Commander’s Quarters, Deck 2
Position Alpha, Andromeda Galaxy
Stardate: 54211.8 (March 19th, 2377)
Daniel Takashima stepped into the cabin he’d laid claim to and flopped into an armchair that faced the viewport. The comfort of the chair combined with the exhaustion of the last week had him almost dozing where he sat, but was prevented from doing so by an alien chime. The shrill noise pierced his sleep-starved brain; he turned to look at the entrance, wondering if there were other settings for the enunciator.
“Come in,” he called, trying to blink the tiredness from his eyes. The doors parted and he found himself looking at the lithe frame of Lieutenant Jehu. “Morning Lieutenant, what can I do for you?”
Jehu stepped inside and let the doors close behind him. His posture was straight and stiff, overly formal—which meant that Takashima wouldn’t like what he had come to say.
“Commander Takashima, effective immediately, I relieve you of duty.”
It took a few moments for what Jehu said to filter through the haze of his mind, but when it finally did his eyes opened wide and he was on his feet.
“Care to explain yourself, Lieutenant?”
Jehu held his ground. “You appointed me as your First Officer, Commander. Part of my duties is to ensure the safety and wellbeing of all those onboard—yourself included. Since we arrived here, you’ve been working eighteen to twenty-two hours a day. You’re no use to anyone if you can’t think straight or even keep your eyes open. I’m recommending twenty-four hours uninterrupted rest.”
He raised an eyebrow in disbelief. “There’s too much to be done, I can’t take a full day off for rest—not at the expense of the rest of the crew.”
“Most of the crew are sharing duties and responsibilities, resting when they need to, then coming back and making advancements in their fields when they’re refreshed. You have to do the same, Commander, or you’ll burn out.”
Takashima squared his shoulders, ready to tell his new number one that wouldn’t be necessary, when he yawned. He knew that Jehu was right, that he couldn’t keep going as he had been, but he also knew that there was too much to be done, and now he was responsible for the fates of one hundred and three others—which in itself was a reason he needed to take a break.
Stifling his yawn, he focused his bleary eyes on Jehu once again. “Twenty-four hours is too long. I’ll take eight hours,” he conceded.
“Twenty.”
“Ten.”
“Twenty,” Jehu stated again, folding his arms across his chest.
“This is supposed to be a negotiation, Lieutenant.”
“I’m security, Commander, we only negotiate with extreme prejudice.”
Takashima chuckled to himself. “Alright, I will take twelve hours off for rest—no more. Then we’ll need to see about setting up a shift rota, so everyone can get into some resemblance of normality.”
Jehu paused for a moment then nodded. “Twelve hours will have to do. As for the rota, I’ve been working on that with Petty Officer Rossi. We can spread out experience and qualifications across three shifts to keep all essential duties covered, we won’t be ‘fighting fit’ but we can at least be ready for whatever we might face.”
Slumping back down into his seat, Takashima gestured to another armchair and Jehu accepted his posture straight and stiff. “What about watch officers? I’d rather keep you on shift with me, present a united front.”
“I was thinking about lieutenants Wu and Vel Hodan. They are in operations so would be on the bridge anyway, both have command training and experience heading up the department on shift as well as leading away missions. Granted Vel Hodan is only a junior lieutenant, but he was due for a promotion following the last round of crew evaluations.”
“How do you know that?”
Jehu raised an eyebrow. “Commander, I was Security Chief of the Mandela for five years, if something happened onboard that ship and I didn’t know about it you should’ve worried.”
He smiled at the younger man. “May you continue to do so onboard...this ship,” the last two words he said slowly, drawling them out. “That’s another piece of business we need to address, what do we call the ship?”
“There are a lot of names being batted about, but no consensus yet on what is suitable. I’ll have the crew submit ideas and we can take it from there. In the meantime, you get some sleep.”
Takashima gave Jehu a mock salute as he got back to his feet. “Lieutenant, I want you and Rossi to write up the duty roster, I’ll check it out in the morning.”
“I’ll inform Wu and Vel Hodan of their new posts as well.”
“Very good,” Takashima stated before the Security Chief headed for the exit. “And Jehu,” the lieutenant stopped and turned back to him, “thank you.”
“Anytime Commander. Good night.”
With that, Jehu left and Takashima was alone in his room once again. Using what little energy he had left, he pulled off his boots, rose to his feet and stumbled through to the bedroom, where he flopped onto the bed and fell sound asleep.
Corridor, Deck 1
Position Alpha, Andromeda Galaxy
Having left the Commander to get some much deserved sleep, Jehu headed for the bridge to ensure that, unless the universe was about to implode, he wasn’t disturbed. It would also be a chance for him to try and get used to the idea of being ‘in charge’ of the behemoth—which was one suggestion being batted about for what to call the ship. With only one hundred and four onboard a ship that was bigger than a Sovereign-Class, the corridors were quiet, giving him time to think.
They still had so much to do and there was no guarantee that the region they were in would stay quiet indefinitely. Learning how to operate the ship was their main objective, everyone onboard had to be trained to handle the key stations—what was once called a “last man bridge” on Earth. It was a sombre thought, but they had no idea just what they would face in the new galaxy and, if going by Starfleet’s first contact with the Kelvans was anything to go by, then there were some major threats in Andromeda they could encounter. Jehu knew Takashima well, having spent months working and training with the human, so he knew that the Commander had gone through some horrific events during the war, however beneath those war scars he knew that Takashima was also an idealist. After the shock of their situation passed, he would start to look at the great and good about where they now found themselves, so it was Jehu’s responsibility to be the pragmatist.
As he was just about to step through the doors to the bridge, he focused once again on his immediate task. Entering into what had been dubbed the ‘situation room’ he smiled at his good fortune to find Denise Wu and Oram Vel Hodan working at the table. When they saw him enter, they both stood straight and turned to him.
“Sir,” stated Wu, her tone level.
“Lieutenants, I’m glad I caught you both here.” He moved to stand at the table and they both relaxed their posture. “Firstly, the Commander is getting some much needed rest and not to be disturbed for at least the next twelve hours. If anything crops up, bring it to my attention.” They both nodded their understanding. “Secondly, we’ve discussed the matter and have decided to try and get onto a standard three-shift rotation ASAP. To that end, the both of you will be appointed Watch Officers for beta and gamma shifts. Congratulations.”
Wu gave him a slight smile, which was to be expected from someone raised on Vulcan. Vel Hodan wasn’t quite as stoic, as a look of shocked delight crossed the Rigellians bronze face. Jehu couldn’t help but chuckle at the difference in their reactions. He had served with both for years and knew they were both up to the challenge; he wouldn’t have recommended them for the posts if he didn’t think they could handle the added responsibilities.
“Rossi and I are drawing up a duty roster, any input you care to add would be appreciated.”
“Of course, sir.”
“You got it, Lieutenant.”
“Right, now that’s out of the way, how’re things going up here?”
Vel Hodan deferred to Wu. “Mr Kenza has been putting the other flight controllers through their paces, he says he wants to get them all trained up so they can in turn help with training others. He has also located an isolated system, two-point-five light-years away, plenty of asteroids for precision flying and target practice. Ensign Igen said that there may be some metals and minerals of interest in the asteroids as well. We could also look into mining potential, so we have something to barter with if needed.”
Jehu nodded as he listened, he had never considered the need to take on materials they could use to trade with, though they would have to be careful with what they used—without knowing more about the regional economics they had no way of knowing just what was valuable to others and what wasn’t. He made a mental note of putting together a survey team to go out and take samples from the asteroid belt.
“We could also use the time to test out this ships own auxiliary craft,” Vel Hodan added. Jehu had noticed him taking a keen interest in the two types of small craft the ship carried—six shuttles for carrying personnel or cargo and eight tactical starfighters—which had been largely ignored as the crew focused on the ship’s main systems.
“Sounds like an idea,” Jehu agreed, “we should use what time we have now to the fullest.” He paused for a moment, looking over the readouts and displays on the tabletop, assessing the ship’s operations for himself. They had yet to get to grips with just what the ships optimal status was, but for the moment it was running more or less smoothly. “What has Lieutenant Dheyn had to report?”
Wu glanced forwards, towards the main deck of the bridge. “He’s working through there, sir.”
“Thanks,” he replied and then started to move, but paused a moment. “Can the both of you let the crew know that suggestions for just what to call this ship are being solicited?”
“How about Enterprise?” Vel Hodan quickly came out with.
Jehu and Wu both looked at him, questioning expressions on their face before Jehu chucked, shook his head and continued on to the forward deck. Behind him he heard Wu telling the young Rigellian simply, “We can’t call it the Enterprise.”
Passing through the situation room he stood on the raised balcony where the command chair was located, looking over all others who worked on the bridge. There were three seated at the various consoles; Petty Officers Tzehn at sensors and Koeman at tactical, whilst Kal Dheyn was seated at one of the auxiliary consoles along the side. As he approached the Thallonian, he took note of all the information displayed on the screens. The xenology specialist was so engrossed in what he was studying that he never heard Jehu’s approach, so when he cleared his throat Dheyn looked genuinely surprised that he wasn’t alone.
“Sorry for disturbing you, Lieutenant, but I wanted to see what you and your teams had learned so far.”
“I was just going through all the data they’ve gathered so far, compiling what we have so far—I was going to give my report to the Commander in the morning.”
“He’s getting some much needed rest, so you can run what you have by me first.”
“Yes sir,” he began. “Crewman Danal remains in the forward atrium, working on the written alien language there. So far the ship’s computer doesn’t have any record of the text—or any other alien language for that matter—so she has to work on it without any baseline. She isn’t having much success as yet, but she said it could take some time to crack. Armstrong had a look at the scorch marks and believes them only to be three, maybe four, weeks old—which means whoever wrote it was on that ship a week before we found it.
“He’s now moved on to examining what personal possessions we found for hints at just who these people were—archaeologists make the best detectives. Lilei and Soeke have started combing through the ship’s computer, looking for any files and databases that may relate to the ship’s builders or any other information on indigenous species. Gha-Ejeihn is continuing his wandering through the ship, gathering more visual and telemetry scans, paying close attention to design elements.” He picked up a PADD and handed it to Jehu. “My preliminary report is there. I still need to update it with the latest reports.”
He accepted the PADD with a nod. At the Academy he had taken the bare minimum of social sciences he needed to in order to get through his first year, as it was a field that held little interest for him—it was only now, given their predicament and his promotion to XO, that he would need to get to grips with the discipline. He mustn’t have hidden his true feelings about the reading ahead of him, as Dheyn gave him a sympathetic look.
“I have tried to keep the jargon to a minimum and left out a lot of the waffle,” Dheyn assured him with a smile, which shone against his crimson skin.
“That is appreciated, Lieutenant. I’ll get to this a little later on, though if any of your people find anything new of note then let me know.”
“Yes sir,” Dheyn replied then turned back to continue his analysis.
Jehu stepped down onto the lower level and made his way to communications, opposite where Tzehn sat, from which he could monitor everything that was going on throughout the ship—as well as bypass the comlink to Takashima’s quarters so he would be able to sleep in peace.
Position Alpha, Andromeda Galaxy
Stardate: 54211.8 (March 19th, 2377)
Daniel Takashima stepped into the cabin he’d laid claim to and flopped into an armchair that faced the viewport. The comfort of the chair combined with the exhaustion of the last week had him almost dozing where he sat, but was prevented from doing so by an alien chime. The shrill noise pierced his sleep-starved brain; he turned to look at the entrance, wondering if there were other settings for the enunciator.
“Come in,” he called, trying to blink the tiredness from his eyes. The doors parted and he found himself looking at the lithe frame of Lieutenant Jehu. “Morning Lieutenant, what can I do for you?”
Jehu stepped inside and let the doors close behind him. His posture was straight and stiff, overly formal—which meant that Takashima wouldn’t like what he had come to say.
“Commander Takashima, effective immediately, I relieve you of duty.”
It took a few moments for what Jehu said to filter through the haze of his mind, but when it finally did his eyes opened wide and he was on his feet.
“Care to explain yourself, Lieutenant?”
Jehu held his ground. “You appointed me as your First Officer, Commander. Part of my duties is to ensure the safety and wellbeing of all those onboard—yourself included. Since we arrived here, you’ve been working eighteen to twenty-two hours a day. You’re no use to anyone if you can’t think straight or even keep your eyes open. I’m recommending twenty-four hours uninterrupted rest.”
He raised an eyebrow in disbelief. “There’s too much to be done, I can’t take a full day off for rest—not at the expense of the rest of the crew.”
“Most of the crew are sharing duties and responsibilities, resting when they need to, then coming back and making advancements in their fields when they’re refreshed. You have to do the same, Commander, or you’ll burn out.”
Takashima squared his shoulders, ready to tell his new number one that wouldn’t be necessary, when he yawned. He knew that Jehu was right, that he couldn’t keep going as he had been, but he also knew that there was too much to be done, and now he was responsible for the fates of one hundred and three others—which in itself was a reason he needed to take a break.
Stifling his yawn, he focused his bleary eyes on Jehu once again. “Twenty-four hours is too long. I’ll take eight hours,” he conceded.
“Twenty.”
“Ten.”
“Twenty,” Jehu stated again, folding his arms across his chest.
“This is supposed to be a negotiation, Lieutenant.”
“I’m security, Commander, we only negotiate with extreme prejudice.”
Takashima chuckled to himself. “Alright, I will take twelve hours off for rest—no more. Then we’ll need to see about setting up a shift rota, so everyone can get into some resemblance of normality.”
Jehu paused for a moment then nodded. “Twelve hours will have to do. As for the rota, I’ve been working on that with Petty Officer Rossi. We can spread out experience and qualifications across three shifts to keep all essential duties covered, we won’t be ‘fighting fit’ but we can at least be ready for whatever we might face.”
Slumping back down into his seat, Takashima gestured to another armchair and Jehu accepted his posture straight and stiff. “What about watch officers? I’d rather keep you on shift with me, present a united front.”
“I was thinking about lieutenants Wu and Vel Hodan. They are in operations so would be on the bridge anyway, both have command training and experience heading up the department on shift as well as leading away missions. Granted Vel Hodan is only a junior lieutenant, but he was due for a promotion following the last round of crew evaluations.”
“How do you know that?”
Jehu raised an eyebrow. “Commander, I was Security Chief of the Mandela for five years, if something happened onboard that ship and I didn’t know about it you should’ve worried.”
He smiled at the younger man. “May you continue to do so onboard...this ship,” the last two words he said slowly, drawling them out. “That’s another piece of business we need to address, what do we call the ship?”
“There are a lot of names being batted about, but no consensus yet on what is suitable. I’ll have the crew submit ideas and we can take it from there. In the meantime, you get some sleep.”
Takashima gave Jehu a mock salute as he got back to his feet. “Lieutenant, I want you and Rossi to write up the duty roster, I’ll check it out in the morning.”
“I’ll inform Wu and Vel Hodan of their new posts as well.”
“Very good,” Takashima stated before the Security Chief headed for the exit. “And Jehu,” the lieutenant stopped and turned back to him, “thank you.”
“Anytime Commander. Good night.”
With that, Jehu left and Takashima was alone in his room once again. Using what little energy he had left, he pulled off his boots, rose to his feet and stumbled through to the bedroom, where he flopped onto the bed and fell sound asleep.
* * * * *
Corridor, Deck 1
Position Alpha, Andromeda Galaxy
Having left the Commander to get some much deserved sleep, Jehu headed for the bridge to ensure that, unless the universe was about to implode, he wasn’t disturbed. It would also be a chance for him to try and get used to the idea of being ‘in charge’ of the behemoth—which was one suggestion being batted about for what to call the ship. With only one hundred and four onboard a ship that was bigger than a Sovereign-Class, the corridors were quiet, giving him time to think.
They still had so much to do and there was no guarantee that the region they were in would stay quiet indefinitely. Learning how to operate the ship was their main objective, everyone onboard had to be trained to handle the key stations—what was once called a “last man bridge” on Earth. It was a sombre thought, but they had no idea just what they would face in the new galaxy and, if going by Starfleet’s first contact with the Kelvans was anything to go by, then there were some major threats in Andromeda they could encounter. Jehu knew Takashima well, having spent months working and training with the human, so he knew that the Commander had gone through some horrific events during the war, however beneath those war scars he knew that Takashima was also an idealist. After the shock of their situation passed, he would start to look at the great and good about where they now found themselves, so it was Jehu’s responsibility to be the pragmatist.
As he was just about to step through the doors to the bridge, he focused once again on his immediate task. Entering into what had been dubbed the ‘situation room’ he smiled at his good fortune to find Denise Wu and Oram Vel Hodan working at the table. When they saw him enter, they both stood straight and turned to him.
“Sir,” stated Wu, her tone level.
“Lieutenants, I’m glad I caught you both here.” He moved to stand at the table and they both relaxed their posture. “Firstly, the Commander is getting some much needed rest and not to be disturbed for at least the next twelve hours. If anything crops up, bring it to my attention.” They both nodded their understanding. “Secondly, we’ve discussed the matter and have decided to try and get onto a standard three-shift rotation ASAP. To that end, the both of you will be appointed Watch Officers for beta and gamma shifts. Congratulations.”
Wu gave him a slight smile, which was to be expected from someone raised on Vulcan. Vel Hodan wasn’t quite as stoic, as a look of shocked delight crossed the Rigellians bronze face. Jehu couldn’t help but chuckle at the difference in their reactions. He had served with both for years and knew they were both up to the challenge; he wouldn’t have recommended them for the posts if he didn’t think they could handle the added responsibilities.
“Rossi and I are drawing up a duty roster, any input you care to add would be appreciated.”
“Of course, sir.”
“You got it, Lieutenant.”
“Right, now that’s out of the way, how’re things going up here?”
Vel Hodan deferred to Wu. “Mr Kenza has been putting the other flight controllers through their paces, he says he wants to get them all trained up so they can in turn help with training others. He has also located an isolated system, two-point-five light-years away, plenty of asteroids for precision flying and target practice. Ensign Igen said that there may be some metals and minerals of interest in the asteroids as well. We could also look into mining potential, so we have something to barter with if needed.”
Jehu nodded as he listened, he had never considered the need to take on materials they could use to trade with, though they would have to be careful with what they used—without knowing more about the regional economics they had no way of knowing just what was valuable to others and what wasn’t. He made a mental note of putting together a survey team to go out and take samples from the asteroid belt.
“We could also use the time to test out this ships own auxiliary craft,” Vel Hodan added. Jehu had noticed him taking a keen interest in the two types of small craft the ship carried—six shuttles for carrying personnel or cargo and eight tactical starfighters—which had been largely ignored as the crew focused on the ship’s main systems.
“Sounds like an idea,” Jehu agreed, “we should use what time we have now to the fullest.” He paused for a moment, looking over the readouts and displays on the tabletop, assessing the ship’s operations for himself. They had yet to get to grips with just what the ships optimal status was, but for the moment it was running more or less smoothly. “What has Lieutenant Dheyn had to report?”
Wu glanced forwards, towards the main deck of the bridge. “He’s working through there, sir.”
“Thanks,” he replied and then started to move, but paused a moment. “Can the both of you let the crew know that suggestions for just what to call this ship are being solicited?”
“How about Enterprise?” Vel Hodan quickly came out with.
Jehu and Wu both looked at him, questioning expressions on their face before Jehu chucked, shook his head and continued on to the forward deck. Behind him he heard Wu telling the young Rigellian simply, “We can’t call it the Enterprise.”
Passing through the situation room he stood on the raised balcony where the command chair was located, looking over all others who worked on the bridge. There were three seated at the various consoles; Petty Officers Tzehn at sensors and Koeman at tactical, whilst Kal Dheyn was seated at one of the auxiliary consoles along the side. As he approached the Thallonian, he took note of all the information displayed on the screens. The xenology specialist was so engrossed in what he was studying that he never heard Jehu’s approach, so when he cleared his throat Dheyn looked genuinely surprised that he wasn’t alone.
“Sorry for disturbing you, Lieutenant, but I wanted to see what you and your teams had learned so far.”
“I was just going through all the data they’ve gathered so far, compiling what we have so far—I was going to give my report to the Commander in the morning.”
“He’s getting some much needed rest, so you can run what you have by me first.”
“Yes sir,” he began. “Crewman Danal remains in the forward atrium, working on the written alien language there. So far the ship’s computer doesn’t have any record of the text—or any other alien language for that matter—so she has to work on it without any baseline. She isn’t having much success as yet, but she said it could take some time to crack. Armstrong had a look at the scorch marks and believes them only to be three, maybe four, weeks old—which means whoever wrote it was on that ship a week before we found it.
“He’s now moved on to examining what personal possessions we found for hints at just who these people were—archaeologists make the best detectives. Lilei and Soeke have started combing through the ship’s computer, looking for any files and databases that may relate to the ship’s builders or any other information on indigenous species. Gha-Ejeihn is continuing his wandering through the ship, gathering more visual and telemetry scans, paying close attention to design elements.” He picked up a PADD and handed it to Jehu. “My preliminary report is there. I still need to update it with the latest reports.”
He accepted the PADD with a nod. At the Academy he had taken the bare minimum of social sciences he needed to in order to get through his first year, as it was a field that held little interest for him—it was only now, given their predicament and his promotion to XO, that he would need to get to grips with the discipline. He mustn’t have hidden his true feelings about the reading ahead of him, as Dheyn gave him a sympathetic look.
“I have tried to keep the jargon to a minimum and left out a lot of the waffle,” Dheyn assured him with a smile, which shone against his crimson skin.
“That is appreciated, Lieutenant. I’ll get to this a little later on, though if any of your people find anything new of note then let me know.”
“Yes sir,” Dheyn replied then turned back to continue his analysis.
Jehu stepped down onto the lower level and made his way to communications, opposite where Tzehn sat, from which he could monitor everything that was going on throughout the ship—as well as bypass the comlink to Takashima’s quarters so he would be able to sleep in peace.
* * * * *
