Captains

Posted on 27 Jun 2013 @ 8:02am by Rear Admiral Lirha Saalm & Captain Jonathan Holliday

1,728 words; about a 9 minute read

Mission: Episode 03 - Frontier
Location: USS Galileo/USS Ticonderoda - CO and XO's Offices
Timeline: MD 06 - 1020 hrs

[ON]

Sitting at the desk in her ready room with a small plate of re-fried wing slugs in front of her, Lirha munched on the crispy-yet-juicy snack while browsing through the various new messages from Starfleet Command which were currently present in her inbox. Tapping the console several times to scroll through them all, she eventually came across a most intriguing notice from Vice Admiral Uvar, her Task Force Commanding Officer. The Orion's eyebrows slightly lifted with curiosity and she quick opened the message to read through its contents, and several short moments later leaned back in her chair and let out a huff. Apparently, her task group had just been restructured and her former senior ship commanding officer, Captain Rowe, had been detached from her outfit and headed to a different posting in a new task force.

The news was not ideal but at least Starfleet had seen fit to find her a timely replacement, a man by the name of Captain Hitoshi Kaneda who was the commanding officer of a large Vikrant Class carrier, the USS Ticonderoga. Lirha was half-tempted to immediately look up the captain's service record and nitpick through his personnel file, but instead decided that a brief conference call would probably yield more personal insight into her new command assistant.

Tapping away at her console for a short moment, she finally opened up a subspace link to the Ticonderoga...wherever she was at the current moment. In addition, Lirha also sent a comm request to her XO. No doubt John would want to hear of the news, and perhaps (as a tactical man), he would enjoy meeting one of the fleet's newest carrier-warship COs. She took a large bite of another wing-slug then leaned back in her seat and stared at the screen, patiently waiting for both parties to hopefully respond to her communique.

Almost half a galaxy away on the opposite edge of Federation space, Captain Kaneda sat on the bridge of the USS Ticonderoga as it hurtled at high warp towards the the Stefano Nova system. All in all, it had been a less than eventful duty shift and he had been amusing himself, as he often did, by having the computer play light classical music into the bridge using the intercom system. The crew didn't seem to mind, indeed they often performed better with a little music to in the background.

"Captain, subspace message coming through from the USS Galileo. Sending it through to your ready room." Ensign Arnold called, turning towards the center chair as the music cut out briefly.

"Oh? I wonder what they want..." Kaneda pondered as he stood and began walking towards the door leading through to his office. "Call Livingston up if anything yellow-alert-worthy happens. Otherwise, you have the bridge, Ensign."

As soon as the doors closed and he found himself alone in his ready room, Kaneda made sure to straighten out his uniform and took a quick look in the mirror to make sure he was presentable before taking a chair in front of his desk console and tapping the screen to accept the transmission.

"Kaneda here." He stated as the picture of a young Orion-looking woman appeared on his console. "Something I can do for you, Captain Saalm?"

Back in Galileo's ready room, Lirha's screen suddenly blinked and displayed an image of her fellow red-collared captain. She straightened up in her seat then gave him a friendly and polite smile, looking over his features and noticing his deceptively youthful appearance which was betrayed only by a few locks of greying hair around the edges. Although Lirha has not been born on Earth, her prior cultural studies at the Academy told her that he was of Asian descent...possibly Japanese, judging by his name and distinct features.

"Hello, captain." she said pleasantly enough. "I am sorry to disturb you, however I wanted to briefly speak with you regarding a message I just received from Starfleet Command." she added, then paused briefly to push her plate of food to the side. "I believe my XO will be joining us in just a short moment, as well."

From his office, John had quickly come across the comm request from his CO, as well as a little added detail about this Captain Kaneda. The part that got the Galileo XO's attention however, was the name of the starship. Ticonderoga was one of the newest ships in the fleet, and definitely one of the largest. Unlike Galileo which was built for science, Ticonderoga was built to fight, enough to get John's pulse racing.

Straightening his collar, the XO logged onto the comm channel as requested, watching as the screen built into his desk split into the two captain's images, Saalm on his left, and Kaneda on his right.

"Captain Saalm - reporting as ordered. Captain Kaneda, I'm Commander Holliday, Galileo's XO."

Lirha gave her XO a small smile and a nod, happy to see on her screen that he had promptly picked up the comm request. Patiently, she waited for the two men to greet each other.

"Greetings to you both." Kaneda replied with a nod of his head.

"So.. to what do I owe the pleasure?" He asked, turning his attention to Lirha. "I do hope you're not going to try to divert us off-course, we're behind schedule as it is and if we get held up any further there'll be nothing left of Stefano Nova to evacuate."

The Orion captain smirked and shook her head, her dark pony tail bobbing across her shoulders. "No, not at all...this is merely a formality call and I will make it brief." she prefaced. "I have just received word that Captain Rowe of the USS Forseti has been reassigned to a new task force. Which means as the next senior-most captain in our task group, you are 72-A's new senior ship commanding officer." she explained. "I suppose congratulations are in order..."

"Indeed." Kaneda replied with a surprised inflection, apparently caught off-guard by his first piece of good news in weeks.

"I.. well.. thank you. I'll certainly do my best to live up to the position." He continued at last. "Is there anything I have to.. do?"

Lirha glanced at John with a smile and a knowing look, then turned her attention back to the other captain. "Aside from putting up with me? Not much." she teased to help lighten the mood. Her first impression of Kaneda was that he seemed to be the serious-sort of commanding officer, and the last thing she wanted to do was to stress him out when he was already on an important assignment.

"Your official duties will be to help me liaise with the other captains in our task group and coordinate our efforts to maximize efficiency. It requires a bit more paperwork but aside from that, and as long as we are not in a combat situation, there is not much more to the role." she elaborated.

"Captain Saalm is generally capable of overseeing most of the task force's day to day operations - however occasionally her workload about Galileo does require a certain degree of overspill."

Holliday piped up, glancing towards his captain in return to her own sideways look and smile, before moving his head back to face Captain Kaneda. He seemed to be a serious man, dedicated, stern, the kind of commander that he would one day like to become if he ever got a shot at the central chair.

"With a command as substantial as yours sir, I am sure that it will cause no serious concern."

"Right. I'll certainly help out however I can, and a little extra paperwork won't kill me, I'm sure." Kaneda replied with a slight smile. "Besides, our current mission is little more than a shakedown run, I don't anticipate any major drama."

"Excellent, thank you, captain." Lirha said, then paused briefly to consider the Ticonderoga's current mission. "What can you tell me about this evacuation?" she proceeded to ask, curious to know more about the details of the MX351 star system and its Federation inhabitants.

"Like I said, it's not much more than a shakedown run. I think the only reason we were assigned to it is because we were the largest ship in the area." Kaneda replied with a slight sigh. "Can't say I'm complaining, though. It'll be nice to solve a problem diplomatically for a change. Seems like every time I turn around recently I'm being shot at by someone new..."

"Anyway, if you want the specifics, the colony is under threat from these Nausicaan pirate fleets that have been roaming the area and they've no way to defend themselves. Short of docking a defensive flotilla in orbit around the colony, there's not much we can do except evacuate them." He continued. "Unfortunate, a decade or so of hard work down the drain, but the alternative is doubly unpleasant."

John visibly furrowed his brow at the mention of Nausicaan pirates. He had tangled with them a few times during his early days in the fleet, and they were nothing if not persistent, and vicious.

"Unpleasant indeed Captain Kaneda. Although they would have to be foolish to think their ships a match for a Vikrant class carrier."

Although the situation with the Nausicaans was less than ideal, Lirha couldn't suppress a small grin which spread across her gold lips. "You have quite an arsenal at your disposal." she added in agreement with her XO. "I sincerely hope that you are not forced to use it, but I have confidence that Ticonderoga is more than capable of handling herself out there."

She cleared her throat, realizing that she was probably keeping the other captain from his duties. She had meant for her check in to be brief, and unfortunately didn't have much more insight to add to the situation. "Very well, captain. I will leave you to your own devices. You may contact me any time you like if you require assistance. Saalm out." she finished, then tapped the END TRANSMISSION button at the bottom of the screen.

[OFF]

--

CAPT Lirha Saalm
Commanding Officer
USS Galileo

CMDR Jonathan Holliday
Executive Officer
USS Galileo

CAPT Hitoshi Kaneda
Commanding Officer
USS Ticonderoga

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