Doing the Due Diligence

Posted on Sat Mar 14, 2020 @ 5:46pm by Lieutenant JG Aergad Halvor & Senior Chief Petty Officer Samantha Summers

2,024 words; about a 10 minute read

Mission: Nibiru
Location: On board
Timeline: 0530 hours

Halvor was a big guy, not as big as he used to be, but you would have to know his medical records and his more recent planetary cultural history to know that. He had been military on his planet. He got the chance to serve in Starfleet. He left do to medical and family reasons, but now he was back. His uniform was to the nines, boots and brass polished. His uniform was clean and well pressed. He stood outside of Security and waited on Summers.

Halvor went into the pre shift meeting and spoke to the NCO who was handing out duty assignments. He made sure he and Summers were on patrol. Then he sat down for the pre shift debriefing. These were usually handled by an NCO or Security Shift Lead, or Security 2IC. It was very rare you saw the Department head or any Department head there. The NCO spoke up, "Halvor is filling in on security today because Jackson just became a father today at 0222 hours." There was cheering because a shift is like a family. As soon as the cheering was done, "He will be on patrol with Summers." Patrol was everything from post check, to break relief, to Gopher for the Shift Lead, NCO, 2IC, or even Department head.

SCPO Summers came over to Halvor and gave him the ' once over, ' before speaking. " Soooo, which Admiral are you expecting? " She asked with grin.

Halvor looked at her and raised an eyebrow. "Wait until debrief is over." The NCO was going over security concerns from the night before. Operations was working on an update. The coding was messing with the shield emitters in the brig, no inmates, but the post had to be manned to turn off the force field. Operations was always running updates for something. If it effected certain systems, security had to be posted. The NCO said dismissed, "There are no admirals coming. I'm a department head, someone would have told me. Shift debriefing is just part of being in security. We now have to meet up with patrol from last shift. We have to be ready to take over that post by 0600." He was very anal.

Summers raised her eyebrow back at Halvor. " Ok, let's head out then. You lead and I'll back up your ass..so to speak. "

Halvor just raised an eyebrow. Up until recently, he didn't have eyebrows. "My understanding is you had a medical issue a while back. This is to make sure you can still do the job. I had to go through one of these recently. The most important part of security is the due diligence, ie better to be proactive than reactive." He never requested details because he wasn't read in. He didn't need details. He saw the other patrol team, "Anything good?"

One of them answered, "Ops has a guy working on the brig. It should be fixed soon." Sometimes patrol had more accurate info than the NCO.

Summers looked over at Halvor. " Shall we stop at the Brig first? "

Halvor looked at her, "Patrol has duties. We start at deck 1 and make our way down. We check every weapons locker and vital area. We have eight hours. So bridge." He was anal in general. He was under instruction to be extra anal. He made his way to the turbolift.

Summers just grinned. " Lead on, McDuff. " She replied.

Halvor looked at her, "Computer. Halt Turbolift. My name is Aergad Halvor, not McDuff. It is not cute or funny to call someone out of name. My callsign was Hardcore." His eyes briefly started to glow red, no pupils and no whites, then he got control of himself. "We don't have enough fraternity for you to use that. I have been in Starfleet since before the Dominion War. Before that, I was Xhaldian Military. I was an NCO there during the Crisis. This is my second enlistment in Starfleet." He had left Starfleet for a while and they requested him back. "It was requested that I come back. I even get to build my own department. My Starfleet jacket has commendations in it longer than your arm." He looked at her, "Security and Tactical Operations may have a lot of fun and games in it, but we have to get our work done first. I appreciate your attempts to build fraternity, but don't force it. Do you understand, Chief?" Chief being the common thing to refer to a Chief Petty Officer and Senior Chief.

Summers nodded. " Duly received and noted, Lieutenant. Though, if I may say, off the record, that it is a bit nice to meet an gentleman that I don't have to ' look down at, ' so to speak, to speak to. Now, as you say, shall we proceed? "

Halvor nodded, "Computer. Resume." Soon the doors opened to the bridge. He went to the security station and checked in. Then he went to the tactical station and checked the phaser at the station, powered it up and down again, then put it back. He went over to the Captain's and XO's seats and did the same with the phasers in the seats. "This never gets done while the view screen is in communications mode."

" To many people in the way? " Summers asked.

Halvor looked at her, "While a lot of other groups knew we have weapons on the bridge, we don't just give away the location."

Summers nodded. " Duly noted, Lieutenant. Carry on..."

Halvor looked at her, "Most Vulcans know enough about our ships to figure it out. We don't give that information to Cardassian or more specific to our Mission, Kazon. We work our way to the next deck. It is boring, I know." He opened up every weapons locker, powered up the weapons, scanned them, and depowered them. "You got the next deck. We keep going until we meet with with the other patrol team. While we have 8 hours to get this done, I like to get it done early. No rushing later. Tanaka gets a report when these lockers are opened, so does Operations. This way he doesn't have to come down on his team. I've done Tanaka's job. We don't need to make it any harder by rushing or not doing checks. Checks don't get done, XO gets involved. It sucks. Tanaka seems decent for a earthling." This time he grinned. The more they got through the boring work, the more relaxed he got.

Summers slightly smiled. " Yes....he is.." She then looked at Halvor. " You know, and don't let this get to your head, but you have a nice smile."

Halvor answered, "I smile more after we are done this part of the job. Even with a couple of teams on patrol, this part can easily take 4 hours. There are Commanders and Captains who require this done by twice per shift. Walker is an asshole, but he doesn't require that usually. A lot of people on this ship cane from Field Intelligence or Intelligence Support." He closed up the panel and headed to the turbolift. "I was Security SRT. During the War, I was a Shock and All Specialist. I'm glad we aren't at war." He was in thought while riding the Turbolift. His tone became softer, "I've been on Missions where this part of security wasn't done. It sucks to find out your phaser doesn't work in a firefight. I watched people die because of it."


Summers nodded in agreement.

The doors opened on the third deck, "I'm do not want to see anyone die because the boring part wasn't done." When they got to the locker, "This one is all yours." He opened it up. There was a few rifles, twice as many phasers, and a medical kit. "If you are wondering about me. Romulans attacked my Homeworld when I was in the military. They sent probes down that genetically altered people. They wanted us as Human Weapons against the Federation. Civil War broke out. I was one of the ones that was altered. I sided with the Federation and Xhaldian Military. Because of the way I changed, the cure didn't work on me. I was only just recently able to be treated. I came back from medical retirement and had to prove I could work security again too." He laughed. "So don't feel bad you have to prove you can work security again."

Summers nodded her head as Halvor told his tale. Something ''pinged" back in her mind, but she slightly shook her head to 'loosen the cobwebs,' before speaking. " I can tell that you've had it rough, I won't 'throw' jokes at you, but perhaps somewhere down the line I can bring out another smile. Now..let's check this 'assortment' here." Summers began to run her tri-corder over the lot.

Halvor looked at her, "Every phaser, powered up and powered down. The tricorder will create a data log that goes to Tanaka. On Earth in the late 20th, they used these things called Deggy tools. Thay had to be horrible."

Summers looked at him for a second. " Just wanted to see if you were paying attention, " She winked and brought up the nearest phaser. " Powering up, tri-corder on.." Summers ran the test through the collection of phasers, then went on to the rifles. " Hmm, nice looking, aren't they?" She then proceeded repeating the check on the rifles. When finished, she turned to Halvor. " I'm not a Doc, you want me to look through the med kits for accountability?"

Halvor looked at her, "I'm trained as a medic. If you don't feel comfortable, I will do it.

Summers winked. " I'm comfortable doing it, I was just thinking that with *your* background, you make be a bit more..'through?' "

Halvor took the med kit, "This is just an emergency medical kit. It is just a basic kit. Hypospray. Dermal genorator. Medical Trauma Kit. Finally, a medical tricorder. These four pieces are here. The seals appear to be unbroken. Deck 4 has a few more med kits." He laughed.

Summers grinned. " Ok, gotcha. Will continue with them." Summers brought her tri-corder up to the next med kit, and watched as Halvor placed the one he'd scanned back in the locker. She cocked an eyebrow up and slightly smiled.

Halvor looked at her, "Brig and security is on deck 4. If we get to the brig in time, we can watch Operations do a system test on the d
Force field." If they witness, they don't have to do one.

Summers nodded at him in agreement.." Sounds good to me, let's get going." She said as the last scanned kit back in its appropriate locker.

Halvor and Summers checked the Security Office, Armory, and the lockers on deck. Then walked into the brig. The crewman spoke, "Just in time, we are doing an equipment check."

The ops crewman was going through the power Cycles on the forcefield grid. Halvor grabbed the phaser and did the check on it while he watched.

Halvor saw the control panel short. He grabbed Summers, the brig crewman, and the ops crewman and put them on the floor and covered them. The shield emitters blew. Halvor's backside caught the energy discharge. He pushed himself up to his feet. "Oh fuck me sideways with a red hot poker?" He started helping the other three up. "You all good? Good." He looked at the Ops Officer, "Fuck the upgrade, the old system functioned." He looked at Summers, "I'm going to Sickbay." He turned around and parts of his uniform were burned away. Skin burnt.

Summers felt herself blushing, then taking a deep breath. " You look a bit like last week's barbecue. You want an arm to lean on to Sick Bay?"

Being strong his entire career, he limped his way away, "Notify sickbay I'm coming. Get your reports done and finish the post checks."

The brig crewman got there before Summers did and touched the panel, "Brig to Sickbay. Lt Halvor is on his way to you. We had a relay blow out. He is moving slow. He said he didn't want help. No other injuries."

 

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