Checking out the new office

Posted on Mon Sep 30th, 2019 @ 6:07pm by Captain Nathan Hunt

Mission: Shadows of Weimar
Location: USS Mercury, Bridge & Ready Room
Timeline: Mission Day 1 at 1035

Captain Nathan Hunt stepped off the turbolift onto the bridge of his new ship. The turbolift had brought him to the port-side rear hatch of the bridge, giving him a good raised vantage point over the entire room. The Galaxy-class had undergone a range of upgrades and variations over the decades since its introduction, and the latest iteration of the bridge module for the class was no exception. Contrasting starkly with the shape of the bridge on older Galaxy-class ships he had served on, the turbolift exit was actually rotated back towards the hatch to the briefing room at the rear of the module, with a very small corridor section before he actually stepped foot onto the bridge proper. To the rear of the bridge was a large MSD display of the ship in its entirety, with the work stations that used to occupy the rear bulkhead of the bridge moved to the sides; four stations to each wall. The tactical station still formed part of the wooden arch that encircled the command chairs, but the station itself was an enhanced version, with a larger display that stood an inch or so proud of the top of the railing at its highest point, and the tactical officer was no longer required to stand, with a raised chair being provided for them.

Hunt couldn't see the command chairs themselves yet from his vantage point, but he knew from the specifications he had studied that they were largely as they had been, visually at least, though the console stations next to the first and second officer chairs were larger and included a small table beneath the displays. The operations and helm consoles were also expanded, curving towards the back of the bridge in the middle, separating the officers at those stations from each other with displays and extended controls. At various otherwise-unused sections of bulkheads were various necessary paraphernalia of the operations of such a command centre; emergency weapon and first aid lockers, isolinear and bio-neural systems access ports, emergency power stations, and so on.

It took a minute or so of Hunt standing there at the back of the bridge, taking the sight in, before an officer turned and saw him there. "Captain on the bridge!" they called, immediately standing up to face him, followed shortly by every other officer present.

Nate held up his hand in a placating gesture. "At ease everyone," he said, though he nodded his thanks to the officer who had announced his arrival. He still wasn't entirely used to the custom, but he wasn't so against it that he insisted it be abandoned. He did hope however that as his crew got more settled in and comfortable with him, that its use would wane over time as it had on his last command. Either that or he had gradually become oblivious to the custom and his automatic response to it.

No longer able to be a passive observer, Nate strode forward through the bridge as everyone aside from the officer who had the conn - a lieutenant commander who Nate couldn't immediately place the name of, though he knew that they weren't on his senior staff - returned to their duties. "Welcome aboard, Captain," he said, in an accent that belied his Caitian origin. He stepped back and extended his hand towards the command chair as Nate walked around the railing, ready to hand over active command of the bridge to him. Nate held up his hand again in a polite refusal.

"Don't mind me, Commander," he said, pausing just next to the hatch to his ready room. "Just passing through on my way to check out my new office. Carry on." He watched at the commander nodded and returned to his seat, pausing just a moment to allow himself to observe the crew's renewed activity before leaving them to it and entering his ready room.

Forming an integral part of the bridge module, at least as far as the ship's construction went, the ready room inevitably was different to that which was originally a part of the Galaxy-class design, though due to the room's small size and limited potential, the changes were smaller in nature than those on the bridge itself. The viewport on the far wall, angled so as to look towards the ship's bow, was only slightly wider than the original design, and it still had a desk that sat in front of it, though the design of the desk and its accompanying chairs had been updated. The desk was now mostly black glass, with dark legs, and none of the older-style framing around that glass that Picard's famous ready room had displayed. The desk itself doubled as a workstation, able to be used as a full LCARS interface as well as being able to raise a more vertical display from the raised section off to one side. The walls evoked a dark wood panelling effect with their use of horizontal panels of brown between vertical pillars of darker grey, and the couch which occupied the space immediately to his right looked as though it curved out from the wall, rather than sitting in front of it. The small section of wall that had sectioned off the replicator was gone, with an extra hatchway now added to provide access to his private head; one of the few ways the new design had been able to add more usable space into the superstructure. That area still contained a replicator, but was otherwise empty. Its intention was to be used as a place to use the holographic communications array, to speak with others as though they were present in the room with you, rather than via a screen, but Nate had seen other captains had used the space for other things instead. The holo-emitters embedded in the ceiling after all were designed to be able to project to anywhere within the room.

Aside from the desk, chairs and couch, the room was bare, awaiting his personal touches, though he did notice that the desk was already scattered with a small number of PADDs. Likely his first officer had taken the opportunity to make use of the room on their way to pick him up. Nate smiled. Chances were he would have taken the same opportunity were their places reversed.

Crossing the room, Nate lowered himself into the chair behind his desk, testing it out. Somehow, the chair in a captain's ready room always felt more comfortable than the others around the various meeting rooms on a ship; as though the designers went to special trouble for the seat reserved only for the commander of the vessel. Even the command chair at the centre of the bridge - comfortable though it was - wasn't reserved strictly for him, as whoever had the conn at any given moment had the privilege to sit there. While that was technically true of the ready room too, it was a privilege few exercised, often preferring to stand or make use of other seating around the ready room if the need arose.

Satisfied with his chair, he sat forward and activated the display on his desk, the vertical monitor screen rising silently from its recess to his left. It immediately filled with lists of documents and messages for his perusal. "No rest for the wicked," he muttered to himself, as he began to skim through and organise them.