Braken's Operational Hazards

Posted on Wed Feb 9th, 2011 @ 5:20pm by Lieutenant Commander Jonathan Mantell & Lieutenant Commander Aiden Roberts (KIA)

Mission: Hippocratic Hijacking
Location: Away Team Camp, Braken Colony
Timeline: Immediately Following "Those who stay behind... Part VIII"

As the image of Captain Cowell winked off of the screen, the boy shifted back on his heels. With the end of the conversation, Jack was truly in charge. It probably wouldn't be long until the Arizona departed from orbit and the Away Team was left to its own devices, with Jack at the helm. A giddy sensation rose in his stomach at the same time that a knot formed in his throat. The boy had been in charge of Away Teams before, but never anything like this and certainly not one this large. It was both exciting and, at the same time, absolutely terrifying.

Turning around, the Miran XO was pleased to find that the bustle of people hadn't paused during his conversation. That was one small relief. The boy reminded himself that most of the crew on the Away Team had a department head along, or at least an officer of some kind to direct their duties. That made Jack in charge of the department heads or their planetside stand-ins. This might actually be fun, the boy thought optimistically, a thought he tempered a moment later as Jack gazed over the sheer numbers of people involved. While not all the departments from the ship were represented, the boy saw a healthy number of red, yellow and blue shirts making their way through the already-sizable makeshift camp.

One such cluster of crewmembers caught the boy's attention. A tall Human in a yellow-fringed uniform seemed to be the person of authority for the cluster, but Jack couldn't remember seeing the man at the staff meeting. As the afternoon sun gleamed, he could see a pair of shining reflections from the man's collar, bearing testimony to his rank. Remembering that Engineering was absent from their little excursion, Jack supposed the man was either the Operations Chief or some Security assistant, since the Chief of Security was a Marine Major. From the looks of the duties his crewmembers were performing, Jack made a guess as to their occupation.

Strolling over to the cluster, the boy chirped in his deepest voice, "Are you the Operations Chief, Lieutenant?"

Aiden turned from the crewmembers he was just talking with, serving as more a tour guide at this point since having spent some time on the planet already. He had been fielding questions from both the civilians whom they were giving aid to as well as the aid-givers themselves on where supplies were going to be made available or where folks should make themselves useful. It was the bustle and activity he was used to, and it actually reminded him of being back on Starbase 98 briefly. The feeling of nostalgia passed as looked at his own eye level for the voice that had addressed him, finally looking down.

"Well of all the places to find a Miran..." He started aloud. He had met a few in his time, most of which were much older than him three times over. However their appearance was always misleading, especially when he thought back to that one time on Risa. Shaking his head and smiling for a moment. "I am..", Aiden paused kneeling down in an unnoticeable way as though he was stretching while peeking at the young man's collar. "Sir... Aiden Roberts at your service.."

Jack was baffled by the Lieutenant's veneration. Most members of Starfleet, upon meeting the child, were either dismissive by way of his appearance or simply uncaring. Courtly salutation was, for certain, one of the strangest meetings the boy had ever had. He wasn't quite sure what to do in this circumstance. Dipping his head a bit, the boy responded sheepishly, "Uh, thanks, I think." It took a moment for him to recover. "I was actually going to ask how things were coming. I see most of the camp is already set up."

The Lieutenant motioned with his arm, as though continuing his 'tour' of the grounds. He started walking, however, away from the camp and more towards a secluded area where the streets had less ears and eyes. He produced a padd, and handed it to his superior. "We're all set up down here mostly. We have a support craft pair to every triage center we are manning complimentary to the amount of people I have stationed there. I set the Phoenix down over there personally, hoping to use it as a command center for our operations. Gives us a place to bed down, a place to coordinate, a shiny replicator, and our own comm system to the 'Zona." He pointed in the direction of one of the Arizona's Runabouts, this one in particular named after the Capital City of the state of Arizona back on Earth. He hadn't committed all the support crafts to memory yet, but they all shared names of Arizona cities.

"There is a slight problem with this whole mess. Slight being used an under exaggeration." Aiden's voice got low now, which was very unlike his loud and center of attention persona. "If you look on the bottom of that padd, we are running on the bare minimum of medical supplies needed here. This whole North Star business might come back to bite us in the ass. I've posted what security personnel we have with our stores at each triage camp, but we're spread thin. We have nurses caring phasers. The local law enforcers are attempting to help, but if things get bad down here they might just add to their problem. Apparently germs don't discriminate..."

The boy took the PADD, giving it a cursory glance and then looked up to listen to the Operations Chief's explanation. He thought back to the Colonial Administrator's rosy color, displaying none of the pallid or scarred features of the sick or ill on the planet. These germs apparently did discriminate, somehow, it was just a matter of finding out how. Jack made a mental note to check in with the science team next, hopefully they had figured out how the virus was spreading. It would do no good for the Away Team themselves to get sick. For now, there seemed to be more immediate concerns. "Are the colonists stealing their own medical supplies now?" The boy seemed bewildered by this chain of events. It had never occurred to him that these people were that desperate. The Colonial Administrator was clearly more inept than he'd first appeared. "Can we move the supplies closer together, to make them easier to defend?"

"That's the thing, there is nothing left to steal...of important that is, hence why the stolen shipment was so important. These folks were waiting on it, and now they think that we've come along with some miracle drug. I've been fielding questions all day from folks about when the supplies would become more readily available. There is one gentleman who is rather persistent, has a sick kid. I'm no parent, but I get where he's coming from. No one should have to suffer, especially a kid..."

Aiden grabbed as his chin, pondering the Commander's suggestion about reorganizing the supplies. "Logistically it might be hard to move them all to a centralized location. Too many triage centers and this stuff isn't really made to be beamed site to site to meet those needs. Realigning the Arizona's transporters was a bitch to do, I don't want to even fathom doing it to the ones of the support crafts. If anything, maybe we move them into the shuttles themselves, keep them to a place where only our folks have access to them. One way in and one way out."

The lonesome father's story struck deep at Jack's own heart. A kid was suffering, was sick, and not even Starfleet, with all its fancy starships, technology and intellect, could save them without a few missing drugs. Engineers never had so frustrating a predicament, which was why the boy preferred it. A jury-rigged device made from scrounged parts could usually provide the solution to just about any problem that an Engineer faced. Jack did not envy doctors for their lack of resources in times such as these.

As the Lieutenant spoke his own suggestion, the boy nodded in response. Another point of relief for the XO. Clearly, this crew was intelligent and resourceful enough to come up with their own ideas. Jack might miss the life of an Engineer, but he didn't much miss running a department. "Then do it, if it'll make it easier to protect the supplies." Jack made to start back to the camp, and then paused with another thought, "Oh, you should make sure there's a shuttle right next to the doctors."

"Already ahead of you boss..." Aiden replied with a curt nod to the Miran.