-= Starfleet Command, San Francisco =-
Of course, not all of the sons of Zolog practised psychotherapy.
Casparo Zolog stood taller than his peers at the presentation of the
Crimson Sphere. He gleamed with accomplishment and efficiency and
grooming and all the things Starfleet officers were supposed to be. He
was command track efficiency in a uniform: he was the front of the
brochure, the one that made it advertising rather than just a
photograph.
The problem with Casparo Zolog? He was the thickest bastard you’ll ever meet, in muscle and wit alike.
This made Commander Zolog, second oldest of the seven sons of the
renowned psychiatrist, problematic for Starfleet. On one hand Casparo
was diligent, noble and persevering. On the other hand every one of his
peers was unanimous: we can take it no longer.
“They’re going to give me my own starship soon, dad!” he had effused
just that morning to his father, who had encouraged him with stony
silence. But Casparo knew that was just a part of his humour.
“I can’t wait to be a captain. If I serve another year or two under
Captain Hurn I’m sure she’ll put me forward. I’ve volunteered for the
new expeditionary service, too. I’m sure after we’re awarded the Crimson
Sphere they’ll consider me.”
It wasn’t that Casparo couldn’t do the sums, the methodology or the
execution. The man, who presented more or less as human, was quick in a
firefight and could fly a shuttle as decently as he had to. He was a
good egg, as it were.
Only he had this unfortunate way of making everyone really bored.
Lovely, but you know.
You know.
“Yes,” said Zolog Bandawi.
“Thanks, dad. Your confidence means a lot to me,” Casparo beamed.
“Medical frigate,” said his father, in an apparently unconnected way, which Casparo chose to ignore.
-= Meanwhile =-
Stubbs and Blair had been on the comms deck for the better part of four
hours. Despite the crewman-friendly support balustrades, all
polyduranide and health and safety, their head-bashing total was a fair
six against nine – unsurprisingly, in his favour.
“D’accch!” Stubbs shrieked. Una Blair, who had sidelined herself from
the physicality of this competition some time before, chuckled glibly as
her commbadge sounded, taking precedence over Lionel’s wittering.
“Crewman Blair.”
“–like a Klingon in labour,” Stubbs continued. Una swatted at him.
“Crewman?” asked their coordinator, clearly pressed for time.
“What’s your progress on the secondary communications sub-processing
relay?”
“We’re nearly there, Lieutenant Witterman!” Blair huffed, as though
toil-heavy labour were being conducted at her end. “In fact, Crewman
Stubbs is just clamping the housing back down now.”
This was a lie. Crewman Stubbs was feeling across his scalp for signs of
blood, bruising or other distress. “Good. Next up, I want you to refit
the exhaust manifold plating on –”
“Seriously, it might be bleeding,” Lionel whimpered.
“–deck at the secondary landing bay when you’re done. Witterman out.”
“Idiot,” Una hissed. “You talked over the assignment details. Was it the shuttle on C-deck or D-deck?”
“It was C-deck,” Lionel replied, with more confidence than was justified.
“Not D-deck?” Una, although naturally untrusting, was secretly relieved.
“Definitely C-deck.”
Crewman Stubbs and Crewman Blair proceeded to what they thought was the
appropriate deck. On C-deck, in approximately twenty minutes’ time, a
state-of-the-art high-warp convoy shuttle containing an assortment of
command-level officers was due to leave for Kincardine Station,
providing the nascent Omega Fleet with much needed personnel resource.
On D-deck, a lowly, forty-year-old type-two shuttlecraft, intended for a
new lease of life as a tug, rested under baleful, awaiting-repairs
lighting.
Una and Lionel diligently began to strip the wrong shuttle of its exhaust manifold.
“It barely even looks used,” Lionel Stubbs mentioned in passing, shaving through a collection of self-sealing stem bolts.
“Much like your sexual organs,” Una retorted, cheerily ripping out the
protective gauze from the invective absorption innerplate. This single,
irreversible step would mean that any further intervention toward
flightworthyness would require a full refit of the exhaust unit: in
other words, a twenty-hour operation.
As the cross-hatched material tore from its housing, the doors to the
C-deck shuttlebay floor opened to reveal no fewer than seven red- or
gold-topped officers, two and a half pips or more, all clearly excited
to be conveyed to their next assignment.
Una Blair had the kind of hair that looked greasy, stuck in something,
at all times. Lionel Stubbs’s was a Levantine afro with no water-holding
properties whatsoever.
“D-deck,” Una cursed at Lionel. “It was D-deck.”
And so it was that Commander Rhia Weir’s assignment to the Lone Star was
once again deferred by a mission, perhaps two; that Captain Hurn would
be spared the precise, unusual stupidity of the slow, fast-tracked
Casparo Zolog; and that Felix de l’Isle of the USS Lone Star would be
the next, unknowing recipient of the aforementioned.
“D-deck,” Lionel repeated. This was not a moment wherein he wondered why he was still a crewman.
-=-=-
by Commander Casparo Zolog, inbound (temporary) XO, USS Lone Star
with Crewmen Una Blair and Lionel Stubbs, probably temporary to their current location