There's Nothing Like Being Prepared ((Matthews/Caine))

[C.T. Caine 0]

Caine stepped off the turbolift and moved quickly into her office, sliding her tall, lean frame behind the desk and tapping her screen to call up the list of personnel currently on security duty. She wished she had had more than twenty-four hours to become familiar with her department, but what better way to start getting to know their dynamic than the possibility of a crisis? The Cait XO had told her to prepare her teams for possible disaster relief and Caine was in full focus mode, her expression deadly serious as she scanned over the on-duty names and then tapped her commbadge. "Lieutenant Caine to all security. On-duty squads to alert status; equip for possible natural disaster relief." Or possibly not-so-natural... she added mentally, reflecting on the various theories the science team had been tossing around on the bridge. But that wasn't her arena; she was just responsible for figuring out what to do about it. "Report readiness ASAP and stand by for further orders." She tapped her commbadge to close the channel, then turned her display to an image of the planet and readouts on its sudden convusions.

 

After the comm from Commander JoNs, Buddha had spent quite some time trying to assess the situation on the planet. His initial regret of not being among the marines who were deployed had quickly turned into relief. Battle was something he could deal with but natural disasters...no. What he had seen on Earth after the Soltan attack was more than he'd ever wanted to see. Trying to rescue people who needed help was one thing. But digging through debris only to find out that you had come too late was definitely not something Owen wanted to do ever again, though it seemed like he might have to. If they were sent down to the planet to assist with disaster relief, he hoped they'd actually get to rescue people, help them survive, not dig up bodies so the mourning families would be able to bury their dead.

 

He quickly dimissed that thought. His sister and her family had never been found. Every time he thought about it he started to hope again that maybe they were still alive somewhere. He didn't have the time for that. Now he needed to concentrate on his job and see what they could do to make sure the people on the planet would get the help they needed. Getting up, he looked around for Sergeant Nichols. "Sergeant, get the platoon ready for a natural disaster relief mission. I want everyone to be ready and in the shuttles in 15 minutes." With that he turned around and walked to the turbolift.

 

Two minutes later he stepped out of the 'lift and found himself right in front of the Security offices. He rang the chime and waited.

 

Caine didn't look up from her screen when she heard the chime. Probably one of her department hoping to find out what was going on. "Come in," she said crisply.

 

Owen strode into the office and stood in front of the desk. "Lieutenant," he said, nodding briefly. "I was told to coordinate with you regarding our efforts to help the population on the planet."

 

Caine recognized that voice, and now she did look up to catch the gaze of Owen Matthews, the marine captain to whom she had spoken after the brawl the day before. "Good to hear," she said, nodding, her expression and tone showing no sign of the jocularity it had had during their last meeting. "We're going to need all the personnel we can get." She turned the screen on her desk so that he could see it, flicking her fingers against the touch-sensitive controls to zoom in the image of the planet. The entire display was covered in brightly colored areas representing the heaviest seismic activity and damage; Caine had dealt with disaster relief many times but few where it was so difficult to analyze the areas of greatest need.

 

"I have seen the data and I have no idea how best to go about this. I already told my people to prepare for this mission. They'll be ready and standing by in the shuttles in 15 minutes. But quite honestly, I don't know where to send them. I've been monitoring the communications down on the planet and it seems like we'd need more people to be able to help effectively."

 

Caine nodded again, one pointed eyebrow quirking with an expression of frustration. "My men are going into alert status as we speak, as well, and should be reporting in any minute. But you're right; we don't have the personnel for this, in any real sense..." Her voice trailed off as another bit of seismic activity spiked on the readings and one of the red areas spread slightly. "The XO had Medical going on alert as well, so that gives us a little more to work with. We can send our men down with their teams at the main fault areas and radiate out from there to get a better sense of where we're most needed."

 

"The question is how safe it is to go down there. There's still seismic activity everywhere." Owen pointed to a few points on the screen. "I'd say we go down there, there and there and then work our way toward the more damaged areas. It's safer that way. It would be a bad idea to get caught in an earthquake. We want to help not contribute to the count of casualties." He studied the maps again, trying to come up with something like a plan. They would definitely have to concentrate their efforts on two or three comparatively small areas for now. It wouldn't do to stretch their resources too thin.

 

Caine nodded. She had no intention of getting herself trapped again, so she had no complaint with Owen's logic. "Good," she said. "Unfortunately, given the rather...unfocused...nature of these quakes there's no guarantee once we're down there that the epicenters won't shift but at the very least we may be able to set up a few stable bases of operation to work from."

 

Still studying the monitor intently, Owen frowned. "It's going to be difficult setting up stable bases but I'd say our safest bet would be here." He pointed to a place on the map that showed hardly any seismic activity. "If the planet gets even more unstable we'll be in deep doo doo anyway." He shrugged as he looked up at Caine. "Unless you have any better ideas, Lieutenant."

 

"Eloquently put, Captain," Caine said dryly. "But I agree. It's the best we've got to work with until science gets ahold of something concrete. Once -- if -- we're cleared to depart we'll want to coordinate with medical as well, see how we can be the most help to them." She flexed her fingers gently against her desk, her expression growing thoughtful. She had both field medic and disaster relief training but hadn't had much occasion in recent years to use them during her last posting stationside -- unless you counted the Soltan attack, and there was a whole lot of difference between trying to fix something from the outside and being caught in the middle of it. This was a bit better than that, at least.

 

"I'm not know for my outstanding rhetoric, Lieutenant. I make it a point to concentrate on practicing those skills that'll serve me on the battlefield...or in situations such as this one." For a few seconds Owen let the silence hang between them. Then he continued, "We should set up a field hospital and tents to serve as emergency accommodations for the survivors. We'll need a lot of food, water and medical equipment. So we should have shuttles flying back and forth to help us with supplies and, if necessary, evacuate the more badly injured so they can be treated up here."

 

Caine chose to ignore the tension she heard in Owen's voice in the first part of his statement; they didn't have a lot of time for niceties. If she'd offended him, he'd get over it. She focused on the suggestions instead, absorbing it into the list of things that needed to be done. "I'll coordinate through the quartermaster and flightops; let 'em know we may be needing to make supply drops in the event we go in." There was a ping on her desk as her teams began to report in their status on standby alert, and she nodded satisfaction at the response time. "Good teams this ship's got aboard," she muttered absently, tapping an acknowledgment out while keeping her eyes on the planet readouts.

 

Owen had just had an idea. He scratched his head absent mindedly as he thought it over. "Okay, what if your people set up the camp while we go down there for a search-and-rescue operation. We could use the ship for site-to-site transports. That way we'd only have to tag the people we find and they'll be beamed directly to your location."

 

Caine didn't much like that. It wasn't her nature to stay in the relatively safe areas when she could do more good in the dangerous ones, and her dissatisfaction showed in her expression, but logical analysis of the situation said that he was right. Her men probably didn't have the special/rescue ops training that his did, even if she personally could have held her own. "Works," she said. "Can draw from my men if we need extra hands, though, which somehow doesn't seem unlikely. I'll take a peek at my personnel files, see who might be best qualified." Once again she wished she'd had a little more time to get to know the department. Personnel files could vary a whole hell of a lot from actual competence, but this was hardly the time to complain about that.

 

Owen nodded curtly. "Is there anything else we need to discuss? Otherwise I need to get going to brief my people and make sure we've got all the equipment we need."

 

"Not off the top of my head, Captain, thank you," Caine said with a quick shake of the head. "Hopefully we'll get the go-ahead before things melt down too much further down there. Keep me apprised of any issues in preparation."

 

"Aye, Lieutenant." With that Owen turned around and quickly left the Security office. He still had to stop by the NNC before joining the rest of the Marines in the shuttle bays.

Edited April 17, 2009 by C.T. Caine