Wait, what now?

Posted on 16 Oct 2016 @ 4:49pm by Lieutenant JG Seras & Commander Paul Toddman

Mission: Prelude; Breakfast at Curmudgeon's
Location: Arizona
Timeline: MD-1: 12:00Hrs

Paul had gotten strait to work in his office on deck 13 after his brief introduction to Captain Cowell. He hadn't even bothered to decorate. So far he had managed to secure almost 10 times as much spare parts for interior fittings, consoles and hand help weapons than would normally be stored aboard a starship the size of the Arizona. His next required item was 3 cases of self sealing stem bolts, a very handy item and much in demand fleet wide. Paul was negotiating with the Starbase's quarter master.

"You want how many? Are you insane?" the angry little man on the screen exclaimed.

"I want 3 cases, that's thirty thousand self sealing stem bolts and I need them yesterday" Paul said assertively.

"You realise that is more than our entire stock? I'll have to recall shipments to other vessels in dock!" The quartermaster was getting irritated.

"I don't care if you have to steal them from cargo holds. We are in more need of them"

"Why?"

"That's classified, take it up with Captain Cowell if you want, but he'll say the same thing." Paul said, getting somewhat curt.

"Cowell? He's the skipper of Arizona?" the Lt. asked, he sounded nervous.

"You bet he is. Now, when am I getting my bolts?"

"They're on their way. Quartermaster out"

Heaving a sigh of relief, Toddman grabbed his cup and drank the last mouthful of tea. As he got up from his chair, he placed the empty cup back down, grabbed a nearby PADD and started out for Cargo Bay 4 where a lot of his found items and booty was being delivered by Workbee.

Seras had been on the station for all of five minutes when she heard that a workbee was being sent to the Arizona with some supplies. Grabbing her duffle, she sprinted the short distance from the shuttle bay to the cargo bay where the workbee was just about to depart and hitched a ride.

"Oi, is all of this bound for the Arizona?" she asked the pilot when she took notice of the load it was carrying.

"Oh yeah, got two more flats I'll have to bring over after this," the pilot confirmed.

Seras blinked in bemusement at this, uncertain how to take this. "Did the Arizona come back from her shakedown cruise with an empty cargo bay?" she asked, now truly curious as to why such a big load was being delivered so soon before their scheduled departure.

"No, just got an order to double their stock of pretty much everything. Even had to take stock from other ships waiting to depart," the pilot answered as he navigated the workbee out of the bay and towards to Arizona.

"Double the stock..." Seras said in shock as they sailed smoothly towards the receiving Cargo Bay where she could see the staff scrambling to try to find room for all this overstock. Already this bay was packed, Seras shuddered to think that there were two more flats of supplies that were about to be brought over! "Oh no no no no, this will not do," Seras said with a shake of her head. "Once you drop off this shipment, give us a little time to sort out this mess before you send over the rest or we are not going to be able to fit it all in," Seras asserted firmly.

"I've got a schedule to keep, but I can shuffle a few things around to give you guys some more time," the pilot said sympathetically. He could see she was right, they would need time to sort things out. "But you need to be ready when I get back to the Arizona. I can't juggle the schedule for long."

"We'll be ready," Seras said with a nod. As the workbee approached the Cargo Bay doors, they found that the landing pad was full of clutter, meaning that the pilot had nowhere to set down the freight. He eased the bee in far enough that Seras could hop out and she immediately started barking orders, though 'barking' may not have been appropriate given the soft synthesized tones her vocal processor produced, but it was the effort that counted. "Alright people, let's hustle! Get that landing pad clear!" Then she jumped right in with the rest of the crew to move crates out of the way until the space was clear enough for the workbee to set down the flat of supplies. She gave the pilot a wave as he departed to continue along on his delivery schedule, then heaved a heavy sigh as she looked at the cluttered mess she and the rest of the crew would have to deal with.

"Okay, someone get me a list of what we have and where, and let's work on putting it all in order. We need to work fast, we've got two more deliveries coming in and not a lot of time to put things to right," Seras stated to the cargo crew. She removed her duffle and set it near the cargo transporter that just then illuminated with yet another delivery. Well wasn't that just peachy.... But if the job wasn't challenging, it wouldn't be any fun!

The turbolift deposited Toddman directly opposite the entrance to Cargo Bay 4. The massive cargo doors were wide open with yellow shirts frantically going in and out like bees at a beehive. Paul was just about ran over by an over eager crewman jogging down the corridor with a container on an anti-grav sled. Having dodged more traffic than he had ever seen on a starship, Paul took a look around the cargo bay. He had expected sheer chaos, but was greeted by sight of pallets, boxed, containers, crates and loose items being neatly squared away on all 3 sides of the cargo hold, leaving the loading door clear. Several Workbees were on the deck and others milling about outside in a holding position. And there, in the center of the of cargo bay was a young woman waving her arms about like the conductor of an orchestra and shouting as loud as her synthetic voice allowed. Paul could recognised his eagerness and determination in her. Her ticket wasn't wrong about her.

“My, you certainly are a go getter, aren't you?” Paul said as he approached the Cairn.

"Eh?" Seras turned to see who was speaking to her, her blond ponytail swishing behind her with her upbeat movements. She offered a cheerful smile to the Commander speaking to her, not yet recognizing that this was her direct superior. "Oh, sorry sir, I hope I'm not overstepping any boundaries. It just didn't seem right to leave things in the state they were. I was here, so I decided to lend a hand," she explained, her synthetic voice ringing soft but assured with its ethereal resonance and ghostly echo. Without missing a beat, she sidestepped a grav-sled that was coming through with supplies while directing the crewman where to put those crates. "Oh, before I forget..." she started, then reached into her duty jacket for a small PaDD with her transfer orders, handing it over to her superior. "I was to report in to a Commander Toddman tomorrow, but if it's not a problem then I'm good to start now."

Paul took the PADD for a moment he toyed with the idea of playing of not telling the young woman who he was but decided against it. He skimmed over the contents of the PADD if only to confirm his identification of Seras wasn't in error.

“I'm sure he won't mind” He began to answer, “That would be me” he ended with a smile.

"Oh, that's convenient!" Seras replied with amusement. "Now that I have officially checked in, ah, the status of the cargo... I believe all outstanding requisitions have been filled and are awaiting delivery. I have not yet seen the conditions of the other Cargo Bays, but as I understand it they are in similar states of disarray that this one was in before I arrived. As this is also the loading bay, this one had to take precedence, but once all the deliveries were completed, I intended to visit the other bays to help get everything in order."

“Actually," Paul began, "the other cargo bays are in a bit of a mess, I'm afraid to say, you're efforts were not entirely necessary, I had a plan. Watch this!”

Paul walked over to one of the pallets that had been labelled “DO NOT STOW”. HE produced a large oblong device about the size of a briefcase and set it on the ground in front of some of the cargo Seras had so neatly had stowed. Taking a remote from a pouch on his uniform, Paul tapped in a few commands. The device hummed to life. With a tap of another command, one of the large containers shimmered into a transporter like pattern and disappeared.

"Oooh, we didn't have anything like this on the Avalon..." Seras replied, her eyes wide with intense interest. "Works on the same concept as the transporters, right? And what about the drain on the ship's power?"

“Cargo buffers, lassie, we can store fifteen times as much cargo in half the space. Each one independently powered.” Paul seemed very proud of his gadget. He offered Seras the remote “Think you can get this all squared away? There are 30 buffers in that pallet”.

"Brilliant! Forget Cargo Bay use, I want one of these!" Seras said as she took the remote and inspected the controls. "Okay, I see what you did, you're just using the Cargo Bay transporter since that's too big and complex to make so compact, and then you bypass the transporter's buffer and store the pattern separately, like you would data on a memory stick! Won't lose resolution or have to worry about replicator matter storage like you would with the replicator system, it's all energy in the buffer. How long does the power cell last on each buffer? Can they tap into the ship's power for recharging? How do you deal with pattern degradation, is it safe for use on living beings?" With a blush, she abruptly stopped herself when she realized she was rambling. "Apologies, Commander, I believe this will be more than sufficient to get all the Cargo Bays in order."

Paul was impressed and amused. Again, he saw a lot of his young, fresh out of the academy self in this officer. He raised a hand in a gesture of forgiveness

“It's all right, you're mostly right. I'll go into the finer details some time when we're not so busy. They work, they're reliable and you can bet no one else in the fleet has them. Care of a buddy of mine from a part of the fleet we don't talk about.” Paul said. He then produced the small one he had picked up from his home before leaving from inside his uniform jacket. “I've had this with me for over 10 years. Hasn't needed recharging yet.”

Paul took another look around, more workbees were inbound. He decided to go check up on a few essentials he had ordered that, although not strictly routine cargo, he had a gut feeling the ship would need on the coming mission.

“Now,” he started as he put his personal storage buffer away, “I need to go see to some special items. I will leave the incoming goods in your more than capable hands.” With that, he spun around and headed for the doors he entered through minutes ago.

"Thank you, sir, and I'll inform you once everything is in order," Seras replied, having a good feeling about the working relationship with her superior Officer. She then returned to the seemingly chaotic swarm of crewmen working so very hard, a beautiful sight in Seras' eyes, and these cargo buffers would go a long way in making their job keeping their stock organized, she couldn't wait to put them to use!