Personnel Reviews

Posted on 21 Feb 2012 @ 6:22am by Captain Jonathan Holliday & Rear Admiral Lirha Saalm

2,299 words; about a 11 minute read

Mission: Episode 00 - Pre-Deployment
Location: Starfleet HQ, Office
Timeline: MD 04 - 1400 hrs

[ON]

The stack of PADDs on Lirha's desk was enormous and it had taken her most of the morning to make even a small dent in the pile. They were a mix of inventory items, checklists, intelligence reports, and personnel files, of which the latter were her biggest concern. Though the Galileo was a small ship with a crew compliment of only one hundred, she was still responsible for familiarizing herself with every officer, enlisted man, and civilian who fell under her command. At the slow rate she was going, it would take days before she could get through the entire manifest.

With a sigh, she tapped her commbadge. "Commander Holliday, please report to my office when you get the chance." she said, hopeful that he would be able to assist her with the daunting task. She also felt it would be good for him to get a first-hand look at the new crew they were taking into space with them.

From his station on the bridge, the XO heard the call come in over the comm, it must have been important otherwise she never would have summoned him all the way to the office.

"On my way ma'am" he replied after a quick tap to his ever-present combadge.

Giving command over to a young lieutenant who up to now had been busy reviewing the recent repairs to the tactical systems completed by the engineering team only a few hours earlier. A short turbolift ride was all that separated him from the mystery of his unexpected summons across the comm.

As he reach the CO's office door, he tapped the doorbell, and waited for a reply.

"Come in." Lirha replied loudly as a soft chirp from the computer had alerted her to the presence of someone outside of her office.

The doors slid open as soon as he heard permission to enter the room, and he quickly stepped inside, marvelling at the site of a dishevelled and stressed Orion surrounded by a mountain of PADDs

"I didn't realise command carried so much paperwork..."

She looked up from the monitor on her desk and leaned back in her chair with a sigh of relief. "You have no idea how happy I am to see you, Commander." she said and motioned with her hand to the numerous PADDs which littered her desk and lap. "Paperwork is one thing...but this is ridiculous. I don't understand how Starfleet expects me to conduct inspections of my ship and sort through all of these reports." she said with frustration.

"Please, take a seat." she said and gestured for him to sit across from her at the desk. "Hopefully you have time to help me with some of these personnel files."

Nodding to his CO, John took a seat across the desk from her, and began examining the pile of paperwork one at a time. He had never been required to do this before so there was understandably a degree of tension in his face as he tried to figure out where to start.

"So...how does this work ma'am?"

Lirha passed him one of the PADDs on her lap which contained an open personnel file for him to look at. The information displayed was a complete biography of the crewman along with a comprehensive service record and several notes from former commanding officers and supervisors.

"It's not so bad once you get started. I tend to skim through the personal information but I pay close attention to the service record. Promotions, demotions, department changes...that sort of stuff. If anything jumps out at you or is worth noting, just let me know and I'll take a look. Let's try to keep the files organized into two piles, one for officers and civilians, and the other for the enlisted crew." she said to him.

"Lets get started then, I'll take the enlisted, and you take the officers? Best you know your department heads better than me ma'am. I'll have plenty of time to get to know them all once we've left port"

He defly picked up a pad with his left hand, and began entering various commands with his right, each time the system displayed the standard Starfleet crew file. A picture of the individual adorned the top right corner, along with standard personal details in the opposite left, place of birth, age, current rank, all the essential facts on any serving personnel.

"Wow you were right....the personal section of these records is enormous...psych evaluations, personal statements, strength/weakness analysis...makes me worry how much Command really wants to know about us!"

Lirha gave him a cautious look. "You really don't want to know. Or...maybe you do." she said quietly, then pulled a PADD from her desk's drawer which contained his personnel file. The Orion showed him the first page so he could see his name and the picture of himself, then waved it teasingly in front of him. "I'll let you have a look for ten bars of gold-pressed latinum." she said with bright green eyes.

"Ten bars? You Orions drive a hard bargain!" He laughed at the incredulity of his CO, attempting to bribe him for his own datafile. That little morsel of information being displayed was rather tempting, afterall, these files were usually kept top secret and only accessed by the correct people, at the correct times.

"How about, you hand over that file, and I'll take the first two hours of Alpha shift off your hands for the next week? Help you get over that hangover that I noticed the first day we met a little better?" He let his own smirk spread across his face with his counteroffer on the table.

"Either that or I could have a word with some of your old buddies at Intelligence in case I can do any snooping of my own on you Commander?"

Lirha paused to consider his offer, as well as his friendly threat. "Alpha shift for three hours, and you arrange mud baths for me throughout the week." she proposed with a smile.

Looking away to consider her offer for a moment, he tried to figure out if he could last with that much extra duty on top of the standard beta shift that he would be required to run as XO.

"Deal....go ahead....lets see what Command had to say about me shall we?"

He made a mental note to make sure he got his own back on her for this one, and John was nothing if not persistant.

She slid the PADD containing his personnel file across the edge of the desk for him to look at and watched his face intently as he began to read over it. She had the feeling that he would soon provide some amusement for her in an otherwise stress-filled day.

Loading up the file ahead of him, John began to skim over the short sections, each designed to appraise him in one manner or another, quickly he read through his service record, and quickly found his way to the psych and command evaluation.

"Look at this here.... prone to emotional decisions, regardless of standard operating procedures, demonstrates moments of brilliance intertwined with moments of sheer insanity during combat operations "

He pressed the close button on the PADD, deciding that he would take a look at it later on instead.

"I really hate admirals....did I ever mention that? You'll never catch me sat behind a desk at HQ when there's still exploring to be done"

"Lucky for you, the Milky Way is a big place." she replied with a smug grin, then picked up a PADD and began to read through another crewman's service record.

"Oh, this is interesting." she said as she browsed through the file. "A Staff Warrant Officer Petrov. He's our Assistant Chief Research Officer...thirty-six years old, and by looks of it, should have earned a commission by now... except he's been demoted twice to do 'Conduct Unbecoming'. Says something about inappropriate relations with female members of a few different species." she said, then chuckled lightly.

"Sounds like he might benefit from a little bit of tough love...keep him in line, see if we can't shake him up and into shape before the end of this mission, crew discipline was always high on my list of priorities Commander."

He looked down at the PADD again, reading through a few more benign comments about a crewman who had yet to even arrive on board.

"Looks like I might have more on my hands than I thought...with a crew this small, my feeling is we're going to all have to get rather cosy with one another whether we like it or not.."

Lirha looked up from her PADD at her XO. "Does that bother you?" she asked, curious as to how he felt about being on board such a small ship.

Sighing and putting the PADD down on the desk, he rubbed the back of his head before continuing.

"Being totally honest? Yes ma'am, just a bit. I've never served on a vessel this small, my last assignment was a Galaxy class, over one thousand people, dropping down to a crew of less than 100 is a shock to the system. I thought with a smaller crew it would be less of a challenge to be effective as XO, but from my experiences so far, the smaller the crew, the tighter the bonds between them, I find myself having to know everything about everyone, where they were born, their family, the lot."

He stood up for a moment and paced around the room, before standing nearer the desk once again, not quite ready to sit back down, as if the movement around the room was helping his brain to process his thoughts into something tangible, something he could convey to his CO.

"This kind of challenge is what I thought I always wanted, and when the command training at the Academy went on for so long about making sure you maintain a professional distance from those under you, I thought that it was going to be the same on every ship, but these smaller birds, they're more like families than crew."

He took a second to breathe, and then returned to his seat.

"That said, its probably a lot easier for you Intelligence types, I mean, it's your job to know everything about everyone right?"

Seeing her XO become a bit agitated was slightly unsettling for Lirha, and she wished he could relax himself. "Somewhat, but not exactly." she answered, not wanting to get into the details of her previous assignments at the current moment.

"That's why I asked you to come to my office and review these files with me." she said in a soft voice while looking up at him. "I have the feeling you will be a good influence on the crew, but it might take some time for everyone to adjust to one another and get comfortable. And that's part of your responsibility, to make sure everyone functions as a cohesive unit. A man with your experience no doubt has much to teach our young officers...including myself." she said with a small smile.

Feeling the softness in her voice, John realised that he may have gone slightly over the top with his last outburst, he had always been told even by his instructors during his Academy days, that John was nothing if not impulsive, acting with his heart before his head hasn't necessarily had time to kick in and rationalise his decision. Sighing deeply, he continued.

"I am to please ma'am, I'm sure I'll be able to pick a few tricks off of you myself...like how to drive a hard bargain!" he chuckled, thinking back to their earlier conversation and his personnel file.

"Mudbaths huh? I'll have to have a word with the ship's plumbing to pull that one off...not to mention a look at the culture databases! "

Lirha raised an eyebrow at his mention of the ship's plumbing. "Oh, don't worry about that, I've taken the liberty of acquiring a few barrels of lowland Florida mud. It's the best I've experienced on this planet, so far." she said. "Have you ever indulged yourself in one before?" she asked, "It's quite the sensation. The wet soil is cool and refreshing, and it does wonders for your skin." she suggested.

"Can't say that I have before ma'am" he paused for a moment to think about how odd a sensation it must be, as far as he was concerned, mudbaths were best reserved for exotic aliens and Terran mammals trying to cool off.

"That said, with all the exploring we'll end up doing out here...I might be persuaded to change my mind, you know, in line with the seek out new life and new civilisations line, if I ever get time to get off the Bridge that is, with all the extra duty shifts I'll be pulling this week!" He chortled once again.

"A small price to pay for valuable information." she replied and smirked at him with amusement. "But let's focus on the task at hand and finish these reviews, shall we?"

"Sounds good to me, we don't want to leave it too long, otherwise we'll go back to the Bridge and find somebody forgot to install the viewscreen."

He picked up the PADD once again, and continued his way through the reports, looking up to see the smirk from his CO.

"Maybe this command won't be so bad after all" he thought, before immersing himself back into his work.

[OFF]

--

CMDR Lirha Saalm
Commanding Officer
USS Galileo

LTCMDR John Holliday
Executive Officer
USS Galileo

RSS Feed