Meeting the Landlord

Posted on Tue Jun 22nd, 2010 @ 6:28pm by Captain Alexander Gunning

Mission: Welcome to Archa IV
Location: Starbase 332 - Commander's Office
Timeline: 4 Days Before Arrival of USS Jackal

[ON]

As Benjamin stepped off the oversized turbolift into the station operations centre, he was taken back by the one theme that was running through the entirety of the station - size. The Endeavour's bridge could probably fit in this room three times with room to spare. Immediately in front of him were two command chairs on rotating daises, with control panels either side, and a large situation table to rival the size of Byrne's own observation lounge conference table.

To either side were more consoles, most enclosed within their own little circle with each other. He had to step out towards the centre of the bridge before he spotted the set of doors labelled 'Commanding Officer's Office', located in the corner of the room between what would - on a starship - be the CONN and one of the room's circular clusters of consoles. Stepping through the various personnel there - each of them seemingly used to Starfleet Captains walking amongst them to see the station commander, he moved to press the chime next to the clear glass doors.

Tae was almost literally up to his eyes in paperwork. According to Starfleet Command, the time had come for all the fighter wings to be rotated and sent to Starbase 218. He assumed that it was in relation to the incumbent senior staff and just went along with it. He was midway through the requisition for new Scorpion classes and in the process of cursing his Chief Operations Officer for leaving this to him when the chime went off.

"Come in."

"Good evening, Captain," Benjamin said, as the glass doors parted to admit him. Instantly noticeable were the stacks of PADDs cluttering the outgoing COs desk, and Benjamin wondered how much of it was to do with the changeover, and how much was general day-to-day administration. "Command's keeping you busy, I see," he noted.

"Preparing for a command transfer, unfortunately. The problem with a station this big is that there's so much which slips through the cracks and never gets done. Right now I'm trying to move our antiquated fighters to a less volatile region of space. It's riveting, simply riveting." Tae sighed. "How is the Endeavour treating you, Captain?"

"Just fine," Benjamin commented, impressed by the man's ability to name his ship off the top of his head. "Just so long as we don't have any more Admirals commandeering us for missions out of the blue." He imagined any ship captain would be just as resentful at having an Admiral come aboard to take over a mission as he was - he just had extra reason to be resentful due to the course their last mission took them.

"Yes, well, speaking of which I have Admiral Wellington en route here at the moment. He's going to be overseeing the command transfer. Apparently the new CO doesn't know he's being transferred command. Rumour has it that he was only just given a new command a couple of months ago."

"Yeah, Admiral Sanchez mentioned that the assignment was a bit of a risky one for Fleet Command. Wouldn't let it slip who the decision came from, though. I've heard he likes to protect his own. May I?" He asked, indicating one of the seats in the office. Upon Tae's nod, he moved to take it. "Regardless, I've been assigned as the station's deterrent during the command transfer. Command wants the transfer to go smoothly, and it seems they're worried, with the station being so close to the Frontier."

"There's been quite a bit of activity here recently, in all honesty. There's been a few stand-offs between ourselves and the Ritorians. Nothing that's actually descended into exchanges of fire but they've been far more active. We've also had scouts out patrolling near the Thane system." Tae considered how he was going to word this. "They've found that the original inhabitants of the system are going through a period of 'expansion' and seem to be hostile towards the Federation. Whether they're going to become an issue for us or not remains to be seen but we've had orders to pull our patrol route back out of the Tiingarin corridor."

"Well, I hope our services won't be required. Both for the peace of the region, and for the peace of my helmsman," he smiled slightly before explaining. "I'd hate to be your dock master if ever you need to launch all docked ships in a hurry."

Tae laughed, almost inwardly at the Captain's comments. "In all honesty, Benjamin I think my Dockmaster does hate being himself. He's a week away from retiring and disappearing off the grid. I reckon he's at the point of stealing a runabout. I reckon that sixteen years shunting ships around has driven him more than a little bit stir crazy."

"Glad I didn't insist on being moved closer to the spacedoors, then," Benjamin responded jovially. After a bit of a pause, he tried to stir up more conversation on a slightly different topic. "So, where are you due to be posted after this?"

"To be honest, I'm not sure. Whether the Fleet decide I'm to be moved to a less volatile base like 218 or given a ship. Who knows, maybe I'll be shunted behind a desk at Cestus III. That would be a disturbing change of pace for me, I'll tell you that much for nothing. I don't envy whoever has to take this station on," Tae mused, "times are changing here, Captain Byrne. They're changing for the worst."

[OFF]

Captain Benjamin Byrne
Commanding Officer
USS Endeavour

Captain Liam Tae
Commanding Officer
Starbase 332
[Played by Commander Alex Gunning]