Status Report

Posted on Thu Feb 13th, 2014 @ 9:53pm by Captain Liarra Von & Commander Brian Ratchford

Mission: Picking Up the Pieces
Location: Captain's Office

The large, mostly-glass doors to the captain's office opened ahead of him as Commander Ratchford approached from station operations - or 'Ops', as he was trying to get used to calling it. Either term was almost alien to him; Brian was far more used to referring to the bridge and the captain's ready room, rather than the operations centre and the captain's office.

"Good morning, Captain," he said, nodding politely to her as he entered. "Raktajino?" It had become a habit since he had started his new job as the station's first officer for him to grab the captain a drink before they started their morning briefing with each other. He'd first started offering it after he had seen the amount of stress and anxiety she was under immediately after receiving her promotion.

"That sounds good, thank you, Commander." Liarra was starting to get settled in to her new office. After her meeting with Jordan Gunning, she finally finished packing away her late mentor's belongings to put into storage. The office was still fairly empty except for a few boxes of her things, but she'd get those unpacked before too long. There were simply too many things on her mind for her to concentrate on something so mundane.

Brian walked up to the replicated and used the manual panel next to it to enter his usual order of two steaming mugs of the Klingon coffee. Removing them from the replicator slot, he walked over and placed one of them on Von's desk. "Still haven't gotten around to sorting out the boxes yet, I see," he commented, as he stepped back and helped himself to one of the chairs in front of the desk.

Liarra reached out and took the coffee cup. She carefully lifted it to her lips, taking a sip so not to burn her mouth on the steaming beverage. "I'll get around to it eventually. Most of what's left are trinkets. The important things are already unpacked. Are you settled into my old office yet?"

"Pretty much, for now," Brian answered. "I'm still having a few things of mine shipped from Cestus from my time on the Vesta. When I came here, I didn't exactly expect to be here long." The commander took a long drink from his coffee. "I'm still trying to get used to this place, to be honest. I've been on the Jackal so much since I got here, it's almost like standing in the middle of a field every time I come back aboard the station."

Liarra grinned and took another sip of her coffee. "I remember that feeling the first time I came on board. I hope you're not regretting your reassignment."

"No," Brian answered instantly, shaking his head. "I'll go wherever Starfleet needs me, and I agree with Command that you need me right here. So long as I'm needed, I'm happy to serve," his tone became less serious as he said the last sentence, and he extended his arms to perform a very small mock bow as he finished.

"That's good to hear. Starbase Three-Three-Two is not exactly a dream assignment right now. We've even had a number of shops close up. I guess they wanted to, what's that human phrase, get out of Dodge?"

"That's one way to put it. Then again, they could do with some reminding that they don't have to run at the first sign of trouble," the commander said. "Afterall, consider how well that Ferengi barkeeper did on Deep Space Nine; that station was so close to the front lines it even swapped sides a couple of times, and even then he was pulling in a good crowd from what I've heard. Maybe we should try seeing if the station reports can give any clues as to how Captain Sisko managed to convince his shopkeepers to stick around."

"Captain Sisko didn't have to deal with having a third of his station exploding," Liarra reminded her new executive officer. "Still, it's not a bad idea. His notes might have had something that could help us out."

"Not quite a third," Brian agreed with a slight grin. "But I'm fairly certain that he lost at least one docking pylon a year. Although I do recommend that you don't copy straight from his playbook and become a religious figure around here. I'd rather not have to decorate one of the empty shop stalls as a Shrine of Von."

"Don't worry about that, Commander. I'm not really big on having a lot of attention. Now Darzen, he would have loved that. He was probably the most egotistical person that I have ever known," Liarra responded with a grin of her own.

"Darzen? Was he one of your past hosts?" the commander quizzed. He knew that the captain was a joined Trill, but he didn't know much about her past lives - aside from the fact that this was a bit of a surprise assignment and so he hadn't looked her up in the same way he might have if he knew he was going to be assigned here, he didn't know just how much of a Trill's previous life details were included in their Starfleet record, beyond that of their current host.

"That's right. Darzen was my second. He was a very interesting individual." Liarra leaned back in her chair, deep in thought for a moment. "He was an athlete, and a pretty good one, but he wasn't as good as he thought he was. Or as good as he thought everyone else should have thought he was."

"Sounds like there's a story there," Ratchford said, settling back and wondering if the captain would tell it or not.

"Not much of one. He loved attention. He was the type of guy that would do publicity stunts just to get people talking about him again, especially after he retired. Eventually he just faded into relative obscurity."

"Bet that was a crushing blow to his ego," Brian answered. "I had a friend at the Academy who was a bit like that. Always loved to be the centre of attention. When others in our class started to get better grades and better assignments than him, he ended up bouncing from one brig to another. To be honest, I don't even know what happened to him after that."

"Hopefully he stayed out of the brig. Darzen didn't really handle it well. He had a great life, a loving family, but he was still a bit lonely. Fortunately not too much of his personality comes out." Liarra shrugged. "But I suppose that's how things go sometimes. What was your friend's name? I'm sure Jordan could find him if you wanted."

"Drayrn," Brian answered. "Garb Drayrn. He was a Rigellian. But you don't have to waste Jordan's time with it. We fell out of touch a long time ago."

"I'm sorry to hear that, Brian. I can't really say that I've kept up with my friends from the Academy either. I guess that's what happens when we all get shipped off to different assignment."

"Mmm," Brian agreed, nodding. He let the silence hang for a moment before picking up a new thread. "Anyway, we've got that delegation from Archa IV that we talked about the day before yesterday scheduled to see you today. They want to talk to you again about the security of their planet when the station has a big hole in the side of it."

Liarra sighed. She had been dealing with the Archans off and on for the past month. "I have concerns about security of their planet too, but I don't know how much of that I should share with them. They seemed to get along with Alex a lot better than they get along with me."

"Yeah, I think for now all they need is some comforting words," Brian answered. "Let them see the Jackal or some of the air wing next time they go out on patrol or something similar. Aside from that, we have reports of more Sojourner activity in isolated pockets near their borders, with pretty much the only dead spot in the reports being Thane, which we've not heard anything about since the conflict you guys were involved in there. We've also had a request for medical assistance from Foiva Three; apparently there's an influenza outbreak there that has mutated." He handed over the PADD that he had downloaded the request on to. "I was hoping that you would approve me to take a medical team and the Carthage to see what we can do to help."

Von sipped her coffee while she skimmed over the PADD. "That sounds straight forward enough. I think things have calmed down in the infirmaries, so why don't you take Dr. Keller along too with your medical team. I'm sure the other doctors can handle things here while she's gone."

Brian nodded with a slight grin. "I'll see if I can tear her away from the infirmary for a few days. I'll let you know when we're ready to set off."

"That sounds good, Commander. Keep me posted on what you find there. The Jackal will still be on patrol here, so if things get dicey, we can send her your way. Hopefully she won't be needed."

"Agreed." Brian took that his cue to leave, and stood from his chair. "I'll leave you to sorting out your boxes," he said, as he turned to leave.

"Thanks. I'm sure it will be a wonderful time," Liarra replied with a grin.

------------------------------------
Captain Liarra Von
Commanding Officer

Commander Brian Ratchford
Executive Officer