Officer Debrief

Posted on Fri Jun 18th, 2021 @ 7:10am by Captain Rhenora Kaylen & Lieutenant Sarah Wilson & Senior Chief Petty Officer Ronson Mitchell & Commander Savar cha'Salik hei-Surak Talek-sen-deen & Lieutenant Commander Sandra "Phantom" Risa & Lieutenant Chester "Duo" Maxwell & Lieutenant Commander Bonnie "Bon-Bon" Durnell & Commander Dean House & Lieutenant Commander Thriss Kla'ren & Lieutenant Commander Aurora Vali & Lieutenant JG Avarak

Mission: Gamma Quadrant
Location: Briefing Room

The shift was drawing towards a close before Rhenora had time to call a Senior Officer's Debrief relating to the recent combating readiness scenario. They had debriefed their own teams but now it was time to bring it all together and objectively discuss the shortfalls as well as the wins of the scenario.

Avarak sat at the briefing room scrolling through his PADD, taking one last look at his notes before the briefing began. His team performed well, though not perfectly; he was a perfectionist and it was his goal to see the science department perform at the peak of efficiency.

Savar entered the Briefing Room and took his seat to the right of what would be Captain Kaylen's at the head of the table. As he entered he saw Lt Avarak already seated. "Lieutenant." He greeted the science chief politely.

Avarak nodded his head politely in acknowledgement. “Good Day, sir.”

Rhenora entered the room, smiling slightly at the fact that Ronson had once again scrambled and set some snacks as well as appropriate beverages at various locations on the table. Bless his socks. She took her place at the head of the table and waited for the rest of the team to arrive.

Dean left out from where he was and going into the Briefing Room. Giving a look a moment at the table and over to snag a seat. Nodding to those in there already.

Duo entered the Ready Room. Normally he liked to be the first to arrive to a meeting, but his report had taken up most of his time. It contained some very interesting information he was looking forward to sharing. He nodded to the others and took an open seat.

Thriss walked through the sliding doors of the briefing room and took a seat with his back to the window and set his PADD down on the table before nodding to the other officers. He had a report of how engineering did, as well as how the ship's systems would have fared if it were a real Jem'hadar attack.

Not sure if she really belonged, and once again there because she felt she had information to share, Bonnie walked in, eyes to the floor, and sat down. She clutched her PADD with detailed information about the computer core situation in her hands, just in case the opportunity arose.

Sandra briskly walked into the room, "Please excuse the tardiness. I had to pick up the final report on the incident," she said taking her seat quickly.

" Thank you all for coming" Rhenora opened the meeting, making eye contact with her most trusted officers, the Sunfire's senior officers. They would be the glue that held everything together in times of crisis and when things needed to get done.

" The purpose of this meeting is to discuss the outcomes of the combat scenario we recently completed. There were some wins and some shortfalls in both training and equipment. Due to the nature of our upcoming mission and the likelihood of coming up against the Jem Hadar, I felt it necessary to attack this sooner rather than later" She explained.

"Commander Savar - could you share your analysis please"

"Certainly Captain." He looked at the assembled officers. "For the most part, the personnel performed adequately. There were a few instances where responses could and should be faster. It appeared that the departments worked well but not in a uniform manner. There were also some issues with targeting acquisition for the main phasers in getting a lock on their targets. This however may have been due to the nature of the holographic images."

Raising her hand, but only halfway, Bonnie volunteered, "The targeting may have also had something to do with the computer cores and their communication issues. In order to bridge the communication gap, I had to route the communication through a translation submatrix. The limiting of the bandwidth alone was enough to cause a variance of .035 milliseconds with each command between the two cores." She paused, unsure if everyone understood what she was trying to say. She had often experienced the need to provide laymen's terms for people like her Papa, who didn't quite get it.

As she looked around, she received blank stares and zero feedback, she clutched the PADD tight to her chest and continued on.

"Right, so each of the main cores operates at over 80 Trillion Teraquads of calculations every minute, while the submatrix is only capable of half that. The more we push the data stream, the more chance we have of burning out more circuits. We need to get the patch. And the only way to do that is to find an operational communications array to the Alpha quadrant." She was nervous, but her subject matter was her passion. Aside from a few other things.

Avarak sat up more upright than before. “Ma’am,” he said, directing his attention to Lt Durnell. “I believe I might shortly have a fix for the lack of communication, though I would benefit from your assistance.”

Bonnie was not used to someone offering to help her, not for computer-related issues anyway. Offering to help her up after a trip, often. She nodded her head yes, expecting words to flood out, yet none came. "Sure."

Not wanting to take up more time out of the meeting than was necessary, Avarak merely nodded his head in acknowledgement.

Rhenora nodded as the team threw ideas around the large table, coming up with ways to improve things in the future.

" Lt Maxwell, please provide your department report" She looked a the new officer and nodded.

Duo picked up his PADD and cleared his throat, "Firstly, casualties stand at eleven percent. That breaks down to eight percent wounded and the remaining three killed in action. These numbers do not reflect fighter wing numbers. According to Starfleet analysis of boarding actions during the Dominion War, an estimated fifteen to twenty percent of a starship crew could be expected to be incapacitated during the first wave."

He continued, "Secondly, response times of Security personnel was lacking in my opinion. It fell inside Starfleet's minimum acceptable guidelines, but I don't accept the minimum for anything in my department. I suspect that the ship-wide transfer had something to do with that, and I have ordered patrols at double the normal interval in order to get them to familiarize themselves with the ship. As far as recommendations to both our casualties and response time, I believe the measures we discussed previous to the drill will rectify the shortcomings. The new duty rosters will go into effect in twenty-four hours, and Chief Mackenzie has already begun work on the storage locker conversions. That ends my report."

" Well done Mr. Maxwell" Rhenora nodded, understanding that this would have had some teething problems. " I understand this was probably the worst time to call a drill, however that's why it was called.We need to double down over the next few days in all departments and make sure people know what is expected of them" She looked around the room.

"Mr. House - your report?"

"We all failed on our readiness to be honest. We did pick it up and got it done but we failed, Captain." Dean gave a sigh. "Not to mention we have a man hurt and in sickbay just over a drill."

"What would you prefer Lieutenant? Have no drill and have 100 times that many get hurt or killed in an actual attack. Or would you like to be notified when a drill is going to be held? Which thereby nullifies it's effectiveness." Savar asked in his calm, unruffled manner.

"The Commander is right. The main purpose of drills is to learn how to make things better, and to learn from our mistakes." The Captain said calmly, diffusing any tension in the room " What would be your recommendation for improvements Mr. House?"

"I was not saying, sir's that the drill wasn't a good idea. It really is. Anything happening out of the blue and we don't know what will happen." Dean sighed and reached to get a piece of cheese. "We just weren't ready. However, the readiness was good for everyone. Though we have one of Risa's pilots in Sickbay. Even for a drill. We should, as my recommendation, use the Holodeck and weekly drills. Or at least every two weeks. I know most of us have tenure, as we're Command staff. Department heads. We have hundreds of people on this ship that are green."

" Thank you Mr House, I agree that we need to bump up the training for our newer members plus run refresher training for those in higher positions. It's a new ship and a few bumps are to be expected. This is how we grow together as a team" She smiled gently at the tactical officer. " Now, Mr. Kla'ren, how did your team perform?"

"When we got the ship-wide notification, I made sure to prepare my engineers. However, since engineering was one of the major targets, many of my officers would have likely been severely injured, or worse. This includes myself. I suggest adding extra security in engineering, at least while we are in the Gamma Quadrant. From a performance standpoint, they actually did pretty well. There was definitely a delay in personnel getting prepared, especially new crew members. But other than that, we did alright."

Bonnie remained quiet. Her experience of the situation was that she didn't know what to do or where to go. There was no clear direction during the chaos and she was left feeling defenseless and somewhat helpless. Not until she retrieved her targeting orb did she feel somewhat in control of her own situation. But she was too intimidated by the senior staff to mention her own insecurities in front of everyone.

"Also, down in engineering my staff will be busy for the next few weeks, because we are working on a new project that will give the Sunfire a few new tricks up her sleeve, if that makes sense. So if and when we do more of the combat drills, the extra security would be appreciated." Thriss added.

Duo turned his head to address his colleague, "You'll have it. There will be an extra three officers assigned to Engineering for the remainder of our time in the Delta Quadrant. Feel free to position them anywhere you think they would do the most good."

"Understood. Thanks for extra help." The Chief answered.

Rhenora nodded as the teams worked together for the greater good.

Looking like a fish out of water, Sandra sat there soaking up what was being said. House was right in the respect that they could have been better. However, the captain did the right thing in pulling a drill unexpectedly. Sandra does it all the time to her pilots and it gets them on shape quickly. The fact that Ajax got hurt was just another reason to pull more drills in the same fashion.

After the Engineering report, the Bajoran Captain turned her attention to Lt Commander Risa, the chief helmsman and leader of the fighter squadrons.

" Commander Risa, your assessment of the fighter's performance and that of the helm?" She asked the pilot.

"Well captain, as for the helm, the former driver did warn me about how she handles. Unfortunately, she was right. She is a big girl and handles like a lumbering water buffalo. While I do realize we have computer cores that are not really made for her, her response time needs improvement. I have flown Akira's before and they fly a lot better than this old gal. Maybe we could work on speeding up the response time from the helm to the computer and to the engines. Navigating her is not as bad as I thought it would be. With an open fly-through hanger and the fighters stacked in their braces, I can roll her like a fighter. The IDF systems need to be tied into my navigation computer so you all don't fall as I roll and yaw right and left. The SIF also needs to help with the structural integrity of the nacelle pylons and other areas when the stresses of dogging and maneuvering in a fight. I dodge phaser fire and torpedoes to protect the fighter deck and the birds in addition to all crew members. You hit the armoury and torpedo bays not to mention the matter-antimatter pods, BOOM!", she said taking a breath. "As for my fighters, they do need training simulations as well as actual space flight time. They are good but there is definite room for improvement. That is something I will get started on ASAP", she added finishing her lengthy report.

Kaylen nodded in thanks at the detailed report, casting her gaze towards Kla'ren and Bonnie "Perhaps you both could work with Commander Risa regarding speeding up the response times?"

"I'm sure I can make time in my already busy schedule." the Andorian chuckled. He honestly didn't mind his workload. He knew he could get everything done.

She clutched her PADD even tighter, nodded, "Yeah, yeah I think I can do that." She had no idea what she was agreeing to, but knew the Captain asked for her to help and so she had no reason to say no.

"As for the fighter training, draw me up a schedule and we'll work it into our flight plan for the next week or so at regular intervals. I'd rather be over-prepared than under prepared if we bump into the Jem Hadar" The Bajoran admitted sagely, her gut twisting in a way that reminded her of the imminent threat.

" Now... Dr Wilson, we only have minor injuries and a few bumps and bruises, I take it there were no issues in sickbay?" She turned her attention to the young doctor.

" No major issues Ma'am. A few of the team were taken off guard by the drill itself but we managed to defend sickbay from the holographic intruder's thanks to some help from security"

Duo turned to address the Doctor. "Congratulations to your staff Doctor. The Jem'Hadar are no picnic, even holographic ones. The Master-at-Arms and the Boatswain will be working on a schedule to get all personnel on the Sunfire an update on their boarding action and basic weapon proficiency. The Captain has approved a plan that will station extra security officers at key locations on the ship, such as Sickbay and Main Engineering in order to help take the pressure off your respective teams. They need to be able to focus on their jobs, not getting in a fire fight.

Rhenora turned her attention to the ship's counselor - albeit an off-duty counselor. " Aurora, you were on the bridge when this scenario went down - in your opinion how did the crew cope mentally with it?"

Aurora offered a polite smile as she looked towards Rhenora. “In my opinion, I think everyone coped Admirably. There was a certain level of uncertainty to start, but the crew pulled together to work as a cohesive team. I have no concerns at all.”

"I'm very grateful to hear that - I understand drills can be unnerving and can re-open some previous war wounds" Rhenora admitted, knowing that they were a necessity though.

"Lt Avarak - your assessment of the science department?" She turned her attention to the young Vulcan.

Avarak sat forward to provide his report. “Ma’am. Science performed adequately, however, there was a bottleneck of information transfer; the department conducted their analyses satisfactorily but did not pass along the information fast enough.”

" Well it appears we did well in places and not so well in places. I appreciate your candid feedback and look forward to learning from this so we can prepare for the next one." Rhenora looked around the table at the assembled officers "Let's get back on the road - dismissed"

Dean was going to wait until most of them went and left, while he contemplated if he wanted to say anything else. Or, just trying to think and run through an idea.

Thriss picked up his PADD and left the briefing room, to go back to his quarters to begin studying the schematics for the Transwarp Drive. But before that, he decided to grab a bite to eat in the mess hall.

Duo picked up his PADD and exited the room. He was finally off duty and headed straight for his quarters.

"Mr House - did you want to discuss something privately?" The Captain enquired, noticing Dean's hesitation to leave.

"I don't think anything pertinant to be honest." Dean stood up, "I'll take my leave now, Captain."

"Very good Mr House" She nodded as he turned and left the room, Rhenora taking the cue to sign off for the day herself. It had been exhausting to say the least.