Preparations

Posted on Wed Aug 5th, 2020 @ 3:30pm by Lieutenant JG Kevin Lance

Mission: Distress Call
Location: USS Independence
Timeline: Current

Lieutenant Lance stepped off the turbolift and onto the bridge of the USS Independence. It wasn’t his watch and the Captain had not elevated the alert level, but with the crew coming off of shore leave they were liable to be a little slack and Kevin was determined that the ship’s tactical branch would not be found wanting.

As if to punctuate his concerns, the ship’s Assistant Chief Tactical Officer at the tactical controls looked worse for the wear. His uniform was dishevelled as if it had been slept in, his complexion rather sallow, and he was slightly unsteady on his feet. Kevin noticed that the officer had beads of sweat along his forehead and his gaze was slightly unfocused. “Enjoying one's self on shore leave is not against regulations but being unfit for duty is,” Kevin observed quietly.

The Assistant Chief started as though he had been unaware of Kevin’s presence. He opened his mouth to speak but Kevin cut him short with a simple, “You are relieved of your watch.” The officer paused a moment, then hurried for the turbolift.

Kevin’s uniform, in stark contrast to the Assistance CTO, was immaculate. He had had time between returning to the ship from recovering Lieutenant Balrog and the Captain’s alert to shower and change into a fresh uniform. His tunic was crisp, his trousers pressed, his highly polished boots shone almost as brightly as the sliver pips on his collars. Every inch the Star Fleet Officer, he ran his hands over the tactical controls.

After starting a diagnostic on the ship’s sensors, shields, and weapons, Kevin check on the status of the recall of the ship’s personnel. Most of the senior officers were already aboard and the rest of the crew was reporting in at an expected pace. The Chief Medical Officer was aboard an shuttle inbound from the planet's surface. Kevin notified a security team to stand-by to recover stragglers if needed but he didn’t expect to deploy them unless the Captain got impatient.

He pulled up relevant files on the distress freighter, reviewing deck plans, crew and cargo manifests. He was reviewing the filed flight plan when the computer notified it had completed the diagnostic routine. Everything was within operating parameters except the starboard forward sensor array. The sensory systems had built in redundancies so the faulty array wasn’t a mission stopper. Still, Kevin didn’t want to go into an unknown situation at less than full operating capacity. He typed a top priority work order into the computer and sent it to the engineering department, hoping that the new Chief of Engineering wouldn’t deprioritize the request.

One last check reassured him that everything aboard ship was in order and that the crew had almost completed recall. With everything at the ready, he awaited the Captain’s orders.

Lieutenant j.g. Kevin Lance
Chief Tactical Officer