Orders and Delays

Posted on Fri May 13th, 2011 @ 3:39pm by Captain Alexsa Kendrick

629 words; about a 3 minute read

Mission: Shoreleave
Timeline: Current

Orders. Plain, simple, detached, unsympathetic orders.

Captain Alex Kendrick had to leave the comfortable confines of her quarters after she'd read the encoded message as sent from her superiors at Starfleet Intelligence. She had a good mind to smash the terminal, rip the desk from the wall, and upturn the chair before leaving, but the damage to the helm she done with her fist a few days previous seemed enough damage to this ship. For now. Then thinking about it further as she wandered the halls of the Ranger came the urge to ram some poor unsuspecting crewman's head through a bulkhead but slowly and thankfully passed, and Alex and others were safe to continue on their journey.

It had been a while since Kendrick has been on a station such as this, and she felt she needed a breath of fresh air -- fresh recycled air, which for some reason always seemed less stifling than that on a starship. Probably just a matter of perspective, but still.

'Stay here.' Alex thought to herself in disbelief as she boarded the station. She hardly wanted to go out to meet the Ranger in the middle of its previous mission in the first place, let alone stay on her for another one while attempting to perform her own duties while they try to do their own. Her mind darted back and forth through the rules and regulations of the situation, trying to find any loophole in the system, any flaw that she could exploit to effectively ground Halliwell and the rest of the crew, and have them impounded here at the station pending her investigation.

Unfortunately, she found none.

While her mission was of utmost importance to command, without a valid, stamped, sanctioned, and approved order PADD in hand from the Admiralty, she had no grounds or authority to moor the Ranger here at the station until her job was completed, and given where the orders came from, she was unlikely to find herself in such a position to be holding said PADD. Halliwell was technically correct, it was her ship, her command, and her very glance was law on those deck plates. Kendrick wanted neutral ground, but time and these damned orders were not going to give it to her. Still, this did not mean that she had to like it. She'd said to Halliwell before, that she was here to do a job, and that's exactly what she was going to do. With or without anyone else's assistance, working with, or without the rule book. Rules could be bent without being broken.

The sooner this shore leave business was over, the better, the quicker the ship could get under way for her next mission, the more preferable it would be. Of all her previous assignments, of all the pains and misfortunes of her past, even almost losing her life to severe injuries, losing an eye, this mission had to be one of the least 'enjoyable' jobs Alex had been assigned -- at least there, she was still in control. Through situations, and conflicts of personality, she'd lost some of that here. She'd lost ground, and that gnawed at the remains of her soul like a rabid Pinderan beetle. As soon as they were under way, the Ranger would once again be subject to her investigation, whatever mission they had been ordered on.

She wasn't looking for vengeance, or payback, just for justice, and for the ability to say that she done her job, and done it well. And if she could wing her way to being on top, well that would be the proverbial icing on the cake -- then she would eat it, probably lying in bed as well.

 

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