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Day 02 [1030 hrs.] Meet The New Boss...

Ensign K’Lara Halliwell | En Route to Lt.Cmdr Stark's Office | USS Theurgy ] Attn: @Brutus
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It had been a whirlwind of a time of K'Lara. She'd only graduated the Academy last year and had spent her entire career so far serving on Starbase 84 as an Operations Officer which was something of a relatively easy job in comparison to others. Of course she had wanted to serve on a ship and explore the galaxy but that hadn't been the case right out of the gate for her, career wise. The last thing she had expected was to find herself in the middle of a massive battle that would result in the destruction of her Starbase and subsequent transfer to an actual starship, but for that starship to be hunting another starship, one of their own, only for that ship to get blown up too and for her to somehow survive both of those and end up on the very ship they had been hunting! They certainly didn't teach you any of that at the Academy that was for damn sure.

On top of that, the ship they had been hunting that most in Starfleet knew about, the Theurgy was the ship she was now on and as it turned out wasn't as guilty as had been made out to be. She had seen the scary footage of the infested and heard the tales of what the crew had endured, it was scary and horrifying and something she couldn't even begin to imagine going through. Not that she supposed she needed to imagine it since she was now living it.

Knowing the truth however, she couldn't stand by and do nothing while the Federation was threatened, that was why she joined Starfleet after all, to help defend it. Things had been hectic with everything going on the last few days, with the fighting, damage to the ship and sorting out with crew members for the Bellerophon would be joining or not, K'Lara had told whoever it was that questioned her her rank and department and that had pretty much been that, at least until now.

Today was the day that she was meeting with the head of the Operations Department, Lieutenant Commander Natalie Stark. The hybrid had looked up the woman's file on the ships computer and she seemed like a nice enough person and would hopefully turn out to be a nice boss to work for. Yet as she approached the door, she felt nervous. New boss, new ship, entirely new situation, it was far more than she ever expected working on a Starbase or anything she had been told from her teachers at the Academy or even from her father and stories he had told her.

Standing outside the door to Stark's office, she took a deep breath and hit the door chime, entering the room when she heard the invite to come it. "Ensign K'Lara Halliwell reporting ma'am." she said as she stepped into the room.

Re: Day 02 [1030 Hrs] Meet The New Boss...

Reply #1 –
[Lt. Cmdr. Natalie Stark | Chief of Operations Office  | Deck 12 | Vector 02 | USS Theurgy ]Attn: @AlyFox 
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Coffee she thought to herself, running a hand over her face and padding across the small room, tucked away in the midsection of the ship. It was a good room, though it lacked the proximity to the bridge that a Captain's Ready room did, or even the XO's office. The Second Officer did not merit its own office, which made sense to Natalie. Most 2nd officers were department heads with an assigned space of their own, and she'd be less than inclined to give up this space for that, hypothetical proximity or not. It was not, at least, so far away as the Chief Engineers office, but then, being in Main Engineering was usually better for the Department head of Engineering than the bridge in any case. Ops, bless them, went everywhere.

"Coffee - brew Nat 3, Hot. Two sugars, cream." she ordered from the replicator, having recycled her previous cup about half an hour earlier. She felt the pull for caffeine again already. Understandable given all that had been going on and her still recovering sleep patterns from their arrival at Aldea, when she'd forced herself to rise on a few hours rest to be on the bridge when they made their docking approach. Gamma shift had been on the watch, but Nat had been at the Ops station overseeing the splitting of the vectors as they settled into their berths.

And here she was paying for it as heartily as she had during her detached command of the Stallion when Captain Ives had triggered the Continuance Protocols. She'd lived on the hot liquid during that time, and was already showing signs of doing so again. A nasty habit of hers picked up at the Academy and never dropped. She picked up the hearty brew, a personal blend she preferred during the middle of the morning and sipped at it, cradling the warmth of the mug against her hands. And now, your moment of Zen, she thought, smiling before moving back to her desk and setting the mug down on a heating pad she'd built into the workstation’s surface. Nat had taken to configuring the room to her standards with a gusto when she'd been promoted. She kept one or two small items that had been Commander Hendricks' from his time here, as a sort of memorial, tucked into one of the corners of the room on a pedestal alongside a small holocube of the man. He'd been a good boss and she would be damned if she'd forget this had been his place.

But the rest of the office was now very much Natalie. And if not as relaxed as her quarters it did so signs of being hers. From the hand woven blanket of one of the tribal colonies on Mars (Navajo, having resettled during the early 22nd century) to the framed pencil sketches of Starships, one each of a Constellation, Nebula and Miranda-classes; respectively, the Mjolnir, Lexington, and t'Zahn, her three previous postings.  Behind her desk was a Master Display of the Theurgy, currently representing the three separated Vectors. A collection of PaDD's littered the desktop, which she gathered to one side, dumping into a bin to work through later. They clattered about as she sat back in her seat and pulled up a personnel file on her desktop display.

She had just made a few notes when the door chime went off, and she looked at the ancient clockwork chronograph on the far wall, displaying the current time. Punctual, he thought and stood up, adjusting her skirt. "Come in," she ordered, and made her way around her desk as the doors parted.

Blue eyes swept up and down as the young half-klingon entered her room and introduced herself. Formerly of Starbase 84 and briefly refugeed upon the Bellerophon, Natalie had not been sure what to make of Ensign K'Lara Halliwell. Seeing her in person offered a little more insight, as the young woman gave off almost a timid aspect, standing there in the threshold. Of approximate height to Natalie herself, she was somewhat more slender, and of a coloration that reminded Natalie of her own cup of coffee, though when she would be careless and add too much cream. The faded head ridges were all the more prominent to Nat in that moment in the wake of how many other officers aboard had been 'corrected', marking K'Lara as new to the ship - or having recent cosmetic surgery to repair what slights could be done.

Knowing the womans file, she knew the nature to be the former, not the latter. A true hybrid. Which was neither here nor there, of course. Natalie extended a hand, introducing herself - "I'm Natalie Stark, pleasure to meet you," - and gesturing the young woman to the seat on the other side of her workstation - "Please, have a seat Ms. Halliwell. I've just made myself some coffee, would you like anything?"

Having thus dispensed the general welcoming pleasantries, Natalie sat herself back down on the other side of the desk and pulled her coffee from the heating pad to give her hands something to hold. "I wish we were meeting under better circumstances Ensign, given everything we've all been through. It seems you've had rather a rough start of things coming out of the Academy," she said this with sympathy, but did not shy away from the reality. If the young woman had a problem with how her career had gone so far or harbored any resentment at the Theurgy for shaping recent events, Natalie wanted to know sooner, rather than later. That she managed to say it all with a relaxed smile she hoped would help things.

Re: Day 02 [1030 Hrs] Meet The New Boss...

Reply #2 –
Ensign K’Lara Halliwell | Chief of Operations Office | Deck 12 | Vector 02 | USS Theurgy ] Attn: @Brutus
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Standing in the room after her introduction, she watched as the Human woman gave her the visual once over. The two women stood at about the same height but her new boss was far paler than she was, but she carried herself well, despite what was surely many hours of work as the ship split into vectors to undergo repairs at the shipyard, which the head of Operations would have surely had to have helped oversee.

"Pleased to meet you too Ma'am." K'Lara smiled, shaking the woman's extended hand before taking the offered seat. Her new boss even offered her drink but the young hybrid shook her head "Thank you for the offer but anymore coffee for me and I'll probably start bouncing off the walls." she smiled.

With the pleasantries over, Stark took her own seat behind her desk and started speaking again, giving her what sounded like the standard meeting under better circumstances speech, not that there really was another kind of speech for the situation K'Lara found herself in. "You could say that Lieutenant Commander. I'll admit it's been...interesting to say the least. I certainly didn't think anything like what happened would happen when I got assigned to Starbase 84 out of the Academy and especially not it getting destroyed and ending up on another ship that quickly also got destroyed either, that's gotta be some kind of record for someone a year out of the Academy." the hybrid chuckled.

K'Lara knew what her new boss was subtly fishing for though, it was less about what had happened to her former posting and more the Theurgy's role in it as well as their deception of who they were at the time and clearly didn't want to waste time avoiding finding out how her new officer felt about the whole situation, despite her attempt to hide it behind a relaxed smile. "Knowing what I now know having been briefed when the survivors of the Bellerophon came aboard, I can't say I blame you all for the deception, and while the loss of SB 84 was a tragedy I'm glad to know the reports on this ship and crew were't true, not that I fully believed them if I'm being honest. It didn't make any sense, if you had defected then surely you would have headed straight to the safety of the Romulan Empire, not hung around deep in Federation space." the young Ensign rambled. "Not to mention these parasites are a threat to everything the Federation stands for, I wouldn't be much of an officer if I turned my back on that, kind of defeats the whole point of going to the Academy in that regard. As far as I'm concerned I'm a Starfleet Officer on a Starfleet ship and I'll do my duty to the best of my ability Ma'am, even if for now that will mean being branded a traitor until the rest of the Galaxy knows the truth."

Realising that she was starting to nervously babble, K'Lara snapped her mouth shut at that point before she rambled on even more. God after a year, you'd think she would have got a handle on that little personality habit by now. Still she hoped that somewhere in there she had satisfied the Chief's concerns about where she stood on the whole thing.

Re: Day 02 [1030 Hrs] Meet The New Boss...

Reply #3 –
[Lt. Cmdr. Natalie Stark | Chief of Operations Office  | Deck 12 | Vector 02 | USS Theurgy ]Attn: @AlyFox 
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Natalie had to wonder at the younger officers claim of a record. She knew that some of the Academy graduates from her class had suffered through some rather nasty deployments upon graduation. They'd been ushered out at the tail end of the Dominion War, which had by that point already quite the butcher's bill. Starfleet had been pulling ships out of the old mothball fleet, such as her first ship, the Mjolnir, even as it rolled out the cobbled together Centaur-class out of spare parts, and simultaneously ramped up production of waves of newer ships, like the Akira and Defiant-classes. She would not have been surprised if the young woman, whom graduated five years later than she had, but was only three years her junior, were not actually a record holder at all. But she could see little reason to mention that. A sympathetic smile and a nod of the head was acknowledgement enough, after what she herself had already said.

Said sympathy turned into something approaching a fondness for the younger officer, as she got a head of steam under her and rolled into her answers towards what Natalie had asked, and more pointedly, what she hadn't said. Adorable was the first word that came to mind as she plowed on, heaping word upon word in a rushed sort of babble. The truth was that this young ensign reminded Natalie entirely too much of another young Ops Ensign, full of nervous energy, adjusting to a new posting.

She reminded Nat of herself.

Maintaining a bit of objectivity was going to be hard. She had to hide the smile behind her mug of coffee, and idly wondered if the grizzled Saurian Ops Chief Delco, on the Mjolnir had been just as amused and maternal feeling towards a young Ensign Stark, as she now felt toward Ensign Halliwell. Delco was always a hard read, despite the largely expressive eyes the older woman had possessed. For Nat, she worried the feelings were wholly inappropriate, considering that the younger officer was really not that young at all, nor she so old as to feel Maternal about anyone. Never mind that the subject of conversation was hardly an appropriate one for smiling. Keenly aware of her own relative youth to the rank she held (conveniently forgetting that there were plenty of young, fast tracked mid to senior grade officers in the wake of the War), Natalie tried to school her face into something more professional as she set her cup back down.

"Well Ensign I think you saved me about half the questions I had to ask," she attempted to lighten the mood only someone, setting her hands before her on the desktop and willing them to be still. She held K'Lara's gaze for a silent moment with her own before she continued. "Being branded traitor is a heavy burden to bear, Ensign. And the wake of destruction we've seen since uncovering the plot by the infested officers in Starfleet, and the other galactic powers -" She'd read Dr. Nicanders reports, loath as she was to go anywhere near the man at the moment, "- weighs on all of us. I am glad, heartened perhaps is a better word, that despite everything you've gone through in the last month that could easily be laid at our feet, that you still wish to take a stand against this infestation. But I'm not going to sugar coat things, Ensign. There is a rather large chance that we're all going to end up dead or in prison even after all of this is done."

Natalie hated to take such a stance with the young woman. She abhorred it. But it needed to be said. She'd had a similar conversation with Captain Ziegler, not terribly long ago, though as with everything, a week seemed as long as a year now. "This is a job that needs doing, and we are the ones that it has fallen to do so. You perhaps more than any recruit transferring in have seen just how much of a mess this can be however. Just what the cost is. Starbase 84 should never have gone down the way it did, but Captain Hawthorne left us little choice. His machinations cost us the USS Resolve, her captain, and countless thousands of lives that need not have perished. We caught flack for it. And will continue to do so until we can expose this threat for what it is."

The operations chief would not hide the cost of what they did. The threat. The peril. She could not in good conscience do so. "All of that said, if you are still sure you wish to do this, to join up, then I'm very happy to have you. While Martok has gone to bat for us and wrangled some help out of the Aldean's, we still have a lot to do to repair Thea and bring her back up to spec. We could use a dozen more officers like you." She was a year out of the Academy but she had experience under her belt and the efforts of Selena Ravenholm and Carrigan Trent had netted the crew a hefty amount of personnel file updates to their database during the assault on Starbase 84, as well as some salvage work from their rescue efforts after the destruction of the Bellerophon. Natalie was quite sincere in her praise.

"Starbase operations are one of the most intensive postings an Operations track officer can expect to be placed on. Currently in the fleet, the only ship designs that compare are billets on the Odyssey-class vessels and well, the Theurgy, and her sister ships, once they're launched. So I hope you're up for the challenge, Miss Halliwell."

Re: Day 02 [1030 Hrs] Meet The New Boss...

Reply #4 –
Ensign K’Lara Halliwell | Chief of Operations Office | Deck 12 | Vector 02 | USS Theurgy ] Attn: @Brutus
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With her rambling finished, it took every ounce of K'Lara's willpower to not start shuffling nervously as she waited for Command Stark to start talking. When she did however, the hybrid let out a sigh of relief that her new boss was seemingly okay with her little rant, not realising just how much she reminded the Chief of Operations of herself when she was a young Ensign in a similar position herself. Evidently it seemed that she had also inadvertently answered several questions that the Chief had yet to ask in the process, that was...something at least, hopefully a good thing.

K'Lara remained silent as Stark spoke to her about being branded a traitor and the burden it would be and while it was a scary prospect, not just the potential fear of dying or prison after everything was said and done but she had already thought of such things before joining up with the crew of this ship. Still she would hold her comments until the Commander was done speaking.

She couldn't help but nod when Natalie pointed out that she more than any recruit transferring had already witnessed the mess their situation could cause and lowered her head slightly at the mention of the loss of Starbase 84, her first posting and nodded. Stark was right it shouldn't have happened, and many good people she had known had died that day but she was also right that it was what it was, no changing that.

When her new boss had finished spelling out all the doom and gloom for her, and stated if she was sure she wanted to join up or not she found herself nodding before really thinking about it, not that she was wrong in her desire to do so but because she already knew she did for numerous reasons. The praise however that she was given was nice and K'Lara knew that she was being sincere with it, despite her lack of experience.

Then again she was correct, Starbase Operations were intensive and had been daunting as hell when she had been assigned to one herself fresh out of the Academy but with her own history before the Academy back on the Klingon Homeworld, there was very little she had faced that had been as daunting as the rite to lead a future Klingon House as far as she was concerned, at least for now anyway. Plus her experience with her intensive posting as a Starbase Ops officer would certainly come in handy here.

"I had thought of such things ma'am before I agreed to join this crew, believe me. I will admit that the idea of being branded a traitor so soon after graduating is a little scary, I know what I'm doing here is the right thing to do. Hopefully when this is all over, assuming we survive people will see that. With a bit of luck they might even skip the charges, if not then so be it." she replied.

"I know the risks, I think it's safe to save everybody knows they could die out here. My father is XO on the Agincourt, I don't know what's going on with that ship, if they know, if they've been...infected or if they're like many others out there who are continuing as normal...but what I do know is that when the Dominion War was going on, he told me that it was his duty to do his part to defend Starfleet and the Federation because he couldn't just sit back and do nothing, regardless of if he swore an oath to do so or not. He inspired that in me too, I can't just sit back and do nothing, ignoring what's going on when I know better." she replied.

She paused wondering if she should mention the next part to her boss but since she had mentioned Martok K'Lara figured she might as well "There is something you should know about me though Ma'am since you mentioned the General...as you know I'm half-Klingon, it's kinda obvious with the ridges and all...but we have that whole Honor in Death thing going on so there's that but I'm also a part of House Valkris, we're not the biggest House in the Empire but we're one of the good ones, I believe the General knows of us...but uh the reason I bring it up is that I'm the future Matriarch of the House so anything I do to help combat this threat, even if I die doing so will bring honour to my House...it doesn't really have anything to do with my job I know but I guess it was just more letting you know that I have many more reasons to stay than I have to leave." she added, wondering if Martok knew she was here, she doubted it but the General had a way of knowing things he shouldn't know so it wouldn't surprise her in the slightest if he did.

"As for being up for the challenge Ma'am, I certainly am. To be honest I always wanted to serve on a ship more than on a Starbase but you can't pick your assignment out of the Academy, never thought I'd get to serve on one of the most advanced in the fleet." she said then frowned "Then again I never thought my first assignment to one it would be as beat up as this one is either so what I can you say?" she added, then gasped when she realised she'd just said that last part out loud. "Sorry ma'am, just...yes...yes I am up for the challenge." she quickly said before clearing her throat and tried to stop the blush she felt spread across her face too much.

Re: Day 02 [1030 Hrs] Meet The New Boss...

Reply #5 –
 [Lt. Cmdr. Natalie Stark | Chief of Operations Office  | Deck 12 | Vector 02 | USS Theurgy ]Attn: @AlyFox  
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Being branded a traitor at any point in ones career would be daunting, to say the least, be it right after graduation or after 4 decades of service. The word had a visceral edge to it. The Maquis of a decade earlier had been labeled such, when they called the Federation in general and Starfleet in specific to task, for what they'd done in the name of expediency. Then the Dominion War happened, and those few Maquis that managed to survive were pardoned and welcomed back, into the fold. Those that could bring themselves to come back. Not all that lived were willing, having felt too betrayed by the Federation. 

And here was Natalie, on a ship of doomed souls who in their hearts knew of the real betrayal of the Federations ideals. They were trying to restore the Federation, to free it from a conspiracy and infestation that had wormed its way into the core of command, and who knew what levels of government. To Natalie, it was as if the whole world had turned upside down. But every person that joined their little....not rebellion, their cause, she supposed, was one more bright point in the darkness. 

Wrapping her fingers back around her cup again, Natalie reflected on the words of the Ensigns father, communicated to her by proxy now. The Agincourt was not a ship that Nat was terribly familiar with. She'd see if she could put in a request through their Intelligence Department - consisting of Lt. Carrigan Trent at the moment, and not a meeting she was looking forward to, given her new position and his demotion. Still, she'd like to at least know what they did know about the ship. Not that she'd tell the young Ensign, of course. No point in worrying K'Lara. ''

Her eyebrows rose up a bit as the young woman paused, and then, before Natalie could make an effort to fill the silence, launched right on in to her next personal revelation.  She tapped her thumbs against the still warm lip of the mug of coffee, and did her best to keep a smirk off her face, at least at first. There was a lot there to unpack, and Nat took a slow breath, as she said, "You're quite correct. I did not fail to pick up on the obvious signs of your mixed heritage." the opening quip was light enough she supposed, as she avoided talk of the Versant and the rather limited number of hybrid officers now stationed on the Theurgy. She'd not yet done a numbers crunch on the subject but she imagined their percentages were now drastically below the fleet norm. 

"There was some small mention in your file of your House affiliation on the Klingon side of your family. Your status as Heir, however, was not noted." A rather egregious oversight, in Natalie's opinion. "I'm not exactly thrilled at the idea of playing politics, Ensign, but its a position I imagine we're all being thrust into. That said, I would appreciate it if you would do your best not to die for the honor of your house. I've found it much more useful to have my officers live for their honor, if we can manage it." 

They've saddled me with a bloody Klingon house scion. That's just what we need to worry about. I'll have to let Ives know. And the diplomat. Eloi-Danvers. The urge to pinch her brow rose up suddenly, as did the pressure behind her eyes. The first signs of a headache making itself known. "I don't doubt your dedication though, Ensign. Rest assured we'll put you to work." 

Pausing to sip her coffee and gather her thoughts, Natalie continued on. "There are plenty of officers out there that would have given an limb to be assigned to one of the Orunal-class Watchtower outposts along the Neutral zone. Those postings are the kind that could make a career. But they're not the same as being out there, pushing the boundaries of space." she smiled a knowing smile. Natalie had hoped, forlornly perhaps, that the Theurgy might be one such posting, Romulan Diplomatic Mission aside.  None of her other postings had really been ground breaking exploratory type affairs.  

"We're happy to have you here, and I promise you're going to be quite busy indeed, Miss Halliwell, now that you're a member of the Theurgy Operations Department." There was just a note of dry amusement in her voice now as she made things official. Sitting straighter, satisfied that the young woman had said her piece, Natalie addressed duties.

"There's a lot of repair work going on, and a lot of coordination. All three vectors are currently drawing power from the shipyard docking umbilical cords at the moment, but we still handle the routing. The Fighter Ops team are working round the clock to repair our birds, and we're pitch hitting all over the ship, helping out Engineering, and the Conn teams with repair efforts and keeping our fleet of shuttle craft up to snuff. 

"And then there's the high demand on our Transporters." Already, Natalie was seeing this as the bottle neck for her resources. "We've not been here three days yet and we're already having burn outs on some of the Heisenberg compensators. We've put them through a lot of stress before this, but now, with the Vectors exasperated for the foreseeable future, we're running the transporters almost constantly around the clock. With that in mind, Ensign, what I'd like to know - as we work to integrate you into our department, is what kind of experience do you have with Transporter systems?" Even if she had zero usage besides being passed through them from point A to point B, putting her on other duties could free up time of Ops officers that did have some experience. 

Re: Day 02 [1030 Hrs] Meet The New Boss...

Reply #6 –
Ensign K’Lara Halliwell | Chief of Operations Office | Deck 12 | Vector 02 | USS Theurgy ] Attn: @Brutus
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K'Lara smiled slightly when Natalie said that she did indeed notice the signs of her mixed heritage, it wasn't exactly hard to miss after all. Still it was somewhat a relief to know that there was a brief mention of her House affiliation in her file that was a relief. A relief that was all too brief as the other, significantly bigger part of it wasn't known and her new boss made it quite clear that she was not thrilled at the idea of playing politics and quickly nodded. "No ma'am I have no intention of dying for my house, I very much would like to live. I'm far more Human in that regard than I am Klingon." she replied.

The young Ensign nodded along with Natalie as she spoke about how there were officers who would have given up a body part to serve where she was but the knowing smile she gave at the mention of pushing the boundries of space let K'Lara know that the Commander understood. "Yes ma'am I know and I loved serving on the Starbase, don't get me wrong it's just growing up hearing stories from my Dad about his adventures, I joined to explore space, not remain stationary on...well a station, it's nice to be able to do that given the circumstances, I just wish we hadn't lost the Station and all those people in order for it to happen."

However when Natalie told her that she was happy to have her hear, she couldn't suppress the big smile that spread across her face "Happy to be here ma'am." she replied, nodding in understand that she would be quite busy on the ship.

As she listened to the Lieutenant Commander list off all the things going on with the ship she certainly wasn't kidding about the being busy part, in fact the quite word in that sentence was somewhat of an understatement.  There certainly was plenty of things wrong with the ship but it was evidently the transporters that were the main problem at the moment, given their use...or overuse more likely, to which her new boss asked her what her experience was with them.

"Standard operation and diagonostic repair courses on them at the Academy and I learned a lot more while serving on SB84. The transporters got used a lot more there than on a Starship so I have some experience when it comes to the problems we're having here now." she replied, relieved that her potential first task was something that she just might be able to manage without being overwhelmed, which would be a good start.
 

Re: Day 02 [1030 Hrs] Meet The New Boss...

Reply #7 –
[Lt. Cmdr. Natalie Stark | Chief of Operations Office  | Deck 12 | Vector 02 | USS Theurgy ]Attn: @AlyFox 
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Natalie regretted that the odds were not exactly great that Ens. Halliwell would get the chance to do much exploring. The Science Department was doing a deep dive into the infestation that threatened the galaxy, alongside their friends in Medical. On smaller ships, there was a lot of overlap between science and operations, with the Ops Chief often also the default Science chief. Again, her time on the Mjolnir had reflected such an arraignment. A separate Science and Ops department head set up and fallen out of favor outside of dedicated science vessels, but that wasn't always the case.

For the Theurgy Nat's team spent far more time on the practical rather than the theoretical. And outside of that research, everything was a fight for survival not a quest to seek out new life and new civilizations. Though, that did remind her of something. She checked her Desktop terminal for a moment, pulling up a file, and smiled a bit.

"I hope, Ensign, I truly do, that you get the chance to go exploring. We're going to be here at Aldea for the foreseeable future. I don't have a duty roster for it yet, but our hosts have talked about a few support requests down on the surface. I imagine there'll be a large list of eager officers wanting to go down and peek at some of the abandoned cities. I won't make any promises I can't keep, but I'll see if there might be a spot for you on one of the missions." She might be overstepping a bit for a new officer fresh off the enemy boat. At the same time, this was a young officer, early in her career, thrown into a nasty situation after surviving - barely - the destruction of a starbase and a starship, all at the hands of the parasites infesting Command, by proxy of Natalie's vessel.

In short, Nat felt guilty, and saw this as a chance to mentor and grow a junior officer. The same kind of chance she was taking with her soon to be new Flight Ops Deck Chief. She found that she liked the idea of helping other officers grow in their roles and careers. She just wasn't completely sure how good a job she'd do. But that was a challenge she would have to rise to, if she wanted more than just the brief taste of command she'd gotten during the independent operations of the past week, in charge of the Stallion

"In the meantime, Miss Haillwell, I'll have you sit with our Transporter Chief at some point and run through a few tests. I don't foresee any issues, but I still want them to do a ride along with you. Barring any complaints, I intend to second you off to the transporter squad. It won't be every shift you work, because I need to get you brought up to speed on the whole ship, but expect to be working two, to possibly four shifts a week running a transporter console, for the near future." She smiled at K'Lara, pleased that the young woman had more experience than the average officer one year outside of graduation. Small blessings and silver linings.

"Now, Ensign," she leaned forward slightly, "Do you have any questions for me?"

- FIN
 
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