Stardate: 70211:0130
Title: Expectations
Author: Captain Deadilus
Time: During "Red Flag"
Scene: USS Horizon


As the Captain relinquished control of the bridge to Lieutenant Falls he saw her visually scanning her console.

"Something the matter, Lieutenant?" He queried.

"No, Sir. Just minor power issues across the ship, a couple of spikes here and there," Autumn responded.

Nodding his understanding the Captain continued to the Ready Room where Ensign Adder would shortly be meeting him before the Engineering and Science teams converged for the mission briefing in Conference Room 1.

As the Captain sat in his chair and read through the report Autumn had forwarded on, Scott began to realise the extent of the problem the upgrade had caused; whilst the task itself had been relatively simple, the 'interconnectedness' of the ship's systems had caught them out. Both the engineering and science departments had learned much from the experience, whilst the COO and the Captain realised that future simulations would need to be even more detailed on this vessel than their previous commission.

As the door bleeped, the Captain waited a moment before granting access to the Ensign outside, less for psychological reasons and more just to get comfortable!

"Enter," the Captain called after a few seconds.

The door opened, allowing Ensign Adder to enter the Captain's office. The Captain gestured to a seat opposite and the Science Officer took the offered seat. Although not visibly nervous (yet) the Captain knew what the officer would be thinking. It was bad enough that they had had to drop out of warp and take the auxiliary deflector offline, but then there were all the other problems to boot.

The Captain let the Ensign stew for a few seconds more before passing the padd across to him. He watched as James read down the list of affected items, swallowing more than once. Finally, when he had finished, James placed the padd on the desk.

"Sir, if I may explain?" He asked.

"You may not," the Captain replied, James mouth dropping slightly. "These things happen, although the timing could have been better. As it is, we happened to have a problem occur in Engineering that will stop us from using the warp drive for a few hours. But next time I think it best that we run some more detailed simulations. Understood?"

"Yes, Sir. To be honest I was expecting... something different," Ensign Adder replied a little nervously.

The Captain chuckled a little before continuing. "When I was a Science Officer onboard my last commission I daresay I caused similar problems on more than one occasion. Why I actually called you here was to make you aware that we cannot afford to have this happen again. Mistakes do happen; we just need to be sure we learn from them."

James nodded subtly as the Captain looked at the chronometer on his desk, both aware that the mission briefing would be starting in only a few minutes. Pushing their chairs back and standing, the pair made their way from the Ready Room across the deck to Conference Room 1...


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Captain Scott Deadilus
Commanding Officer
USS Horizon
NCC-72400
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