Onboarding the CEO

Posted on 12 Feb 2024 @ 4:05am by Lieutenant Paisley (mUra) F'rar & Captain Harvey Geisler

1,025 words; about a 5 minute read

Mission: Return to Razmena
Location: USS Black Hawk || Ready Room
Timeline: June 17, 2390 || 0230 hours

Paisley headed for the Ready Room after the meeting. She was the new Chief Engineer, and needed to meet the command staff quickly. It was always hard to join a new crew in the middle of the action, and it wasn't ideal for anyone.

She made sure her uniform was ok before she rang the chime. She fingered her shiny black braid-she always wore her hair pulled back tightly while on the clock as her job was much too dangerous- while she waited.

Paisley's timing was almost perfect as Harvey just stepped out of the refresher. Under normal circumstances, he would have followed his wife back to their quarters for some alone time, but with the ship on yellow alert and not having any idea what they were walking into, he elected to rest in the Ready Room until the ship arrived at its destination. He approached the replicator, and, at the sound of the door chime, gave the computer permission to open the door.

A single glance informed him that it was the ship's newest arrival who was at the door. "Welcome aboard, Lieutenant... F'rar, is it?"

She nodded as she stepped inside, and saluted a moment. "Yes, sir, that's me. I am told I am arriving in the middle of a yellow alert? The Fleet doesn't mess around, do they?" She said, waiting for permission to sit down. The Ready Room was, in her mind, a secondary Bridge. If it were just the conference room, she'd help herself to a seat already.

"The Gamma Quadrant has certainly kept this ship and its crew on our toes," Harvey confessed, removing a cup of chamomile tea from the replicator. "Have a seat, Lieutenant. Would you like something to drink?"

"Yeah, I'll say," she said, sitting down carefully. "Yes, please, that'd be great. Coffee, black. Thank you." She said. "What are we facing out here? Admittedly, it's my first foray into the GQ-my last battle theater was the DQ. The usual baddies giving us hell," she said. "The Gorn, mostly." She said. She shook her head.

Harvey grimaced as he withdrew the replicated coffee from the dispenser, though for a moment he was not sure what he disliked more -- Gorn or replicated coffee. He returned to the desk and handed the mug to the new arrival. "I hear that can be a nasty business. Though to be fair, the Gamma Quadrant isn't too friendly either. The Dominion's still around, though we don't see the Jem'hadar much. Starfleet hasn't been too kind on Gamma operations. Material's hard to come by, not to mention personnel. We've seen our fair share of alternate dimensions, stellar phenomena and such. This ship's the Black Hawk-B. I commanded the -A as well. We once punched through a subspace barrier and almost got overrun by a species that wanted to control our bodies and take over the quadrant."

Paisley sucked in air, but didn't comment. She kept that information filed away in her head, though.

Somewhere in the middle of the speech, Harvey had sat down behind his desk. He took a moment to lean back in his chair and sipped his tea. "The real trouble right now though is piracy. We're not talking Orion Syndicate level. Traditional raids on supply convoys and colonies. The occasional salvage hauler. But most pirate operations are random. These seem organized in some fashion. And right now, in the briefing you barely made the end to, I told the crew that the ship we're about to rendezvous with, the Gaittithe, has likely been overrun by pirates. I hope I'm wrong. But I doubt it."

She nodded. "I've heard tales. No man's land out here, past the DMZ," she started, pausing to sip the coffee. "One of my pre-Starfleet adventures was actually on a Citizen Cargo ship. We hit pirates once or twice," she said. "Nothing we couldn't handle but it wasn't fun." She shook her head.

Harvey smirked at the use of the word fun. That certainly was an apt word to describe anything out of the ordinary out in this quadrant. "Still, we tend to get into a bit of trouble here and there. This is my third command in the quadrant. Also happens to be the third Black Hawk. We've lost nacelles, crashed into planets, warped a ship's skeletal structure in a temporal anomaly, and had a few smaller craft ram us and puncture the hull. Mind you, none of these were things we were trying to do. I can guarantee you, you'll have busy days. Not now, obviously, because this ship is brand spanking new. In a few hours time, that could easily change."

Paisley laughed. "Well. Last I heard, you didn't have time for a shakedown cruise, so I won't hold my breath, but I did manage to check the logs. Whatever the hell you ran into last...well. I am glad I wasn't there," she said.

The Captain chuckled before he took a sip of his tea. If he had a choice, he wouldn't have been there himself. "All that said, it's safe to say that your time on the Black Hawk will be far from boring. Lieutenant Kemm has been taking point in Engineering while we were without a Chief Engineer. I'm sure he'll be an excellent resource for getting you totally up to speed. Supplies are a bit hard to come by these days, so if there's anything you need, get that requisition in quickly. Any questions for me?"

Paisley shook her head. Her only question was "what the fuck?" but she reserved that one for her own musings, later. "No sir, I think it's pretty straightforward," she said. "This isn't, as the Humans say, my first Rodeo, so, I am ready. Or as ready as one can be out here. I will make sure to check I with Lt. Kemm. I appreciate the recommendation. If you have nothing else, sir, I'll get straight to work," she said.

He took a sip of his tea and said, "Fair enough. Dismissed, Lieutenant. And welcome aboard."


Tag and post ... Welcome aboard!

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