Star Trek: Ascendant - Shakedown Cruise IC

[knightemplar]

"A pleasure to meet you Dr. Crescent. Give me a minute, please?", as she turns back to Dr. Sandecker with anger in her eyes.

"Doctor, this must be the first time you have been on a Starship!", the admiral states loudy to the civilian. There are a couple of other officers that have a brief chuckle as they realize the insult in her statement.

"Let me make this very clear. So far this is the third ship of the line that Lt. Winters has taken out on her maiden cruise. I am very confident that he is quite skilled at his job. His charge is the safety and operation of all systems on this vessel, so I give his word a lot of weight when he has concerns. Matter of fact, it will be his opinion that will carry the greatest weight whether your Carsi program will be used on Starfleet vessels or if it will be deleted and a standard LCARS program will be used. So, you might want to think about that before you speak to him next time."

Dr. Sandecker looks down at his feet like a child with his hands caught in the cookie jar. "Yes, ma'am."

"I am not done. For future reference if you have a problem with a member of the crew, please follow the chain of command. For you, you would first go to Lt. Winters. If he does not take care of the problem, then you would respectfully approach Commander Cherok, then you would schedule an appointment with me through Crewman Bridger, not interrupt me while I am talking to other officers. Have I made myself clear?"

"Yes, Commodore. I apologize.", the civilian says while still shuffling his feet like a little child.

"I will have the Commander talk with Lt. Winters, and see why he thinks the Carsi program is the one causing the interference. If the Commander agrees with Lt. Winters, then you will give him full access to the system, do I make myself clear?"

"Yes, Commodore." He quickly retreats from the dining hall, and back into the hallway.

"Now, Dr. Crescent. How may I help you?"

________________________________________________________

D'Vassa gives Jonas a quick jab in the ribs with her elbow at the quip. " I don't think they can keep up with me."

The human male with the latin features walks up to the small group. "Lt. Martinez, a pleasure to meet a beautiful lady such as yourself. He holds out his hand to kiss hers, as he does a half bow. D'Vassa puts her hand out, but quickly takes it away as he tries to kiss it.

"I am not that type of lady, Lt.", as she takes Jonas' arm, and leads him towards the table. The two gentlemen in the blue duty uniforms have a quick laugh at his expense, as he walks back over to join them.

________________________________________________________

Benson walks over to one of the enlisted and inquires about drinks. The enlisted man assures him that he will get him a Vulcan Port, since no one is on duty here.

__________________________________________________________

Lt. Kevas walks into the dining room, and talks for a couple of minutes with Crewman Bridger. The Crewman makes a notation on his pad, as he sets up the meeting with the Commodore.

 

[ethandrew]

Ever the wallflower, Lieutenant Winters watched the exchange between the Commodore and Dr. Sandecker. On one side he was pleased at the confidence and authority the woman spoke with in regards to him and his ability, but was hoping she didn't sire resentment in the civilian, with whom Winters would be working closely with.

His eyes shifted to Cherok and his group, over to the Orion woman, who gave Winter the nerviest of nerves. She seemed close to that one man, who seemed vaguely familiar. The engineer had attempted to go over the officer's briefs, to be able to recognize face and name as well as know a little about them, but in all honesty he hadn't had time to tackle this task.

He'd rather be working on this problem, it consumed his mind, and it just didn't make much sense.

 

[Blackrat]

Oh, nothing. Just wanted to make introductions. Please, don't let me interrupt. Raphael says with a charming smile and stays to listen at the conversation.

 

[HolyMan]

Waiting for his drink, Benson scans the room again, the last thing he wants is for someone from his past to show up unannouced. It was almost three years ago but you never know who in this universe could transporter in and when. It would be best if I had just stayed out of Star-Fleet altogether, he thinks to himself.

 

[Rhun]

Hale, being the gentleman that he is, pulls out one of the chairs for D'Vassa to sit.

 

[knightemplar]

As others sit down at the table following the lead of Hale and D'Vassa, the Commodore says,"Let's go ahead and start, it looks like the majority of people are here, and I hope you are all hungry."

With that a skilled crew of enlisted crewman start serving the dinner made up of various dishes from around the galaxy.

"Before we start eating, I wish to thank Crewman Daniels and his crew for making this fine dinner before us.", says the Commodore, as she slowly waves towards the one man that seems to be orchestrating the other servers. With that a few of the officers clap in appreciation for the fine meal set in front of them.

The dinner goes along quite well, with various officers chatting among themselves and introducing themselves to others. There are some pretty good stories going around the table, and everyone is having a good time.

"Commodore, there is a Priority One signal from Grand Admiral Turner's office, the carrier wave is identifying Fleet Admiral Kiel.", Carsi states as she walks over to the Commodore and awaits her orders.

"Not even out of Drydock, and we get an emergency call. This is going to be one interesting cruise.", Kris slowly uses her napkin to daintly wipe her mouth."Carsi, display Priority One message on the dining room's main viewer. Accept call, Rardon Gamma Epsilon Five One."

The viewscreen on the opposite wall flares to life, as all of the members of the table turn around to see what is going on. Commodore Rardon calmly strolls in front of the viewscreen as on the screen, the blond hair of Fleet Admiral Kiel is seen. Her eyes tell the tale of another late night of no sleep with the current emergency. In the background, everryone can see Grand Admiral Turner sitting at the desk in his office, calmly talking to Admiral Sa'avik.

"I take it Liz, this is not a personal call", she says calmly as she addresses her ranking admiral.

"Sorry Kris, I hate to do it, but I need you on the front lines now. The Discovery was on a standard border patrol, investigating Federation transports to Cestus III going missing. She was attacked by three Gorn Battlecruisers and heavily damaged. Ann was badly hurt in the attack and her tactical officer is currently in command, trying to get back to DS7. Admiral Mendez and a group of Federation diplomats have been on the Gorn Homeworld for the last few days and we are hoping that there can be a diplomatic resolution to this situation."

"I see. Are we to head for the border immediately, Admiral?"

"No, but you will be leaving drydock tomorrow morning at 1000 hours. Utopia Planitia assures Grand Admiral Turner that the ship is ready and most of the other repairs can be done while she is in transit. Recall your crew from leave and have them report back in by 0700, that should get most of the crew here, and the rest will embark when you drop me off at 39-Sierra. I will be coming aboard about 0900 after I get a couple of hours of sleep, and we will have a quick change of command ceremony."

"I have authorized your Chief Engineer to request any parts he think he needs from the Stardock and they will move it as a priority request.", the Admiral says, trying to stifle back a yawn. "From 39-Sierra, I am authorizing your deployment at Cestus III, in case the diplomatic overtures go bad."

"Yes, Admiral. We will leave at 1000 hours as ordered. Anything else?"

"We will talk later Kris, I hope this doesn't go bad. If it does, I will be glad that your there to make sure it doesn't become a disaster for the Federation. Beyond that we will talk when I arrive. Kiel Out.", the viewer screen for a few seconds displays the United Federation of Planets symbol before it slowly darkens to black.

"Ladies and Gentlemen, you have heard the Admiral and we have our orders. Once more we go into the breach with hope on our side."

"Lt. D'Vassa issue the crew recall orders and run a level 1 diagnostic on all communication systems. Also, get me anything you can find on Memory Alpha about the Gorn and their tactics, background data and such. Help me learn all I can about a species I don't know anything about.", D'Vassa quickly gets out of her seat and heads towards the door to carry out her orders.

"Lt. Commander Hale have the few officers and crew do a level 1 diagnostic on all weapon and defensive systems. I just have a bad feeling we will need them sooner than we desire. Also, have an honor guard standing by at 0900 for the arrival of the Admiral with the standard piping ceremony. She would not want the ceremony under the circumstances of our advanced departure, but I have known her for years and respect her enough to do it anyways."

"Lt. Winters, figure out what you need to requisition and order it. If there is the slightest chance you might need it, do it with the Admiral's orders and my blessings."

"Lt. Kevas, check out the sensor systems and do a level 1 diagnostic on the computer core. If you see anything that seems out of place coordinate with Lt. Winters please."

"Dr. Crescent, can you please make sure all medical systems are fully operational. With all due respect Dr, I hope we do not need your talents too soon, but I want you to be the best equipped and prepared you can be if we get into a shooting match."

"Ens. Benson, do diagnostics of all shuttle systems and do a level 1 diagnostic of the main helm controls."

"Lt. Martinez, I want an operational check of the main systems and coordinate with the others to assist in the diagnostics."

"Cmdr. Cherok, coordinate with Lt. Winters on what we were talking with Dr. Sandecker and help him with whatever you can."

"Everyone else, please help where you can, we are running on the clock and I can only hope we can make her deadline.", with that she turns her back on the rest of the crew as they scramble to carry out her orders and with a thoughtful stare looks out towards the side window and towards the stars.



GM's Note: Just moving the plotline up, or I would probably bore most of you with two more weeks in drydock.

 

[HolyMan]

"So this means no dessert?" Ensign Benson asks genuinely.

 

[Blackrat]

Crescent to ensign Corwin. Raphael calls as he taps the communicator badge. Waiting for acknowledgement he empties his glass and then continues. I need you to make preliminary inventory on medical supplies and confirm that the medbay replicator works properly. Run standard replication test for common medicines. I will be there shortly myself.

With that he walks over to the Commodore, picking up her glass on the way. You look troubled. He comments as he hands the glass to her.

 

[knightemplar]

One of the crewmen lean over to Ensign Benson, and ask, "What would you like?"

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"Corwin to Crescent. Acknowleged.", comes the voice from the commbadge.


"It's nothing, Dr. Crescent. I was just not expecting to get used to the ship before having to bring her into battle. I like to know what the ship is capable of, and I fear that my ignorance might wind up hurting the crew.", says the Commodore, as she continues to look out at the stars through the window.

 

[ethandrew]

Lieutenant Stephen Winters exited the meet and greet grateful for two things. Firstly, that his entire staff was already aboard, already working, running diagnostics, so that when he asked his junior officers what parts could potentially be necessary should certain situations arise, they would have an intelligent, well-informed answer. Secondly, that he managed to go through that whole ceremony without talking to anyone.

He walked briskly and with purpose down to engineering, putting a call to his juniors to meet him in his office.