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Personal Log, Lieutenant-Senior Conrad Matsiyan, TSN Lancer, 4th L.D.
Stardate: 11016-2237Why in all the stars around did the USFP leave the Euphini expanse so abandoned? So many extra hours getting the abandoned CP station back online. Chief Kaplan has done wonders with her crew assisting in getting the station life support back online reliably. There was even a moment to visit the “bar”. OK so no fittings at the bar and some missing panels and exposed circuits, but at least a place to sit, if not comfortably, and decompress. I actually ran into Zac Turnez, the sensor analyst from CIC. Hadn’t seen him in ages. Sometimes when you are on different shifts it eels as if there are two different fleets occupying the same space in parallel universes. We were just starting to catch up when I realized I had to get more sleep if I was going to be fit for the next shift, when at last I could get back on a bridge.
Of course in the intershift command conference, the Fleet Captain brought up priorities for station defense. So now that environmental controls are doing well I’ll be leaving the bridge early to work with a comms specialist on overhauling station comms equipment and integrating with the division’s current equipment. Unless we brought replacement units for key station units, which I don’t think is possible yet, we are going to have to implement some robust protocol conversion.
Briefing was straightforward: Practice to maintain protocols. On watch or intrusions.
Xiph was assigned to running sims as part of his CIC training. First we ran a standard sim while got set up.It is still a thrill being back aboard Lancer after so long away. Captain Jemel was still busy overseeing station Engineering, so LC Aposine had a chance to polish his pips. Morlock and Mundy were regular crew aboard and we were assigned Cadet Donovan, which still let us one seat short. The LC decided to rotate us in positions and we enthusiastically agreed to a romp. You never know what may happen during a mission, Best to be prepared.
Aposine stayed in the big chair. Mundy offered to cover Science as well as Comms. Morlock wanted a stretch so he shifted to Helm and I took his usual spot at Weapons, where I am least comfortable, leaving Donovan the opportunity to take Engineering.
Mundy and I pulled out the ceremonial coin and tossed it for XO. This time it came down to me. It is peculiarly satisfying to kick-off the pre-launch checks and get the confirmations back from all stations and be able to report “She’s all yours, skipper.”. Quite sobering to be asked to evaluate performances when standing down.
Poor Lancer has not performed so poorly in a very long time. She died many times. Shields should be up in combat especially when Helm is experimenting mines. It got so bad that ater the debrief we were given a special stretch goal by the Fleet Captain himself for the next sim: Don’t Die. Morlock and I exchanged places hoping to minimize further embarrassment. We succeeded admirably in following orders and reported our success back to the FC. The sim crashed after five seconds. But we still followed orders to the letter!
Taking helm on Lancer is a very special treat. I finally see what Aposine complains about if I feed too much energy into the manoeuvring thrusters: she does get choppy. This is the first time I’ve been at helm for formation exercises. Lancer drives have to be set at 42% to keep station in the fleet, otherwise you are continually juggling the warp initiators.
I did say hello to a mine at one point (there was some stress and chaos in progress), on the other hand I very smoothly rode the gravity gradients around a black hole to lure major hostiles to their doom. In general I’m improving a lot, as proved by the fact that Aposine did not take back the conn after the first ten minutes. He didn’t even seem to be sweating that much, though he did have to bite back a couple of back-seat driving comments.
For the last flight before Mundy and I had to go meet the comms specialist, CIC asked for a volunteer to move to another vessel to replace crew being assigned to getting the CP up and running. If crickets lived in space, you would have heard them. To our eternal shame only Morlock had the sense of duty to speak up. The captain affected not to hear him and requested our junior-most officer (barring the cadet, they already had one of those) to transfer. It is true that Lancer’s performance would have been much more degraded if someone else had moved. We should all have offered. But!
[End log]
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