Office Hours

Posted on Tue Jul 13th, 2021 @ 3:38pm by Lieutenant Chaali & Commander Satoru Takomi

Mission: The Place of Skulls
Location: Commander Takomi's Quarters
Timeline: Mission Day 1 at 1600

[First Officer's Quarters]
[Mission Day One]
[1600 hours]

In the hours since the briefing, the Sojourner had come alive. Each department had found a veritable laundry list of demands waiting for them upon return to their stations, and the scramble to fulfill them had been nearly akin to kicking over a hornet's nest. Through it all, the new Executive officer had been weaving himself, stepping through the chaos as though he either belonged within it as a functional part, or somehow stood outside of it all and beyond its reach. He had popped up in nearly every location on the ship and visited almost every chief. Except one. It had been 10 minutes ago that Lieutenant JG Chaali had received a communication requesting she come to the XO's quarters.

The Cerulean One. Chaali had sauntered the halls with her joie d'vivre and her avant-garde taste of wig styles for much of the day, appearing as the resources manager from one burdened department to the next. But now, she'd eschewed a Betazoid inspired style of wig- complete with a holographic bird- and instead chosen what was-- for her- unorthodox: a Deltan headband. Squinting eyes with her toothy grin- purple gums and all- at a pair of familiar passer-bys, Chaali swayed to a halt at the new Executive Officers' quarters. She notched her headband to a rakish angle and then tapped the comm key. Her hands folded at her lap and she swayed with another gregarious greeting at a trio of junior officer passerby.

"Botejan Trami," she greeted in her native Bolian. Chaali fingered up her bifurcation from forehead to nape- a Bolian equivalent of running fingers through one's hair.

"Enter," came the simple reply. Though there was little simple about the state of the Commander's quarters when she entered. He was sat at his small desk, the surface of which was littered with PADDs. Likely from all the various departments and containing all the various reports he needed to merge into a single composite and functioning image of an entire ship and the whole of her crew. To that effort, the man appeared hard at work and well committed. He was perched over a pair of them, elbow up on the desk's surface and hand at his wrinkled brow, fingertips just barely past his hairline where they moved idly while he concentrated. The other hand worked methodically at the PADDs, scrolling when needed, highlighting, making notes. Next to the pair that had his focus at present was what likely had been two full stacks of others. One still remained, a precarious tower of tasks. The other, it seemed, had fallen at some point and created the scattered mess that he had yet to tend to.

The rest of the room was equally problematic. There were boxes strewn about. One on the couch, a pair on the floor, another on the bed barely visible past the room divider. There were all the pieces of a life uprooted, waiting to be carefully placed and organized to be made anew once more. His smile as Chaali entered though spoke little to the chaos that surrounded him. Either he thrived within it, or simply did not let it touch him. "Ah, excellent. Please, come in." With one hand he gestured to the seat across from the small desk, and bowed his head in both welcome and invitation. "I hope you do not mind coming to meet me here. I have been making the rounds... but..." and he gestured with both arms wide as he trailed off for a moment into an amicable chuckle, "things do pile up."

The Bolian sympathized despite her outward look of bureaucratic horror. The reason: as Operations Management Officer much of this would be shifting her way as reports, transfers and requests moved from people to resources. It was like watching a tsunami smack an island, knowing your island was next. "Surfs Up," the Bolian impulsively intoned. She picked up a red PADD from Engineering and immediately recognized it as backlog, complete with one of Noah' Balsams scribbles as a sign off on a neural gel pack interface, "I can call Security for backup if you've been assaulted by the Zakdorn," she said with brief eye contact, settling the PADD back down, "This looks like one of their strategies."

The surfing comment may have earned an inquisitive quirk of an eyebrow, but the offer of assistance was answered with a slight shake of his head. Arms that had spread brought themselves together, the fingers interlocking together casually as he waited for the Bolian claim her seat. "The whole secret lies in confusing the enemy, so that he cannot fathom our real intent." The intonation had all the qualities of a recitation, but he did not bother to clarify its origin. Instead, he donned a companionable smile. "While much of this will likely find its way to you in the end, I promise I will do my best to distill it down. As it is, I already have a few requests."

Chaali dropped into the seat across the man and crossed first her knees and then folded her fingers together atop them. "Bolians have another saying: divide and overwhelm." She smiled slyly, "We aren't natural warriors."

"Simple strategies are often the best," countered Takomi pleasantly. "Few plans of action ever survive first contact with the enemy. Best not to overcomplicate them." He nodded down toward the numerous PADDs scattered across his desk, "And my attention is quite divided indeed." The same brow from earlier quirked once more, and one corner of his mouth rose into a slight grin. "So perhaps this is a Bolian plot then? And here you've come to gloat over your victory and claim your prize." That prize? Satoru unlaced his fingers then and used one hand to reach down, sift through his collection of PADDs, and select one in particular. He studied it briefly, nodded, and then handed it over. Scrolled down its length were a detailed list of requests, most of them standard for any operational readiness report. "To the victor go the spoils," he added.

"Now to hand out the spoils," Chaali chimed back with a discerning- if brief- eye on the PADD presented. "And the bad news." She added. "Not everyone wins the resource race when they want." Chaali smiled into a cheek, "If this was a Bolian plot, it'd come with two free spins of the Risket Wheel. She smiled gregariously, "But you might win three days and three nights in Carafini City. With a grand vista over the Ashabi Reef." She lowered the PADDs, "I'll get right on these," she said agreeably, rising with a smile. She nodded her head. It was time to get to work.

A Post By:

Commander Satoru Takomi
Executive Officer

&

Lieutenant JG Chaali
Chief Ops Manager