All Hands on Deck (Part 2 of 9)

Posted on 03 Mar 2015 @ 7:20pm by Rear Admiral Lirha Saalm & Captain Jonathan Holliday & Command Master Chief Markum Quinn & Commander Allyndra illm Warraquim & Lieutenant Tuula Voutilainen M.D. & Lieutenant Prudence Devin Ph.D. & Lieutenant JG Drusilla McCarthy & Lieutenant Commander Dea Mialin & Chief Warrant Officer 3 Lamar Darius & Crewman Ash Rowe & Chief Warrant Officer 2 Oliver Sylver & Lieutenant Commander Amynta Markos & Chief Petty Officer Lyras Ueda & Lieutenant JG Wakeham Paul Alasia Ph.D. & Petty Officer 1st Class Rebecca Williams & Commander Scarlet Blake & Chief Petty Officer Pax Inyo
Edited on on 03 Mar 2015 @ 7:22pm

3,003 words; about a 15 minute read

Mission: Episode 07 - Sojourn
Location: USS Galileo - Deck 1/Deck 2, Various
Timeline: MD 44 - 0910 hrs

Previously, on All Hands on Deck (Part 1)...

Quinn looked over his shoulder and gave a professional nod towards Lirha, and the pencil thin grin on his face was that of a proud father looking at his well deserving daughter. Quinn and Saalm had an instant friendship and he was honored to be her Command Master Chief. He snapped his head around, pulled up the whistle and let out the customary blow to signify that the Brass had arrived. After the burst from the whistle, in his best and most commanding voice, the raspy man gave his dutiable command. "Attention all hands, Admiral on deck!"

And Now, the Continuation...

[ON]

The CoB looked to Saalm and Holiday, then addressed the Captain. "Captain Holiday, the crew is assembled and ready for inspection, Sir." the CoB handed over the muster list, confirming all hands were present and accounted for.

John nodded to his CoB with a respectful glance, taking the muster list in his hand and giving a brief, cursory inspection. He already knew that the old man of the Galileo would have been keeping the rest of the crew in check ahead of the newly-minted Admiral's inspection. Stepping forward from the line, and handing the roster back to Quinn, the Captain turned and stood at attention to meet Lirha.

"Admiral Saalm. The USS Galileo and her crew are ready for your inspection. Would you care to come aboard?"

Of course the Orion was already 'aboard' the vessel, but ancient maritime tradition had always required that an officer visiting another vessel either ask for permission to come aboard in the case of them being junior to the ship's CO, or be invited aboard should they be of higher rank.

All the pomp and circumstance was a first for the young rear-admiral. Almost a celebration of sorts with the entire crew presented on their best behavior. What exactly they were celebrating, Lirha didn't know, but she was well aware their pending assignment was no doubt a honor for all of them. Before the details were revealed, however, the customary inspection needed to take place, and she gave both Holliday and Quinn a formal nod of respect before walking forward to greet them.

"Thank you, captain. Mister Quinn," she said in her most professional manner before slowly walking down the line of assembled personnel with the COB and John in tow. "I trust Galileo is in good order? I hope this inspection can be finished within the hour... I do not want to keep the crew from their duties for too long." Lirha's light green eyes gazed over each of the crew while she made her way down the corridor. Many familiar faces were present as well as some new ones, and it was a pleasant sight to see them all ready for duty.

"No ma'am." John replied, before signalling to Quinn and Blake to fall in line as he ushered the Admiral towards the waiting turbolift.

"I thought it best to start on the Bridge and work downwards - with your permission?"

"Of course," answered Lirha with a light nod. "The rest of the crew may return to their stations...we will be visiting them shortly as we make our way through the ship," she instructed before waving her emerald hand in front of her indicating for Holliday to lead the way. "After you."

"Yes ma'am" John replied before turning to his CoB

"Mr Quinn - if you would be so kind as to dismiss the crew back to duty stations and then meet the Admiral, Commander Blake and I on the Bridge?"

"Aye-aye, Captain." replied Quinn. He turned around and gave the order. "All hands, dismissed. Return to your stations."

Allyndra waited until the Admiral and entourage had gone into the lift and then turned to her medical staff. "Well, let's go await our section of the inspection. Let's hope we don't suddenly get an influx of the Rigellian running shit flu now that we have everything so good looking in the sickbay."

Tuula nodded in agreement. "After all that time we spent inventorying and dusting every little thing, she better like what we've done with the place." Of course, given what Tuula had experienced of the Admiral's level of stability, there was no telling how she might react to, say, an out of place medical tricorder, an errant speck of dust, or questionable adherence to Starfleet regulations surrounding appearance and visible tattoos.

"On the other hand if we do get an influx of this flu, we are able to show an organized medical staff," Naois offered, smiling slightly at the CMO.

Turning to Prudence and Dorian, Dru clutched her hands tightly behind her back. "I assume we are following medical to sickbay? I assume our tiny little room isn't going to attract an inspection today." The counselor attempted a tight smile as she forced her mind to stay in the present situation, getting through inspection so she could return to hiding in her quarters.

Prudence gave a small nod, frowning as she walked. "But standing separated from the doctors and nurses. We do not want to be confused with them," she said softly, arching an eyebrow. "If anything to avoid confusion, we are after all new faces."

Dru didn't point out that some the crew and all of the command staff already knew who she was...well she hoped that this was the case. It had been a very long time since she'd last seen the Commandant and even then it was a strained situation due to her injuries. Dru just nodded her head in consent and indicated for Prudence to lead the way.

Dea turned to her crew, "Lets head for the shuttle bay and prepare for department inspection." The initial greeting of the Admiral had been by the book. Currently Mialin looked forward to getting all of this over with so she could see to her normal duties.

"I hope she'll find all in order," WIntrow said nervously, "I worked so hard on getting the shuttles look up to par. I even ran some maintenance of one of them, replaced some wiring."

"Yeah you did good, kid," said Lamar in his own enlisted dress uniform. He gave the young cadet a hearty slap on the shoulder that was perhaps a bit too hard. "You're shaping up to be a pretty good mechanic," he grinned in jest.

Wintrow smiled, considering that to be a compliment. "Thank you," he said earnestly, "I hope I can be both pilot and mechanic..."

Ash Rowe glanced to him with a small, knowing smile. "Just don't tell Engineering. They get all precious about us playing around with 'their' shuttles," she tsked, shaking her head with a chuckle.

"You've all done excellent work. When I did my brief walk through this morning things looked good. Nice job," Dea complimented her staff as they headed for the shuttlebay.

Oliver Sylver smiled at the words, nodding weakly. "Well, we have all tried our best for this moment, ma'am..." he said lightly.

Markos started walking, expecting the rest of the Support staff to follow. The sooner they got there, the better. It was a chance to just catch their breaths from all of the stiff backs and firm nods...the circus.

Tyrion sighed as he followed the CIO, shaking his head. "All this hussle, for an inspection...when there's so much work to be done."

"It's better to have the inspection now than while we're out in the middle of a mission," Lyras piped in, nodding solemnly, adding in a low, sympathetic tone. "The fact that it seems we have time for the pomp and circumstance is quite refreshing, actually."

"You might have time," the Betazoid quipped, "but I don't."

The Vulcan returned the quip with an eyebrow raise. "No? Perhaps I could lend a hand when this is all said and done, then?"

Tyrion blinked at him, then shrugged. "If you want...nightshift gets kinda lonely sometimes." He yawned, though he tried to cover it up. "Normally I'm in bed by now."

Lyras chuckled. "Ah, the night shift. I forgot there were people who worked that."

"Well...if you ever want to switch for once..." Tyrion offered with a smile.

Overhearing the exchange Paul chimed in. "We just had a month of leave, Chief Faye. No one rolls their eyes at military formality more than I do but we're not never going to be inspected. If, today of all days, you can't summon the energy... it only gets worse from here. Throw them a bone. The leadership have to justify their existence just like everyone else."

"Would love to hear you when you've just run a full shift and then expect to show up when really you'd rather go to bed because for you it actually is sleep time," Tyrion shot back, though his tone remained friendly.

Markos finally turned her head, frowning. "Less talking, Support, more walking," she almost snapped. She wasn't in the mood to listen to general moaning and whining, or reasoning. With that she walked faster, clearly intending to pick up speed on behalf of the entire department to get them as quickly to deck 5 as they could.

"Yes ma'am." Lyras kept the snickering to himself, mostly, but found the whole ordeal to be quite amusing. Maybe he had just been through one too many inspections before. Paul raised his eyebrows knowingly to his Chief and smirked. His gaze then returned to his Department Head hoping she hadn't caught him.

---

Deck 1 - Bridge

Even though John knew that Lirha already had a knowledge of the layout of the Galileo equal to his own, he understood the level of pomp that was required for an Admiral's inspection. With a flat palm he indicated towards the turbolift, before leading the group. As they stepped inside, he waited for the doors to seal behind them before giving the order for the lift to take them up a single deck.

After a moment's delay the turbolift doors burst open once more, and the command centre of the ship revealed itself. Stepping out, John waited for Lirha to join him and his XO.

Quinn had finally made his way to the Bridge, and quietly fell into step behind the Command Team.

The familiar sight of the Nova-class' command center greeted Lirha when the door swished open. It looked as pristine and functional as she'd seen it in a long while despite the presence of any personnel manning their consoles, and she proceeded to make a quick round through the various stations. She stepped past John with her hands lightly clasped behind her back then began to inspect the aft stations including Science II, III and IV, the large master systems display, and the two Mission Ops and Engineering stations. As she walked by each of them, the Orion admiral tapped several short key commands into the terminals to run quick console diagnostics sequences, and was greeted each time with no error displays.

The forward stations were next and Lirha performed the same sequence of events at the primary Ops, Science, and conn consoles. All appeared well-functional, and she then turned her attention towards the center stations where the two command chairs and Tactical/Auxiliary station were located. It had been quite some time since she'd been graced with the privilege of sitting in the captain's chair -- her previous promotion to commodore had resulted in a position change from captain to mission advisor, and she dearly missed the days of sitting in the cozy command chair and being in direct control of Galileo. As such, she took this brief opportunity to plop herself down in the CO's seat and look forward towards the viewscreen for a short moment while she reminisced.

"A fine bridge, indeed," she mused to Holliday and Blake before inputting several diagnostic checks into the chair's armrest console.

Rebecca had fallen into step behind the group, keeping a discrete distance. Her PADD was held in one hand at her side, awaiting any notes she'd need to take to ensure the boss didn't forget anything. The joys of being a glorified secretary gave her front row seat to his business.

"The specially designed stations allow us to use and fully utilise the true scope of scientific expertise we have on this ship, for those missions that require it," Scarlet agreed with a nod, knowing that she wasn't saying anything that Lirha didn't already know, but in an inspection like this, where the person inspecting once commanded the ship, much of this would be going through the motions.

"Is there anything specific you would like further information regarding Admiral?" John asked, not knowing exactly what else John could show to the woman who occupied that chair during the ship's first soujourn into space.

Lirha shook her head 'negative'. If there was one area of the ship that was the most looked-after, it was usually the bridge, and from the quick round that she had made, everything appeared to be in working order about as well as she'd ever seen it. "Thank you, commander. And no, captain. I am quite pleased with the bridge," she answered while slowly rising from her seat and preparing to move on to the next destination. "Would you like to proceed down to Deck 2 now and show me the brig and armory as well as sickbay?" she proposed.

"Of course - Commander Blake if you would like to lead the way?" John replied, looking towards his XO. The Captain felt he had done enough for a little while in terms of leading this tour, and saw fit to let his First Officer get some experience of the responsibilities that come with sitting in the big chair.

Blake blinked, her features remaining neutral, hiding her mild surprise at the shift. "Of course, Captain," she replied softly all the same, motioning with her hand towards the turbolift as she started to walk, nodding to Lirha. "To Deck 2 then, Admiral..."

---

Deck 2 - Brig/Security Office & Armory

As she waited in the armory, Pax really wasn't sure what to expect. She'd had inspections plenty of times in her career, but never from an admiral. And she'd only been aboard but a few days. She was pretty sure the inventory she'd been given was tight, but she hadn't gotten through it all yet. She looked around and breathed in deeply at the smell of phaser casing polish and extra charges. She admired the tidy rows of arms at the ready, even if they were far fewer than some of her other postings. She hadn't been master at arms then. This time they were hers to look after and so it didn't matter how few. She checked the safety strapping on the crates of grenades and explosives, even though she'd already been over them. She Re-stacked the parts bins under the cleaning bench and delighted in the sound of the settling hardware. She drew a finger across the neat rows of extra phaser targeting gimbals, one of the most sensitive parts of the ray gun, and almost as likely to give out as the refocuser was to get fried from continuous over use. She took out one of the rifles in the line up and sighted it. Just as straight as it had been yesterday of course.

Everything was in good order, she thought to herself as she straightened her dress uniform. The question was only if the Admiral would agree.

Rounding the narrow corner with her ensemble of command personnel in tow, Lirha approached one of her least-visited places on Galileo -- the armory and brig. Tactical and security work had never been a specialty of hers and the small Nova-class had never had any official 'prisoners' for her to interrogate. Well, except for the occasional unruly crew member here and there, one of whom had ironically been the current chief of security who she now approached.

"Lieutenant Wyatt," she acknowledged with a curt nod before looking down the row of assembled gold-collared Security officers.

As Lirha began to paced down the line of personnel, she took notice of a few new faces she hadn't seen before. A tall, slim Andorian warrant officer; a new red-haired Bajoran junior lieutenant with a cane; and a Grazerite chief petty officer. It was quite the ensemble of diversity within the department, and Lirha took the opportunity to stop in front of the weapons locker and inspect Inyo's uniform. "What brings you from Grazer to Galileo, chief?" she curiously asked.

To Be Continued...

[OFF]

--

RADM Lirha Saalm
Mission Advisor
USS Galileo

CAPT Jonathan Holliday
Commanding Officer
USS Galileo

Lieutenant JG Wakeham Paul Alasia
Diplomatic Officer
USS Galileo

Petty Officer 2nd Class Rebecca Williams
Commanding Officer's Yeoman
USS Galileo

Lieutenant JG Drusilla McCarthy
Assistant Chief Counsellor
USS Galileo

Ensign Jaana Voutilainen
Stellar Cartographer
USS Galileo

Lieutenant (J.G.) Tuula Voutilainen M.D.
Medical Officer
USS Galileo

Lieutenant Asahi Kita
Chief Engineering Officer
USS Galileo

Chief Petty Officer Lyras Ueda
Diplomatic Officer
USS Galileo
[PNPC - Kita]

Chief Petty Officer Pax-Inyo
Masyer-at-Arms
USS Galileo

CMDR Scarlet Blake
First Officer
USS Galileo

CN Ash Rowe
Support Craft Pilot
USS Galileo
[PNPC Blake]

Father Ethan Walker
Ship's Chaplain
USS Galileo

LCMDR Allyndra illm Warraquim
Chief Medical Officer
USS Galileo

Oren Idris, Ph.D.
Archaeologist/Anthropologist
USS Galileo

PO1 Pieter Van Zyl
Botanist
USS Galileo
[PNPC by Idris]

Lieutenant Commander Andreus Kohl
Chief Research Officer
USS Galileo

CMCPO Markum Quinn
Chief of the Boat
USS Gallileo

Lt. Jared Nicholas
Language Specialist
USS Galileo

Jonah Chaparral
Epidemiologist
PNPC Jared Nicholas
USS Galileo

 

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