Doing One's Duty

Posted on 07 Aug 2012 @ 3:44am by Captain Jonathan Holliday & Lieutenant Commander Pola Ni Dhuinn M.D.

1,499 words; about a 7 minute read

Mission: Episode 01 - Project Sienna
Location: USS Galileo - Bridge
Timeline: MD09 0110hrs

[ON]

It had been hours since their fateful battle with the Klingons, and now Galileo found itself hiding like a scared child in a nebula, waiting for the opportunity to strike back against the Bird of Prey that had crippled her so soon after leaving spacedock.
The Bridge bore the scars of that battle, with conduits and cables hanging down from the ceiling, debris and fragments of consoles and display screens scattered across the floor. They were the least important things to worry about right now. As it stood, they needed to be able to fight - aesthetics were to be sacrificed for the sake of efficiency.

Yet throughout all this time, Holliday had remained squarely in the centre chair on the Bridge - refusing to leave his post until his responsibilities to his captain and to his ship had been completed. There were still so many tasks to be accomplished before they would be able to even attempt a rescue, but round every gaseous cloud hid the possibility of an ambush.

Keeping the ship on yellow alert hadn't helped to reduce tension either. The entire crew knew that at a moment's notice, they would be put back on Red Alert and sent back into the breach to fight once more. Repairs were progressing slowly, with so much of the ship damaged, and so little of the crew in any condition to help, it was a case of working on one system at a time. Usually by now, the Commander would have been relieved of duty by the Gamma shift, but for now, he had no intention of going anywhere, even if he already felt worse than he had only a few hours ago.
His uniform still bore the blood of his fallen comrade, Commander Remington, whose body had been recovered from the Bridge some time ago, leaving a bloody patch where he had once laid. It was of no consequence however, right now, Galileo needed him in that chair, not mourning the loss of his crew, however much he might have wanted to.

Trying to hide a yawn behind her hand, Pola's only means of propping herself up was the wall of the turbolift she was currently encased in. Thankfully this had been one of the first items engineering had fixed, after the transporters, knowing the importance of needing a means to ferry patients to sickbay where transporters may drain too much energy.

Despite being on her feet all day, she gotten the call to cover the gamma shift on bridge. Despite being so new to being a senior officer, everyone else was needed elsewhere. Things had somewhat quietened down in sickbay, they were very lucky with the EMH, he didn't tire and was much quicker than a human could be.

As the turbolift came to a shuddering halt, Pola carefully stepped over the ledge left where the turbolift stopped before it met the floor. Gingerly making her way to the centre chair, she frowned as she spotted Jonathan, a mixed look of pure exhaustion and determination on hhis face. "Commander. I'm here to relieve you of duty. I've been assigned the gamma shift."

A voice that had managed to make it's way into his mind was the last thing that he wanted to hear right now. Relieved of duty? When there were still officers and crewmembers missing from the Galileo? Not a chance. Even if there were a reason for him to give up that chair, what good was he asleep?

"Thanks but no thanks Doc - I got this." John replied absently as he checked the readouts on the panel next to him.

Trying to hold back a sigh, Pola reconised subborness when she saw it. She also reconised that John was one of those people who would stay where he was until he was stunned by a phaser and his body dragged away. "What used to any of us are you if you stay here in the condition you are in Sir?"

"What use am I laid in a bed doing nothing? At least from here I can keep an eye on things....in case you hadn't noticed we're a little short on senior officers right now."

John really did want to sleep, in fact, he could think of nothing more enjoyable right now than a sonic shower, his bed, and a clean uniform, but at this precise moment, that combination felt more like a luxury and a liberty that he could not afford to take when the ship was still on a state of alert.

Running her hand over her hair, Pola knocked the already loose pins out, sending them scattering. Her attention was drawn to the blood stain on the floor, instintively she knew it belonged to Remington. After the systems had been brought back up and patients trapped elsewhere had been brought in, her first duty had been to declare their second officer offically dead. Looking back at Jonathan, the Doctor went down to be on the same eyelevel as him, feeling it was important she got through to him. This crew couldn't afford to loose another person, especially where it was because he ran himself to the ground.

Lowering her voice, she placed her hand against his knee, "Jonathan...You're the only person left in the chain of command, the only leadership these people now have to look up to. Your body is about to give out on you...I bet your mind is so exhausted that you can barely concentrate. It's ok to realise you're a human and to give into the weaknesses which it brings with it, just for a few hours."

Physical contact and first name terms? Holliday wasn't aware that his position amongst the crew had become so informal that his subordinates could get away with such behaviour unbecoming of an officer on the Bridge of a starship. Usually he would have retorted with some kind of punishment and had them removed from the bridge for insubordination, but he was simply too tired, and Galileo too damaged to even think of something like that.

Resigning himself to his fate, John knew that there was no way he would be able to complete this shift with the continous badgering of his CMO next to him, and instead decided to heed the advice being given to him.

"Very well Doctor....the Bridge is yours....although I'll be back up here in a few hours, looks like Alpha and Beta shifts will be my responsibility for a little while."

Checking the time on the console beside his seat, Pola nodded her head, "I'm late starting this shift so you won't need to be back until 1000 hours, that will leave you with a shift and a half to cover. I can grab some sleep after as the EMH is covering the worse of the cases and my own staff are back on a rotation so as I can get them rested up. And I won't take no for an answer Sir, I can make it a medical order if you'd prefer."

It seemed that the good doctor had made it her mission to get him off the Bridge whether Holliday liked it or not. Having so many hours off duty wasn't something that he was looking forward to, but in the interests of minimising arguments, and the impending threat of overriding his authority with some god-forsaken medical directive, the XO relented.

"Very well....1000 hours and not a second later....but I want you to wake me if anything happens whilst I'm off duty. Systems failure, unexplained anomalies, the Klingons, anything. Understood?"

Climbing to her feet, Pola stood aside as she smiled softly, "Don't trust me to be able to command your bridge Sir? I promise to call you if the ship is in any danger. Otherwise you've a good crew here who can work well knowing they have eachother's back. Don't worry."

"It's the Klingons I don't trust Doctor, never have. See you in 9 hours." The Xo picked himself up from the chair and began his walk towards the turbolift. As the doors opened and he stepped inside, Holliday almost instinctively reached to the front of his uniform jacket and ripped it open, glad to be free of it's grime-ridden embrace.

Watching as John walked again, she'd started to smile as he turned to face out within the turbolift. Her smile froze as she watched jacket fall open, her mouth going dry. She'd never realised before how tight the uniform could be. Feeling her cheeks start to flush, she turned quickly on her heel making a note to do a scan on herself. Some of the gas used to knock out the Klingons...either that or she was suffering exhaustion. As she sat back in the command chair, Pola glanced back at the turbolift she caught Jonathan's eyes before the doors closed.

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Lieutenant JG Pola Ni Dhuinn
Chief Medical Officer
USS Galileo

Lt Cmdr Jonathan Holliday
Executive Officer
USS Galileo

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