Preliminary Preparations

Posted on 17 Feb 2012 @ 2:00am by Captain Jonathan Holliday & Command Master Chief Markum Quinn & Rear Admiral Lirha Saalm

2,935 words; about a 15 minute read

Mission: Episode 00 - Pre-Deployment
Location: San Francisco Fleet Yards, USS Galileo
Timeline: MD 03 - 0730 hrs

[ON]

Lirha walked down the main docking ramp which lead to the control office of the primary construction bay. All around her she could see her new ship's hull. Though small in size compared to other Starfleet starships, the Nova Class was still a formidable vessel to see in person. Standing on the main access ramp, she gazed in awe at her new command. The hull was freshly finished in a light metallic composite and the hull plating looked flawless and fully intact. Turning her head from side to side, she could barely see from the front of the saucer section to the rear nacelles. Jitters began to spread through her stomach as she slowly realized the importance and significance of her first command.

Various personnel scurried all around her while making their way to and from the Galileo while carrying all sorts of intricate parts and supplies for the ship. She was impressed at the work which the dock workers and engineering staff had completed so far. Externally, the ship looked fully completed and ready to deploy. But she knew that despite appearances, most of the work would have to be done on the interior.

She let out a tired sigh as it was still early in the morning and waited for her XO to arrive for the walk-through.

After a relatively slow day onboard, Holliday had found himself reading status report after status report, the Engineering Corps having a habit of filing a report on pretty much every nut and self-sealing stem bolt that had been used in the construction of this vessel. With a padd in hand, which he quickly passed to a crewman in the corridor, he headed into the transporter room, and gave the instruction for the chief to beam him to the inspection platform to meet with his CO as ordered.

A few moments later, and the system deposited him exactly where he had requested. Straightening his uniform, he looked around him, and saw the familiar green skin of Commander Saalm, and headed towards her, approaching from behind and to her right.

"Good morning ma'am, not a bad ship is she?"

He called out as he got close enough to greet her, before joining her at her side, looking out at the hull of the ship, gleaming in the early morning sunlight.

"Good morning, Commander." she replied with a friendly smile, then pushed some of her dark hair out of her face. "She's beautiful..." Lirha said softly as she marveled at the fleet's newest Nova-class starship.

"I forgot how good a new ship can look like this....I doubt we'll get the luxury of seeing her from this angle too many times, rather too cold out in space for regular walks on the hull."

He chuckled to himself as he remembered his first few hours onboard

"Just a tip though...watch out for deckplates, and broken turbolifts...trust me, they're not the best way to start your day...I think our chief engineer is going to have their hands full for a while"

"Noted," she replied with a nod, "Though I have the feeling that he rather enjoys bossing around all the young engineers." she finished with a grin. "Let's have a look, shall we?"

"Lead the way ma'am" He replied with a wry smile of his own

The Orion led them up the ramp and to the starboard access hatch, where they passed through the open airlock and into the interior of the ship. She glanced around at the exposed conduits and uninstalled terminals lining the floors of each corridor. Taking her XO's advice, she carefully maneuvered herself around various construction tools and items while delicately stepping over several sections of unfinished deckplating.

"Hopefully the bridge will be a little more...shall we say, finished, than this...otherwise you might end up having to commission this mission sat on the floor rather than in the centre chair! I haven't had chance to set foot up here yet myself, so this is much a suprise for me as it is for you!"

John was certainly excited to get a look at his new bridge, that XO seat and he would probably be getting rather well aquainted, and plenty of hours spent nestled up here in the absence of his CO.

Lirha walked through an open door and entered the bridge, then stopped to look around. There was still much to be done apparently, as junior engineers and dock workers scuttled about while working on various consoles and securing overhead bulkheads and panels.

"How hard is it to place a number-five deck screw with a washer? But noo, these kids these days take the short and easy way. It's not even hexagonal for cripes sakes." The Chief Engineer was under the Blue plush Command Chair, face first. His small tool box next to him. The Chief had just spent the better part of two hours repolishing the woodwork and cleaning the tops of the numerous LCARS screens with a dust and static streak free solution. The Bridge still had that new smell to it, and a few missing lights. On the seat of the CO's chair was an open box, with foamed pieces full to the top, and some spilled about.

"Glad to see you here bright and early, Chief." Lirha called out to her Chief Engineer as she approached the center of the bridge. Though she couldn't see his face, she recognized his voice and distinctive manner of grumbling. She glanced at the seat of her captain's chair and curiously looked at the open container. As she picked it up, she pushed some of the foam peanuts out of the way and exposed a large golden rectangular emblem. It was the Galileo's dedication plaque.

"How did you get this?" she asked incredulously. Usually the dedication plaques were kept under safeguard by the head dockmaster until launch day.

Markum smacked his head as he tried to jump up after being caught off guard by the arrival of the CO. "OUCH!" He quickly stood up, rubbing the back of his head, not realising he was spreading grease across his head, and face. With a curt smile he replied, "Yes ma'am, about that. Umm, the dockmaster is a big time card player, so I just happened to run into him last night down at the Wharf. After tossing several drinks back we returned to his office and started a friendly game of poker. So he ended betting more than he had, and apparently he never was hustled before. So, being the generous, sincere person that I am, I told him I'd forgive his entire debt if he would hand that baby over to me." Markum pointed to the plaque, then smiled broadly. "I wanted it to be a surprise ma'am, so.... Surprise!?"

The green-skinned woman couldn't help but smile at the story as well as the beautiful plaque she held in her hands. "Well played, Chief." she replied with a wink of approval, then passed the plaque over to her XO for him to look at. "I believe some introductions are in order," she said, as to her knowledge, her two current senior officers had not formally met yet. "Mister Quinn, this is our new Executive Officer, Mister Holliday." she said, "And Mister Holliday, this is Mister Quinn, our Chief Engineer." Lirha finished as she stepped back to let the two men greet each other.

Markum smiled and wiped his hands on his pants-legs, then offered his, not as dirty, hand. "Lieutenant Commander, pleasure to meet you sir. I'm Senior Chief Warrant Officer Markum Quinn, at your service."

Glancing down at the less than pristine hand of the engineer, Holliday reluctantly reached out and shook the Chief's hand, before releasing his grip and checking his palm out the corner of his eye to see just exactly how much grease he had managed to transfer

"Good to meet you too chief, tell me, hows our bird looking? Is she going to fly?"

"Aye-Aye XO, she'll fly alright. She'll fly circles around a Galaxy of Normandy. Is more agile than the Sovereigns too." Markum took one step back and then motioned to the port side of the bridge. "On the port side, up on the lifted stations is the Galileo's several science and research stations. The station that is down front here, to the port, is flight control, next to it here sir is your station. Then the forward, starboard-side console just right of the main viewscreen is tactical. It is usually only manned during specific alerts, if you go by the book, sir. Then the first station on extreme port is Ops, followed by Security, then ending with Diplomatic Affairs." Markum then pointed to the MSD directly behind the Command Chair, "There an engineer will be stationed at all times, in case of a catastrophic event in Main Engineering."

John made sure he listened carefully as his new engineer explained the layout of the Bridge. Whilst he was not entirely happy that Starfleet had made Tactical a secondary station use, he was at least glad that they were relatively accessible systems. Of course worst case, he could just reroute the controls to his station if necessary

"Excellent Chief, excellent, I guess I best get aquainted with this chair of mine, hows Engineering looking? Got things working the way you'd like?"

Markum shrugged his shoulders, "Well, I'd let a preschool class of toddlers eat off the floor, Engineering is so clean, but these people at design have obviously never worked on a vessel while not in drydock. We will have some bumps along the way, I'm sure sir, but we'll keep her together."

"You're doing a fine job so far, Mister Quinn." Lirha said from the background, then stepped closer to the two men. "I'm going to take a look around so I'll leave you two to your own devices for a while." she said, quoting an old Human idiom. PADD in hand, she stepped over several containers and power tools and made her way into the captain's ready room to inspect it.

Watching his CO depart, John was suddenly under the realisation that for now, he was the most senior person currently stood on the bridge, essentially in command until Lirha returned. Striding over to the XO chair, he quickly leapt into place, and felt the seat adequately supporting his back.

"Not bad..." he muttered to himself as he looked down at the console next to him, at the moment showing the armada of jobs still to be completed, and a constantly updated status report on the ship.

"Well then" He announced to the bridge crew "lets figure out how much work there is left to do, I want level three diagnostics run on all primary systems and a report back to me within the hour, lets move people there's still a lot of work to get done"

And with that, he began entering his own commands into the console, the Tactical systems would need checking over, and until their Tactical Officer arrived, he was the next best thing, watching happily as the diagnostic panel began to run in front of him.

Markum picked up his small tool kit and walked over to the turbolift. The door slid half open, then stopped. "Well," remarked the Chief Engineer, "better now than at Red Alert I guess." He looked to a young Bolian, "You, Engineer's Mate Second-Class whoever you are. Give me a hand with this door please." The two went to work, in an attempt to fix the stuck turbolift doors.

Twenty Minutes Later...

Lirha emerged from her ready room with sweat dripping from her brow and a small metal table clutched in her arms. She let out a huff as she dropped it on the ground with a loud clang, then wiped her forehead and pushed several wet strands of hair from her face. "Can someone get rid of this table and find me something a bit more...aesthetic? Maybe with a wood finish, instead of this depressing grey color? My whole office is grey...the walls, the desk, the chairs...even my couch!" she said out-loud with an exasperated sigh to anyone who was nearby. She paused and looked around the bridge for any signs of her XO or Chief Engineer.

Looking up from his diagnostics, the XO was bemused by the sudden arrival of his commanding officer, and the state she had managed to get herself in over something as simple as a table. Tapping the panel, he stood up and headed towards her, safe in the knowledge that the diagnostic would complete itself.

"Starfleet standard issue ma'am, looks like the interior designers didn't have time to do their normal flurries of aesthetics. Anyway, grey isn't that bad, on a ship this small, we're lucky to have it!"

Nodding to two junior crewmen who were on duty on the Bridge, they quickly came over, collected the table, and headed for the nearest exit, whilst the turbolift was down, it was going to be the jeffries tubes

"I'm sure the chief can work something up, engineers are pretty good these days apparently!" He said with a tone of joking in his voice.

"Ma'am on a more serious note...our tactical systems are...pretty much non-existent, whats going on?"

The green-skinned woman walked over to her XO, now curious as to his question. As far as she was aware, the Galileo's torpedo launchers and phaser arrays should have already been installed. "What's the problem?" she asked.

"well ma'am, apparently we have nothing more than a half dozen torpedoes, and our phasers appear to be purely decorative, surely HQ wouldn't send us out here without the ability to defend ourselves?"

With a sigh, Lirha remembered what she had been told in her mission briefing about the lack of supplies at the munitions depot. Now was probably as good a time as any to break the bad news to her first officer. "Apparently," she began to say with irritation permeating her voice, "Starfleet has just launched the Jernoble and the Nevada, and has just refit the Venture. The main armory has been depleted for the week and we've been pushed to the back of the line, as far as torpedoes are concerned." she finished, and paused to let the words soak in for her XO. "Our full compliment is waiting for us when we dock at Starbase 234. What's the problem with the phaser arrays?"

Frowning as he listened to the poor situation in terms of the main armoury, he tapped a few more commands on the panel ahead of him, and brought up a diagnostic report of the main phaser subsystems.

"Well, if I'm reading this right, the emitters have been installed, calibrated and primed, but there are still no phaser couplings installed to link the EPS grid to the primary chambers, essentially we can fire, but the phasers aren't currently getting any power to generate a beam."

He tapped a few more controls

"It might be possible to set up some kind of bypass, feed the EPS grid directly into the phaser arming chambers without going through the couplings, but if they overload, we'd lose the entire phaser subsystem in one fell swoop..."

"Check with our Chief Engineer, first. I would prefer you hold off on the bypass for now. Let me go check on the status of our couplings." she said, then stood up. "I'm going to go find our dockmaster and give him hell...see if I can't find out what's going on. You have the bridge until I return." she said, then walked off towards the turbolift.

Standing up from his console, he nodded to his CO as she headed off the bridge

"Aye ma'am, I have the bridge" He confirmed, as he headed for the centre chair, and slowly settled himself in, it was going to take some getting used to being this central, he was must more used to being positioned at a station, and felt rather exposed in the centre of the bridge.

"Mr Quinn, if we can get some phaser couplings how fast can you get them installed and online?"

Markum scratched his chis for a few seconds, "About two hours, sir. That's a pretty easy fix, depending upon the location that is."

"Understood, have your teams ready to work the moment Commander Saalm sends word from the Dockmaster, I'll be damned if we're going out there without phasers."

Tapping a control on the command chair, he opened a communications link between himself and his CO.

"Bridge to Saalm, ma'am Mr Quinn confirms we can have phasers operational in a couple of hours once we get our hands on those couplings, any lucking finding out where they are?"

Standing inside of one of the drydock's offices, Lirha was growing impatient while she waited for the dockmaster to retrieve the updated supply manifest for her starship. She heard her XO's voice echo through her communicator and gave it a firm tap to signal her reply. "Stand by, Commander," she said with frustration, "I'm still in the supply office waiting for an answer. I'll keep you informed soon as I get word." she said, and began to slowly pace back and forth around the room while grumbling Orion expletives under he breath.

[OFF]

--

CMDR Lirha Saalm
Commanding Officer
USS Galileo

LTCDR John Holliday
Executive Offier
USS Galileo

Chief Warrant Officer Markum Quinn
Chief Engineer
USS Galileo

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