"Command Chair Musings"

[Guest TParek]

"Command Chair Musings"

Lt. T'Parek

June 05, 2156

 

It was a more comfortable chair than the one T'Parek was used to, which said a lot, because Operations had a very comfortable arrangement. Most of the times when she had the Bridge, she was pondering a difficult situation that they had on their hands, without much time to contemplate the pleasures of The Command Chair.

 

This time, however, she didn't have much to worry about, just whether or not the translators would have success with Saurian, and whether or not their commanding officer ... former commanding officer ... would survive his ordeal with the Klingons.

 

And on that note, what was Starfleet thinking? They'd lost their captain, and they were just going back out on another mission? It wouldn't be good for the crew's emotional health. They'd need at least some time to recuperate...

 

Unless that was the idea, that they'd heal quicker if they had something else to occupy them. An interesting prospect, if a bit callous. She'd be curious to see how the spirits of the crew held up under the weight of the mission.

 

The mission... Sauria. A reptilian species, from what she'd heard. Large, glowing, colorfully captivating eyes set into pinkish purple scales. They sounded most fascinating. The Saurians would likely do a good job of taking the crewmen's minds off their losses, or else their brandy would.

 

The brandy itself had something of a reputation. Potent, powerful liquor, packaged in futuristic bottles that gracefully arched upwards towards a corklike material which kept the intoxicating vapors tightly bottled within. Perhaps that was the Starfleet admiralty's intent: get the crew drunk enough to drown their sorrows without care. Maybe Challenger would even ship a few bottles back to Earth, as a bonus? A likely theory.

 

Meanwhile, they'd have a few things on their plates until they reached their alcoholic destination. For the senior staff, a semi-casual dinner to become better acquainted with their newest commanding officer.

 

T'Parek didn't know Rex that well. When he'd been on Challenger before his stint as a governor of one of the backwater colonies, she's been mostly working in the Lab, and hadn't had that much contact with him. She may have been lucky, however. Since he was the ex-operations and communications officer, perhaps he'd be more understanding and less likely to snap when one of the translations projects took longer than intended, or the power transfers to B-deck from D-deck took an extra thirty seconds.

 

He'd done admirably through the recent Orion-Klingon-Enterprise mission as executive officer, and she'd be able to get a read on his command style soon enough, she believed. The crew and commander would be able to bend slightly to meet each other's expectations, she wasn't concerned overmuch about it.

 

Things would go well, she believed. Changes yes, and perhaps not all for the better, but in the end, things would go well.