Barbarians No More

Posted on Wed Jan 13th, 2010 @ 12:20pm by Captain Benjamin Byrne & Lieutenant Commander Mark Anderson & Lieutenant Chihiro Ogino MD & Lieutenant JG David Solomon

Mission: Metronian Diplomacy
Location: USS Endeavour - Observation Lounge
Timeline: MD04 1200hrs

Benjamin walked briskly from his ready room onto the bridge, proudly noting to himself how the senior staff were all at their stations, ready for their departure. He also noted Vice Admiral Sanchez enter the bridge via one of the turbolifts, and was reminded of one of the main things he disliked about this mission as someone called 'Admiral on deck'. It was a pointless procedure, as it stopped everyone working for the short time it took for said Admiral to tell them to carry on with what they were doing. But it had endured as a tradition for centuries, and Benjamin doubted it would die out now.

"Mister Solomon," Ben said, his voice easily carrying above the gentle chiming of the computers. "Break orbit and set course for the Metron Consortium, Warp 9. Keep us a fair distance from the Gorn border as we travel; we don't want them getting curious about us."

"Aye sir, Breaking orbit." Dave said, as he punched in the coordinates, "Why are we going to the Metron Consortium sir?" He paused for a moment, but his question went unanswered.

Ben didn't stop walking as he reached the centre of the bridge, instead saying through the ship comm "Department heads to the Observation Lounge," and proceeding towards that room at the rear of the bridge himself.

Relinquishing supervision of the bridge to another duty officer, Mark started for the aft of the room, intending to follow Commander Byrne into the observation lounge. He paused near the tactical station to approve a PADD that was passed to him by a crewman before continuing into the lounge. He entered to find Commander Byrne and Vice Admiral Sanchez already waiting. With a warm smile, he moved to take his place at Byrne's right and sat down at the table.

Standing up out of his chair on the bridge, Dave gave the helm to an auxiliary officer and headed toward the observation lounge. He took his seat opposite of the model display, he always liked to look at the gold ships and dream of what is was like in different eras, onboard each ship.

Chihiro heard the comm call and headed towards the observation lounge, on arrival she took her seat and waited patiently.

As the ship's department heads filed in to the lounge one after the other, Ben stood with his hands on the head of his chair at the head of the desk, Admiral Sanchez standing beside him. He'd hoped that his first briefing with his senior officers would be in a lighter mood than this, but he couldn't afford to come across as anything but professional infront of the Admiral. "As you all know, our brief shoreleave is over. We have a new mission to accomplish, and a time table to work to." The Commander paused for a few seconds, before continuing.

"We have been invited to diplomatic negotiations with the Metron Consortium," he said bluntly, hoping to get all of the questions and exclamations about them not being interested in the Federation out of the way early - the very questions he and Anderson had asked the Admiral three days ago.

Chihrio nodded. "What about, and may I ask who the Metron Consortium is?" she asked nicely.

Mark tapped a command which deactivated the holographic display of starships and revealed the viewscreen. A moment later, a stellar map of the region appeared on the screen. "The Metrons were first encountered by the crew of the Enterprise in 2267 shortly after the Gorn massacre of Cestus III," Mark explained, highlighting the region on the screen, "At that time, they did not feel that we were sufficiently advanced enough to participate in an official First Contact with them. In fact, they believed us to be barbaric. It would appear, however, that things have changed."

Dave was a little concerned about the new mission, "Commander, I believe it would be better if we had a proper shakedown cruise before we undertake this mission, there are some bugs in the navigation systems and I'm sure there are some in other systems, and it would be better to discover and solve them now, when they will not develop into a larger problem."

"She may be a fresh ship, lieutenant, but a diplomatic run should give us the shakedown we need," Mark said, glancing over at the helmsman before returning his focus to the group in general, "I've been reviewing the department reports and everything seems ship shape, as well as can be expected from a ship fresh out of drydock."

"Understood sir." Dave said, in response to Mark's explanation.

"We'll just have to make adjustments to the systems as we go," Benjamin said. He knew that the helmsman only wanted to make sure that the systems were functioning properly, but Ben knew from experience that no matter how much testing you did and how many shakedowns, you'd never be without a list of systems which need tweaking. This mission would simply have a longer list than later ones. "Are there any other questions?"

"This is our first mission, and I want to see it go right," Ben said, looking around at the faces in the room with him. He didn't add 'especially with an Admiral watching over us', though he wanted to. "You know your duties, and from the ride to Cestus you know your stations. Let's show the Metrons that we aren't barbarians anymore; that we have grown past that. Let's show them what we are capable of. Dismissed."

------------------------
Commander Benjamin J. Byrne
Commanding Officer

Lieutenant Commander Mark Anderson
Executive Officer

Lieutenant Chihiro Ogino
Chief Medical Officer

Lieutenant JG David Solomon
Chief Flight Control Officer
USS Endeavour NCC-86105

&

Vice Admiral Roman Sanchez (PNPC)
Pegasus Fleet Commanding Officer
Played by: Cmdr Byrne