Progress Reports
Posted on Fri Nov 7th, 2014 @ 6:41am by Commander Jordan Gunning & Commander Brian Ratchford & Lieutenant Commander Sean O'Connell & Lieutenant Colonel Edward Maxwell & Lieutenant Augustus Deakin & Lieutenant William O'Donnell & Master Warrant Officer Vestara Stronghold
Mission:
Vagrants, Vagabonds, and Thieves
Location: Senior Officers' Conference Room, Deck 14
Timeline: MD12 0800hrs
Jordan Gunning stared into the muddy brown pool at the bottom of the cup which had until recently held the strongest coffee he had ever consumed. It wasn't enough. He was now to the point where counting the number of hours he had been awake was the only thing he had to keep him from collapsing in a heap. He tossed the PADD onto the table- he had now read the same line twenty times and had read the previous one just as often. He dragged a hand across his face and shook his head, trying to instill some energy in himself.
Gus Deakin strode into the conference room with a renewed spring in his step. He'd managed to steal almost five hours of sleep that night and his fatigue had improved markedly for it. He saw Gunning hunched over a coffee mug and knew straight away that wasn't a good sign. "Morning, Commander," he said, unable to keep his good mood from tainting his voice. He took a seat opposite Gunning and leaned forward, clasping his hands together. "Don't tell me you still haven't slept!"
The Commander narrowed his eyes and squinted at Deakin, only managing to grunt an answer.
William entered the meeting with PADD in hand going over status reports and overviewing the sub departments tasks. He hated meetings, it took him away from the very large hole in the star base. He also needed to find a spot for the hundred extra tons of tritanium.
Ed walked into the meeting alone and empty handed. He was dressed in his customary boots and flightsuit, which was unzipped as far as his sternum, showing the green shirt he wore underneath it. In the myriad of pockets on the suit he had his typical field gear. Survival pack in his right thigh pocket, flight gloves poking out of the waist pockets and a PADD in his left thigh pocket. He nodded to people as he passed them, but otherwise kept to himself as he took his seat.
The doors to the conference room opened one more time as Ratchford made his way through, just a few minutes after the 0800 time that he had scheduled the meeting for. On the Vesta or the Carpathia he'd have been loathe to arrive late to his own meetings, but he had learned since being left in command of the starbase that his time was never his own. The Diplomatic Corps attaché who had been put in charge of dealing with the asylum requests for the incoming refugees had called him on his way down to inform him that with the increasing numbers of refugees arriving on the station, the asylum application process would take another few days at least to finalise the arrangements, and that chief amongst them would be where all of the refugees would be living - both in the long-term and the short-term. The attache actually had three others working with them on the applications; one each for the N'Veci, the Kintarrans and the Amollans, and all three of them were reporting different requirements on behalf of their clients and contacts.
"Right, let's get started," he said as he approached the head of the table, dropping the PADDs he had been handed on the way from the captain's office to the conference room on the table in front of him. "How many refugees are we up to on the station now?"
Gunning took a quick inventory in his head. The station was reaching critical mass with the refugees. Its capacity was already down with the grindingly slow repairs to the Sojourner damage and many unused decks suffering from antiquated power structures which meant that they were suitable for little more than storage. "With the latest Amollan arrivals, we're up to fifteen thousand, give or take."
"We won't be able to accommodate many more without bursting apart," Deakin added, splaying his fingers on both hands to illustrate 'bursting' as he said it. "My teams have been reshuffling and resorting and we've managed to eek out some extra space here and there, but between overflow storage from the hole and materials for fixing it, there's only so much rearranging of furniture we can do." He paused briefly before adding, "And the waste management system is struggling to keep up with the extra demand."
"So we're literally up s--t creek without a paddle?" Gunning said rhetorically before adding to his previous point. "I've seen reports indicating that small colonies are upping and leaving their assigned planets. I've seen a report from the USS Monarch that they've monitored chatter going back and forth among colony leaders across the region- they're talking about banding together to protect themselves."
"Good for them, about time they started to work together, makes my job a whole lot easier, I'll just recall the security staff from the colonies." Sean had a small grin on his face. "Just ask a few Starfleet ships to patrol the area or better yet Klingon ships. That'll scare the bejasus out of them. As for the refugees, now I do recall we have a big round thing around here called Archa IV, best thing would be to just send the refugees planet side. Could be I am oversimplifying things, but I just got back a couple of hours ago."
"I don't think withdrawing our personnel from outlying colonies is really going to do anything to avert a panic." Gunning replied tautly. "It doesn't matter whether you send the entire Klingon Defence Force to check in with them every few months, it would look like we're giving up on them."
"Relax Commander. Are you that tired you don't recognize a little humor when you hear it?" Ed said with a friendly smile from his seat at the table. "As far as things are concerned on my end of things, no real big changes. We've expanded the maintenance crews duty hours to give them all a few hours a shift working on the refugee ships. It was either expand their hours or degrade the readiness of the fighter wing and I'm not about to do that."He explained in a rather no nonsense tone. "Training has unfortunately taken a back seat to operations at the moment. We've got ships coming in at all hours and I have to have a full squadron in the air to keep up patrols and escorting them in at the same time. I mean it's nothing we can't handle, but keep in mind that alot of these pilots have never seen combat yet."
"Is it that obvious?" Gunning muttered rhetorically as he took another fruitless glance at the bottom of the mug, hoping it had magically refilled.
"I thought it was the red uniform. Does something to the brain chemistry especially when they hit the three pips." Sean smiled.
"But what needs to be done is to start patrolling the out lying colonies for several reasons. First to reduce the panic and to build op confidence. Secondly, we will be getting extra intelligence, if we build up trust we get to hear what is going on. As for the refugees I would suggest getting them to Archa IV as soon as possible, now we have federation freighters docked and in a case of emergency we can recruit them to help us out. The Non-federations freighters I can make their lives miserable enough so they want too help us out." Sean looked around. " Now unless anybody has any objections I think that is the most prudent course of action."
Brian sat forward, after leaning back to let the officers discuss the situation amongst themselves until now. He was still getting used to each of them; their personalities and tendencies, and it was interesting - even amidst the situation - to see how they interacting and who brought up what ideas. "Archa Four is a good idea, but we'll need the permission of the planetary government. I'll arrange a meeting with them later today to bring up the proposal. If they agree, then there are a lot of green sites on the surface that we could turn into temporary refugee camps.
"As for the outer colonies? It's good that they're starting to band together, but we can't afford to allow ourselves to think of that as a suitable substitute for our presence there; the colonists are working with civilian technology, and if the Sojourners realise that we're taking our eye off the ball over there, they'll jump straight in and take them for themselves. I'll submit a request through the diplomat's office to the Klingons, but honestly, the Federation's relationship with them has been rocky at best lately. We can probably count on them in a battle, but they might become more trouble than they're worth if they decide to start making up their own rules on 'boring' patrols." He thought back to the months leading up to the Dominion War, where Klingon ships had started seizing and searching every ship leaving the Bajoran sector. That sort of interference could cause the staff on 332 a nightmare of headaches, at the very least. "We have the Jackal, and now I believe the Montreal as well. If we keep the fighter squadrons close for system patrol and for keeping up with the refugee ships coming in, we should be able to rotate the two of them out to patrolling the outer colonies, if only to show our presence there." The commander looked around briefly to see if the others agreed with the plan of action, or had anything else to add.
Gunning made an approving face. The commander was entirely correct in his assessment of the Klingons and had a back channel source who suggested that the Klingons had very few concerns about the Sojourners and being assigned to 'nanny' Federation colonies wouldn't do anything for the morale of many of the Empire's crews more prone to mutiny and pillaging.
Ed grimaced at the mention of Klingons patrolling the outer colonies. Klingons had a bad habit of doing unpleasant things to colonists and traders when they got bored with patrols.
"I agree that we should keep the Klingons in mind if hostilities break out, but we should definitely keep them far from patrolling the outer colonies. That's just a recipe for trouble. The Wing can handle patrols in the immediate area and escorting the refugees in and hopefully before much longer, back out of our area."
"Commander, I want you to arrange for me to meet with the Montreal's command staff," Brian looked at Jordan, knowing that he had been the one to deal with the ship's staff since its arrival so far. He had hoped to meet them himself before now, but the colonist situation had forced him to defer the task.
"You've got it." Gunning replied with as much enthusiasm as he could muster through his drowsy haze.
"Now, I've been having complaints from the promenade's merchant association about the colonists," the XO said, moving the topic on and directing his attention now towards O'Connell and Deakin. "Apparently the Amollans and the Kintarrans have some sort of dispute between themselves, and with all of the colonists taking up promenade and corridors space in lieu of rooms for them, the shop owners are starting to get nervous that a brawl is going to break out at any moment. I know that space is tight on the station, but I need you to do whatever you can to try and keep things civil, especially in the public areas of the station."
Deakin exchanged a quick glance with O'Connell, not wanting to step on the security chief's toes and deciding not to comment directly on the security side of things. "I'm sure I can make some arrangements in terms of space if we decide we want to segregate them," he offered. "We can reshuffle some of the existing living spaces and move some people around to do our best to keep the Amollans and Kintarrans at opposite ends of the station. But," he added with a shrug and a glance at O'Connell, "that won't really help in keeping them from brawling in the common areas."
Vestara rushed in like a gust of wind, her hair unruly with a thin sweaty shine to it which she had partially succeeded in putting into a ponytail and her uniform already losing it's crispness. She frowned to the assembled officers, "Many apologies Sirs for being late, as you know the damaged refugee ships are taking some time to repair." She had a few PADDs in hand and offered them to those who needed to review them, mainly Commander Ratchford, and Lieutenants Augustus Deakin and William O'Donnell.
"Have a seat, Ms. Stronghold," Brian said after taking his PADD; slightly annoyed at her lateness, but more annoyed at himself for not noticing her absence. He decided he wouldn't take the issue up further however due to the current hectic state they all found themselves in with dealing with these refugees.
Vestara was glad to have some time off her feet, they were killing her, as she sat down. The Unjoined Trill trying not to voice the inappropriate sighs of relief, she remained as much focus as she could muster.
"Regardless of where we situate the refugees for now, this situation should only be temporary. Ultimately we need to make sure that they can move along when their asylum applications have been processed by the diplomats corps," the XO said, returning the meeting back to its core focus. "How is the progress on making repairs to their ships?"
"According to the reports, sirs, our replicators are having trouble reproducing the hull components and certain miscellaneous hardwares that it has stalled repairs for several ships." Vestara explained, "I had enlisted the help of the technicians from those ships to assist but they say without the parts and specific materials, the ships won't be completely spaceworthy."
Deakin studied the Boatswain as she reported. She hadn't been on the station when he'd gone off with Gunning and the others to wreak havoc on the spacetime continuum, but from all reports on his return she had jumped into the role with all the refined efficiency one would expect from a seasoned noncom. "How spaceworthy do they need to be?" he asked, almost rhetorically and with an unusual hint of irritation in his voice. "As long as their warp cores aren't going to blast them to hell and they have enough pressurised cabin space to live in, who cares about completely spaceworthy? Close enough is good enough in this case. Do we have any junk resources around that can be jury rigged to do the job?"
Vestara frowned. "I had considered using our own resources to finish the job, and that is being researched, but I have a feeling that our technology may not be compatible for the hardware side anyway." She smiled. "However, if we could get more detailed information on the hull composition from their governments we can re-calibrate our industrial replicators better, unless they had any spare resources laying around they could send to us, either way."
"Unfortunately I don't think we're going to be getting anything from their governments," Brian said. "The information we have from the refugees I've spoken to is that the Sojourners have moved in to completely occupy their homeworlds. If they do have any governments left, then they are undoubtedly under the thumb of the Sojourners, and not likely to be able to help us repair those ships that have fled the same fate.
"Work with any engineers on the ships that have arrived and see if you can come up with some sort of suitable substitute material. We need to do whatever we can for these people, but our repair priority still needs to lie with the station; any materials earmarked for getting the station back to full operational status are to be considered off-limits for ship repair." He knew they'd had enough problems as it was sourcing the materials and components to reconstruct the section of the station destroyed by the Sojourner's bomb months ago, and ultimately his primary concern had to be to make sure that the station was fully capable of defending itself and the Archan system from any potential aggressors. If that meant they were stuck with the refugee ships for a bit longer, then that would have to be something they dealt with.
"Aye sir," Vestara replied as she knew that if the station couldn't function at full then they were all doomed should the Sojourners attack, though she suspected it would be difficult to fight back with so many refugees and their ships crowding both the interior and exterior of the station respectively.
"Be strict on resources, Bos'n," Gus added to Vestara. "Don't let them try to talk you into latinum plated heads; a bucket and waste airlock works just as well."
Vestara nodded. "Oh you have no cause to be concerned sir, I dish out parts and materials where I believe they are needed the most. Of course if you, the First officer or the Captain order otherwise, though I would like the reason behind the orders should either of the three give instructions."
"Is there any other business?" Ratchford asked, knowing that now was probably the best time that any of them will have to bring any matters that needed him to push them through to his attention in the next few days.
"Sir, I'll need Sciences and Engineering to go over one of each of the races undamaged ships to study what they are made of and how they work." She glanced at Deakin, hoping he wouldn't mind her speaking for the department. "Operations is busy with Starbase repairs and keeping things maintained." Vestara said. "Plus they are better equipped for the project, I will help them as best as I can." It had been non-stop action since her transfer and running on snacks with a few too many raktajinos, she wasn't sure how much longer her body would keep going.
She didn't want to loose it in front of the senior staff but her energy was now dropping and she collapsed back into her seat as the muscles in her body gave out. She was however quite healthy, just tired. She started deep breaths to slow her heart rate so to rest up before getting back into it after the meeting.
"I'll see that we get some of the science staff assigned to go over the ships," the commander answered, keenly aware of the absence of a chief science officer on the station since the bombing. He knew that the Montreal's XO was a specialist in the sciences, and hoped he could delegate the personnel assignments to him after their meeting. "I'll leave the assignment of the engineers to O'Donnell, providing of course that any reassignment of personnel doesn't take away from the station's repair efforts."
Sean sat back and sighed. He had looked around and shook his head. "I have 250+ people on my staff we are running at three quarter capacity. to quote a famous engineer in starfleet 'you canna change the laws of physics' in this case I can't change the laws of of personnel assignments. The last few weeks I we have been understaffed and the average security officer is running 12 hour shifts at least. Sorry, but I can't assure the safety of the promenade merchants and the safety of this station it's the one or the other."
"We've got an abundance of Marines." Ed spoke up, as he was the only Marine in the room it fell on him to watch out for his brothers and sisters in green. "They could assist with the security personnel."
" I need 100 more men and women in yellow. If you want me to to take care of these extra duties. I need security officers. not marines! If I want bodies on the promenade I'll ask for them. We need officers with two brain cells not half a brain cell."
"Commander, I find that last comment personally offensive. Keep your ignorance in your head." Ed growled from his seat at the table. "Also don't be such an ass about Marines backing your people. I said assist, not supplant security. Say you get a company of Marines on loan, thats well over the hundred bodies you need. Pair them with your personnel, one security officer, one marine working as pairs. The Marine backs the security officer and the security officer is lead since they have the investigative and arrest authority. That almost doubles the amount of boots you have on the ground and still lets you keep everything secure, including the Promenade."
Vestara managed to sit up right and caught the Major's words half way through. She simply was watching the other officers to see what else was going on.
He took a quick look around the table to confirm that there were no other points to be raised, satisfied. "You all have your duties. Dismissed."
Commander Brian Ratchford
First Officer
Commander Jordan Gunning
Chief of Strategic Operations
Lieutenant Commander Sean O'Connell
Chief of Security
Major Edward Maxwell
Commander, Starbase Air Group
Lieutenant Augustus Deakin
Chief of Operations
Lieutenant William O'Donnell
Chief Engineer
Master Warrant Officer Vestara Stronghold
Boatswain
Starbase 332
