Internal Transfer

Posted on Thu Jun 11th, 2020 @ 2:05am by Captain Gary Alexander
Edited on on Fri Jun 12th, 2020 @ 1:46am

1,256 words; about a 6 minute read

Mission: Mission 2 - Encounters of a First Kind
Location: Captain's Ready Room
Timeline: 2168/07/28 0930

Lieutenant Commander Nick Kincaid had spent a long shift in engineering, followed by a bridge watch. When it was all done, he'd asked to speak with the Captain in his Ready Room, and the Captain had kindly agreed to his request. He had checked with KAT and found a time in the early afternoon when the Captain was available, and was put in the schedule.

Exactly on time, he left the bridge, giving the conn to Bullock, and found the Ready Room. He chimed the door, PADD in hand, waiting to be summoned.

Gary wondered who was at his door. He hoped it was KAT. He always enjoyed her visits and right about now, he could use one. So far, finding anything very useful had been a flop. However, he had to keep morale high. If not, anything could happen. Not knowing who was on the other side, he kept his voice steady, firm, and businesslike. "Come."

The door opened and Nick walked in. “Good afternoon, Captain. Do you have a moment?” He knew the schedule was reserved for this conversation, but a bit of formality was importance.

"As many moments as our current situation allows. What is it that I can do for you, Nick?"

“Personnel transfer request, of all things,” Nick answered. “Internal, of course. Lieutenant Hayes. She’s been a great comms chief, but we’ve been working together in engineering since the anomaly, and she’s expressed interest in becoming my Assistant Chief. I’d like your approval to make the change to the manifest.”

"Serenity?" Gary asked surprised. "Why?" he asked equally surprised. "This is a time when we need the best of the best doing their jobs."

"And I think transferring her to engineering is making the best use of her skills," Nick replied. "She's a great communications' officer, but an incredible engineer. She literally grew up on a starship and understands them better than anyone on board. It comes naturally to her. I sincerely believe that the best decision to have her work directly under me." He shifted in his seat. "Meanwhile, Ensign Flowers is very skilled at comms. She lacks experience but that will come. And frankly, no one is experienced enough to deal with comms and languages out here. We're somewhere entirely new, and until we meet a local who can help update our UT, even the best linguist in Starfleet would struggle."

"I wonder why she did not start in Engineering, if she is as incredible as you say," Gary stated suspiciously. He then shrugged and said, "Well, if this works best for both of you, then who am I to say no? I do like keeping my crew happy."

"Thank you, sir," Nick said, his smile growing slightly. "I'll modify the crew schedules and notify both Lieutenant Hayes and Ensign Flowers."

"You're welcome, Nick. Right now, anything that we can do to boost morale and keep people focused, I'm probably going to allow. This galaxy shift has so many implications that I do not know whether the crew has considered them all."

“Makes sense. If we’re unable to find our way home, crew happiness and sanity will be top priorities. Things that we once reserved for after our Starfleet careers were over might seem a lot nicer, like families.” Sensing the conversation might go on a bit, Nick slid into the seat opposite Gary’s. “Hobbies we’d get to eventually might seem more appealing. In a lot of ways, ‘later’ doesn’t exist anymore.”

"And then there's other scientific problems, like the potential genetic bottleneck." He shifted somewhat uncomfortably in his seat. "Some things that might have seemed unnatural before...." He paused and concluded, "I doubt some of the crew will like it. And, I dare not bring it up now. Who knows what is out here? I like and do not like all the unknowns, Nick."

"Nor do I," Nick agreed. "Humans have never successfully made children with other sentient lifeforms, though I know that hybrids sometimes exist among other species. Until we can prove it viable, we're limited to the 129 humans and one Ramatisian aboard. And we're not gender balanced either. Not to mention the fact that not everyone wants to mate with the opposite sex."

"Which is another problem that might have to be addressed." He sighed deeply. "At least the gender balance that we have is better suited to human diversification and timing for pregnancies. But, it is something that we will eventually have to address. Not to mention, at some point, we will run out of food and supplies here. One critical battle and we will have no ship. We need to find a 'home.'"

"So what's the plan?" Nick asked. "Visit every planet capable of supporting life, and seeing if it's appropriate? Make contact with other sentient lifeforms and hope they're friendly? One mistake on that front and we might end up on the wrong side of a war we have no stake in."

"The plan right now is to keep everyone occupied and figure out what we can of this galaxy," Gary told Nick solemnly. "The problems that you have pointed out have been on my mind since you have gotten here. I had hoped that someone other than me would have some ideas about these issues but the shock may have been too great at that point."

He leaned back, lines above and below his eyes showing. Sighing, he told Nick, "As an engineer, I always liked knowing where all the pieces fit so I could understand and improve. We do not even know the rules here. Everything we do could have disastrous or wonderous consequences. I find myself unable to solve the problem because I do not have enough constants to play with the variables."

"Well, like all good engineers, we'll keep working the problem," Nick said. "Find what constants we can to help us with the equations." He smiled. "There's this old piece of literature we liked to read on Mars, about someone who got stranded there in the early days of space exploration. His attitude was to tackle the problems one at a time, in order of priority. Solve one, then the next, then the next, and if you solve enough of them you get to go home. So what are our priorities?"

He began counting with his fingers. "Water. Food. Fuel. The ability to replace ship components, which also addresses air. Awareness of local threats and the political dynamics of this galaxy. Morale." He stopped counting after he filled one hand. "Longer term things like genetics can wait until we've solved the basic problems."

"Agreed," Gary replied more firmly than he desired. "In some ways, I suppose we should be grateful. After all, was this not our ultimate goal: exploration? Finding the unknown?" He laughed as he stood up. "Like that old curse, 'May you live in interesting times.'"

Nick stood as well. “I think part of the drive to explore is to share what we learn with others,” he remarked. “But still. Interesting times indeed.”

"Hard to share with others when there's nowhere within however many millions of light years away from us." He shrugged. "Thank you for coming, Nick."

“Thank you for listening, sir. I’ll change the roster and the schedules in engineering and the comms department. Good day, Captain.” Nick turned and left the Ready Room, eager to work with his new Assistant Chief.


OOC: Post once we return from the planet?

OOC: Seems reasonable.

 

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