Posted by Captain Sara Kiernan (Commanding Officer) in Settling things with Intel

Posted by Captain Sara Kiernan (Commanding Officer) in Settling things with Intel

Posted by Commander Shara Calloway (Chief Intelligence Officer) in Settling things with Intel
Posted by… suppressed (5) by the Post Ghost! 👻
The CIO had asked to talk. Sara couldn’t imagine she was looking for a friendly catch-up, there was some business to be gone over more than likely. She called the Intel officer to her ready room, not ashamed to claim the home field. =/\=Calloway to my ready room.=/\= She was getting tired of all this Intel business, sneaking and speaking in hushes. need to know information

-CO

=/\=Give me five,=/\= was the simple response.

And sure enough, five minutes later, ‘Elaine’ showed up and slipped into the office. Had the Cap’n wanted formalities with chimes and such, she would have issued a different summons. Or at least that was Calloway’s assessment. And since she herself had requested the meeting, the CIO simply took a seat at the desk and folded her arms on the edge. “It’s quite the change of situation we have ourselves now, don’t we? And in the middle of an exceptionally dangerous and delicate operation too.”

~Calloway, CIO

“It keeps changing and it keeps getting worse.” Sara had a dark expression. “There are things these agents are tactically withholding until the last second, or changing their minds about that it would be easier to do my job if they didn’t. But you have something specific in mind.”

-CO

“Look, I know we need a first officer and it’s important for the crew to know that some things will remain predictable while we toss everything else out the airlock. Chain of command is one thing we need to maintain even if we are pretending it only matter superficially. Our cover is designed to make use of it. We aren’t Starfleet anymore, but we were and we’re leveraging our skills and experience to be bad ass pirates. And it’s working. I know we don’t all like it, but we’re succeeding and given the stakes that was never a given.”

“Given the stakes, we don’t have another choice.” Sara said.

“Exactly.”

Shara blew out a breath. “But now we have a new person in that chain of command. Someone who will be giving orders and we don’t have a clue how they think, how they operate, how to anticipate their reactions. That makes for a dangerous situation, Captain. And as someone who has spent most of their life embedded in dangerous situations, know that I’m not exaggerating.”

Commander Calloway, CIO

Sara nodded and sat for a moment, looking pensive. “I appreciate your concerns, I really do. But they didn’t wipe the computer at Cantreken. I have Mwezi’s service record, psychological profile, everything I would get if Starfleet had sent him here, with the added bonus of a few reports made while serving on this ship.” She sighed. “Mwezi made a certain amount of sense. He has experience operating on a ship that’s outside normal Starfleet parameters. He has experiences that not even you could top. You are right that we are flying into a veritable minefield. That’s why the department heads needed to remain constant. You’re all excessively well trained and know the capabilities of your departments without needing to look at a roster or equipment inventory. Mwezi may seem like an odd choice, and some may take it as a sleight that he skipped a step. But it’s not a choice I made lightly Commander.”

-CO

Shara shook her head. “Please don’t misunderstand me. It’s important that we’re on the same page here or else this conversation will be pointless. This is not about Mwezi himself. Nor am I criticizing your decision. I don’t care who is XO so long as they have the experience and ability to do the job. Under normal circumstances, a person new to the role would have time to adjust and do training on the spot to fill in any disparities between experience and the needs of the job. We don’t have that time. So we have to operate as is Mwezi is at the same level and place that we all are, because we’ve been working on this for weeks. We just tested this all out as well, with the Tellerite Freighter. Mwezi wasn’t a part of that, and that is my concern.”

She leaned in. “I want to ask you serious questions, Captain, and as your Intelligence Officer you should want and need me to do that. But if you can’t allow me to do that, then I can walk out and we can pretend this conversation never happened.No hard feelings. But I can’t walk on eggshells, not with this mission and these risks and stakes.”

Commander Calloway, CIO

“Then don’t.” Sara responded curtly. “I didn’t expect Intel to wait for permission to speak freely. Consider it granted. I don’t expect you to mince words, but neither will I. If we have an agreement there, then let’s get started.”

-CO

-bump-

-uno mas-