Alliance Central Access Network
Presents: Arrhythmia
The Story Of One of the Finest Ship in The Ghost Fleet
ACAN v 1.0
ARRHYTHMIAIn Production throughout the year 2001.
Chapter 6
“Lieutenants, you are both in serious trouble,” Grace began as she tried to keep herself calm, she was both enraged and ready to deck both of them for the stunt they had just pulled.
“Please Sir,” Andy replied.
“Shut up!” Grace interjected as she pulled out her copy of the Ghost Fleet’s compilations of rule books, “A lot of us higher in the chain of command like to call this by just the name: The Book. This book is our life, it details what we must think, it provides us with responses to situations in which we might be predisposed to make a decision which could mean the end of our crew. Because of this book, I am able to be a leader in this Ghost Fleet, without it, I would have succumbed to stress. This book has made us the fleet with the lowest death ratio in the history of the Segan Monarchy, and I am sure as hell going to follow it to the letter. If you want to stay on this ship, you better as hell follow it to the letter. What this means, is no freaking public romance unless on shore leave, no freaking public romance in front of my ship’s docking port, and no freaking romance interfering with your duties aboard this ship. Is that absolutely crystal clear to you or do I have to go through it again?”
“No Sir,” Karen answered, looking down, “It’s just that…”
“Damn it, I don’t care about your reasons why or why not,” Grace slammed the padd down on her desk as she looked into Karen’s and Andy’s eyes, “We are running a military starship here, this isn’t the Academy. Boy and girl are going to have to act mature aboard my ship. I know all about your past history, I know about every reason and hidden reason why you were assigned to this ship. If your romance gets in the way of this starship’s operations, you’re going to be thrown off this ship faster that someone call yell “Enemy of The Alliance”. On this boat, we live by the rules, and we die by the rules and the rules clearly state that there will be no public display of emotions of love while on duty. And I repeat myself; this means no public romance on shore leave, no romance on the docking ports, and no romance interfering with your duties! Understood?!?”
“Yes Sir,” Both Karen and Andy looked down meekly demolished by the speech, all of their youthful confidence eroded with their Captain’s orders to kill their public display of affections.
“Senior Staff Meeting’s tomorrow at zero eight hundred hours, I don’t want to hear anything from you two until then,” Grace looked at both of them as she sat down, “Attention!”
Both officers rose from their seat as quickly as if they had had a nail poked through them, “Dismissed!” Grace ordered, as she watched the two disappear out of her ready room.
Andy and Karen looked at one another suggestively as they walked out of the Captain’s ready room. Several words came to mind as they looked away from each other and started to think about other things. For the first time, they could look at their ship’s command center, admiring the beauty that interlaced with clear functionality. The Captain’s chair stood supreme in the center of the bridge, the back sections protected by a metal barrier similar to those you’d find on the promenades of space stations. From there, to her left were the flight control officer’s consoles, which were separated from the tactical officer’s console by a holographic image of the ship analyzing its current status. That holographic image could at a moment’s noticed be changed by a holographic communiqué from Command or any other ship with the capabilities. The Arrhythmia was a warship and this was highlighted by the location of the tactical consoles. Staring directly across from the Navigation’s officer, but taking up the entire side, the tactical consoles stood prominently displaying analyses of all the nearby vessels detected by the ship, as well as standard tactical consoles display ship’s weapons status. The back was taken up primarily by command and operations consoles relegated to the Executive Officer and the Operations Manager, the position that Andy would be expected to fulfill.
Andy led Karen to where his chair would be; excusing himself to what would soon become his subordinate. A wrap-around console displaying power management’s allocations, general resource allocations, and mission operations statistics filled his chair. Some of the consoles displayed currently acquisitions reports, showing the percentage of the acquisitions request successfully transferred to the Arrhythmia. Andy smiled; he’d soon be occupying the chair and would soon be the one analyzing all of the information. Unbeknownst to them, Lieutenant Commander Cybs Patrickson, the executive officer stared closely at the two almost uninvited guests of the bridge with amusement. To him, their quiet and impassioned interest at the Operations Management console could be almost compared to any officer’s first look at a Clarel Class Heavy Destroyer. He remembered the breathtaking moment he had had when he had first seen Arrhythmia pull up to meet her. She seemed so dazzling, as bots of all sizes flew over her with massive interest. The bots seemed almost like pests, looking upon, with jealousy, at the lady that was much grander than they could ever hope to be.
“Lieutenants,” Patrickson stared at the two and allowed them to see a sympathetic smile, “Don’t you two think you should stop by Sick Bay and get your physicals in gear? I’m sure you don’t want to visit the Captain for a second round any time soon, yes?”
Andy awoke from his dazed look at the consoles as Karen answered, “Aye, sir. Thank you, sir,” Karen bumped Andy as she walked towards the turbolift.
Andy looked back, meeting Cybs’ gaze who seemed to almost smirk. He knew that he was dealing with a very different command officer than the Captain, she was strict and he was relaxed and he knew he would have a lot of trouble keeping in gear with both, “Sick Bay,” he heard Karen say as he stepped inside.
Patrickson glanced at the Captain’s Ready Room, thinking that this crew was going to be a handful. He could already discern that the scolding, which both Lieutenants had received, had hit them quite hard. While they had returned to their glances of admiration, those glances had been cut much shorter than they could have been. But the Commander, having a Ternascan’s uncanny ability to observe, could already tell the Captain wasn’t here to make friends, and that this could have problems later on. It was his job after all, to remind the Captain of her limitations, and all of this observation would feed into his job. But he knew that loose interpretations were probably not going to work with this Captain. She was by the book, and for reasons he neither understood, she was quite set upon using that book as a bible of operations aboard the Arrhythmia. Surprising enough to the entire mission was that he had yet received the mission orders for Arrhythmia mission. It normally arrived the moment the ship would reach home base, but this was not the case. Patrickson looked over the navigations officer; Ensign Palladin had yet to budge from his seat. Patrickson shook his head, not did the Ensign have an unsatisfactory self-esteem, he was also eager to please.
“Ensign, can you tell me why you are not enjoying shore leave?” Patrickson looked at Palladin, who immediately turned around.
“I thought I could get in a few hours of work, sir,” He answered in a tone that almost showed fear.
“Ensign,” Patrickson smirked, “When I was your rank, they’d had to kill me before I wouldn’t enjoy shore leave. You’re dismissed, and have some fun!”
“Aye, sir,” Palladin stood up, looking at his console slightly confused, Cybs looked at the poor Ensign and shook his head.
“You know what, I’m taking you to a bar,” Cybs muttered things about Ensigns as he led the Ensign to the turbolift, a hiss and the closing of a door and they were off to enjoy shore leave together.
The Arrhythmia’s docking port was brimming with activities. Crewmembers were departing with their gear; new crewmembers were coming in with their own. In the midst of all of this, much of the acquisitions were going into the ship by hand as well in order to save the shipyards’ limited energy resources. Careless misuse of the resources could lead the power-brownouts, which Operations couldn’t have happen, concerning some of the sensitive things such as computer upgrades were happening all the time at the shipyards. This left many of the ships’ docking ports all throughout the shipyard always busy with lots of people converging on a single, sometimes two docking ports. For the Arrhythmia this was no different, and people took little notice of the Camatian that was walking towards the docking port accompanied by two bodyguards. The Camatian cared little about The Alliance, and he was being sent here only because of his father’s wishes. He wished that he could punch both of his bodyguards out, but as he came closer to the ship, he understood that if he did anything to disobey his father, it would mean a public relations nightmare that could very much mean the end of his father’s political work. He was one of the newly elected Council members, representing the Camatians’ interests in the Council of Cardassia Prime. Elected with a forty nine percent vote, he had a lot of work to do trying to secure a majority of the people’s satisfaction in his work. One of the ways, he found was by showing off his unwilling son as an example of Camatian military involvement.
The Camatian would for the next months be a member of the Arrhythmia crew. But for Thunder of the Sun, it was neither a post he wanted, nor trusted. He was pushed into the duty and would try his best within it, but there were pressing issues, which always made him weary of the entire Alliance of Incorporated Worlds idea. But he was now a part of its military hierarchy, thanks to his father pulling strings he would have rather pulled for other reasons. He was going to be aiding The Alliance of Incorporated Worlds to take out its enemies, as the chief of tactical operations; he would ensure the safety of his ship, and also the safety of the crew. Even if he didn’t trust The Alliance, he would remain fiercely loyal to those aboard this ship who would earn his trust. The Camatian just hoped he would find one or two that would fit those criteria. He sighed as he handed his security papers to the guards blocking the entrance to the Arrhythmia. Within minutes, he and his bodyguards were allowed into his ship as he proceeded within it.