Requisitions

Posted on Sun Sep 18th, 2011 @ 11:42pm by Ensign Lhamepha Kitonuh [Byrne]

Mission: Kingdom Come
Location: USS Endeavour - Bridge
Timeline: MD10 1225hrs

Since the ship had emerged from warp in orbit of Nevarra Prime, it had been obvious to anybody onboard that the level of activity was gradually increasing as time went on - and at a rapid pace, too. They had arrived only yesterday, and yet the operations department had been inundated with enough requests for one-off materiel assignments and power distribution requisitions that Lhampepha had been instructed to set up a second bridge console to operate the Ops functions, in addition to the primary at the fore of the command room. It was her understanding that the flight control staff had been similarly busy, and that already a strict rota had been put in place, with almost all of the ship's shuttles off in various locations around the Cluster. Checking her ship status board on the larger, newly-designated secondary operations console, the Selkie could see that only the Captain's yacht was still docked, and would likely stay that way, as he had taken one of the Type-11 craft down to the surface for his trip to the Nevarran Archives.

The Nevarran Cluster had thus far proven to be almost a shoreleave location for anyone with a particularly curious mind - and for those who weren't in ship's operations or shuttlecraft management professions. Since the local King had given the Starfleet personnel permission to explore the oddly-condensed region of stars and planets, everyone with a passing interest in anything had been requesting time off the ship. There were individuals out exploring how the close arrangement of stars affected each other, the stella phenomena within their embrace, and the general gravimetric field of the region. There were others; mostly anthropologists and psychologists out sampling some of the culture on the various worlds - the more suburban or idyllic worlds (according to the Nevarran 'tourist pack' as Lhamepha liked to call the data download they'd been sent) had become popular with most of the crew seeking a simple bit of impromptu shoreleave.

Many of the more technically curious had requested tours aboard Nevarran starships or within various technology or industrial centres within the Cluster, seeking to find out how they had developed a technology for purpose A, or how they coped with the problem posed by situation B, and so forth. Though she was in a technical field herself, Lhamepha wouldn't have the first clue as to where she would start in asking questions of a foreign engineer about their ship, other than 'how do you get people to stop sending you so many power distribution requests all the time?'

The comm. system chirped. "Science lab 2 to Ops." Lhamepha glanced behind her. Stott was exceedingly busy, trying to juggled the performing of functions on his console with a discussion - heated, one might say, until one had the chance to study Stott more closely, and recognise that his mannerisms stayed pretty much the same no matter the nature of his current conversation - with another crewman. Deciding not to make it wait, the Ensign answered the call.

"Ops here."

"We need some more power down here, and access to the dorsal sensor array."

"I'm sorry, science labs, but we've not got any spare power available, and the sensor array is currently being used by flight control for traffic and route monitoring."

"Traffic? Come on, Ops, the helm guys can make up their own traffic reports any time they like, surely? We've discovered a unique nebula near the heart of this cluster of stars; its density is extremely rare, possibly unique to this region. But we can't get any clear readings on it without more sensor pallets and the power for better resolution scans."

"With so many shuttle craft out, the XO has assigned flight control's operations higher priority," Lhamepha responded. Anyone who sat and thought about it would realise the logic; the sudden mobilisation of so many small craft might cause a few local naval ships to get a little jumpy, or there could be countless anomalies that a shuttle could fall foul of. The pilot and crews' safeties were higher priority than science projects - not my words, Kitonuh thought. "I doubt your nebula is going anywhere any time soon. I can maybe get you in for a three-hour stint with the sensors at oh-two-hundred, or there's a five-hour stint tomorrow; nineteen-thirty-five."

A groan of resignation was clearly audible over the comm. line. "Give us the oh-two-hundred slot. Looks like we're pulling an all-nighter, guys. Go get some rest, so you're sharp tonight." With the last comment towards the others supposedly in the room with the science officer, the comm. line shut down.

Kitonuh shook her head. That was one problem with so much to explore and investigate around here; everybody thought that they had higher priority than the next guy, no matter what their pet project was. And they all came through operations to get the requisitions that they wanted, and used them to settle the disputes between who wants use of what sensor array or how much power first. Thankfully, most of these disputes were easily settled from afar, a fact Lhamepha wouldn't have wanted to change for all the world, as she looked over her shoulder to see the afore-noticed crewman stalk off in a mood as Stott answered yet another comm. call. She turned and entered the science lab's requisition for the sensor array and associated power before Stott mistakenly gave it away to some other department.

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Ensign Lhamepha Kitonuh
Operations Officer
USS Endeavour