Out of the Academy, and into the fire

Posted on 09 May 2012 @ 10:25pm by Captain Jonathan Holliday & Lieutenant Kiri Cho
Edited on on 10 May 2012 @ 4:57am

2,009 words; about a 10 minute read

Mission: Episode 01 - Project Sienna
Location: USS Galileo - XO's Office
Timeline: MD05 - 1000hrs

[ON]


The morning had started rather slowly for John today, albeit nice to have a little time off the Bridge before his shift started later on. It gave him the perfect amount of free time to work on the alternative elements of being the Executive Officer of a starship. Having reports coming in from a dozen different department heads, as well as having to keep an eye on crew morale and discipline meant that the time he had off the Bridge was often taken up by these ancillary duties.

Today however, he had received a request that was not exactly a common one. Perusing the data on his PADD, John was a little confused as to the reasoning behind it, but nevertheless, it was his job as XO to work through every issue that might come his way. His ever faithful comm panel to the top right of his desk LCARS interface was once again pulled into action.

=^=Holliday to Ensign Cho - please report to my Office =^=

Kiri was staring intently at a recording of the ships wake from a few days previous. Normally visual scanning wasn't worth a second look, since the invisible often gave away much more information. In this case though, when the ship had slammed out of warp speed, something might be worth watching. It was a whim that lead her here, maybe it was paying off. It was hard to see but there might have been a blurry shadow, almost impossible to make out. With maximum magnification and a lot of clean up, it looked like it might be a second Klingon Bird-of-Prey. Following in their wake, the effects of the sudden stop and their own evasive manoeuvres letting the cloak down just a little bit.

She was just about to investigate if it would be possible to use that information in some way when her combadge chirped. This was the first time other than occasional bridge orders she had any contact with any of the senior staff. Stunned for a second she tapped on her badge in return,

=^= Yes sir, right away. =^=

Closing down her terminal she locked it and checked to make sure before turning on the spot and heading for the door. She was in Astrometrics, being the only person there she checked everything else was off and locked before leaving. The computer would turn the lights off and power down the systems once it realised that no one was inside. At a fast pace she headed for deck 2. Her hair was tied back as normal, her face clean and her uniform spotless. Still she was rather concerned about what this could be about. To be summed like this wasn't normal. If it was a problem her department head would talk to her, so this was something else, but what? By the time she reached the door and pressed the chime she still hadn't gotten any closer to an answer, "Ensign Cho reporting sir."

"Enter"

John called out with his usual matter-of-fact voice. It wasn't that he was aiming to appear uninterested or generally unhappy to have people coming to his door, quite the opposite in fact, it was simply a case that the faster someone came into the room then the quicker he could get on with doing what he had to do. The XO himself had no problem with people obeying the regulations of waiting for a senior officer to invite them in before simply wandering inside, but sometimes he did admit it caused an unnecessary delay.

"Ahh, Ensign. Take a seat please"

John raised his arm to motion towards the two standard issue office chairs that were set up on the opposite side of his desk. They were not as large or indeed as comfortable as his own chair would have been, but then again, they were never designed for people to be sat in them for longer periods of time, unlike the XO himself who could, at times, spend the better part of a day in this room working his way through reports and duty rosters.

"I notice that you had logged an interest in some additional training....care to elaborate for me?"

Doing as she was told Kiri took the seat closest to her and sat neatly, her arms in her lap, back straight. The office was nice; if it was hers it might have more plants in it though. Would having a vase of flowers be too informal? Still it was practical and more importantly, neat. After a quick scan of her surroundings she listened very carefully once the senior officer started to speak. What came was a surprise mostly in the fact he was the one talking to her, and the speed it had come. It was an idea she had dropped only yesterday, she hadn't expected it to come so quickly.

Feeling under pressure suddenly she paused for a few seconds before she started speaking a little too fast, "Ithoughtthat it," She stopped and took a deep breath, "I thought that it would be useful as a member of the bridge staff to have a more in-depth knowledge of the ships defence systems." If she had known it was about this she would have practised what she was going to say on the way over. "I am trained like all officers to use general bridge positions in case of emergency. Though I think it unlikely I would need it, I'd like the chance for further training on both Tactical and Helm. I do aspire to hold a higher rank at some point in the future as well. I thought it would be useful to start improving now." Her confident face had been put on now, the one she wore for instructors at the academy. How she felt she was meant to look in such situations.

"Hmm....interesting Ensign...its not every day a member of a science department asks to learn how to fire phasers as it were..."

John took a moment to think, leaning back in his chair and placing his hands behind the back of his head, looking almost straight up at the ceiling, as if there were some kind of inspiration, or indeed the answer to the universe's questions hidden behind a ceiling panel, nestling somewhere next to an ODN relay or a plasma conduit. After a few moments, he moved back to his usual pose, and proceeded to tap a few controls on the panel in his desk, bringing up the Ensign's Starfleet datafile, and pausing once again to study it for a little while.

"I don't suppose you were aware that I was an instructor at the Academy up until recently Ensign....mainly in the tactical disciplines....and if you had been aboard when we launched from Earth, you'd notice I'm not too shabby behind the CONN either...."

John smirked for a moment as he went over his credentials, it looked a little arrogant for a moment, but really, he was just reminiscing over the day that he had launched the tiny Nova-class into space, remembering how unprepared and unfinished the Galileo was, how little of her systems were completely finished, and the moment that he almost tripped over a plasma conduit on his first few moments aboard.

"Tactical training may have to wait a little while, we have a large quantity of officers already holding a Tactical rating of 4 or higher, however the helm is a different story, I think it might be best if we start on the holodeck before proceeding to the real thing....but if you would like, I could schedule some training time with me as your instructor, with a mock-up of the Galileo, and more importantly, nothing to crash into if we make a mistake?"

Kiri had thought that at best she might be able to get some time from a member of the flight control team. To get lessons from the XO who himself is an experienced instructor, that was perfect. Piloting was a skill she still had a lot more to develop in. It was lower on her list of things to lean but still very important. There was no reason to do them in either order so it was fine with her. With a smile of excitement she replied, "It would be much appreciated sir, thank you very much." Though in space, it was unlikely she'd crash into anything anyway. Any time he was willing to give her she would use as much as she could.

"Excellent, I'm glad you agree. I think we should schedule some time on the Holodeck - next time you finish a shift and have some free time, give me a shout and I can give you a crash course in piloting - what do you think?"

John still got a thrill from teaching skills to his younger colleagues. No matter what happened, he knew that the experience he had and the wisdom that he hopefully imparted on his shipmates would stand them in good stead. Piloting courses tended to be relatively short and intense, with the helm having a reputation as being something that was easy to learn, but very hard to master.

Kiri nodded her head then without thinking replied, "I believe that I will have finished work on upgrading the sensor arrays on the ships shuttlecraft by nineteen hundred hours today. But," She hastily added, "Whatever time is good for you sir I'll make sure I am available." She gave a weak smile, still very excited about the prospect but a little worried about giving the ships second highest ranking officer a bad impression of her.

"That sounds fine by me. I will be on the Bridge until the end of Beta shift, but if you are free in your off hours, then I am at your disposal Ensign. Now if that's everything, I need to finish a report before I'm due on the Bridge in a few hours?"

If she could Kiri wanted to start as soon as possible, but the end of Beta shift might be cutting it a little late. At a push she could do it but could the Commander? Would there be a better time? She knew he ran the Beta shift, and she was always on Alpha as well has the extra shifts she gave herself. So she would never be able to do it in before his shift, she would just have to cut back on sleep. Standing up she bowed her head politely, "Part of any Gamma shift from now onwards, if you can offer me your time I would be most grateful," She was just repeating herself from before, "Whatever time is best for you sir." Kiri just couldn't bring herself to ask for anything more from him, he was going out of his way to help her. With that she turned to leave, fighting to stop herself from turning and bowing again on the way out.

"Gamma shift huh? OK Ensign, I'll expect you on Holodeck 1, at 00:30 hours. Just you, me, and a mock-up of the Galileo Bridge. Don't be late now!"

John smirked as he began plotting his evening in advance. It was true that having one of them on Alpha shift and another on Beta was going to make things interesting, but John had no problem with sacrificing a couple of hours of downtime in the interest of improving the competency of his crew across any discipline he could.

Turning back Kiri nodded, not quite bowing, "Yes sir, thank you," Already she had taken up too much time so she kept on going, leaving the office behind. The only downside to this was that if this session was only an hour long, she would only get four hours of sleep. That wasn't so bad, sometimes at the academy she did far worse and still managed to function. Right now it seemed that everything was starting to go her way.


[OFF]

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Ensign Kiri Cho
Science Officer/Sensor Specialist
USS Galileo

Lt Cmdr. Jonathan Holliday
Executive Officer
USS Galileo

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