Standard Procedures...

Posted on 24 May 2012 @ 3:33am by Captain Jonathan Holliday & Lieutenant Commander Chauncey Remington III (KIA) & Lieutenant JG Kestra Orexil & Tarishiana Barel & Command Master Chief Markum Quinn & Lieutenant Commander Pola Ni Dhuinn M.D. & Lieutenant Commander Dea Mialin
Edited on on 24 May 2012 @ 5:31am

4,564 words; about a 23 minute read

Mission: Episode 01 - Project Sienna
Location: USS Galileo - Deck 1 - Conference Room
Timeline: MD 07 - 1000hrs

[ON]

With their arrival at the Starbase expected in less than four hours, Jonathan was more than surprised that he had managed to find time to slip the weekly senior staff review meeting in with so much time to spare. Granted it was unlikely that anything would arise which would lead to any significant impact on the mission at hand, but protocol was protocol, and Holliday knew he wouldn't make much of an XO if he didn't have an up to date knowledge of the Galileo before they docked.

With Alpha shift still currently on duty, the XO had thankfully had plenty of time to get his notes together, and knew that most of the senior crew would already be at their stations, or at worst case, a short turbolift ride away. Stepping into the Conference Room from the corridor, the Commander picked up his daily cup of extra strong coffee from the replicator and settled into his chair at the head of the long table.

It felt odd to him that the captain was not in sight, and wasn't even going to be chairing this meeting, one of the perks of being an XO of course, was the degree of autonomy that was required.

Kestra slipped through the doors, PADD in one hand and a mug of tea in the other. "Good morning, sir," she greeted him with a fond smile and took a seat, flipping through the results of the last training simulation she'd run with her team. They'd progressed swiftly, learning each other's skills and - better - learning how best to put each other to work. Between their hard training, and the means she'd worked out with Remington, Rishi, and Coleman, she felt confident they'd be able to handle any scenario.

Pola paused for a moment outside of the office door, taking a moment to recompose herself. After yet another night of barely any sleep, she realized that she needed to start being careful. The last thing she needed was to drive herself to exhaustion which would be of no use to anyone. It was bad enough she now had his foot injury to contend with, it was obvious to anyone who saw her walk that something had happen. Pushing the thoughts of the events of last night and her foot to the back of her head, the young Doctor fixed a smile on her face and limped into the room. Nodding to both the XO and the woman sitting at the table, Pola took her own seat.

Will entered shortly thereafter. He made his way to a seat and sat down. "Good afternoon," he said to those at the table. Once settled, he set out a PADD for his notes and a mug from the replicator beside that. The operations officer appeared distracted by otherwise fine.

Quinn entered the room and gave a nod to each present as he took his seat.

Dea entered shortly behind Quinn. A small matter required her attention before she'd been able to leave her station on the bridge. Nodding to the other as she took a seat, "Good afternoon to everyone."

Tarishiana was running late. It was not a normal state for the debutant but it didn't change that fact that she was still pulling back her hair as she entered the conference room. She nodded to the XO as she took a seat looking around the room at the other officer that had beat her there.

With the senior crew assembled, John began to relax into the role a little more. Something about being the highest ranking member of the team during this briefing had made him feel a little more at ease with his surroundings. There was no reason for him to be nervous, after all, this was a standard meeting that happened several times a week aboard every starship in the fleet, but he always enjoyed making sure he had gotten everything right. Looking down for a moment at the control panel in the table ahead of him, the XO opened up the current duty roster as well as overlaying it with existing medical complaints, injuries, absent crew members and other exceptions, before adding a current list of engineering duties and outstanding repair jobs to the right half of the screen.

"Well.... let's get down to business shall we? Don't want this meeting dragging on too long, as you all know we will be docking with the starbase in a little under two hours, and I expect everyone to be back on duty before that happens. How's our ship looking people?"

Seeing that no one else was making a move, Pola figured she may as well start. Sitting forward in her chair, she looked down at the PADD in front of her. "Well the good news is that medicals are well underway with a majority of the crew having been given one at this point. There are still 1-2 senior staff members who need to be seen but I will be in contact with those people in due course. Once we reach the starbase, I have a number of requisition orders I will need to submit to you, Commander Holliday, for supplies and medicines we are currently running low on. Outside of all of this sickbay is doing fine and EMH has had no further issues." Finally taking a breath, Pola looked over at Jonathan and around the table to see if anyone had any questions.

"Not a problem Doc...get the requisitions over to me and I'll have them ready for loading as soon as we put in at a resupply facility"

John nodded to his head of medicine as he picked up his own PADD and entered a short reminder to ensure that he followed up on that particular request. Unlike some of the more exotic requisitions he sometimes got from the scientific members of the crew, or the unusual engineering components that were sometimes necessary for repairs, medical supplies were relatively easy to get a hold of, and of course held a relatively high priority.

Kestra looked up from her PADD, closing down the reports. "We are prepared to control and contain a boarding eventuality - special thanks to Quinn for a couple of tactics involved in the variables plan; and Lieutenant Coleman and I have been looking into means of avoiding additional Empire cruisers in the event of an altercation. Also, I've prepped my team to screen the oncoming crew from the star base with minimal impact on the process. So far, so good."

"Excellent...what's our worst case scenario looking like Lieutenant? In the event we are boarded what kind of numbers can we hope to contend with? At what point should we be looking to abandon ship?"

The XO's tactical mind-set once again came to the forefront of his thoughts as he began to contemplate the impact of multiple Klingon boarding parties making their way onto the Galileo. At least for now, he was relatively consoled by the fact that they had set up transport inhibitors and other associated security measures to at least reduce the scope of any attack, but even the best laid plans would have a weak point.

"I've run through a variety of boarding numbers in tactical drills, ranging from a basic scout party to a full takeover branch. The largest possible boarding party they can afford to send us without undermining the manoeuvrability and command integrity of the Na'vi is twenty-three warriors," Kestra explained. "They won't give up their ship to take ours. Not unless there is a structural integrity issue they're contending with on their end. My recommendation is that all non-combat crew proceed immediately to the escape shuttles and wait there until command authorizes their departure - medical and command personnel especially. That clears the decks and will reduce unnecessary injuries. We'll set up a crew-recognition forcefield to the escape pod bay, so they'll be protected there. Our worst-case scenario would be the onset of two or more additional birds of prey. We'd be outmatched, outgunned, and outnumbered. Fortunately for you, we've been working on a variety of means to stop communications between the Na'vi and the rest of the Empire fleet, and also means of drawing nearby vessels elsewhere in the star system. Out best possible scenario," she added, even though he hadn't asked, "is avoiding a conflict entirely. The consequences of a skirmish here may not affect our crew or mission directly, but we have to keep in mind the long-term tactical conflicts that would indefinitely arise."

"Well in that case...let's hope we only have to contend with one at a time...good work Lieutenant, I hope that we don't have to put the work you and Miss Coleman to the test"

Quinn looked toward the head of the table. "Engineering is back online and operating at best possible efficiency. I would like to mention that for the first time in a long time I had the pleasure of getting an XO dirty fingernails. You're more than welcome to sling grease with us anytime Commander Holliday."

"Any time Chief...don't let the pips fool you, there's nothing wrong with getting down and dirty with the warp core when the time comes....just...don't let me end up covered in engine debris if I'm due on the Bridge any time soon...we XO's have to keep up appearances after all"

Dea smiled slightly at Quinn's comment, "Everything is going well in Flight Control. I have a list of supplies and other requisition requests ready so that we can be geared up and ready for when Galileo leaves the starbase. There's not required of my department while we're docked so I'm working on some light training while allowing my personnel to get some rest before we're needed again."

"I'm sure Orexil will bring this up," Remington said, nodding towards the security chief, "but my department has also been affected. There's a security breach on this ship, it seems like. Ensign Cho brought it to my attention and I found that the computer logs have been tampered with."

"Tampered with?" John acknowledged his Operations chief, leaning over the table slightly as he focused in on those precise words. If the computers had been altered somehow, then the only way that could have happened is if they had a saboteur on board, or an agent of some unknown organization working to achieve their own goal.

"In what way Commander?"

"I think Lieutenant Orexil can answer that better than I," he replied, looking to the security chief.

"As far as my team has been able to deduce so far," Kestra said calmly, "the 'tampering' has been minimal, occurring between the hours of 1300 and 1500 hours while the ship was docked at station two-three-four. Some of the secured consoles have had information removed and muddled, but that information is accessible from other terminals near-by or in other departments. By cross-checking current data with the pre-docking back-up, we have found that there is nothing missing entirely from the ship's records. It is only access from particular consoles that has been manipulated. Not the act of a skilled saboteur. Nevertheless, we are continuing to investigate."

"That's not entirely true," Remington added, "Yesterday afternoon, a turbolift malfunctioned. It stopped entirely and lost power, yet the computer did not detect anything wrong even after a thorough diagnostic. I think it may be the work of a very skilled saboteur who wants us to think it's something innocuous. Also, my level of security clearance was required to view any ship's logs... is that level supposed to be in effect on this ship? Department heads are not the only ones who are supposed to have access to logs."

Kestra turned to face Remington. Why had he waited until now to speak up? The fact that he'd withheld the information wasn't only a blow to her; it was a danger to the ship at large. She spoke slowly and evenly, "That would have been useful information for us as we continue to look into this. We've had full access to the ship's logs from the security office with no need for excess security clearance. If you suspect problems with ship security, Commander, you should report those problems to us. Not wait for these meetings. The faster we understand the problems, the better we're able to work on rectifying them. We received no report of any suspected sabotage on the turbo lift or your issues retrieving data from the ship's computer."

"It was after my shift," Remington replied, only a touch apologetic, "and at the time I was not too concerned. This morning I thought about it more and looked into it, that's when I found other discrepancies... little systems around the ship tampered with."

"You can file a report at any hour," Kestra murmured, frustrated that she was being blind-sided by conspiracy theories without any actual data. "We read them all."

"This was the first chance I had to bring it up." Will continued, "At least the first time I realized just how extensive these problems are. But now that we all know about it, I think there's something else going on here. Something more insidious than a replicator joke. And another thing I considered... the EMH's corrupted program, the narcotic drug in the replicated coffee, all these little things that seem like practical jokes or minor malfunctions. They could add up to an extremely dangerous situation, but they may be distracting us, hiding a bigger issue with the ship that we can't see yet."

Replicator joke? Kestra wondered. She hadn't heard anything about a narcotic being in the coffee. Another failure to report a problem. How did these people expect her to keep the ship safe when they didn't let her know what was going on it? Did she really need to babysit the department heads, reading through all of their internal reports to get a clear view of the ship? How was she supposed to run a tactical team and maintain a regularly scheduled ship sweep when she had to keep her department busy reading data backlogs? "If that's your concern, we need a centralized hub to send all these reports to. We've already begun an investigation into the source of the data corruption we've found so far. I would respectfully ask that all past, current, and future malfunctions that have potential security risks associated with them be forwarded to my department. T'Paaru has an algorithm already in progress. The more data points we have for input, the better our perspective on the issue will be." She looked to Holliday, "Would you agree?"

Quinn raised a hand and then spoke in his typical quiet, raspy voice. "I had looked over the logs from the Warp incident and they came up clean. No one had tampered with anything in Engineering that is recordable since I've walked onto this ship. I have done daily diagnostics, including some of the higher ones on a unregulated schedule. The problem with the relay node that caused all the problems was the ion node in the relay was three-one thousandths of a millimeter off from required specs. Okay, so it was a fabrication error. It happens. Then just prior to the meeting I started thinking of my episode in the turbolift, so I ran a few test on the mechanisms. The high density speed calliper is just off of its required spec by zero-point-zero-two millimeters. Not a lot, but you run that at an emergency top speed to get to the bridge, or to engineering...well, the damn thing could end up tumbling in on itself. The top would become the bottom. So, that brings me to the coffee incident. Peers put in her report that the problem was on the manufacturing level, and was programmed wrong."

Quinn looked about the room briefly, then continued. "This all points to production problems. Either the shipbuilders and engineers that put this girl together were all dumb and in too much of a rush to care for detail, not likely but plausible, or we have a problem with a very select few that would, or maybe still, have access to our little mysteries."

Kestra inclined her head. "Thank you, Markum," she said to the Engineering chief. Oh, she liked him. Very smart. Very logical. The fact that he made her friend Rishi a happy woman, well... all right. That was a large part of it, but he was a good man besides. "And still, Lieutenant Commander Remington has a point. It is a lot of coincidences. And even if only a few of them are actually connected, it is worth investigating the sources of all the problems to be sure." She looked around the table, waiting to hear from the others. Their experiences and input would be equally important and helpful in finding a resolution.

John had remained silent up to this point, allowing his officers to debate the finer points of starship engineering and security amongst each other even though he had been offered a way into the conversation a few moments earlier by his security chief. It was unusual for them to be facing issues on this large a scale, and he had to admit, that so far, the engineering issues could quite easily explain anything on the ship. However, he hadn't ever heard of a starship being built with quite so many issues as had managed to come up here, at least not as well documented.

"So it seems like we have one of two possibilities.....either we're the victim of sabotage, by someone with as high a security clearance as a department head, or, we have...gremlins...in the works."

Putting his PADD back down on the desk, John rubbed the back of his head for a moment as he thought through the variables in front of him. He had to make a decision. There was no Commander Saalm in the room for him to defer command to, nobody to countermand him, and the entire responsibility of this investigation on his shoulders. For a moment he felt nervous. Not that he would make a mistake, but that this was the first time he had been involved in something like this before. Sure he had looked into malfunctions and misdemeanours before on board Galileo, or as a junior officer on other postings, but never something of this scale.

"Ok.... Mr. Remington, I'd like you to put your head together with Miss Orexil and Chief Quinn...see if we can't figure out what's going on here."

He nodded to each one of his officers in turn, making sure he had eye contact with each of them before moving onto the next.

"We need to come at this from two angles....I want Engineering to go over those component logs...they would have been quality checked at manufacturing...and at installation....if something changed between those two points, I want to know why....Meanwhile I want Ops and Security to figure out who would have had access to those systems and when....if there truly is evidence of tampering anyway...I don't want to tip anyone off that could be watching....questions?"

In the absence of a chief counsellor, Pola knew the position fell to herself and felt she needed to speak up at this point. "I can't pretend to understand half of what was said but I get the general gist. I would have a recommendation that what has been said here stays in this room. There is no reason that the suspicions of possible sabotage would need to be indicated to anyone outside of senior staff. If a rumour such as that starts to spread amongst the ship, we risk chaos. With only a head count of 100 people, everyone would start distrusting each other and that is something we have to avoid." Picking up a PADD, Pola tapped it against her hand. "We can't stop rumours spreading but we can ensure that we are not the source nor the feed for them."

"Agreed." John nodded in acknowledgement, having almost forgot the young doctor was in the room after he had become so focused on the current tactical position.

"Not a word of this to anyone outside this room until we know what's going on...I'll brief the Captain on the matter, but under no circumstances is this to be passed down to junior officers without the authorisation of either myself or Commander Saalm....understood?"

"We are not the only ones aware of the situation," Remington pointed out, "Warrant Officer Peers, Ensign Cho, and possibly Petty Officer Willis are aware that there have been issues with several systems throughout the ship. Willis is trustworthy, I think, and he can be an asset, as a computer systems specialist. I am not sure about Cho but she seems quite eager to investigate the matter. But she is not in my department."

Kestra cleared her throat, "Peers was the one who found the hole in the armoury security. She and Master Chief Petty Officer Darius located an insecure route, and identified the alarm and data rerouting issues. Neither of them have or will say anything about the matter."

Reaching up to pinch the bridge of her nose, Pola was slowly becoming aware of the fact that nearly one fifth of the crew actually knew at this stage. "It is vital that these rumours not spread. The fact that so many people know at this stage is not a good thing. I already know from the counselling reports that crew unease is high following the incident with the Klingons and the warp core. Something like this could set everyone off. I would recommend a complete list be compiled at this point, of people who are involved. Each senior staff member needs to sit down with the people on the list, who are in their department, and an emphasis be placed on this not being talked about outside of their department head and almost certainly, not in public places like their place of work or the mess hall where they might be overheard. Trust or not, common sense or none, it's extremely easy for people to let things slip unwillingly."

Looking over at Jonathan to see how he felt on this, Pola was starting to feel annoyed that it seemed so many people were involved and this was all only coming to light now. There was evidence of breakdown in communication channels between security, ops, engineering and even the XO and even science seemed to be involved through Kiri. Even though she was only medical/counselling, she was still a senior staff member and this crew were her concern. Even if it turned out to be all coincidental, the blow back on this could affect everyone and it was her job to be concerned about this. Already she had seen here at the table a lot of jumping to conclusions that sabotage was involved.

Quinn held a hand up, "I can speak for Willis. The kid has worked by my side for almost a decade now. I have put my life in his hands more times than I can count. He also knows when to keep his trap shut. As far as Peers, I'll keep an eye on her, but I rely heavily on her down there, and she is too damn smart for me to pull the wool over her eyes"

Remington cleared his throat and spoke. "I agree with Dr. Ni Dhuinn, however. Until we know for sure what is happening, we should not allow rumours to spread. But the more important question is how do we proceed?"

"Well...from the sounds of it...I might have been the only person left on this ship who didn't know what was going on..." The XO began, looking both a little sheepish, and a little annoyed that it had taken so long for the situation to get sent back to him for appraisal.

"We proceed as planned....but those junior officers....I'm holding their department heads responsible if I hear as much as a peep out of anyone....doesn't matter if I'm on the Bridge, the Mess Hall, the holodeck, whatever...a single word and I'll know someone on board isn't trustworthy...."

Sighing, John leant back in his chair and let the PADD in his hand fall to the desk, the reality of the situation started to land on his shoulders, it meant something was wrong somehow, but right now, they were none the wiser.

"And I want any sensitive systems under constant security monitoring....if anyone as so much looks like they're accessing anything vital...I want a record of it....might help to narrow down our suspects if we do indeed have a saboteur on board...."

"Done," Kestra answered. It was a precaution that could seriously overload her department, but she'd find a way of making it work. Another algorithm. Poor T'Paaru was going to have another equation to monitor. She needed more computer analysts. She'd keep an eye out on the transfer boards the next time they stopped in Federation space and make a request for more manpower. She genuinely doubted the likelihood that anything more serious than what she'd described was going on, but she doubted that was exactly what this was all about. She breathed in her surroundings, absorbing the energy in the room, then glanced between Rishi and Dea Mialin. The sense of alert and concern, it had been there before. Throughout the ship. Ever since they'd entered Klingon space. Were these reactions truly based on the facts at hand, or were they coming out of a most lasting concern over the fate of their ship at the hands of their escort and the other Empire ships that could likely be cloaked nearby. Something to think about.

Dea didn't like the fact there was a potential security breech on the ship. As the Department Head for Flight Control it was her responsibility to keep things in order, "Understood I'll remind my staff about the proper protocols related to security and ensure there is no gossip or rumours being spread." Doing her best to keep her emotions under control and mental shields in place. Even with that Dea could still sense a well-placed sense of unease.


Taking one last set of notes onto his PADD, Jonathan felt that for now, there was little else that could be accomplished until they had a better understanding of the situation at hand. His senior officers were some of the best in the fleet as far as he was concerned, and as much as he might liked to have supervised every action being taken, he knew that he had to start to trust his teams to get their tasks completed.

"Very good...well if there's nothing further...let's get to work"

[OFF]

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Lt Cmdr Jonathan Holliday
Executive Officer
USS Galileo

Lieutenant (JG) Dea Mialin
Chief Flight Control Officer
USS Galileo

LTJG Kestra Orexil
Chief Security/Tactical Officer
USS Galileo

Lieutenant JG Pola Ni Dhuinn
Chief Medical Officer
USS Galileo

Chief Warrant Officer Markum Quinn
Chief Engineer
USS Galileo

Lt. Cmdr. Chauncey William Remington III
Chief Operations Officer
USS Galileo

Lieutenant JG Tarishiana Barel
Chief Science Officer
USS Galileo

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