JDL | "Brave and Beaten, We Ride" | Senior Staff Meeting

Posted on Wed Aug 28th, 2013 @ 6:10pm by Captain Landon Neyes & Lieutenant Commander Mathew Caldwell & Lieutenant Commander Hayden Williams & 2nd Lieutenant Jasmine Garza & Lieutenant JG Saia Roswell & Lieutenant JG Adrianna Baciami & Captain Elar Keggle & Lieutenant JG Teá Black

2,285 words; about a 11 minute read

Mission: Secret Meetings
Location: Briefing Room

=/\= Briefing Room =/\=

Neyes played with the handle of his coffee mug, sitting at the end of the sizeable table in the briefing room. The liquid inside was rapidly becoming a tepid, unsavory testament to his day thus far. It was interesting, exciting, and almost addictive… yet would eventually cool and become undesirable. He rolled his eyes at his own inner-pontificating, and waited for the senior staff to arrive.

The Marine Captains were the next to walk in all of three of them were wearing their forest green duty uniforms. They also chose the three farthest chairs as well keeping Tripae in the middle and their greeting was a head nod.

Almar was one of the first to arrive, giving a nod to the CO as he stepped into the room, a mug of coffee in one hand and a balanced stack of padds contained in the one left free, "Captain." he said simply as he passed, taking one of the seats further down the table.

Cody entered the briefing room, and nodded to Neyes before taking his seat. He was interested in getting to know the rest of the senior staff. He just wished he could have come to his first meeting under better circumstances. Regardless, he was eager for the meeting to beign.

Doctor Cannon struggled to leave her work, but just about managed to. Walking in quickly as she could.

Saia looked exhausted. She also looked like she wasn't going to bother hiding it. She kept up her hygiene and looked and smelled clean and even polished (as much as she ever did). However, her eyes gave her away. She was able to keep her professional posture and gait, but her natural grace seemed sluggish as she moved into the room and tried not to plop into the chair like she very much wanted to. She gingerly sat and began to look at her padd.

Hayden walked into the room and sat down around the table. A pang of apprehension came over him. This was probably one of the last times he would be here.

Neyes' eyes scanned the room, noting the attendance, and the absence of his first officer. "Thank you all for coming." He paused, supressing the odd sensation of butterflies in his stomach. "Not that you wouldn't have, anyway. Just so everyone is on the same page let's recap the last few days:

"We were given orders to covertly escort the President to a secret meeting with the Romulans. A woman by the name of Tea Black managed to plant herself on this vessel posed as a security officer to the President, who turned out not to be the President at all... but an intelligence operative. This operative, under orders from a Commodore acting alone, lured us to the Romulan Fleet you all just spent the last few hours fending off. Good job on that, by the way.

Now we've captured a Romulan commander whose unit tried to invade our vessel during the attack. Repairs are underway, with some assistance from the four other Starfleet ships who came to our aid, as we race through Slipstream towards Earth... which is currently under attack by Tholians and Cardassians."

Landon took in a gasp of air as he finished, "Busy day. So let's get on with it.

"We're due to drop out of slipstream soon, and I'd like us all to be prepared. I think we can start that off with a report of ship's systems.

"Let's start with Engineering." Neyes said, turning his attention to Almar.

The Cardassian cleared his throat as he began distributing padds amongst the various department heads, "I thought it would be more time efficient to give you the full reports to read in your own time and give you the outline here." he replied as he handed the last padd to Keggle.

"Since engaging the slipstream drive, we have had to constantly adjust the structural integrity fields manually until we could effect enough repairs to let the computer handle them," he began before scrolling through his own report a short while, "The inertial dampeners have also been fluctuating on some decks, mostly confined to the lower reaches of the ship and the outlying sections of the upper saucer section."

Neyes' face soured with a sweep of realized discomfort, followed quickly by a squirming noise from his gut. "Like the Bridge?"

"Emergency forcefields are still holding strong on the two major hull breaches, unfortunately, we cannot begin to repair them until we drop to sublight speeds," the Cardassian continued after allowing people to digest some of the report, "There are a couple of smaller hull breaches, but I have my staff working on patching them up as we speak."

"Good. How about security. You ready to move that bastard Romulan when we get to Starbase?" Landon said, casting a sidelong glance at his coffee, and sliding away as if it might attack. His gut made another noise in response.

"Yes sir. I have the route from security to transporter room 3 sealed off, and two teams escorting the prisoner to the transporter room.

"Also good," Neyes nodded, "Sickbay? What was the final casualty count." His voice softened slightly as the last part. He'd been to sickbay since the attack, and the medical report was hardly something he'd looked forward to.

"To be perfectly honest, I'm still counting," she sighed. The doctor felt unprepared for this meeting.

Neyes frowned, partly due to her implication, and partly because she didn't know. "I understand it's hectic down there, Lieutenant, but I need to know our crew is being cared for. Part of that is preparing a report before a staff meeting."

"No offense sir, but we are up to our necks, and quite frankly, treating people is more important than writing silly little reports," Cannon suddenly went pale after realising she had said that outloud.

Neyes blinked, a flare of uncertainty lingering in his eyes as he looked the young woman up and down. "Alright." He said, not taking his eyes off her, "I want you to prepare Captain Dar for transfer to Spacedock once we arrive. If you need more help in Sickbay, start assigning security personnel with a medical rating of 3 or higher to sickbay.

"Your opinion of whether or not reports need to be complete is not my issue, Lieutenant. Get it done." Landon added.

"Security," Neyes turned his head towards Hayden and Caldwell, "I'd like to start out by informing you all that Williams will be stepping down once we arrive in Sol Sector."

Matt had wondered why he had been invited to this meeting. He sat beside Hayden in a most diminutive fashion, listening attentitively but not speaking at all. As the junior security officer, it was not his place to usurp the Chief Security Officer's position in such a meeting. Having been a Starfleet officer for over 10 years, Matt understood protocol and respected it.

"Captain?" He replied, with a very surprised look on his face. Now it was becoming clear why he was at this meeting.

"Hayden has a family now. The Federation is at war. Once we're clear he's going to pursue other ambitions in Starfleet, and I can't say I blame him."

Landon handed Caldwell a PaDD, "Should you choose to accept, I am appointing you Chief of Security and Tactical aboard this vessel. Effective immediately," Landon winked, "Hayden needs some time to pack."

Not giving Caldwell a moment to respond, he pushed on, looking at the chronometer on the wall. Landon could feel the inching seconds tick past as they approached closer and closer to Earth space. "Anything from Science?" Neyes asked, moving quickly from department to department.

It felt as if Saia had to use all the focus and concentration she had to listen to the other reports. Whatever extra mind power she had was used to process it. Did she know Williams? She thinks she talked to him a few times. She kept her distance because, well, he was in Security, and she couldn't afford to get too close to anyone who had those deductive skills that security officers had.

During her reverie, staring through the PADD in her hand, Saia almost missed the question. She blinked as if startled looking up. Did the captain ask that? Of course. Well, it made sense that he would. She opened her mouth, but it produced nothing as she looked down at her padd and cleared her throat. Forgetting how unprofessional it would sound, she started her report with, "Um..."

After what felt like forever to gather her thoughts from the data on the padd, Saia continued, "We are still working on fine tuning scanners from the damage they took. Some artifacts are damaged, but..." she looked around and muttered, "not that anyone cares about that..." Saia looked further down the padd, "There are some consoles with physical damage, but we are able to do what we can until Engineering gets to them..." Saia finished and took a deep sigh, nodding. She didn't look up. She continued staring into the padd, feeling numb and still very much not wanting to be there.

Neyes pointedly looked from Cody to Saia.

"Counselor, if you need anything to assist in evaluating crew morale or health, you'll let me know." He looked to Cannon, "I realize caring for the well-being of more than 1,000 people can be a bit of a job."

Nodding, Cody replied "Of course sir. Thank you. I look forward to meeting everyone. If I need any help, I'll let you know. So far I haven't ran in to any major issues sir."

Neyes had purposefully waited to hear from the Marine captains last. As they more than likely had the least amount of things to say Landon wanted to hear. The three of them made up a good section of the staff at the meeting, yet were responsible for a fraction of the workings on the ship. He leaned in, taking a small sip of coffee.

"Keggle, what's your group's status?"

"Bruised, low morale and looking for revenge for their fallen comrades." Keggle glaring at their spoon head chief engineer, "and I don't blame them."

Landon's eyes thinned, and the marine continued to push his buttons. "I trust the Romulan issue has been taken care of then, Captain King?"

"As well as he deserves to be taken care of......oh and don't worry we haven't broken any of the war laws regarding POWs." King said looking at the captain to see the type of reaction he would show.

"I hope that's true." Neyes stood up unfazed, moving to the large windows at the wall behind him. "I want everyone to know we're not going to dropping into the Sol system you're used to. Earth has been attacked by a combined fleet of Cardassian and Tholian ships. A good deal of the Starfleet ships in Earth space were destroyed almost immediately. Paris is gone. San Francisco was also heavily damaged from the orbital bombardment. We're not sure how they got so close so fast, but that's not our job to figure out.

"Our job is going to be the repair of this ship, and rescue efforts for any ships in need of our assistance. Since the Vindicator is ready and prepared to deal with a situation like this, we will forego docking and conduct repairs ourselves. Let me know what you need, Commander Dahe'el."

"Civilian or otherwise there are people who will need our help. Engineering can assist in the repairs with the use of the workerbees, which we'll beam directly to the flight deck if there's an emergency."

"Security, I'd like you to prepare for rescue operations. If we do encounter a ship in distress, we'll send over a security team with two marine officers as escort."

He looked to King, "...Two."

"Dr. Cannon I'll leave discretion on the size of the medical away team to you.

"Ms. Roswell, do your best to scan for signs of life on any vessels which we would otherwise deem derelict or disabled. It's going to be your job to find the people who need our help.

Landon looked back at the officers before him, grateful they'd all gotten through, and thankful they were alive and able to help the victims of an attack like this one. Heavens knew they'd need all the help they could get.

"Any questions?"

"Not a question.....but my Marine pararescuemen are ready to go to help with the wounded along with my combat medics and my small medical detachment." King said.

"If two medics are who you decide to attach to the away teams, then so be it, Captain. You will not be sending in a full team of armed marine paratroopers onto another Federation vessel, though. I'd prefer sickbay to take the lead on all medical matters if you don't mind."

"All I need is time Captain," Almar replied with a slight smile and a nod, "I can requisition supplies from Starbase One and conduct the repairs without the need to dock, we have a number of Workerbees that should suffice."

Saia nodded without looking up and remembered to add, "Aye, sir." Find people who needed help. Her mind fought it's exhaustion with compassion. She forced compassion to win and finally looked up, determination giving her eyes something of a spark, "We'll make sure no living cell is unnoticed."

Neyes grinned, now they were getting somewhere. "Get to work on prep for the rescue teams as soon as possible. We're due to drop to normal speed in less than an hour." Neyes suddenly remembered Almar's warning about the inertial dampers. "...Which we'll take slowly."

"Dismissed."

=/\= END LOG =/\=

Senior Staff
USS VINDICATOR

 

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