" she echoed in disbelief. "Less than one percent? How am I going to begin sorting that out without full computing power and a team of Yeomans running all four shifts for a month?" In her disbelief, she completely forgot her accent.

He chuckled, returning to the desk with his coffee. "That's just the thing," he said, gesturing for her to sit. "The entire Intelligence team is sifting through the data as well. So far, nothing obvious has turned up, but it has given us some keys to unlock those computer downloads from other ships that have left the Zone. They're parsing the data around the clock to see what they can come up with. I'm just doing some light reading of my own to see if there's anything of interest."

"I will calibrate computer to be attempting to sort things alphabetically and then be cross-referencing by topic and category as well as race," Mila said.

Harvey sipped his coffee though he was tempted to gulp it down in hopes of totally revitalizing his mind. "How long do you think that will take?"

She shrugged. "Could be few days. Could be few weeks. I will not be knowing until I am having outline of it to work from. I am certain Intelligence is having same issues, but I am just attempting to bring order to it for you."

"Attempt all you want," Harvey said waving his hand at the padds once more. All of the data they contained was already synced with the main computer, so it didn't matter what happened to these tablets, just as long as he could still digest and parse the information at his leisure. "Though I don't think there will be any order until we've found what we're looking for."

"How will you be finding what you are looking for when you do not know what you are looking for?" Mila asked.

"I figure I'll know when I see it." Shrugging, he added, "The one thing I've been wondering as I've been going through it all is that this must be what archeology is like. Well, without the tools and digging."

"Is possible. Mental archeology, da. You are to be examining mind instead of soil. Have some green tea with Ginkgo Biloba extract. It will be helping you focus." Mila suggested.

Harvey nodded, preparing to finish his coffee first. "I'll keep that in mind. Any other thoughts? Or anything in today's docket I need to focus on first?"

"Nothing which is being important at the moment," the Russian replied. "Is all being standard since we have been on this side of Zone, except increasing requests for supplies which we are not having."

The Captain leaned back in his chair and gulped a generous amount of his coffee. "You know," he remarked. "I think this is the longest I've ever been without a port of call. The Black Hawk couldn't dock at Deep Space 15, which means the last time she was docked was when she was launched from Deep Space Nine. And, the last natural air I ever breathed was on Earth."

"You are being liar," Mila told him. "I am knowing you went down to surface on New Risa, so you were breathing natural air there, da?"

"New Risa was in July or August of last year," Harvey pointed out. "And the Black Hawk was still an Akira then."

Mila frowned at the memories and sighed. "You are being right and I am apologizing," she said. A lot had happened since them and even with her eidetic memory, it took time to get to the right memory. "I will take these and be going unless there is one you are wishing to keep."

The Captain examined his desk one more time, before picking up two padds, one containing notes on various cultures, and another on medical matters. He set those beside the freshly delivered stack and then picked up the device at the top to begin reviewing.

The Yeoman took the other one and smiled. "If there is being nothing else, I will be heading back to Admin to begin work on this."

Biting a fatigued sigh, he simply nodded at Mila. "Sounds good. Let me know if there's anything you need."

"Da, and be calling me if you are needing anything," Mila said. "For now, I am going to be getting started on this. Enjoy morning while you can." With another smile, she headed out.

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