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Rhan K'hal

Ops Hops

Ops Hops

 

Rhan had no more than passed through the security at the Excalibur airlock and stepped aboard before he was wearing the coating off his communicator, checking in with the various section chiefs within the purview of Operations. His omnipresent oversized PADD was out and a furry finger was swiping through pages rapidly as he checked off a good number of the things they needed to do before… whatever came next.

 

The various sections that comprised Operations, itself an arm of the Command department, were quite diverse. One of the reasons Rhan had landed this job on the Excalibur was his acumen in most of them, as well as his ability to juggle multiple tasks with aplomb, not to mention enjoying the eradication of the chaos. Making sure all the various areas were working in top form together, as well as with the rest of the ship, was a challenge he pounced on with almost maniacal determination. He also imagined that Cdr Hawthorne didn’t mind his picking up a good deal of the slack under this arm so she could concentrate on her other administrative duties and be able to poke her nose back into Engineering when she had a mind to.

 

First order of business, the shuttle bay, of which there was only one on the Excalibur Class variant of the Akira. This was used as a take-off and landing area only, with only the minimum standby vessels (shuttle and fighter) parked inside for quick launches. The remainder of the vessels were stored in specialized hangars where maintenance could take place. Shuttles on deck 7, fighters on deck 8, and any overflow on deck 13. Both types of vessels were moved via elevator from their storage areas to the pre-flight preparation bay on deck 10 before being moved to the shuttle bay itself on deck 11. Depending on the size of the vessel, up to 12 could launch simultaneously. Turnaround from emptying the deck to having another group of vessels in place and ready to launch was ideally 90 seconds during emergencies. While the 310th managed their own ships and personnel, including their own flight operations, the rest of the shuttle bay and craft were managed by ship operations personnel. This included basic maintenance (extensive repairs or other work would be handled by engineering), handling of the elevator systems, safety inspections, and traffic management. This area was currently in heavy use even while docked, ferrying people and things around the highly congested traffic area around Camelot to assist with the evacuations.

 

Next was the cargo handling. This included the staffing and maintenance of the cargo bays, the cargo transporters, major supply distribution, and the quartermaster and associated personnel for minor supply distribution, facility management, crew accommodations and other similar tasks. With two smaller cargo bays on deck 5, and the large primary cargo bay 3 on deck 6, and smaller part storage areas in multiple areas of the ship, it took a hard-working set of people to keep everything organized and distributed. Personnel transporters also run under this category, with two rooms on deck 10 and two more on deck 15. The transporter operators run the units and do standard maintenance on these, and they have very specialized training for this task. All of this too was still humming with activity, but not as heavily as it was right after they docked.

 

Then there is the computer system. Engineering handles all the hardware and maintenance; on the cores, nodes and networking connections and access points. However the actual computer operating system, LCARS and the various associated software, had a small group of highly trained officers and crew to ensure that the operation of the system was always in top working order. They also work with the shuttle operations and 310 to ensure the other vessels’ systems are in good working order. This was Rhan’s primary training back in the Academy and could be considered his specialty. They were currently using the relative down-time for the ship to re-optimize the data storage as well as performing a back-up of critical data, and there had been no snafus even with their previous difficult mission and bumpy ride.

 

Finally there is the bridge and mission operations, which is staffed by the most talented and cross-trained personnel available. Besides having to monitor all of the other aspects, they must also be on top of whatever the bridge personnel, command staff, and mission-related personnel are working on; and additionally coordinating with the other department heads to ensure maximum efficiency. Ensign Daniels and Ensign Phuti had been exchanging shifts here while he’d been on Camelot, and directing the work load like a pair of tag-team conductors. Knowing he had competent backup in this area allowed him to slide over and handle other mission related work without having to worry about the system breaking down.

 

It was the latter that Rhan so excelled at, even if he was somewhat forceful about its implementation at times. With that said, he’d earned the respect of the other people working in Operations for putting his latinum where is mouth is; even as hard as he drove them, they know he’d be working harder, and after the job was done well he would supply what rewards a junior officer could manage and push those that could give more to do so. Such was the case now. After putting in a solid 10 over at Camelot so that the rest of the staff on Excalibur could concentrate on the re-supply and distribution, and hopefully the overall workload should taper off well before the ship had to leave. He’d make sure his people got a little down time even if he had to sleep on the helm to keep the ship from going anywhere.

 

As for himself, he would have to sign off on the final reports soon and hand them off to Cdr Hawthorne. He’d skip the literal bow, though. He’d also have to send off info down to engineering; these re-supply and personnel movement times were hard on the transporters and shuttles, so they might need extra maintenance or at least a thorough diagnostic. Otherwise though, he could give all the other department heads a green light. The ship would be ready for whatever got thrown at it when this little interlude at Camelot came to its conclusion. Then it was up to the rest of the crew to do their part, knowing at least that they had at their disposal every possible tool or supply for the job.

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