Meeting the Operations Staff

Posted on 07 Apr 2016 @ 8:43pm by Lieutenant Commander Temerant Bast & Lieutenant Commander Jiang-Chao Xiao

772 words; about a 4 minute read

Mission: Outbreak
Location: Briefing Room Six
Timeline: MD3 - 0900 Hours

Bast looked at the maintenance list on the data padd in front of him, and felt discouraged already. The list was the longest he'd ever seen, and involved everything from repairs required after the encounter with the O'Carroll, to computer reinstalls required to fix the damage that he himself had done, along with Commander del Rosario, during the failed Consortium takeover. He swore inwardly, then accepted it as his penance for his actions. He was grateful for the presence of an Operations staff on board, to whom he could dispatch some of the work. A group of five officers, all competent, and who could coordinate the required departments to tackle this maintenance list.

He hit his combadge. "Lieutenant Bast to all Operations officer, please assemble in the briefing room six in fifteen minutes."

Fifteen minutes later, the doors to briefing room six parted before him. He was still scrolling through the list as he walked, sipping a mug of darjeeling tea, and only looked up once the doors closed behind him.

He looked up to see an empty room.

"Computer," he called out. "Where are the Operations officers?"

The computer chirped. "Lieutenant Bast is in Briefing Room Six."

Bast waited for the computer to enumerate the rest of the Operations staff. But the computer remained silent.

"And the others?"

The computer chirped as it searched through the duty roster, before finally coming up with an answer. "No other Operations officers are listed in the ship's duty roster."

Bast frowned, and hit his combadge. "Lieutenant Bast to Commander Xiao. I'm in Briefing Room Six to meet the Operations staff to go over the maintenance schedule, but… there's no staff."

*****

Jiang-Chao sat in his quarters, reviewing the ship's logs from the last mission. I'm surprised that Security Chief got out alive, JC thought, especially with some of the people on this ship...

When Lieutenant Bast contacted him, JC quickly responded, wanting to fulfill his new position as best as he could, despite the less than pleasant conversation he was going to have. "Some of them were reassigned."

Bast blinked. He didn't remember receiving any kind of notification that some of his staff had been reassigned.

"How many of them?" he asked.

Jiang-Chao sighed. "All of them." He hadn't gotten to know The Trill Operations Chief, so he wasn't sure how Bast would recieve this news.

Bast's jaw dropped to the floor. He couldn't believe what he was hearing. With a maintenance list as long as the conference table, the ship's XO had reassigned the Operations staff? This had to be a mistake.

"You reassigned the Operations staff?"

"At their requests, yes." It had been beyond bizarre to see transfer requests from so many people. They all cited similiar issues of working with a 'traitor'.

Bast couldn't believe it possible that his jaw could drop even farther, but there it was. He couldn't decide which was harder to believe. That trained Starfleet officers could be so narrow-minded that they couldn't understand the reality that he'd suffered a mental rape and mind control, or that the ship's new Executive Officer would allow the entire Operations department to disappear.

"Because of me?" he asked, uncertain if he wanted confirmation.

"I think," JC started, hoping he could soften the reality of the language used by the now former Ops staffers, "that they were concerned about remaining on a ship that has so recently been subjected to a takeover. I'm not sure how much of it was you directly."

Bast pushed those thoughts out of his mind, and tried to focus on the task at hand. "When are we going to have a new Operations staff?"

"Hard to say, Lieutenant. Starfleet is operating on thin numbers out here. That's why I'm here filling in for Commander Kos, and not a more experienced command officer." Jiang-Chao knew that he was marginally qualified to serve as an Executive Officer, but his minimal command experience seemed to be enough to occupy the billet temporarily on the Black Hawk. "For now, I can reassign some of the junior specialists so you have a staff."

Bast frowned again. Junior specialists could mean anything. Was the First Officer suggesting that he reassign some of the cadets on board to the Operations staff? Being an Operations officer required a certain amount of experience, one that he wasn't sure the cadets possessed. Nevertheless, it was better than nothing.

"Very well, Sir," he replied, resigned to doing most of the work himself. "Bast out."

He'd definitely have his work cut out for him once he got back from his 36-hour shore leave.

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