//Sorry, I missed this thread or I would have replied earlier. And I’ll take the opportunity to chime in too: Garion, a well written log, keep it coming.
“something seemed to be holding the lancer back,”
//Well, Jemel and Matsiyan weren’t on board. Were any of the other
Lancer regulars missing? I should have taken screen shots, but didn’t.
Lancer was very short-staffed. If my memory serves, Lt Hall and Lt Das were the only regulars, and the bridge crew included two cadets. One cadet had no experience at all actually operating any station, apparently even on a civilian ship, just academy classroom training. He took the Science post, and to his credit, he eventually figured out what was expected of him. The other spent the practice sims upgrading his bridge station with the current software, actually joining with the actual mission. That one served as Helm for the mission (Lt Hall covered both Helm and command during the sims).
Both cadets were particularly green, even for cadets. Perhaps both were a shade greener after the actual mission, as we had quite a rough ride. Several times I received the order to cut warp to zero power until the cadet collected his wits, and in addition, he scraped off a few hull plates on an asteroid — the damcon teams were not pleased, I heard their thoughts about it to no end after the duty shift. At least we never went slowly exploring the interior of a minefield.
I am sure the cadet at Helm was quite tired after scrubbing all the ship hallways and repainting the entire hull. With the war requiring all available hands, I suspect Lt Hall permitted him a space suit. This time. But for everyone’s sake, I dearly hope both cadets reopen their books and train hard before the next duty shift.