The First Bonne Chance Senior Officer's Meeting

Posted on Mon Jan 4th, 2016 @ 4:12am by Captain Charybdis MacGregor & Captain Patrick O'Connor & Lieutenant Commander Siivas McKenzie

0 words; about a 1 minute read

Mission: Taking Chances
Location: USS Bonne Chance, Deck 4, Conference Room Seven
Timeline: 2265

Captain Patrick O'Connor was alone in the conference room, having gotten there early. He wanted to have a few moments before others arrived to clear his head. He had dealt with several matters before this debriefing, including meetings with some of the crew on an individual basis, and recording a personal log. He was meaning to get down to engineering and take a look at his engines, because they were his engines in his mind. He couldn't help that, it was the engineer in him. He sat down and went over the details in his mind, and just a moment later the door opened.

First Officer Ak'ahar found time to make his way to the meeting. The normal routine of running a starship was daunting enough without the highly irregular events of the recent past days. Physically and mentally drained he greeted tbe engineer. "Glad to see things near well, nearer normal. I am sorry I have not had more time for this."

Ak'ahar spread his hands indicating everything in the previous chaos.

"It is not the grand mess that you make it out to be" Patrick said light-heartedly.

Lieutenant Charybdis sashayed into the room in her inimitable style of locomotion, and her smile brightened the room as she made eye contact with Captain O'Conner. Those big violet eyes of hers scanned the room with a decisive sweep, then she made an internal decision and walked round the table to seat herself one chair down from the right hand of her commanding officer. Naval tradition indicated that the seat to his immediate right hand was reserved for the First Officer, and as she was Second, it seemed logical to park herself next to Commander Ak'ahar.

"Good afternoon, Captain!" she purred with a small smile as she arranged her PDD and a few data cards in front of her for her departmental presentation. Leave it to the Chief Science Officer to be early and over prepared.

Patrick smiled back at her. "Good afternoon Lieutenant. I trust the science department is ready to deal with its portion of this report?"

"But of course, My Captain," she replied with her left eyebrow raised and a lopsided grin lifting the left side of her mouth. "The Science Department stands ready for inspection whenever you wish to delve into it!"

"Noted." he replied wryly. "I think an in depth survey will be scheduled, but for now, we have business."

Mac grinned seeing the Vulcan science officer acting up and teasing the captain mercilessly. Not for the first time he wondered how things might have worked out if he had met Charybdis on Vulcan. He answered the captain engineer in a quiet aside, "We've all done our share. I'm glad to see we have a crew with the initiative to get it done."

Doctor Siivas McKenzie entered, looking for all the world as if he'd been following a scent he couldn't quite place until he looked around the room and grinned. "Good afternoon all!" he greeted them, entering, he had a metal tray with a steaming pot and several up-turned drinking bowls and a wide bowl of something. He set it down within reach of the others and took his position on the other side of Charybdis, began to flip over bowls. "Tea?" he asked, glancing around at everyone as he paused to pour. The larger bowl in the middle, it appeared, was filled with chocolate-iced cookies of some sort, black and thick and there was a small pile of napkins as well.

The Chief Engineer was right behind Siivas. Te diminutive redheaded Scot smiled at the assembled crew then took the first available seat, offering a polite, "yes please," to the offer of tea.

Siivas poured a drinking bowl, put down a napkin and set the bowl on it. A small carafe of cream was set out but there was no sweetener, which he clarified as he set it down. "The kiriseth flower from Delta makes wonderful tea but has a sweet almost citrus taste without adding sweeteners to it. Cream merely adds body to the tea if you feel the need for more umph," he added and chuckled. "By contrast, the cookies are very sweet inside with an almost bitter thin exterior coating."

"Please for tea and a cookie too?" Charybdis asked. She was always willing to try something new, particular if chocolate might be involved. "Not that I'm complaining, Doctor, but this is awfully generous of you..."

"The flavor and aroma are delightful" the engineer breathed in the steam from the tea with obvious relish.

"Hmm?" he looked over, "Ah yes, well it seems recently that I came into a bit of inheritance, as it were and was able to squander some synthesizer credits. The tea and serving set is mine, of course but the cookies and cream came from the lounge's synth."

Patrick smiled. "I heard about that inheritance doctor. You didn't think such a thing would go unnoticed by me did you?" he said jovially.

That got a raised eyebrow from Fiona. Obviously there was more going on here than what was on the surface. She sipped her tea and nibbled a cookie. "well..thank you for sharing"

"A Deltan is always pleased to lift the spirits of those around him," Siivas replied with a grin and a wink. "I put in an order for some more supplies to meet us with the next supply run. For medicinal purposes, of course," he told the captain.

Patrick gave a slight grin. "Of course doctor." He looked around the room, and only Yuna was missing.

"Good, now we can begin."

Patrick stood up and walked slowly in front of the table, his hands clasped behind his back. "As you are aware, a debriefing is required as we complete any mission in which occurred that have to be reported to Command and are logged. While that wasn't going to be the case initially here, it became that way with certain events, and as such, this meeting is now necessary so all senior officers are aware of what has been reported back to Starfleet.

"Nothing has been deemed classified, so information gained here can be shared departmentally if you wish. As you are aware, our mission to the colony was simply a supply run with us doing a routine inspection. It ended with us needing to take the current governor, a Mr. Malcolm King in custody and for me to put a new governor in charge. Certain aspects from this mission need to be briefly summarized. Lt. Celes has a security report that will need to be shared, Lt. Charybdis a science report, and the doctor has medical information to share. I give the floor to science and medical to share their information, as it encompasses the bulk of what happened." He sat and left things to the Vulcan and Deltan.

The Doctor and the scientist exchanged glances, then the physician made a shooing gesture, so Lieutenant Charybdis slid a datacard into the computer slot and flipped a few switches. The tiny three-way monitor in the center of the table came to life and began cycling through what appeared to be backlit images.

"Thermal scans from orbit showed cooler underground pockets beneath the surface of some of the crop-producing fields, including some in the marshy regions and in the groves. Inspection showed that the borders of these areas had fungal growths sprouting topside, clearly marking the boundaries of underground fungal colonies." The images onscreen reflected what the science officer was describing, a perfect illustration of her points.

"With the planting of crops, the fungals had been directly competing with the settlement's crops for nutrients from the soil, thus slowly blighting both the colonist's crops and the fungal colony's growth. My investigations showed that the crops were definitely suffering over said areas within said boundaries, which makes for a very simple equation on the surface."

"However, inspection on the EM frequencies showed that the fields were actually radiating both beta and theta waves on the same frequencies as humanoid brainwaves... thus, I contacted the doctor to attempt to engage them with his Deltan empathic abilities to try to make contact and hear their side of the story. Doctor?" Charybdis sat down again to yield the floor to the psychic physician for the in-depth explanation.

"At this point I engaged with the colony-mind of the myconids who were," he smirked, "very appreciative of the contact. They didn't understand why the above-people didn't understand them when they contacted their roots, believing that the roots were in fact the colonists. Then they realized that the crops were food and that the colonists were eating them and since the colonists were unresponsive, they defended themselves." He popped in a datatape showing a tiny thorned and tentacles creature of some sort, "The myconid spores are designed to find a suitable habitat to grow in and take root there and when deployed against animal life, become parasitic. Treatment became problematic when exposure to the very air brought on new attacks in the affected areas."

"But once the myconids stopped producing more spores," Siivas put up a variety of chemical diagrams, "we were able to successfully treat the parasitism and flush out the microorganisms with no harmful effects. Not surprising, there are a number of plants on that planet that can be used to holistically treat said parasitism. Before we left I made sure that everyone in the colony understood how to pick, prepare and use the tinctures and teas in case there was an accidental exposure."

"As it was a first contact scenario, I've also put in a recommendation for at least an empath or xeno-telepath to be placed serially on the planet to facilitate communication. A Vulcan or Efrosian colony would be ideal," he added and pulled his datacard and popped it back into his belt-pack.

Patrick nodded. "StarFleet has gotten that recommendation doctor, and I am told that a pair of Vulcan colonists will be joining the USS Tempest which is being dispatched to do additional scientific research and make additional diplomatic ties with your discovery. Also, I'd like to pass along that HQ is quite pleased with the work both you and Charybdis did in regard to that. It has shown them the wisdom in my request to keep you aboard. I understand a few higher ranking brass got to have crow for dinner last night." Patrick gave a light chuckle at this. "Now, a quick report from Lt Celes ought to bring this meeting to a close."

Lt Celes jogged through the corridor, running late for the staff meeting due to an issue with one of the prisoners within the ships brig. Damned troublesome prisoners.

"Sorry I'm late," She puffed as she emerged through the doors, stepping quickly over to the spare chair and slipping into it, placing her padd down on the table and trying to avoid all the looks in her direction. She really did look like she'd been in a fight, which wasn't far from the truth. Settling herself she waited to be called for her report.

"You're up Yuna," Siivas motioned with one hand to the captain, who like everyone else, was staring at her.

Yuna gave a detailed description of the situation, particularly noting that she was happy that the one colonist had been allowed to go free and that King was being held for his crimes. She sat down and Patrick stood. "as I noted in the beginning, nothing classified here, so feel free to share as you want. That is all. Dismissed."

Everyone filed out and went back to doing what they needed to be doing. Or at least appeared to, though the chief engineer and the chief science officer seemed to be following the tea and cookies...

 

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