The New Situation

Posted on 21 May 2014 @ 3:23am by Lieutenant Commander Thaddeus Quint M.D. & Commodore Harvey Geisler

1,183 words; about a 6 minute read

Mission: Pursuit
Location: Deck 1, Captain's Ready Room
Timeline: January 8, 2388 || 1115 hours

Thaddeus Quint sighed. No getting around it, meet your new boss. His exile to the Gamma Quadrant was weighing heavily on him. Considering what happened to the last two starships he served on, he was quite reluctant to have set foot on another one on active duty. Everyone kept acting like his "promotion" to Chief Medical Officer was a good thing. All he knew was he had to leave his son behind, who he wouldn't admit to anyone but he already missed, all for the chance to get another starship blown up under him again to finish the job. After all, third time's a charm, right?

Stepping out of the turbolift and onto the bridge, Quint quickly walked across the bridge avoiding eye contact with anyone. He didn't want to be drawn into any unnecessary conversation and made a point to check with the computer that the captain was still in his ready room, before stepping onto the bridge. Coming to the door to the captain's ready room, Quint jabbed a thumb to the door chime button and waited for a response.

Harvey sat behind his desk, leaning over the small terminal on the desktop. Status reports from the departments were being filtered on the screen. After the stressful events of the day before, it felt good to do something so... menial.

Yet, when the door chime interrupted, he felt nothing but agitation. It was his first day without an Executive Officer, and no one to stand in the gap. His yeoman could only do so much.

"Come!" he ordered, choosing for now not to look up at whoever entered the Ready Room.

Quint strode through the doorway, and presented himself before the captain's desk, and the man behind it whom he presumed must be Commander Geisler. Between the PaDDs on his desk and the busy monitor he was busy doing something. Paperwork most likely, as a physician Quint spent more time filling out reports than treating patients it seemed at times.

"Commander, I am Doctor Quint," he curtly introduced himself before holding out a datarod that contained his orders, "I was ordered to your vessel by Starfleet Medical."

Harvey paused, looking up from the terminal for a moment to examine the doctor. If there was one position that seemed to have a revolving door aboard his vessel was that of the Chief Medical Officer. "Starfleet can't seem to make up their mind on who should be taking care of this crew," he commented, putting the terminal to sleep. Harvey gestured at one of the seats across the desk, hoping the doctor would take one.

"And they have a habit of dictating who I should and shouldn't serve with. Tell me, doctor..." Harvey, still leaning forward, clasped his hands together and placed them on the only bare spot before him on the desk. "Why does Starfleet think you should be out here in the Gamma Quadrant on the Black Hawk?"

Quint took the offered seat, all but flopping down into it. Small irony that the commander didn't seem to be any more pleased to have him here, than he was. But an answer was required, so after a mental shrug, Quint have Geisler a frank look and answered.

"If I had to guess, Captain, some bureaucrat at Starfleet Medical randomly picked my name, decided I was a good fit for deep space assignments and sent me on my way to fill your vacant slot," Quint said almost sourly, "I suppose I'm qualified, but being a single parent, I wouldn't say I'm particularly a good fit. But nevertheless, here I am."

Harvey's eyebrows perked up at the mention of Quint being a parent, a single parent at that. Another look at the doctor's face and Harvey guessed that both men were close in age. He almost asked if Quint's children were here, but Harvey already knew the answer. The Akira was never designed to be a family ship. Alas, it seemed this would be a long deployment.

Harvey frowned. "It's sad to remember a time when it was so easy to go from assignment to assignment, not worrying when or if Starfleet would arbitrarily change things. You'd think the war being so long ago would have yielded to that time once more."

"We grew complacent and we lot a lot of lives because of it," Quint replied at once, "The lunacy of sending families along for the ride at Wolf 359 comes to mind. Having had two of these ships blown out from under me in the course of my career, I want my son as far as possible away from them. I suppose we've wised up, but I can't much say my Starfleet career was been what I expected when I signed up." By his tone of voice, that obviously wasn't a good thing.

"I doubt anyone our age would disagree," the Captain offered. "I was stationed on Starbase 211 when it was overrun during the war. Don't get me started on Betazed."

Harvey sighed, not expecting this conversation to go so deep so quickly. "So why do you still wear the uniform? Surely it's more liberating in the civilian world."

"Possibly. The thought's occurred to me several times over the years. Quite recently too. Certainly, I'd be filling out less death reports in the civilian sector," Quint remarked with a snide reflection on the last, "I suppose if I'm bouncing around from outpost to outpost, I don't have to go back to Utopia colony. There's... a lot of memories there and faces I won't ever be seeing again. Who knows, maybe I'm even doing some good out here. That's what I wanted to do once upon a time."

The Captain leaned back in his chair. Harvey was getting older, and until now there was at least ten years that separated him from most of the crew. It was nice to again have a kindred spirit on board, and a cynical one at that. "Well, let's hope we can do some good out here," he said at last. "Maybe some of our naive expectations will show up once more. Welcome aboard, Doctor Quint."

Harvey rose and extended a hand as he realized that he hadn't yet introduced himself. "Harvey Geisler."

Quint rose to his feet in turn as decorum demanded and grasped the proffered hand. Maybe his new commanding officer wouldn't turn out to be so bad as he hadn't gotten on his case immediately and didn't even seem to have his head in the clouds like so may in the fleet. Unwinding a bit, he gave his full name this time, "Thaddeus Quint, thank you, Captain."

Harvey shook the hand, then let go. "Be sure to let the Quartermaster know of any needs before we get back to deep space."

"I'm heading down there now to see what we're working with, I'll let him know what we need," Quint replied before taking his leave. He'd be placing a requisition with the Quartermaster no doubt, half again what he'd expect them to need for a deep space mission. There was telling what could go wrong.

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