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Personal Log, Lt. Sr. Adele Mundy, TSN Raven, 2nd Flt., 4th Lt. Div.
Stardate: 3617-2237A new duty shift, a new Duty Officer (Slate, assisted by Donovan), and a new Lieutenant, as Nhaima most deservedly advances a rank. Cmdr. Van Leigh also announced a new duty officer document, which I need to hunt out and read when I have a moment. Meanwhile, I need to recollect events on the duty shift, as I find that being in command leaves me no time to take notes, whether mental or physical.
Because the Fleet Captain is still on desk duty somewhere (I am beginning to think we might need to mount a rescue mission to bring him back), and Lt. Cmdr. Aramond was detained some other where for the early part of the shift, I found myself in command of Raven for the first two sims. The division experienced a number of tech problems, and I was kept busy enough that what the sims actually entailed has become something of a blur. So much for the memory palace… when one doesn’t have the time to place objects in the loci, one might as well not have any memory at all.
The blur was compounded by Matsiyan’s voice in my head discussing something I probably don’t have a high enough security clearance to know, so I’ll make an effort to forget that part.
Really, Computer, it’s disconcerting to remember things I don’t need to know, and not remember the ones I’m supposed to know.
Aramond arrived on board, and though I was quite prepared to hand over command, insisted he would take a station. I was flustered enough to forget now which station it was. And we found ourselves in the position of having seven people on the bridge for a short time, though two of them were cadets, and one was Mooga, who turned up briefly, disappeared, came back. Between that and the tech problems with the sim connections – we were using backup hardware, because maintenance rotation had taken down the guts of the sim suites we normally use – it was not our most glorious hour.
Just as we were settling in for our missions – two separate battle groups again, with Raven and Lancer heading off on one patrol, and Phoenix and Viper on another – and Aramond was settling in his command chair, and I was running through the check-in protocols through Science, we were dispatched to our separate briefing rooms, and I realised that in fact I was being posted to Viper. Not only that, but with both Capt. Verok and Cmdr. Tuor being absent, and both their XOs, Lt. Sr. Hall and Lt. Cmdr. Matsiyan busy in CIC, we were short of senior officers, so I would be in command of Viper during the mission.
We were dispatched to patrol Volantis System, where some hostile action had been detected, due to its proximity with Hegemony territory. Computer, is there any term that equates with “territory” but doesn’t have the “earth” connotations? Ah, well. One of these days our language will catch up with our activities. We were tasked with clearing out any hostile ships, and with locating a suspected pirate installation.
I am chagrined to say that Viper was hard put to it to find its own tail… I had three cadets on the bridge: Bacon on Comms, Jambon on Helm, (Bacon and Jambon… Computer, is Viper turning into a charcuterie? Is the universe playing a food joke on me?) Bluestreak on Weapons. And I know that I am one of the most appallingly bad pilots in the division, so I couldn’t be too hard on the cadet, but stars around, one would hope the Academy still teaches the compass points!
On the other hand, I was impressed by Lt. Graybeard (or I should say, even more impressed than I normally am), who, as well as running Engineering with his usual faultless efficiency, was acting as my XO and keeping a remarkably patient and even tone as he guided our novice helmsman through the details of the console. He was as supportive as any commanding officer could possibly ask.
Somehow, we stumbled through our assigned patrol. I can derive little personal satisfaction from the fact that I anticipated the areas where Cmdr. Van Leigh was about to order us to patrol, because it made no difference: it took us so long to reach them that Phoenix consistently finished patrolling her own quadrants and moved on to ours before we could reach them.
[sighs]
The situation improved a little when Graybeard took Helm and assigned our previous pilot to Engineering; let’s say that Graybeard was giving him detailed instructions. I think we actually took on a few hostile ships and dealt with them, but honestly, it’s mostly a blur.
We did find the pirate base. We also found pirates and Skaraans attacking each other, and we took a somewhat perplexed delight in standing off and watching them shoot drones at each other. Phoenix approached the base, apprehended its leader, and after that all the hostile ships hastened to surrender. I know Phoenix had Slate on board as Comms officer, but this was an unprecedented number of surrenders, at a ridiculous speed that suggests something more interesting than mere intimidation going on.
The pirate leader’s interrogation may shed light on the surrenders as well as the base’s purpose; whether either will be disclosed outside of ONI is another matter.
On our return to base, Cmdr. Van Leigh was kind enough to talk to me in private to reassure me that he didn’t hold me responsible for Viper’s poor performance. I appreciate that. On the other hand, I am also aware that van Leigh himself is quick to take responsibility for any under-performance by his own crew. So, while I know I can’t magically imbue new cadets with the skills and knowledge they have to acquire with experience, I can’t help thinking I didn’t do enough to teach them. Dammit.
Raven and Lancer returned from their mission with a prisoner of their own: a human who had been some kind of auxiliary researcher on a Skaraan ship. So there will be more questioning taking place.
In the concluding sim, I continued in command of Viper, but as Cdt. Bluestreak was recalled to duty elsewhere, I also took the Weapons console, and was reminded of my previous remarks on the difficulty of shifting from the wide overview of Science to the narrow focus of Tactical; with the added difficulty that the wide overview was supposed to be Command. And I had to ask my bridge crew to keep reminding me about the shields, because I actually forgot to raise them at least twice. Dammit.
Still, Viper has lovely beams… she chews through enemy shields with satisfying speed.
Computer, please tell me there’s Hjocoa aboard the station. I need some chocolate-tasting refreshment.
[end log]
/*
Maybe we need a sister card to ‘Commander Zelreich and a crew full of cadets’?More seriously though, I think you did fine. More than fine. You got assigned to a different ship and had a crew shuffle right before a live mission, when normally the reason we run sims are to get the crew compliments for that day settled together and in their roles. The normal checks and balances failed there.
Your cadets were also on the greener side I think. Nothing wrong with that, not their fault or your’s. No one’s fault, but it is telling that Greybeard had something more important to do than keep the power systems finely tuned. This should be another sign that this situation is “not normal.”
Did your crew have fun? Hopefully.
Did the mission succeed? Yes.
Did your ship die? No.Assuming the above is correct in order of importance, then you succeeded. I imagine you did better than I would have in your case.
Nicely done Mundy!
*///Thanks, Nhaima! Yes, it was a situation entirely out of the ordinary, and I did have fun, even through the agonising. Mundy is possibly more self-critical than I am (👩🏻🏫 This is as close to a Librarian emoji as I could find), because it’s not a game for her. It was a mission, they could have died on her watch. Good thing it turned out relatively quiet.
//Yes, it does sound like a card-worthy situation… 😀🃏
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