A Death Onboard Vulcan Changed Things

[Crash Calestorm 0]

The following log takes place prior to the 03.19.12 Sim…

 

There were dozens of incidents and requests that evolved during the day to day operations of a Federation starship. There was a chain of command to be followed and proper procedures to insure the personnel within that CoC handled what they were supposed to handle.

 

The crew squared away their day to day duties. The Department Heads and Shift Leads overlooked the crew and officers under their immediate command. The Executive Officer overlooked the departments…and the Commanding Officer. The ships CO overlooked all departments and personnel by virtue of the chain of command. There were times you did not want Crash Calestorm involved in your business and God help you if she was and you were in the wrong.

 

But, this was not one of those times as the circumstances were unusual, and Security had alerted the bridge. Jason Paxton had been found dead in his quarters. He appeared to have died of natural causes, though a medical team had been requested for confirmation.

 

Crash scrolled through the personnel file, her face illuminated by the light coming off the monitor screen.

 

She knew him…No, that wasn’t true. She knew of Paxton. She didn’t know Paxton personally…the man was a member if her crew, but she’d never shared a table in the mess with him. She knew the factoids and commendations spelled out in his personnel jacket, and that was all.

 

She only knew his story because differing versions had been told, re-told, and repeated in the two years since Vulcan and three quarters of the Federation Starfleet had been obliterated in a failed effort to evacuate the planet.

 

Vulcan had changed things.

 

His son had been stationed on Vulcan…obviously there had been no body recovered. A daughter had been assigned to a responding ship, one of many obliterated at the Battle of Vulcan. Again, no body. A cousin was listed as MIA, presumed dead. His wife had passed on years ago of Nikar Syndrome.

 

Jason Paxton had enlisted in the Starfleet at the age of eighty one, answering the call of duty. He joined retirees, reservists, white collar workers, blue collar workers, and survivors as they reacted to the losses at Vulcan and answered the need for replacement personnel. He’d specifically requested assignment to the First Threat Response Program, Starfleet Border Patrol. He’d been assigned to the USS Comanche Creek, Sciences department, Historical Records.

 

He hadn’t been lost during a ship to ship battle. He hadn’t been killed by a rogue pirate. He hadn’t been snuffed by a sniper on some godforsaken planet.

 

Petty Officer Third Class Jason Paxton had died in his bunk.

 

Captain Calestorm abruptly shut down her desktop monitor. She exited her Ready Room office onto the bridge. She gave orders without specifically seeing the bridge crew that she was speaking to.

 

“…I’ll be on the senior enlisted deck…inform Security I’m inbound…”

 

(TBC In Sim)