Post 15

Posted on Tue Nov 25th, 2014 @ 7:30pm by Captain Christina Curtis

Mission: Begin with a Bang
Location: Captain's Ready Room, Discovery NX-04, Drydock, Earth Orbit
Timeline: May 12th, 2155 - 1925 hours

Curtis was pleased when the chirp from the communications panel interrupted her. It allowed her to put down the two data pads she had been comparing with service records of medical officers for a moment and divert her attention elsewhere. Putting down the one in her right hand, she leant over to press the push-to-talk button. "Curtis here."

"Captain, you have a call coming in through subspace relay. Shall I put it through?"

"Please do," the captain responded, even more happy for the interruption since it meant her earlier message had generated a return face-to-face. Putting the other pad down, she pressed the button at the edge of her desk monitor to activate it for the visual communication. "Captain Archer! Glad to see you got my message."

"Well since Hoshi started work on the new subroutine for the subspace relays, messages have been coming through like clockwork," Archer's grin was typical for the times that Curtis had spoken to him over subspace, as was his regular complimenting of his crew. Christina had never taken that to be any sense of one-upmanship from the Enterprise's captain; just a genuine pride in their achievements, large and small. "So Admiral Gardner has moved up your launch. Sounds familiar. What interspecies crisis is going down this time?" Enterprise had famously left drydock early itself four years ago to ferry a Klingon back to his homeworld.

"Gardner doesn't want me to say over subspace. He even came aboard himself to brief me on the situation face-to-face. Suffice it to say, things are pretty busy over here trying to get us ready to go on time."

"So I gathered. I take it you're still having trouble selecting a medical officer?"

Christina nodded, picking up one of the data pads again to glance at the latest record she had been going through. "Starfleet has a lot of doctors on payroll, but very few of them have had much experience with races other than humans and vulcans. I know that with only three warp five starships out of drydock there isn't a whole lot of deep space experience to go around, but if we run into any similar situations to those Enterprise has been in, I'd much rather have someone in the med bay who has something less limiting to draw on."

Archer nodded understandingly. "Have you looked for any candidates in the interspecies exchange program?"

Curtis shook her head. "No, just Starfleet records." She mentalled kicked herself for not thinking to look for members of the program. They weren't Starfleet officers, true; but Starfleet was all about peaceful cooperation with Earth's galactic neighbours, wasn't it?

"Why don't you see if Admiral Gardner has anyone he can recommend from there? I don't know where we would be without Phlox onboard, and he speaks very highly of the other doctors in the program. Starfleet has made exceptions for non-service personnel to join starship crews before."

"I think you're on to something there. I'll get Gardner to send me the files of anyone in the program on Earth at the moment."

"You're welcome, Christina," Archer said, his smile now cocky with satisfaction.

"Thank you, Jonathan," Curtis replied sarcastically, though she knew that he would get she was grateful to him for the suggestion through it. "I'd best get on that. I'll leave you to your exploring."

"You got it. Hope to see you out here soon."

As Archer signed off, Curtis tapped the comm panel for the on-duty communications officer again, ready to ask for a line through to Gardner's office.