Morning Routine

Posted on Sun Jan 8, 2017 @ 9:51pm by Master Chief Petty Officer Thomas Barnes

Mission: An Orion to Die For
Location: Operations Office
Timeline: MD 3 || 0830 hours

Alone in his office, Tom sat at his desk, reviewing the reports from the last shift. He'd only been aboard the mighty Triumphant for a couple days, and with every day he found himself more and more engrossed in her technology and operation. Even the enlisted training facility he'd spent the last couple of years teaching at didn't have this kind of technology.

Sure he'd heard of and even used some of this tech in some experimental situations, but he wasn't allowed to teach with it at the camp because it wasn't yet widely adopted. Starfleet's mentality was why teach what the recruits weren't going to experience on their first few years out. It was one of his few regrets about teaching, knowing that those poor crewmen weren't going to have a clue in a couple years.

But, then again, that's what the Bosun and senior non-commissioned officers were for aboard starships like the Triumphant. Train, test and repeat.

Thankfully, Tom didn't have any issue catching up. In fact, he quite enjoyed the holographic interfaces and assistants.

"Oh," he remarked, a thought coming to his mind. "Computer, add to my task list to check on the holographic constructs employed on the Triumphant."

The computer immediately beeped in reply, prompting, "Please set a deadline for this task and priority."

"High priority," Tom replied, waving both hands to call up holographic readouts of the ship's power consumption. "Completion duration, two days."

"Thank you," he said, rising to his feet to review the power consumption reports. Projected figures were overlaid with actual figures. Tom was pleased to see that in most areas, the Triumphant was actually conserving power. The brig, as expected, was using additional power than normal thanks to the active cells and replicators. The Orion woman seemed to be using that replicator quite a bit, probably still trying to circumvent the Chief Medical Officer.

What concerned him a bit more was that the Tri-Core (a concept that he had yet to fully grasp) appeared to be using five percent more energy than it should be. Specifically, the "Alpha" core seemed to be the culprit.

"Computer, are there any authorized experiments or proposals currently involving the warp core?" Tom asked, moving over to the replicator to retrieve a cup of coffee.

"Negative," it immediately replied.

"Of course not," Tom muttered, returning to his desk, sipping from the mug as he walked.

The computer beeped again. "Reminder. Your holographic assistant is still pending. Please select an avatar to continue."

Tom chuckled before shaking his head. The computer had asked him about it as soon as he was assigned, and he hadn't proceeded yet simply because he was uncomfortable having an assistant. He preferred to do things himself, and if he had to have someone beside him, he preferred to teach.

What all could one teach a computer?

He called up the avatar list and had a look. Just about everything was in there from Andorians to Deltans to Vulcans...

And Orions.

Tom probably lingered a little longer than he should have on the photograph of the stock Orion woman. She was, of course, fully uniformed, but even the image left little to his imagination.

His mind wandered once again to Vashkele. That thought did not linger as another woman quickly came to his mind. Her red hair and blue eyes, porcelain skin...

Tom closed the avatar list. He'd wait on this for another day and told the computer so. For now, there was business to conduct, duties to perform, and reports to submit. The Chief Operations Officer finished the report, and forwarded it to the Executive Officer and Chief Engineer for this review.

Still nursing his cup of coffee, Tom rose from the desk and headed for the room. It was time to head for the bridge and begin settling into his station for the shift. If he was lucky, Maddy would be on the bridge. He would be happy to see her, and hopefully, he would have time to plan something for the evening.

Until then, it would be business as usual.