LtCmdr Salkath - The Personal Touch

[Salkath]

((Chief Engineer's Office, Deck 15 - USS Artemis))

Standing in the entryway to the office, half within the room and half in the expansive space of Main Engineering, LtCmdr Salkath considered the space with a dispassionate and critical eye.

Most recently occupied by Lt Hallia Yellir, the space still contained traces of the former officer. Her absence was acutely felt by the entire department, as she had been a stout and highly competent leader, and Salkath for one was loathe to intrude on her legacy. Whatever had taken her away on short notice and for an indeterminate amount of time, Salkath wished her long life and prosperity.

In the meantime, whether as a place holder or as a permanent fixture, Salkath needed to prepare this office for his tenancy as the department head. The Artemis, already at warp, was enroute to its latest mission, and the time for personalization would soon come to an end. The first and most important step for the Vulcan to take would be to preserve and protect what little personal effects Hallia had left behind in her departure, for her to reclaim upon her return or to have delivered to her. Thankfully for Salkath, the Yelikan officer he was succeeding believed in a spare personal touch in her professional workspace, excepting a deluge of PADDs scattered about. Those were easy enough to file away into a storage crate, as they required little care thanks to their robust nature. Many officers simply recycled and replicated new PADDs as necessary; their constant interconnectedness to Starfleet computer systems meant that there was very rarely unique and proprietary data upon them. Still, there were those who were superstitious and/or sentimental and believed in the sanctity of specific physical objects, and Salkath was not willing to gamble whether or not Hallia was one of those individuals. He would pack the PADDs and give her the agency of deciding their worth.

This left the Caitian candle that Salkath surmised was one of Hallia's most prized possessions, based on both its prevalence in the office and from her own description of the item when they had first met. It held beauty and sophistication that Salkath could appreciate, and he handled and packed the candle with the utmost of care and attention. Once the crates of personal effects were secured to his exacting standards, he contacted Ops to have somebody come at their convenience to retrieve and store them until the former Chief Engineer could claim them.

Now, with a blank slate, Salkath could start to consider the office as his own. Well, almost a blank slate. The far walls had non-regulation couches, with cushions so padded as to be nearly impractical. He found them uncomfortably soft, but he knew from the murmurs of other engineering crew that they appreciated the touch of comfort in an otherwise sterile section of the ship. With personal misgivings, he chose to leave them present for their benefit, but fates help any officer or non-com found napping on those couches during Delta shift when they should be at work...

The single crate of personal effects that Salkath had brought with him to the office was placed upon the desk for emptying. Even that single crate was barely populated with items, as Salkath also believed in spare decoration. This was a place of work and collaboration, not an extension of one's personal quarters, after all. Still, with long hours of mental toil anticipated within the office, Salkath had to concede for and anticipate the need for objects to center himself and keep himself in top form for his responsibilities. 

In fact, other than some pre-replicated PADDs, there were only three objects of note in the crate. The first, a kal-toh board, would be an ideal object to kill down-time, maintain mental acuity during long bouts of mental fatigue, and as a social tool if he were entertaining in the office. The second was a small statuette of the IDIC insignia, carved and polished from a rust-red porphyritic rock from his homeworld. This he placed conspicuously on the desk, supplanting where Hallia's candle had once stood. Finally, on a shelf behind his desk, Salkath placed a meditation lamp. It was an exact replica of the one he kept in his quarters, and these lamps were valued possessions of any Vulcan. Should a situation arise where Salkath was confined in Engineering by duty or necessity for an excessive amount of time, and was in dire need of centering, this tool would prove invaluable as a meditative aid. Once these three objects were placed, adjusted, and finally set in their most optimal positions by Salkath's critical eye, he closed the crate and placed it with the ones containing Hallia's belongings to be retrieved as well by Ops.

Salkath: ::out loud, but to himself:: You have left a strong legacy, Lieutenant. I will endeavor to follow your example.

As he stood regarding the functional balance of the office and appreciating its aesthetics, Salkath noted the distinctive change in pitch of the warp core that signified a drop out of faster-than-light speeds. Surmising that they were arriving at their theater of operations for the present mission, Salkath consulted the duty roster for his department to discover who was present on the bridge and representing engineering. Very satisfied to find that Ensign Imril was on bridge duty, and confident that the promising new officer was able to be an effective relay between the bridge and Main Engineering, Salkath chose to stay here and rally the troops in the mechanical heart of the ship unless and until he was summoned for more direct responsibilities by the command crew.

END

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Lieutenant Commander Salkath

Chief Engineer, USS Artemis-A

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