Forms and Functions
Posted on Tue Mar 26th, 2024 @ 9:30pm by
1,220 words; about a 6 minute read
Mission:
Rescue Interruptus
Location: Starbase 312
Give me Jem Hadar, Osher thought. Give me Klingons, Romulans, Cardassians. Even Ferengi.
But god help him, he could not stand bureucrats.
Chief S’Them was the ruler of her own little fiefdom, the quartermaster for the station. And while she gave no outward sign of enjoying her power over officers great and small one did not have to be a Betazoid to read her thoughts. No, S’Them loved using the tools at her disposal to make her superiors suffer.
“Chief,” Osher said with restrained patience, “I have filled out every form listed in the book. I have filled out the Materials Requisition, the Munitions Request, the Supplies TPK forms. So please, Chief, explain to me how not a single one of my requisitions has not been fulfilled?”
“Certainly, lieutenant,” S’Them replied with a smile that did not reach her cold gray eyes, “You only sent in one set.”
“…What?”
“On set, lieutenant. Your ship, the Athena, is a Prometheus class, correct?”
“Yes. But I fail-“
“Well, there you go. The Athena is really three ships, lieutenant. You need to fill out three sets of forms. A similar problem happened with the Galaxy class years back; since the saucer section was designed to separate technically it was two ships.”
“You…are not kidding.”
“I am afraid I am quite serious, lieutenant. What would be helpful is if you could also denote which form belongs to which section of the whole.”
“You want me to fill out all those forms. In…triplicate,” she nodded at Osher. He blinked, “Well, I filled out one set, so-“
“Oh, but you see, you did not denote which portion to which you were referring. Your ship is leaving soon, correct? I would get to filling those forms out soonest, lieutenant.”
Defeated, Osher departed the chief’s office and returned to his quarters on the station. He had not yet moved onto the Athena although he knew he had to soon. It just felt like when he did things would feel…final.
* * *
Polly let out a joyous whistle at Osher’s return, he smiled despite himself and walked over to her stand. She let out a series of pleased clickings as he gently scratched her head, then clambered up his arm to his shoulder.
Osher sank into the recliner and grabbed a PADD on the stand, before he could call up one of the endless forms Polly whistled, “Tequila!”
“Oh, not now, Polly,” Osher said, “Can’t it wait?”
“Tequila!”
Osher grimaced. His wife Shira had possessed a strange obsession with certain elements of
Earth’s twentieth century. It was strangely common in Starfleet; there was a ‘twentieth century guy’ on many ships. With Shira’s passing Osher had found himself forced to become de facto Twentieth Century Guy just to make Polly happy.
“I’m not winning this one, am I?” he said to the bird. Polly stared into his eye. Osher sighed,
“Computer, play ‘Tequila’.”
The sound of the playful saxophone filled his quarters, Polly hopped off Osher’s shoulder to land on the floor, whereupon she hopped around, her head bobbing up and down to the music.
Osher smiled despite himself, then he directed his attention to the PADD. This made zero sense. So what if the Athena was three ships in one? Using that argument then a requisition form had to be filled out for every shuttle and support craft stored in a vessel. It was highly inefficient as well.
Osher paused. It was inefficient, wasn’t it? And…Well, all right, at the start he imagined once the Prometheus class became public knowledge Supply might have forced this stupid rule. But sooner or later enough people would have complained, going back to the whole Galaxy class issue. And what would have finally happened?
Osher smiled and quickly accessed Requisition forms, but he still had the presence of mind to call out ‘Tequila!’ at the right moment. Otherwise Polly would not have forgiven him. He hesitated, then another idea came to mind and he put in a called to an old friend…
* * *
“Welcome back, lieutenant,” Chief S’Them noted with a pleased smile, “Have you…”
The smile faded when she saw only one PADD in his hand, “I believe you did not understand m-“
“Oh, I understood you perfectly, S’Them,” Osher replied, smiling as she bristled at the familiarity, “At least I thought I did. I thought you were just being a jumped up martinet drunk on power. But then I had a friend on Starbase three look up your personnel file and I found out whom your husband was related to.”
S’Them hesitated, Osher pressed on, “I know what clan he is affiliated with. I imagine it must have been quite a birthday gift, being able to tell him you were driving metaphorical pins under my finger nails. I’m not finished,” something in his tone brought her up short, “I thought of how wasteful and inefficient filling out three forms would be so I thought, what would your division ultimately do? Why, you would create a new form specifically for the Prometheus class.”
His PADD fell with a loud clatter onto her desk, “They have the ‘pr’ prefix. All it took was a little looking. How strange that you seemed to forget they existed. One would say that was proof of malicious intent.”
S'Them almost came out of her chair, “Now, wait! I-“
“That’s ‘now, wait, lieutenant’, chief. You either had ill will in mind or you were incompetent. Which was it?” he smiled, “Maybe I should talk to your superior about it? They might suggest re-education. I would hate for it to get around to your peers you can’t do your job, chief.”
S’Them grimaced, “What do you want?”
Osher leaned down and planted his knuckles on her desk, “I have filled out all the necessary forms. I want every single requested item on board Athena yesterday. I don’t care if that means back-dating the forms to show I promptly and efficiently followed procedure or you get in a ship and travel back in time. And then you get to tell your husband how badly you mucked things up. And then warn him I might be older, I might be slower, but remind him I have left nearly a score of his relations broken and bleeding across three quadrants.”
Osher stood, “Tell them to stand clear, chief. I am back and I mean to stay…”
* * *
Osher glanced around the quarters to make certain he hadn’t left anything behind. He hadn’t brought much with him, but it paid to be sure. Polly gave a series of inquisitive whistles from her traveling cage and he smiled.
“Yes, all right,” Osher replied, “The sooner I get you on board Athena the sooner I can release Your Majesty from her bondage.”
He hefted the duffel bag over one shoulder and then grabbed the handle atop the cage. He paused and gave the quarters one last smile and then headed out. Until that meeting with S’Them something had been missing but now Osher felt he had it.
As the doors swooshed shut behind him he realized it was a taste for conflict. And gods, now he realized how much he had missed it…