This Will Have to Do.

Posted on Thu Jul 11th, 2019 @ 6:46am by Lieutenant Thegog Grun
Edited on on Fri Jul 26th, 2019 @ 2:10pm

Mission: Onboarding & Departure
Location: USS Pennsylvania, Captains Ready Room
Timeline: Incidentals Day 2

Thegog limps onto the Pennsylvania and gives it a look around. He grumps a little. -This is AFTER the refit?- he thinks to himself. He has a PaDD in his hand that says he is to report to the Captain the moment he gets onto the ship. He plans to go there right away, but first, he is going to make a quick stop in the main computer room. A little later, Thegog exits the turbolift onto the bridge and slowly makes his way to the Commanders Ready Room. He is also now carrying an extra piece of equipment. He pushes the chime.

Frank had been pacing his room as he dictated another report for Starfleet, "Computer Pause," he said quickly.
"Enter Please," he said and watched as the doors opened. A Tellarite limped into his office slowly wearing a yellow Lieutenant's uniform. "Hello, Lieutenant what can I do for you?" Frank asked as he moved forward to shake hands.

Instead of shaking the Captains hand, Thegog reaches up and put a cylindrical device with wires coming out both ends in his hand.

"Do you know what that is?" He doesn't wait for an answer. "That is an MK-12 enhancer. You wave spend all this time retrofiting your ship, and somehow your people didn't think to check the MK-12 enhancers? If those things break down, then the Tantulus Transducers fail. Once that happens, say goodbye to Aft shields." he points to a small smudge on the device.

"See that? That is a sub-micro burnout. There are over a dozen of these on this ship, and three of them have signs of a sub-micro burnout. I don't know about you, sir, but I don't want to go into the Gamma Quadrant without aft shields."

Thegog stands a little taller. "Now, lucky for you, I have seen this sort of thing before, and knew this would be an issue. I will be putting in a request to have these fixed before we leave. That is unless you would rather risk it and see what happens. Oh yeah."

He hands the Commander the PaDD. "Lieutenant JG Thegog Grun. I'm your new Chief Operations Officer and it looks like I arrived just in time."

Frank watched the man ignore the handshake and then began to speak, instinctively he pulled out his unlit cigar and put it in his mouth. His blood began to boil as the Tellurite showed him the smudge on the MK-12, as the man finally wound down Frank picked up his PaDD and pulled up the list of current work orders, and opened the one scheduled for tomorrow. "Lieutenant Grun, I appreciate your enthusiasm but this my friend is not my first rodeo." Frank held the PaDD up so the man could see the schedule, "That has already been scheduled for tomorrow, my Chief Engineer has already scheduled it. In the mean time I'd like you to grab a drink and have a seat so we can talk."

Frank ordered a cup of water from the replicator and sat down in his chair and waited for the other man to sit. "Now then Lieutenant, I'm not going to give you a lecture on respect for a Captain or any of that crap. You're here because I need an Ops guy. I need someone to be the go-between with Science & Engineering as well as assisting with scans and other data. I need to first are you up to the task?"

Thegog looked at the Commander with quite the annoyed expression. "Well, I'm glad to hear the new CEO is not completely inept. Am I up for the task. I'll tell you, Sir, my last posting, I was basically running the show. I should have go a promotion then, but you know how it is. Something about my attitude. My attitude is not as bad as some people. In fact, I have been known to crack a smile once in a while. It hurts a little, but I'm told people like that, so I try it out."

Thegog starts to rub his leg. "I got this bum leg because I let my guard down and trusted others to do their job. That will never happen again. I am not here to make friends, and I have no problem speaking my mind. Not even to my commanding officer. Sir."

He gets what some people would say is a weak hearted attempt at a smile on his face. It actually does look like it is rather painful. "I am very much up to it Sir. I just hope the other Chiefs are up to it as well. Otherwise I will give them a piece of my mind. I don't care if they outrank me or anything. If I see failure, I call it out. And that includes in my own work as well. Sir"


"I'm glad to hear it," Frank removed his cigar from his mouth as he spoke, "I'll be frank with you Lieutenant, as you have been with me. I can't stand bureaucratic red tape, or blowing smoke up someone's skirt to make them happy. If the sky is red I'll say the damn thing is red. I expect the same thing from my officers, hold me accountable and I will hold you accountable. I think having that level of trust will make things better around here."

"Now then to talk shop for a minute, I wanted to make sure you knew, we will be putting the Penn through her paces in a few days. I want to test every little thing possible, before we leave for the Graviton Catapult and ultimately the Delta Quadrant, where will be working to map more of the unexplored areas there, so I will be relying on you as well as the rest of the senior staff to face whatever problems arise." Frank's cigar returned to his lips as he finished speaking.

"That's great sir." Thegog says in a sort of blow-off kinda way. "I will be ready for whatever you throw at me. I just hope the rest of the crew is ready. However, if there are test to be done, then the longer I sit here and small talk with you, means less time for me to get down to my station and finally figure out what mess the Starfleet Corps of Engineers did in the name of upgrades."

He gets a disappointed look on his face. "I swear, those people make these 'upgrades', but they never spend time on a ship in the field to see if what they are doing actually helps. When I was on the Rebel, we got a refit as well. I then spent the next 6 months re-configuring the sensor arrays and the warp coils were all out of line. And don't get me started on what they did to the computer core." He gives a loud harrumph and falls back into the seat.

Frank laughed gruffly, and the beginnings of a smile could be seen beneath his beard, "You sound more like an engineer than an Operations Officer, but I guess when your job touches multiple departments like yours does you pick up a bit of everything. I don't want to keep you longer than necessary Lieutenant, I know you have to check in with Medical and I'm sure you'll be wanting to meet the Chiefs of Science and Engineering. Do you have any questions for me? "

"No Commander. Just looking to get to work." Thegog stands up without waiting to be dismissed and starts heading to the door. Before he gets to the door, he stops, turns around heads back towards the Commander, grabs the Mk-12 enhancer.

"I'll put this back"

And he heads back towards the door.


"Good luck Lieutenant," Frank said as he watched Thegog leave. "That went well" he said aloud with a chuckle as he returned back to his reports.

Thegog leaves the Ready Room and heads straight for the Turbolift. -Well, I guess that wasn't a total disaster. At least he seems slightly competent.- He thinks to himself.



Lieutenant JG Thegog Grun
Chief Operations Officer
USS Pennsylvania

&

Commander Frank Kamar Jr.
Commanding Officer
USS Pennsylvania