Initiative
Posted on 03 Sep 2020 @ 12:29am by Commander Calliope Zahn & Captain Corvus DeHavilland & Lieutenant JG Samantha Cavendish
Mission:
M1 - Emergence
Location: Shuttle Bay 1
Timeline: MD3 1015
1833 words - 3.7 OF Standard Post Measure
The shuttle bay, was a mess. Samantha had seen wreaks before, had seen a few crashed shuttles in her time, but nothing compared to the mess of this shuttle bay.
Shuttles were falling off of their docking racks, several looked like they had been purposefully crashed and then reassembled, badly. Samantha was not one however to break down and cry but she was close at the sight of two Hunley's off to the side, one was the right way up, the other, was on its roof on the roof of the one which was the right way up. She knew this place had been through the wringer but really? Grumbling under her breath she made her way to where two ensigns stared glumly at the mess.
"Ok ensigns, this will not do at all" She said briskly.
"sir?" One said after taking in her extra pip.
"Get the Grav lifters and lets get to sorting this mess out." Samantha said.
"But we don't have orders..." The first tried
"I just gave you one"
"But you are not the chief." the second replied.
"No I am not but I will be damned if our chief is going to walk in here and find this mess. Get the Grav lifters. Now. Or get a transfer." and because they were staring at her as if she had two heads, Samantha headed off towards the Grav lifters storage area.
The two behind her exchanged looks and fell in behind her. The three of them got to work, slowly.
"...some of this is explained by the loss of integrity to the gravitational arrays. The station, of course, isn't outfitted with the kind of inertial dampening ships meant to initiate warp drives need, so, when it was slipping through the chasm— I'm stating the obvious, aren't I? I am." Commander Zahn shook her head and looked up at Captain Dehavilland, the two of them taking a tour of the Station and having selected a couple of the Shuttle bays to get a real look at for their assessments. "I guess I'm just processing all of this myself." She paused in the back of the enormous shuttle bay with the damage report in arms. Before them was a bay that hadn't yet seen any crew clean up, but a small team was just now getting underway, collecting the gear to start dismantling the worst of the mess. Calliope's head tilted with curiosity as she watched the slightest of them seemingly leading the charge.
The same thing caught Corvus’ eye and she looked to her first officer in confusion, “I don’t remember seeing any Elaysian’s on the crew manifest,” with a shake of her head. “Certainly not one without a gray-suit…” she added, turning back to look at the smallest of the three. “Do you have your manifest on you?”
"Always." She switched her application out to the station manifest and searched out Elysian. "None aboard as crew as of yet. Hold on." She switched back to station sensors and pinned the com-badges, pulling up the personnel files of the team in front of them, then she opened the file for the woman they were looking to identify. "LTjg Samantha Cavendish. Human-Betazoid. Survived a Breen Prison. Assigned back to active duty under conditional medical watch." Calliope summarized.
"Conditional medical watch?" Corvus shook her head, "That's not what we need to be dealing with right now. We need all hands at full capacity," she sighed. She certainly understood that the woman had been through a hell of a lot and deserved a chance to get back to her life, but this wasn't the place to do it. In any other circumstances she'd have remanded the Ensign to the Chief Medical Officer and potentially rotated back to somewhere more suitable to convalescence. "I'll have a word with Command."
Samantha had not noticed the new comers as she moved into position with a grav lifter to lift the Hunley. The two ensigns were spread out around the crafts with their own Grav Lifters.
"On three," Samantha called out.
Receiving affirmative replies, Samantha counted. "1...2... 3!"
The grav lifters fired and slowly the Hunley was lifted up off the other Hunley.
Calliope looked on. Technology was the great equalizer when it came to physical tasks, that was for certain. Lt. Cavendish moved the same amount of shuttle as all the rest. "I don't know, Corvus. She seems to be shouldering the work."
"For how long and at what cost, though," she shook her head, waving for them to head out onto the bay floor and see what the rest of the carnage was. "Am I supposed to tell Admiral Sepandiyar that we're ignoring Starfleet reg's when the Alexander turns up for inspection?" she added. Far be it from her to be concerned with the choice of diet her staff decided on, but there were basic reg's that had to be followed and if they didn't follow these, regardless of the Lieutenant holding her own, where did they draw the line on what they did follow. She could already feel the headache creeping in on having to deal with this issue on top of the million other far more pressing ones. It was probably a good thing they didn't have a Chief Medical Officer yet; then she'd be getting it from them as well.
"Sepandiyar has to have bigger things to worry about. I don' think he'll notice this one..." She felt someone who had survived Breen prison deserved some respect and had to have some kind of fortitude. "Blame it on me if you have to. Let's give her a chance. Sometimes people need the work to get better. I don't think Starfleet Medical would have let her back on assignment at all without accounting for all of that. I'll follow up and make sure she's meeting her conditional requirements with medical."
"How does a Hunley even get like that?" she complained quietly to Calliope.
Calliope gave her Captain and friend a knowing look— how it had to pain Corvus' pilot heart to see ships in such a state. "Don't worry, It'll buff out."
The group moving the shuttles were quiet except for the odd word of "left a bit" or "slow down"
The Hunley was lifted high enough and then they spun it slowly so it was right side up. As they were lowering it to place it on the deck platting, one of the Ensigns noticed the two senior officers over in the corner and muttered something to the other Ensign. Both seemed to react then rather than think and they cut their feeds to their lifters, leaving the Lt. JG with the lone feed. The Hunley crashed the remaining 4 meters to the deck.
Samantha, startled and shoved back slightly by the shuttle hitting the deck cursed and marched around to give them a serve.
Calliope watched Corvus shudder at the indelicate landing. Hardly the worst of concerns for the tumbled shuttle, but they were built to take some beating. "Easy does it," Calliope called out, interrupting Cavendish on her way to set straight the ensigns. "Lt. Cavendish, a word, please."
"If this is what we're dealing with all over, Calli, you and I are both going to turn gray," Corvus said quietly as Cavendish approached.
Called off from what had promised to be a set down of epic proportions from the slender brunette, Samantha regained her composure and nodded and headed over to the Commanding officers. She recognized them from her review of command crew earlier. "Captain. Commander" She drew herself into the Attention pose easily.
"As you know, we're awaiting the arrival of personnel, and that requires more serviceable shuttle bay space. I see you've gotten straight to work here and that's good initiative. I'm giving you responsibility for bays 1 through 4 so we can focus the manpower we do have and not spread ourselves out so far as to complete nothing at all. I'll post your name and assign personnel so crews know who to organize with for this task. I know this is all damage control, and damage control always has unexpected elements, so make sure to file records and report to me at the end of shift so we can adjust accordingly."
Samantha nodded as the Commander spoke and then replied with "Of course Commander." She had no issue with what was ordered. "The other bays I had a brief look over, they are in pretty much the same shape and once we get the ships back on their racks and the right side up, they will need complete system and structural checks."
Calliope looked pleased that Samantha had a look around and wasn't just going of at the first thing she saw. "As you work, please identify for me what other officers you'd recommend to take over for you on task management for following shifts. I know we'll be working doubles, but we need to spot each other and not make this more dangerous than it has to be. Look out for safety. We don't have a full medical staff yet."
"Of course, Commander." Samantha replied. "I will make sure it meets the code."
"Once the bays are clear enough for incoming traffic," Calliope continued, "then begin the damage reports on the secured shuttles. We don't yet have the engineering staff to work shuttle maintenance so that's not as high a priority. If you have any first or second year crewmen running around looking for work, have them run auto-diagnostics on the shuttles to get started. At least we'll know what's operable in a pinch."
Samantha nodded again. "Yes, sir"
Calliope moved in close to speak more privately now. She had genuine concern in her eyes. "Lt. Cavendish? If you feel faint at all I expect you to call on someone to fill in for you and take the break you need. That's your responsibility to yourself and others. I don't expect you to prove yourself. Just to see the work through safely. Understand?"
"Yes commander, I understand fully." Samantha replied honestly. She knew her history would not be hidden.
Calliope nodded smartly, believing Samantha. The officer could have gotten touchy or appeared taken aback. But she seemed instead to know her on limitations, which to Calliope meant she had more than a little sense, maybe even wisdom. "Make it happen." She dismissed the Flight officer.
Calliope stepped back to stand with Corvus. "I'll assess after the shift what kind of progress she can make here."
"As soon as we get a Doctor, I want them on her ass. The last thing we need is one of the big three catching us flouting reg's," Corvus added.
"Where to next, Captain?"
"Let's see what Mr. Zahn's up to in Engineering. Hopefully he has reduced all the Corp of Engineer's crew to blubbering masses of technobabble," she chuckled, turning about to head towards the lift. "Yet, that is."
