A Commodore's Commandeering

Posted on Thu Jan 11th, 2018 @ 1:25pm by Fleet Admiral Donatella Figueroa

Mission: S01E02 D-8 With the Devil
Location: USS Musashi | Deck 6 | Corridor

Time to prepare them for what's ahead thought Captain Donatella Figueroa of the starship Musashi, an Ares class starship that had over a decade of combat experience underneath its hull with Fig in command from her maiden voyage into the war through hellfire and the frozen bleak abyss of the final frontier. These were the voyages, these were the times, this was the moment; A prelude to a time history would forget. The name Enterprise would continue to live on for many incarnations to come, but the name Musashi would barely ever be uttered by the next generation. That did not make this Captain and her crew any less significant. There was an old Earth poet who once wrote: 'History is a cyclic poem written by time upon the memories of man' and those words were truth. Those involved in what was to come would have memories. Those who were not there would pass it onto others who were not there. Second hand knowledge to delude history into obscurity and cover it with the ashes of mythos.

"Excuse me" she said as she bumped into someone as she briskly traversed corridor Theta-Charlie on the sixth deck of the Musashi as she headed towards the briefing room on the deck to meet with her senior staff, minus the designated officer of the watch for the duration of the mission briefing. In this case, Fig had elected to leave Doctor Hill with bridge duty. The Captain regained her footing and looked up to see whom had bumped into her. "Mister Cartwright" she said adressing the civilian. La'Quentin Cartwright was the Federation Strategic Attaché that had been temporary assigned to the Musashi due to his knowledge of Federation Intelligence and specialtization in Klingon tactics. He had no rank. He was simply a civilian graduate from the Federation War College who worked for the Federation's Department of Defense. He had no 'pull' over Fig per se, but he was aboard as an advisor and observer. For whom he was observing for was quite evident with his last name. La'Quentin's coming aboard had been arranged by none other than Commodore Cartwright, the reason why Fig had to see Garth and the reason why the USS Musashi and USS Percy were hurtling towards the alleged location of the Klingon shipyard constructing the D8 prototype.

La'Quentin looked at the Captain and nodded, titling his head up and flarring his nostrils. "It's alright. Small ship, narrow corridors..." he began to trail off but stopped himself. "Sorry" he added, but that still did not prevent him from coming off unapologetic and as though he owned the starship. He handed a data tablet over to the Captain. "Commodore Cartwright needs you to sign off on this immediately" he said. "I intercepted it from your Yeoman after it came in from communications. I wanted to deliver it to you personally. I thought you would be on the Bridge...that's where I was just heading" he explained.

With phrasing like that, Fig knew she was in for something she was not going to like one bit. It was true. She did not like it at all. "I do not like this one bit. You can tell the Commodore that next time you speak with him. I'm protesting this" she said handing the tablet back to the young man. "I am sorry, La'Quentin, but request to join the boarding party is DENIED" she said with emphasis on the finality of her well placed word choice.

The young man looked offended, but Fig did not care. She was attempting to procced past him down the corridor when he side-stepped her and blocked her route. It caused her to stop in her tracks. She was looking rather agitated and the persistance of La'Quentin Cartwright definitely was not helping matters as he took the data tablet and pushed it towards her once more. "As a Federation Strategic Attaché for this mission, Captain Figueroa, I must ask you to please see the merits of my experience in providing assistance on this mission. Nobody has studied Klingon tactics like I have" he said holding his ground.

Son, you better get out of my way before I throw your privaleged rear-end out an airlock she thought to herself, but she took a deep breath and remembered who she was. She was better than making those threats or acting upon them. She had lost her cool in the past, but she could not afford to do so now. This was especially true with this man. He may have been nothing more than a pissant, but his family had deep deep connections. Commodore Cartwright could have her career ended abrupty if she so much as mispoke. She loathed the feeling as though admiralty had her by the balls. She took a closer look at the data tablet. It was not really a recommendation nor request so much as it was an underminding command from Commodore Cartwright to basically utalize La'Quentin on this mission in field. "I see your merits and raise you four" she replied sarcasticly.

"Four?" he replied confused by her seemingly nonsensical response.

Captain Figueroa nodded. "Yes, Four. As in I see your merits La'Quentin and I raise you four. Four years of Stafleet Academy or the equivalent experience in the field aboard a starship and maybe I would consider having you on the boarding party, but you do not. You may have sat in classrooms and lecture halls studying Klingon tactics, but I lived them. I experienced them first hand and nothing in the classroom, no time behind a desk studying them is going to make me risk the lives of my crew by sending you on the boarding party" she said admently.

"The Commodore SAID" he countered, his tone of voice was not a tone someone would dare take with Fig if they had served under her before.

Fig side stepped and shouldered him, nuding him out of her way. "Your daddy said nothing" she quipped, belittling him as he practically threw his blood relation around the past few days and frankly she was sick and tired of it. "I will sign it, but you aren't a part of the boarding party. All that file says is that I am to utalize and capitalize upon your specialties. I WILL. I AM" she said sternly. "You may make yourslef useful by remaining aboard the USS Musashi on the bridge and providing whatever knowledge and insight you have to aid us in fending off the Klingon forces we are undoubtedly going to piss off when I shove my Ares class sized fist into their hornets nest and steal all the honey" she added as she took the data tablet, pulled a stylus from her hair and signed off on the 'request,' but VOIDING the part about him being a part of the boarding party.

The man did not take kindly to this at all, but he was left with his foot in his mouth.

"If you'll excuse me, I have a meeting to conduct with my crew" she said firmly. "However, if you do want to make yourself useful...round up these few crewmembers and give them a condensed and censored version of the meeting I'm holding. Don't worry...whatever you know about the mission plans will be good enough for them" she added handing him a PaDD of information with names on it. She had taken a subtle jab at him not having a high enough clearence level to attend the meeting of her senior staff.