Have a Seat

Posted on 10 Jan 2013 @ 1:44am by Rear Admiral Lirha Saalm

2,728 words; about a 14 minute read

Mission: Episode 02 - Resupply
Location: USS Galileo - Deck 1, Captain's Ready Room
Timeline: MD 16, 1515 hours

[ON]

Staring at the PADD in her hand, Lirha frowned as she looked over the latest batch of new crew members to be assigned to her ship. Many of them were young petty officers and crewmen straight out of Starfleet's two-year prep course, but a couple were officers, and one officer in particular caught her interest. Scrolling the page down on the device with her thumb, she brought up the service record for a new junior lieutenant named Jacob Pendleton, her ship's new chief research officer. Immediately she thought of her chief science officer. Maenad is probably not going to like this, she mumbled in her head.

Lirha liked Maenad very much, but was acutely aware of her short temper and sometimes controlling demeanor, as evidenced by the awkward encounter with the civilian named Don. Now, there was about to be a new senior officer serving in her department, and Lirha had her doubts about how well it would work out. With a sigh, she set the PADD down and tapped her commbadge. It was better to inform her now rather than wait for the inevitable awkward moment. "Lieutenant Panne, please come to my ready room." she said quietly.

Maenad was looking idly out her window from behind the office desk. Her face was resting heavily against one of her palms while she plucked at her bottom lip, daydreaming. The fourth Brandenburg Concerto was in full swing, and at some point her eyes had drifted away from the screen in front of her to some clouds drifting in the distance. The captain's summon merely caused her to raise her eyebrows, waiting a second as she held her lip between two fingers. Pluck. "I'm on my way," she replied.

A few moments later, Maenad stepped onto the bridge and stood aghast for longer than she had intended. The new bridge module looked fantastic. She looked down toward her station, but decided against going to try it out - she would wait until they departed so she could enjoy it properly. What sort of things would she see from that chair, she wondered. What memories were about to made?

She took the long way around to the ready room, moving between the command chairs and astrometrics MSD, past the ops station, then behind tactical and conn. She traced her hand over anything that was within reach, a looked of bewilderment on her face. In front of the ready room, she straightened herself up a bit by de-rumpling her skirt as best she could and adjusting her shoulders and uniform jacket. She sounded Lirha's chime and placed her hands behind her back.

"Enter." the captain called out as the chime echoed softly throughout the ready room. Looking expectantly towards the door from her desk, Lirha took a deep breath and pushed some of her dark hair back behind her ears.

The last time Maenad had been in the captain's ready room was her first night aboard. She was tired, exhausted actually, and she thought she had made a fool of herself. And it was dark and illuminated by artificial light, it felt smaller than it did now. She looked around the room, stopping with her hands behind her back in front of the doors, and noticed all the things she had been too tired to notice before. For one, the natural light coming in through the windows made it seem as though the ready room of two weeks ago was some far off place. "Yes?" her soft question was her greeting, her eyes gently settling on Lirha's.

Lirha watched the tall science chief enter the room, then gave her a small smile. "Hello, Maenad." she replied simply, then picked up the PADD in front of her and scrolled through it. "I have been looking over the latest crew assignments and noticed something you might find of interest." she said, getting straight to the point. "Our ship has been assigned a Chief Research Officer within your department, and he should be arriving shortly if these reports are accurate."

Maintaining her position near the door, her posture statuesque, she only turned her head about ten degrees. A chief research officer? She just barely narrowed her eyes as she considered what Lirha had said. "Chief?" she asked after several long seconds. "I do not understand."

The Orion captain folded her hands in her lap and looked up into the science officer's green eyes. "Starfleet's Scientific Corps sometimes assigns starships a chief research officer, especially science vessels." she began to explain, "The duties of the CRO are to help support the chief science officer, as well as specialize in all ship-wide research and development projects."

Maenad stood in silence a little while longer. She felt like she were a sculpture on a plinth under careful study, and she might have looked like one too. She didn't understand, and usually she understood right away. It sounded like she was being given a research assistant; as a professor, she usually had a doctoral student assigned to her as a personal assistant to trudge through the more tedious aspects of her research, but in the more structured role of a chief science officer, which already had its own assistant in the form of Lieutenant Cho, Maenad still didn't understand. Her eyebrows had slowly knitted together over the course of a good ten seconds of inner thought. It had sounded to her like the captain, who she was not thinking of as Lirha, had summed up her job quite thoroughly. Was she not supposed to be the specialist of all scientific projects on board? Was Kiri not already assigned to assist her in that role? For the second or third time since coming into the room, Maenad blinked. "Lieutenant Cho has already filled that role, captain," she said quietly.

Lirha shook her head, her dark hair lightly bobbing across her shoulders. "No, Lieutenant Cho is a junior officer on her first assignment out of the Academy," she replied, "And though quite capable of performing her duties, lacks the experience and specialization that usually comes with a chief research officer. Our new CRO is a senior officer who specializes in xeno research and cultural studies. He will be able to help expand your department's functionality."

Maenad adjusted her footing. A senior officer? "What are you saying?" she asked abruptly, still standing by the door. "My specialty is precisely that; xenobiology, xenopaleontology, and xenoarchaeology. I do not understand why this role is not simply a subordinate position; why not assign me a personal a research assistant, similar to the assistant chief but more specialised? I believe that would be a more sensible course of action than to remove my authority over scientific research. My team is already diverse, functional, and highly efficient. I do not see the functionality in dequalifying me and giving research, the most important element of my department, to someone else or, by the sounds of it, to an entirely new department." She was having a hard time keeping her voice level, and her tone was nearly shaking and cracking as she tried to keep herself from losing composure. This just wasn't fair, she kept telling herself. This was wrong.

With a sigh, Lirha shook her head to dismiss many of Maenad's assumptions. It was clear to the captain that she didn't fully understand the role of the CRO, therefore she would have to explain it in detail. "No, no one is removing your authority. You are still the department head for all science operations. The CRO will report to the CSO, which is you. The position is not a department head position, but is still part of the senior staff and chain of command."

"If I am the senior-most science officer, and research falls under my jurisdiction, what is his function? And why does he need to be a member of the senior staff?" asked Maenad, starting to become shrill. "I feel like he's watching me, like he's making sure I do my job properly by taking most of it himself. If you don't think that I am capable of running my department squarely, then I would prefer to hear it outright."

"I never said you were incapable of running your department." Lirha answered in a calm voice, noticing how Maenad now appeared to be agitated. "In fact, I think you will do a fine job and be a valuable addition to the crew. As for the chain of command and senior staff...well, that should have been explained to you during your Academy days. There is a certain amount of redundancy in most Fleet positions. Think of the CRO as an asset, not a burden or source of competition."

"I am not thinking of this position as an asset," she said back to her. "I am thinking of it as a burden. An unnecessary burden. One that doesn't trust me with scientific research despite my excellent qualifications." And she didn't like the way that the captain was alluding to her being an idiot. She knew how the chain of command worked; Saalm was treating her like she should have remembered the simplest lessons in the Academy. How dare she! Maenad huffed. She wanted to stomp her feet. She wanted to scream. "As chief science officer, I am supposed to be in charge of all scientific work on this ship. Am I to understand that it will no longer be under my jurisdiction? What sort of work will be under his supervision and what will be under mine?"

Lirha raised an eyebrow, unsure if her previous explanations had been misunderstood. "Maenad," she replied in a soft voice, trying her best to not become frustrated with the science chief despite her apparent stubbornness, "You are still the department head and in charge of all science operations on the ship. The CRO reports directly to you, therefore you will be able to supervise his or her activities and delegate tasks as necessary. You will still be responsible for research and development, however as chief science officer, you also have many other additional duties."

"Yes, I know that," Maenad said shortly. She wasn't looking at the captain anymore, she was looking at a spot above her head on the wall. "What I do not understand is the purpose of his position if I am responsible for research and development. How can we both be chief of the same thing? And, I still do not understand what his function in the senior staff and chain of command will be. He will get orders independent of me and use my resources, obviously. You are telling me that I have full authority over my department and its staff, but how can that be entirely true without undermining his position? Being a chief who isn't really a chief would get quite frustrating, I think."

The captain frowned as she looked at Maenad. Despite her mostly friendly and genial nature, Lirha was beginning to get angry, especially at the way in which Maenad was speaking to her. Her body language and tone of voice were less than professional, in Lirha's opinion, and she was beginning to realize that Maenad might have quite the temper. It was one thing to question an order or assignment, but to do so by raising one's voice or becoming agitated at a superior officer, especially the commanding officer, was not acceptable.

Not saying anything for a long moment, Lirha looked sternly at the science chief and flicked her eyes towards the nearby chair. "Have a seat, lieutenant." she said simply and with a firm voice.

Maenad didn't like that. She must have crossed something. But didn't anybody understand that they had crossed her first? "May I be excused?" she asked, still looking at the wall behind the captain.

"No, you may not." Lirha answered. There was no way she was going to let Maenad come into her officer, throw a fit, and then simply leave without listening to what she had to say. "Have a seat." she repeated, waiting for her order to be complied with.

She clenched her teeth behind her lips, making a protrusion on either side of her jaw. Doing as she was told, she moved to the chair in front of the captain's desk and sat down, legs together and hands in her lap. She looked thoroughly unimpressed, but it could have been her default expression. It was hard to tell.

Lirha let out an internal sigh of relief as Maenad took a seat. She was really quite fond of the science chief, and didn't want to have to discipline her friend and bedmate for insubordination. Waiting a long moment before speaking, Lirha took a deep breath and softened her voice. "I understand how you feel. Really, I do." she began, "But these orders and the CRO's assignment come directly Starfleet's Scientific Corps, specifically the Planetary Sciences Division. There is not much I can do about it, so it is important to put your personal feelings aside and make the adjustment. And should you feel the need to 'vent' to someone, I am always here...as your captain, and as your friend."

That didn't make her feel any better. She heard it, processed it, and accepted it, but was still angry. The captain was telling her that she was her friend, but it didn't feel that way now. And she could tell that the way she was being gentle was probably designed to calm her down. Well maybe she didn't want to be calm right now. But she didn't want to be angry, either, and she didn't want to have to make the captain shout her, which she seemed pretty close to do doing.

"I just need to do some thinking," she said, finally looking at the captain's eyes. "Because I don't feel like I will be able to perform properly."

Keeping her green eyes fixed on Maenad, Lirha carefully observed the woman for another long moment before finally speaking again. "If you do not feel that you can fully perform your duties, then I need to take the appropriate measures to find someone who can." she replied simply.

Maenad sharply rose her head at that. Maybe this was exactly what the captain wanted. Maybe the plan was to get her so upset that she would quit; if she quit, there wouldn't be as much paperwork. Not knowing what to say or how to act, she only clenched her teeth even harder. She felt the sting of tears behind her eyes, but they only turned red. They wanted to run her out and have her replaced, she told herself. She was so upset now that if she opened her mouth she would have made everything worse than it already was. After a long time, Maenad looked up from her hands. One of her fingers was bloody from picking at the skin around the nail, but there wasn't any pain. "I would like to leave now," she said quietly.

Lirha watched as Maenad's eyes became red and her jaw once again clenched. It didn't take telepathic abilities for her to realize that the woman was becoming even more upset, and Lirha sadly sighed to herself. The last thing she wanted was to make a member of her crew feel un-valued or out of place, especially Maenad. Reluctantly, Lirha nodded as she replied. "Very well. You're dismissed."

She hesitated for a moment before standing up and heading for the door as quickly as she possibly could, but she suddenly stopped before stepping out. She turned around to see the captain still at her desk. "I want you to know that there is no one more qualified to lead your science department than I am." Maenad didn't say it rudely, maliciously, or with any intent to hurt anyone. In reality, it probably wasn't true, but it was in her mind. She said it like she were telling her what she was having for dinner. Then, she turned back around and left without another word.

[OFF]

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CAPT Lirha Saalm
Commanding Officer
USS Galileo

Lieutenant (JG) Maenad Panne
Chief Science Officer
USS Galileo

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