Chimpanzees and Asshats

Posted on Tue Feb 28th, 2023 @ 5:49pm by Captain Etan Kaz & Lieutenant JG Sel PsyD & Lieutenant Sabine St. James & Lieutenant Skot Ryder & Lieutenant Tequila Dreik
Edited on on Tue Feb 28th, 2023 @ 11:19pm

Mission: 02-The Line Widens
Location: Conference Room

The last two months or so had been exhausting. It was mentally and physically draining to have gone through this experience with the Tzenkethi, then intensive debriefing with Starfleet Command, and then to watch some Task Force somebody receive praise for his strategic thinking in the matter. It made Etan glad to be back to relative obscurity on K-17.

He’d only been back for a couple of hours and he already felt immediately at ease. The smell of dust and mildew were like aromatherapy to him after all these years.

After a quick stop in his quarters for a wash and change of uniform, he sent out the call for his staff to join him in the conference room and left his canon to take his usual route there.

K-17 was a relic of times past. In addition to (barely functioning) lifts, there were also staircases that connected some major sections that would have once been attractive to visitors.Etan had always liked taking the stairs, mostly because it spared him from becoming trapped in a turbolift when they inevitably broke down.

Kaz's walk brought him to the conference room, he was not surprised to find he was the first to arrive.

Skot walked in, dented coffee mug in hand, still nursing the burns that he was pretty sure were life threatening contrary to what the medical staff said. He quickly took his seat before taking a long sip of his ever so important brew.

Skot was followed closely by Sel. The Vulcan man held both hands behind his back as he found a seat silently and nodded to the commanding officer as he sat.

Sabine found a seat, rather absently looking at a PADD in her usual manner.

Tiki breezed into the conference room, a wide smile on her face. Her jacket was unzipped, boots held in one hand, the other hand holding a mug of raktajino that had most definitely been irished. Dropping her boots on the floor and setting the mug on the table, Tiki dropped into the seat next to Skot, reaching up and twisting her messy hair into an unruly bun and securing it with an elastic she retrieved from her pocket. "Good morning!" she exclaimed brightly before picking up the mug and leaning back in the chair. "So..." she turned her attention to Kaz, taking a sip of her drink and grinning. "What's up buttercup?"

Kaz smiled weakly. "I want to start by saying how proud I am of all of you and your teams for your efforts in the recent Tzenkethi incident." He sighed. "While I've been debriefed by Command and forwarded our reports, unfortunately the work that we did with the crews of the Hornet and the Cardinal will only be appreciated by us. So thank you all." He allowed his words to hang in the air.

"Well, the good news is that Captain Koralova was rather appalled by some of the problems we had and we've had the closest thing to a major resupply and overhaul in Security. I actually don't have red-lined phasers in the armory anymore. Personnel issues still stand but at least now I'm not seriously considering defending this station by arming the Doctor with a scalpel, me with the only working phaser and the rest of you with bits of pipe and using crate lids as shields." Sabine said, still engrossed in her PADD.

"The repercussions I honestly don't know what they'll be, though it has been an intriguing insight into the inner workings of Tezenkethi government proceedings. Starfleet Intelligence is likely to ignore it anyways but still..." At that point, Sabine fell into her usual ramblings.

Tiki took a sip of her drink, leaning back in her seat. "I think this is a good lesson learned," she said simply. "No good deed goes unpunished. Sod Starfleet. I vote we go rogue... we can commandeer the station and become pirates." She grinned as she finished speaking, though the sparkle in her eye made it quite unclear whether or not she was joking.

Skot rubbed the spot on his arm where his burn was still visible, "We're lucky things didn't come to an actual fight. Given what the phaser array did just priming it. Wouldn't surprise me if the whole station exploded just from a warning shot."

"We are extremely lucky it didn't come to a fight." Etan said with a slight sigh. "But it's likely we haven't seen the last of the new militarized Tzenkethi." He rubbed his spotted temple. "The supplies that Hornet left definitely make a difference but don't really tip the scales. Which means we really need to work with what we have to try and bring things up to a standard."

"Honestly, Captain, this station needs a defined role. Right now, we're simply existing. We have no purpose, no goal, no direction. Just a place for Starfleet to forget things." Sabine chimed in, "Are we a transit hub? A defensive outpost? An observation post? This is a question you need to put to Starfleet Command, because next time..."

This time, she put the PADD down and looked directly at Etan, "And there will be a next time - we won't make do with whatever scraps Starfleet deigns to send us. I'd go so far as to say if the best they can do is Wonderland, half a Sovereign and a couple of oversized runabouts...may as well ask the Tzenkethi for terms right now." Sabine concluded. She then shrugged and went back to her PADD as if she hadn't just detonated the quantum torpedo in the room.

Etan took a breath. “Up until now we were officially classed as a listening post. Which, as we know, is a joke.” He exhaled heavily. “Fleet Captain Dalgaard expressed that we are now classified as a Deep Space Waypoint station.” The Captain’s teeth clenched as he spoke Dalgaard’s name. “What that means for us I do not know.”

"Do we get anything from this reclassification? Supplies? Repairs? More crew?" Tiki asked, furrowing her brow slightly.

"Hopefully an overhaul of the phaser array," Skot scoffed under his breath.

"According to the brass it means we're open for ships passing through the sector." Kaz shook his head. "I've put in some requisitions to help bring us up to snuff. We'll have to work on getting businesses into the Promenade." The Captain sounded stressed.

"Oh dear..." Sabine commented, "The Promenade is in quite a state. Maybe we should feed the whole deck into a replicator and start over...though knowing our replicator, we'd get custard cream pies..."

"Great, just what we need, more people to cause trouble..." Tiki sighed. "How long until we can expect an increase in traffic on the station? If it's not something that will be happening imminently I'd like to make a trip to Vega to pick up some medical supplies."

"We should have more than enough time for that." Kaz nodded. "Just because Starfleet says we're open for business doesn't change the opinion that's been engrained in most crews about us here."

"I can leave in the morning if you clear me to take a shuttle?" Tiki replied with a shrug. "Should only be a two day trip, three at most."

Skot chimed in, "With all due respect Captain, should Lieutenant Dreik be allowed to go out on her own?"

Tiki's gaze snapped to Skot. "I don't need a bloody babysitter," she retorted.

Skot's gaze slowly came to rest on Tiki, "This coming from the woman who thinks it's ok to break into someone's quarters with a chimpanzee, use her medical override to convince the computer that said chimpanzee is actually the chief tactical officer, and then when said officer walks in on you allowing said chimpanzee to destroy his favorite coffee mug, you beam him in his underwear, to sickbay?"

"You asked for it. Next time don't be an asshat," Tiki retorted, sticking her tongue out at him.

Etan held his hand up as if to say 'stop'. "I would feel better with you both going. So, arrange a shuttle for your trip, and make sure to file a flight log. We need to do things more by the book now." the Captain's voice was laced with warning. "Teams will start arriving tomorrow, and we should be expecting new crew in the coming weeks. Be nice." With that, Etan stood. "Dismissed."