JL | CFO Lt. Charles Tailor the Fourth & CStrOps/AXO Lt. Merlin | The Crash And Burn Of Hopes And Dreams

Posted on Sun Apr 1st, 2018 @ 9:30am by Commander Evan Merlin & Lieutenant Charles Tailor the Fourth

Mission: Lacuna
Location: Cold Station Theta
Timeline: SD 241804.01

The station's acting XO stretched in the central seat of the large Ops room. It was quiet, here, nothing to indicate that wheels were frantically in motion all over the station, that people were still working hard on finding a lead on the missing Starfleet officers, anything which could give them an edge. Thus far, they hadn't found anything. But in one corner of the Ops room (insofar as the room could be said to have corners, it was largely circular) sat a tall, gaunt Andorian patiently pouring over file after file of sensor data. He had been there for hours and by the looks of him, he'd be there for some time to come.

The Lieutenant had been here nearly as long. The pile of padds on one side of his chair was shrinking steadily, the pile on the other end growing. The padd on the bottom, bearing the text 'How To Be An XO For Dummies' was a joke. All the rest contained reports, background information which he suddenly needed to know and a lot of other data, and he was absorbing all of it as quickly as he could. Assessing it would come later. Now he was just in the 'soaking it all up' stage.

As if sensing the moment of productive peace and quiet, the turbolift promptly sprang to life and revealed nearly six foot of Lieutenant. Brown hair and brown eyes marked this human, and these eyes started looking around for a specific face as he stepped out into Ops. One moment later, a blonde woman reached out of the turbolift and tapped him on the shoulder. She mouthed "Good luck." and smiled reassuringly as the doors closed between them.

Buoyed by this reassurance, Charles "Foe" Tailor (the Fourth) felt a silly smile start to creep across his face, before smothering it in an attempt at professionalism. His record did him no favors, he knew, and this was his chance to show he was capable of piloting something without smashing it into a moon or something.

Or even crashing it into the remains of another ship which he, in fact, had crashed earlier. He'd never live *that* one down.

After a second, he spied Lieutenant Merlin in the big chair, which his eyes had avoided out of habit. Nobody had told him that the man was the temporary XO, hence his fruitless efforts to spot him hiding behind one of the consoles.

Striding confidently up to the big chair, he tried to make eye contact with the person sitting in it.

"Lieutenant Merlin?" he half-asked, pretty sure he had the right guy. "Lieutenant Tailor. Sir." he added, just in case. This man was technically his equal, but the fact that he was draped over a very important seat implied that he had command right now, and this gave him seniority.

It was that, or the ceiling had a leak, and the Captain had draped the guy over her chair like some sort of command-tarp.

The man in the seat looked up at him, appeared vaguely puzzled for a moment, then grinned. "Ah! New Chief Flight Ops, right? I came across your transfer administration, oh… two or three PADDs ago, I think." He glanced briefly in the direction of the growing pile. Then he unfolded himself from the chair and extended his hand. Sea-coloured eyes came level with the brown ones. "Hi, welcome to Cold Station Theta. The Captain is busy at the moment, but I'll note down that you've checked in and I'm sure you'll get the chance to meet her later. Now, it's up to you, really. You can go check out your quarters first and settle in a bit, or head down to sickbay for the mandatory physical, or I can show you your station and give you a quick introduction first, while you're up here." He flicked an errant lock of hair back and awaited the Lieutenant's decision.

"Ah yes, I am the new Chief Flight Control Officer." said Foe, managing not to stumble over the convoluted title. Not that he ever had, oh no. Definitely not.

"Right now I'd like to check out my new console, if that's ok with you. Sir." he remembered to add. Though he still didn't know Merlin was the temporary XO, he knew that the man's butt was polishing an important seat. He recalled the adage; "respect the chair, not the man", or something like that. Merlin had the conn, simple as.

Again that slight frown, followed by a somewhat pensive 'hm' this time. Then the Lieutenant made a kind of waving gesture with one hand, as if chasing a thought away. "Sounds good to me," he said and began to walk towards one of the consoles. Actually, this was one of the widest ones in Central Ops, and most of the screens were lit up. A harried-looking Trill with short, spiky hair and the pips of a junior Lieutenant on his collar glanced up briefly as they approached.

"Hey, Bix, how's it going?" the Lieutenant asked.

The Trill groaned. "There are a lot of unhappy campers out there, Lieutenant," he muttered. "I released three today and now they're all clamoring and demanding to go, even though they haven't been cleared to leave yet."

"And they won't be getting anywhere either, until they comply with the 'health and safety inspections' as demanded. I know," the Lieutenant said with a nod. "I know it's getting tedious, but just keep repeating those words until they comply. Or delegate. Or- Well, just keep up." He looked at Charles. "This is Lieutenant Brixatar Aba, one of your department members. We're having a situation here on the station, if it's not in your official briefing package I'll fill you in about it. But the short version is, no ship is allowed to dock, and none is allowed to leave without submitting for a very thorough search. Understandably, not many of the civilian ships this far from the heart of the Federation are. Which means they aren't going anywhere, wich means they're getting cranky. And taking it out on you guys. Sorry for that." He gave a half-apologetic grin.

"Lieutenant." said Foe, offering his hand to the overworked Trill. It occurred to him that the man's face wasn't ringing any bells, and he wondered if there was something wrong with the departmental roster he'd perused. A database caching error, maybe. He'd schedule a departmental brunch or something to meet everyone. Later, though. By the looks of things they'd all be busy enough for the next few days, at least.

"Thank goodness you have arrived, sir," the Trill said with a sigh which seemed to rise up all the way from his toes. "It's been a madhouse here the past few days." He ran a hand through his hair, making it stand up even more. He lifted a finger in an 'one moment' gesture and turned back to his panels. "I told you before and I'll tell you again!" he snapped at someone after opening a channel. "The magic words are 'I submit to your health and safety inspections'! No inspections, no departure clearance." A pause. "Then I hope you have really good stasis fields or the Klingons will be able to smell you from three lightyears away!"

"So, you see," the other man said with a slight shrug, "Flight Ops on the station doesn't have much to do with actual flying. I believe the station does have some options to move around a bit, but I don't think we've ever tested it since the refitting. It's mainly traffic control here – keeping track of inbound and outgoing vessels, local traffic and stuff. And, as you see, it can get quite hectic at times."

"So," said Foe, feeling his heart start to sink, "when I was asked to come here as the CFC. When I was told stations had engines for flying, like everything else. When I was assured that CFC was just another name for 'helmsman'." he said, tucking his hands in his pockets to hide the slight shake.

"Um, just how much of that was true?" he asked, crushed. In his heart, he had always suspected that crashing that third ship had been the beginning of the end for his flying career. A succession of crashed shuttles and other craft hadn't diminished his need to fly, and he had always hoped that trying his best would eventually lead him back to where he knew he belonged; at the helm of a powerful starship.

Ultimately, deep down, he'd known it was a foolish hope. Starbases didn't fly, which said a lot about the pilots sent to fly them.

"Well, as I said, the station does have engines. Technically, it can move. I believe there are simulations running on how the construct will behave under power," the Lieutenant mused. "In the last few years this station has undergone a major refit. It has been enlarged, but underneath all that the old station is still there. So those junctions, where the old parts of the station are attached to the new bits, they'll be under the most stress. Until all simulations have been completed, or until we have to because otherwise we're all going to die, this station isn't going to move." His voice softened. "I'm sorry. But that doesn't mean the job is boring. In fact, I'd say Flight Ops is one of the most critical positions there is."

"Yeah, yeah." said Foe, morosely. "I, uh, I've done flight path management in the past sir. I won't let you down." he asserted, both serious and barely able to get the words out. He was watching his dream go down in flames, and the relative importance of the task was squeezing his guts while the misery made his stomach churn. Even his nickname "Foe", born from his suffix "fourth" and his habit of crashing the very ships he loved to fly (as in "the foe of everything even briefly airborne"), made him feel sick.

Gritting his teeth together to hold his lunch down, Chuck tried to focus on wrapping this up quick. He knew he needed to deal with this before his duty shift, and that pressure was only making things worse.

The Lieutenant either sensed his discomfort or decided that they'd bothered the poor Trill long enough. He picked up a PADD and downloaded some information. "Quarter assignment and layout of the most important station areas. You can find the more detailed maps in the computer, but it's kind of a big place so you just might want to start here. Your first shift is scheduled to start tomorrow, but if you need some more time to settle in, just drop me a line. Same if you have questions." The man gave another one of those shrugs. "I'm generally around," he added and handed the PADD to Charles.

"Sir." Charles replied, accepting the padd and swallowing hard. Nodding to both Lieutenants, he left them standing there and fast-paced to the turbolift. He thumbed the button, and waited.

As the seconds passed, he thought he could feel their stares on the back of his neck. His face grew hot as he ignored the tears of rage and misery burning down his face, praying he would make it to his new quarters before breaking down entirely.

After what seemed like a humiliating eternity, the lift finally arrived. He shot into the mercifully empty lift and croaked out his quarters' location, keeping his back turned to Ops until the doors closed behind him.

The Trill briefly glanced up once the doors closed. "Something I said?" he asked, puzzled.

"I don't think so, Bix." The Lieutenant briefly rested his hand on Brixatar's shoulder. "Carry on, you're doing a great job." And with that, he walked back to the central seat and picked up the next PADD. Whatever was bugging the young CFO, he'd have to work through it on his own.

But he did resolve to keep an eye out on the man, all the same.


=^= End of Log =^=

Lt Charles "Foe" Tailor the Fourth
Chief Flight Control Officer
Cold Station Theta

&&

Lt. Evan Merlin
Chief Strategic Operations & Acting XO
Cold Station Theta