A Change in Operations

Posted on Monday September 16th, 2019 @ 1:00am by Captain Franklin Johnson & Lieutenant JG Sydney Allen

1,214 words; about a 6 minute read

Mission: Departure and Trial Run
Location: USS Poseidon; Captain's Ready Room, Deck 1, Bridge
Timeline: Pre-Poseidon Launch; Pre-Departure; Post-Officer's Meeting

Things were well underway for the departure of the USS Poseidon. One of the finalizations of this momentous effort was the reconstruction of the unused office complex on deck 6, and restructuring of a few ship-board offices to ease the tension on logistics. Since the warp core test was only days away, it impressed the Commander that the drydock personnel had been very quick to reconstruct that area into a usable, livable office area for his Junior Officers. Now was the time that Franklin would announce that to one of those Junior Officer's most impacted, Lieutenant Junior Grade Sydney Allen, the ship's Quartermaster.

= /\ =Lieutenant Allen, please report to the Captain's Ready Room.= /\ =

The Commander released the button on his desk console after finishing his communication, then nodded to himself contently as he sipped his tea and observed his datapad. He didn't think she would have a problem with the move, but he wanted to be polite and have her in on the affair.

Sydney was on the toilet when the call came through, she said quietly to herself "Goodness sake, always at the wrong time is when people need me."

She finished and went to wash her hands thinking to herself why the head of the ship was wanting to talk to her. Was she in trouble or was it another private meeting after what she had told Paladin? She hurried out of the bathroom and headed to the captain's ready room.

After the doors slid opened and the LTJG entered, the Commander briefly stood to greet the Quartermaster. He gestured with his hand to the seat in front of his desk, "Please, sit," he instructed politely.

Sitting down and relaxing, he observed the Lieutenant, smiling. "I have some good news for you. Before we really didn't have any facilities set up for our junior officer's, and for that, I apologize. Recently the drydock engineers came to me with a proposal with the fore room, number six. It's never been used on this ship for anything other than maybe a party or briefing, and once as an infirmary. I've decided to have it used as a junior officer's complex, move your office there. The construction and finalization are done and I wanted to be the first to tell you about it. You'll be near to all the logistical centres of the ship on that deck, specifically the main hanger. What do you think?"

He relaxed a bit, still smiling. The Commander felt rather proud of himself for going out of his way for his crew, especially for providing them with an area to do business.

Sydney feeling a bit annoyed at the order, she looked at the Commander "Sir, I have an office. It's shared by my department but I have the main desk in the room. Why am I required to move with sudden notice?"

Franklin blinked, he hadn't thought of this angle. He cleared his throat as he sat up, resting hands on his desk and leaning towards her.

"Well, I figured you'd like a proper office. I can have some personnel move everything for you if that's what you're concerned about. I just want you in the most optimal position to conduct your duties. I think having your own area would suffice in that objective."

Sydney was taken back by the approach the commander has used. She cleared her throat and leaned in forward.

"Sir would it be my own or is it shared with people and what is my current going to be used for?"

"Your current," Franklin responded with a brief raise of an eyebrow, almost in an exasperated fashion, "was intended as an office for the Security Complex. For some reason, no one decided to go over that fact with me, so it was an oversight. That will be rectifying itself now and it'll return as one of the offices for Lieutenant Karn. As for your new office, it will be slightly smaller than your present but walled off compared to other offices in the area. There'll be plenty of room for your filing cabinets, don't worry."

"Commander, I totally understand and I am guessing I have no say in the matter so I will just go with it. At least I get privacy to do my duties and not have cadets harassing me." She smiled.

Franklin glanced her over briefly, in an appraising manner. He sighed then, sitting back. "This is one of those situations in which being a Commanding Officer surpasses my desire to be a fellow crewman. I understand it doesn't make much sense right now to you, but I assure you it will. You all deserve a private place to conduct your business without, as you said, a lack of privacy. Try it out for a week or two, if you still don't like it we'll talk about further arrangements. How's that sound?"

Sydney being an officer as she was, stood up and accepted that this was going to happen and she had to deal with it but not without putting her team in a place they can function. "Sir, I would like my QM team to be situated somewhere as well, they require an office space as you are chucking them as well. I wouldn't be doing my duty if I did request that from you."

"Very well," Franklin replied with a nod, "they'll need to be around the same area as you. I'm sure you as quartermaster can find an appropriate solution that doesn't involve you utilizing security space, I hope?"

"Well, sir there is a briefing room next to my office which could be turned in an office space or if you allowed me to I could allocate a corner of the cargo bay for my staff." Sydney Smiled.

"That briefing room is the one we used earlier, and I'm quite fond of that, so no." He pondered seriously, thinking. "The cargo bay sounds acceptable. Shouldn't be a problem getting with the drydock folks and having something done. I'd say that's our best bet, and your people will be closer to their objectives I'd presume."

With a smile, Sydney clapped her hands together, "Do you want to put the order in or will you?"

"Why don't you?" Franklin said, smiling. He liked seeing her in a better mood. "I'll get back to what I was doing before, I just wanted to go over these changes with you. If there's anything else?"

"Well there is," stated Sydney, "I would like to request that I am assigned a yeoman for the QMs. As there is a lot of paperwork for us to look over. It will just be temporary until we can sort everything out, It's just because everything on the ship is new."

"I don't see a problem with one of the Senior Officer's yeoman helping out for now. I'll grant that, probably use Lieutenant Brinsley's yeoman, specifically, since they'd be acquainted with Operations." Franklin nodded a bit to himself, then added, "Also make sure to hand them back to their duties once you feel you're well-acquainted. Those yeomen are not a dime a dozen, you know."

"Absolutely, I will be away now sir." Sydney turned to the door and walked out of the room.

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