Yay for fluff and happy people.

Drake seriously considered removing Garner from the command rotation until he demonstrates aptitide in simulations, but has decided for the moment to keep him there.  After all, there is a week before the kid will have another turn (Saturday gamma is his only command shift in a given week).  He figures that there should be time to get a feel for his progress from Tochi; if necessary, the schedule can still be adjusted.  Silas is figuring that this was more "stage fright" than anything, that next time, Garner will be better prepared.

Game bumped to the morning.  I will check the schedule stuff, Brom.

It's the Ciiiiiiiirrrcle of deaaaaaath....

OOC: I am assuming that Ensign Garner will report to the Ready Room as ordered.  If something changes, let me know and we'll edit.

Stardate 2365.02.21
USS Peregrine, Captain's Ready Room - 0825


Silas sat in his desk chair, reviewing the various reports on his PADD.  The drill had, in fact, been a disastrous failure - but after looking further than just at the events on the bridge, Drake had found some definite bright spots in the crew's efforts.

By and large, response time had varied between acceptable and exemplary - if one took into account the failure of the turbolifts.  Damage Control had displayed the best marks of all - outside of perhaps Science - in terms of responsiveness and reaching their stations, but truth be told, Silas had little complain about in terms of response time overall. 

The Captain had spent the morning so far poring over details of the various departments and how they had done, and in composing reports to the various department heads highlighting their strengths and areas of needed improvement.  The promised nap had been short, indeed, and breakfast had gone largely untouched as Drake fell into his work. 

Realizing that the meeting time with Garner was at hand, he tapped in a final note and fired the reports off to his department heads.  Now came the unpleasant - and terribly important - meeting.

The door chimed precisely on time, and Silas spoke in reply.  "Come in."

The hatch whooshed open to admit a visibly deflated Ensign Garner.

"Ensign Bradley Garner, reporting as requested, sir" the young man spoke with an Academy salute as he snapped to attention.

"At ease, Ensign," the Captain replied - though he did not offer the junior officer a seat. 

A moment of silence hung in the air, stretched into several long, uncomfortable moments before Drake finally broke the silence. 

"Ensign Garner, I want you to understand something about me.  I believe in telling things like they truly are. If you perform well, I will tell you so.  If you perform poorly, I will tell you so.  I feel that honesty is necessary in assessments, that it does no one any good to sugarcoat the truth."

He paused for a moment, meeting the young man's eye.  "The fact of the matter is that you failed last night's test.  You failed it horribly.  You failed it about as badly as anyone COULD have failed it."

Drake shook his head.  "I knew that you are fresh out of the Academy.  I knew that you are flight control, but you have command training, have surely completed combat simulations before.  I did not expect perfection, as I quite frankly put you into a very challenging situation.  I expected that we would have taken some damage, even suffered some casualties.  I did not, however, expect to find that a Saber class vessel - the very tip of Starfleet's spear, sent to deal specifically with the likes of the enemiees that you faced - would be fleeing from vastly inferior opposition." 

Silas sighed.  "Starfleet does not teach unprovoked aggression.  We believe in seeking diplomatic solutions wherever possible.  But son... this is a warship.  If you are fired upon, you have not only the right, but the DUTY, to return fire.  If you are sitting in the Big Chair, you have to remember that sixty-six souls rely on YOU to keep them safe.  Sixty-six families are counting on YOU to bring their son, their daughter, their huband, their wife home again.  If someone fires upon this ship, then they are trying to KILL the people under your charge, and you MUST be prepared to do whatever it takes to prevent that from happening.  Do you understand?"

OOC: assuming a positive answer...

The Captain continued.  "Obviously, each situation must be handled differently.  Had your shields not been sabotaged, the Bindi pirates would have likely exhausted their generators before being able to inflict real damage upon the Peregrine; you would have had the luxury to negotiate, to posture, to avoid violence as long as possible.  But with your shields failing, you should have acted aggressively, decisively.  You could have disabled or destroyed all three vessels while still in phaser range; while the Peregrine does not have the armor to stand up to, say, a Romulan Warbird for long, you could have survived Bindi attacks even with no shields for long enough to kill them all.    Even had you felt that it made sense to add distance and buy some time, you could have launched a volley of torpedos to remove the threat.  Instead... you simply ran away."

Drake shook his head again.  "We are a warship, Garner.  Our primary job is to protect the assets of the Federation via the threat - and exercise - of force.  We must be sensible as to when to administer that use of force, but we cannot afford to be timid.  Doing so risks not only the lives of this crew, but the lives of the civilians we have been sent to protect."

Silas softened his tone a bit.  "Look.  You are a bright young man.  Your instructors think highly of you.  I believe that you have what it takes within you - now, it is up to you to prove me right.  Apply yourself to your duties and your studies.  Learn from your mistakes here, allow them to make you a better commander, a better man.  While painful, failure is often the best teacher of all... and fortunately for you, this failure only costs you a little pride."

For the briefest of moment's Michelle's face appeared, and Drake paused.  When he spoke again, his voice was a touch husky.  "Commander Zai will keep me apprised of your training.  I want to know that next time, you will be ready.  Make me proud, son."

OOC: any response, or none

Drake nodded.  "Dismissed."

>Looking forward to the massacre to follow...

Atta boy. 

Brom - love that detail.  That's the kind of thing I'm looking for when I sit down to program something.

Padre?  That guy is long dead. 

No KDXart yet.  I'm going to probably go ahead and bump the game today, let her jump in the next round.

I have had communication with crowe.  He is truly back, but wants to "ease in" - as you may or may not recall, he came at this game (and at gaming here) in a very over the top, intense manner... apparently burned himself out.  So for now, he's planning to go once a week, which should be fine. 

At any rate, I'm stoked to have him back.

That schedule shows by character.  We have another schedule set - that I THOUGHT was shared here - that shows it by day/shift and department, so that every shoft is covered.  Garner was definitelyin command then. 

I'll update the thread as needed to remove confusion.

I thought about Marcel getting into a rough spot with the turbolifts, but decided that I'd rather move the game along. 

Stardate 2365.02.21
USS Peregrine, Crew Quarters, Deck 3 - 0354


The deck pitched violently, very nearly throwing Marcel to the floor.  As he blinked sleep away, he heard Stephen cursing from the other bedroom.  Momentarily, the red alert klaxon began to sound and the emergency lights flashed, so the systems specialist shook the cobwebs away and began to hurriedly pull on a uniform. 

He nearly ran directly into his friend as he stepped into the common area.  "Any idea what's going on?" Marcel asked. 

Stephen shook his head.   "No clue, but Clint and I are supposed to get to battle stations... it can't be good."  As if summoned by the mention of the other Security crewman who shared their quarters, crewman Myers stuck his head out of his bedroom, with the early blossom of a nice black eye already manifesting on his face. 

A tense, wordless look passed among the three men, and they hurried down the corridor towards thier stations.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

USS Peregrine, Turbolift, Deck 3 - 0409

"I understand, SS2," Juarez stated through gritted teeth.  "I agree that we need the turbolifts to be functional.  I'm just telling you - the diagnostics don't give me any failure code!  Power throughput seems fine, mechanical systems report nominal.  The damned thing just won't work!"

=/=Copy that, Juarez.  I'm seeing the same thing down here. =/= came the response.  =/=It doesn't make any sense, but Lieutenant Nyle isn't going to accept "there is nothing wrong" as an answer - and you can bet that the Captain will be even less inclined to do so.  =/=

Marcel shook his head.  He'd had precious little direct contact with the Peregrine's CO, but the man's reputation preceeded him.  The last thing he wanted was an angry Captain standing over his shoulder while he stammered that the lifts should work.

"Okay, SS2.  The next step has to be physical inspection; I'm making my way to the manual access now."

=/= Understood, keep me posted. =/= came the reply.  =/= Warren out. =/=

Grumbling, Marcel grabbed his tool belt and hurried to the access hatch.  He hated turbolift shafts, but there was nothing to do for it.  Just as he got the hatch open, the klaxons ceased and the lighting returned to normal.  Then, the Captain addressed the ship over the intercom.  Dumbfounded, adrenaline still rushing through his system, Pretty Officer Juarez simply leaned against the bulkhead and stared for a moment.  When the turbolift hatch hissed open, he found himself chuckling ruefully. 

What sort of items would you like to see in these generators?

hehe @ taunting. 

My kind of player. 

Oh, and if you know anyone that wants to be abused a lot en route to repeated deaths in my Paranoia game, please do send them my way. 

I mean, once Kith is fully under the control of the Dark One and starts ritually sacrificing her friends, how do you think they are supposed to feel? 

Cheese.

Nice to hear!  Glad everyone can be involved in the big death scene.

About to make an NPC post for Trek, hope to bump the game today, as well.

A long, long time ago, I had a pretty in depth character generator for D&D... but that was several rules versions ago.  I'd be open to doing a character generator/NPC generator, the question just boils down to how detailed you want it to be... you cannot make them work super well with multiple systems, if you want stats.

We have a couple of downloadable/printable character sheets, but again, for older systems.  I could see the advantage there.

If she's going to be out of pocket for more than a day or so, I'll move things along and let her jump in then.  If you can find out, that would be outstanding. 

It's been a long time since I added an actual FEATURE to the Inn.  Can anyone suggest a good utilty or downloadable item that you'd like to have?

We have the various name generators, dice rollers, etc.  Can you think of other useful tools?

The apple doesn't fall far and makes a good pie, right?   

No apology necessary.  Excellent post!

lol @ dragon tactics.

From my reading, they plan is to let the healing happen first.  Am I wrong?