"School Master"

[Kansas_Jones 0]

09.31.07

ISS Agincourt (22 Years)

“School Master”

 

2419, Imperial Naval Fleet Academy

 

Captain Mrrett “Kansas” JoNs walked down the corridor with purposeful strides, her hind claws clicking on the smooth surface. She held a leather satchel case in one paw, and wore her usual operations gold wrap tunic, gold mesh sash, and black trousers. Her silver weapons belt was scaled down dramatically; she only carried her Klingon dk’Tang dagger. Honestly, her usual rig of the sawed off plasma shotgun, whip, disruptor, etc, tended to make the academy administrators – and students – a tad bit nervous.

 

The Caitian frowned; that one minor incident two semesters ago with the shotgun and that errant hamster from the zoological studies wing, and everyone suddenly gets all nervous. For cripes sake, the damn thing had snuck up on her, and she had replaced the little rodent.

 

JoNs whooshed into her classroom, and was pleased to note that the student chatter died down instantly. “Good morning class. Please scroll your data padds to the chapter for today’s scheduled lesson…” She busied herself digging in the satchel for her portable digital notebook console and setting it up on top of the plain desk at the front of the classroom.

 

With a small smile the Caitian’s gaze swept the three tiered seating as the cadets readied for the morning lesson. The class was a small (anywhere from twenty to twenty five students every other semester) advanced track class, catering to senior third and fourth year cadets intending to pursue a career as a tactical officer or a security officer on attached duty as a tactical officer, depending on the assignment. JoNs covered a wide range of engagements, ranging from ship to ship and ground based scenarios. The feline freely admitted that the teaching assignment – which she balanced with her official security duties - gave her a considerable amount of pleasure.

 

Once the class was settled, Kansas entered the needed bypass commands into the notebook to activate the large screen monitor located on the wall behind her; an archival graph from a ground engagement the ISS Agincourt security department had launched in 2402 popped onto the screen, with ships personnel and enemy targets outlined in red and green, respectively.

 

“Last week we outlined what can happen when you have a textbook style engagement, where everything goes well. To be honest folks, these engagements are few and far between; most ground skirmishes,” a paw waved to the monitor behind her, “go to Hades in a Hand Basket rather quickly, I believe that is the human saying.” The students, both Terran and alien alike, chuckled a bit at the use of the old saying.

 

“So, today, I get to teach you how to think on your feet when the textbooks go out the window based on the situation…”

 

******************

 

JoNs zinged the laser pointer at the graphics, pinpointing the last movement of the battle. “So, here you see our marine enforcers moving in, and the remaining security personnel – including myself – retreating from the front line that we had been holding until the reinforcements arrived. The remaining Rihannsu rebels were detained and questioned.” She placed the pointing device on the desktop. “Questions? Comments?”

 

Saven, a Vulcan cadet, raised his hand. JoNs nodded to him.

 

“Captain. I confess confusion. You disobeyed a direct order to pull out…and during the skirmish lost three people.”

 

“Aye cadet. I stayed behind with one of my squads while the other two teams pulled out as ordered. The front line was maintained long enough for our marine to move in and further lock down the situation. Two of my people died during the battle, including a personal bodyguard of mine, and a third officer died later due to injuries incurred.”

 

The Vulcan blinked. “And your commanding officer? Regulations, paragraph four, subsection…”

 

Red alert! The boy is going off on another tangent!

 

Kansas interrupted the senior cadet. “…was not pleased. And regulations call for time spent in the booth when an order is disobeyed; I was lucky, as the discipline was downgraded to the agonizer.”

 

A ripple of surprise went through the students, and she had to fight to hide a grin. The cadets – including JoNs those many years ago – tended to believe that anyone above a certain ranking was free and clear from the cruder forms of the naval and marine discipline. If anything, it became harsher and more unyielding the further up in the ranks you went.

 

The Caitian captain addressed the group at large. “What I am trying to convey to you with today’s lesson content is that any tactical engagement starts out with the possibility of it being your own personal triumph, or your own personal Kobyashi Maru. No matter the actual outcome or the perceived outcome, you need to think in real time, and respond to the outside factors around you. The information in your padd text is important, yes, but you need to balance that out with your own common sense at times and depending on the circumstances…we have time for a few more questions…”

 

“…so basically, you screwed up.”

 

You could have heard an isolinear chip drop, I mean really. All heads turned to the cadet that had spoken quite bluntly.

 

Voran Royal – twenty one years old, fourth year cadet in the top twenty percent of her class, on the Security command track, member of the Red Squad. The girl had a superiority complex, and this predilection was not helped by her membership in the elite group. Actually, ‘elite group’ was pushing it. At one time, yes, JoNs had no doubt that the perennial campus group had been the best of the best. In later years though? Red Squad had become nothing more then a glorified campus fraternity/sorority. Yet, the snob attitude of its members prevailed.

 

“Cadet?” The Caitian strolled casually over to stand near her.

 

“You disobeyed orders. Your people were killed, and if you had followed orders, they wouldn’t have paid the price of your miscalculations. It’s as simple as that.”

 

JoNs crossed her arms over her chest. “Indeed. So, I’m guessing that the one section of today’s lesson just completely flew over your head? That the real time skirmish decisions of a squad commander are sometimes non-linear based?”

 

“Your orders were to withdraw.”

 

“And we did; my team lagged behind to provide cover fire so the other teams wouldn’t get shot in the back.” A grim smile quirked the corner of her muzzle. “Class dismissed – except you Mister Voran.”

 

Everyone else quickly filed out, leaving the Caitian instructor and the Bajoran student in a minor face off. Voran merely regarded Kansas as she normally did all her instructors – with an air of one who knows it all…at such a tender young age.

 

“Sir, I do have another class…” The cadet yelped.

 

The fifty three year old Caitian’s paw had lashed out quickly, grabbing at the twenty one year old Bajoran’s ear. She wasn’t being vicious, but Voran was damn well going to listen to her. She led the cadet by the ear – amidst some rather pained grunts from the girl - over to the chart displays, forcing her to look at them as she launched into a different kind of lecture.

 

“I want a report on my desk by next week. Thirty pages detailing the most popular security training programs with the marine training programs, correlating the scores according to effectiveness, with an emphasis on the hand to hand, ballistic, tactical assault sections and your thoughts on where the two programs might be combined in real time events. For the final thesis section, you will analyze my tactical lesson from today as compared with the marine and security tactics. I will be checking for spelling, punctuation and general coherency, I abhor plagiarism, and any direct quotes are to be cited properly. There will be no grace period, and if you are late I will come looking for the report.”

 

JoNs released the young girl, who glared at her with a look of equal parts fear and annoyance. Kansas glared right back with her own look of equal parts annoyance and don’t you make me cuff you into next week. “I will also be sending a report to your sponsor regarding your generally poor attitude these last few weeks. You are dismissed, Cadet.”

 

The feline tracked Voran as she gathered her things and then hot footed it out of the classroom, and once the area was clear, Kansas addressed the ceiling panels, “I am so asking for a raise. These kids drive me nuts…”