Lieutenant JG Ollie Bergmen - Your MPMF gel will be delivered between 8AM and 8PM
CPT Arianus
(( Cargo bay 2, Deck 11, USS Artemis ))
He was literally counting down the last hours. Thanks to the fact that shore leave was ending soon, and because his LOA had swamped his shore leave fund deep into the red, he had to swap a couple of shifts with his colleagues—a decision that proved to be a double-edged sword. Now, this beleaguered JG found himself slogging through his second consecutive twelve-hour shift, and teenager's body or not, the fatigue was already creeping into his bones like two hours ago, after he had already put in eighteen or nineteen hours on duty. Yeah, in the grueling days before the Federation, this would have been called a 24-hour shift. However, thanks to the Federation's progressive policies, those punishing hours and shifts were a relic of the past. Technically, he was on a break—at least on digital paper, where his hours were neatly filed and accounted for. Yet, the reality was far harsher. Having "pause", "lunch break", or "sleep", he wouldn't have brought his fund anywhere near the edge of the black numbers he so desperately needed. Once was Ollie, then he wore Taiben’s combadge. And if ever someone reviews the records, he definitely wasn’t Sztazzan, but he did take a shift for one too.
But that was life.
There were better days, for sure. He even vaguely remembered the pair, like that time on Risa—relaxing on the beach, lounging on a hotel bed, embraced by that long-haired…
oO Damn, what was his name? Hmm. Whatever, never mind. Oo
Or... what was that station they had his first shore leave as an officer? D-S two hundred something. Twenty-two? Twenty-five? Twenty-something, definitely twenty-something.
Back then, he actually didn’t see much from the station off duty…
oO Wonder why? Oo
But now wasn’t the time to daydream while he was Ollie again, not after his combadge had rested in his cabin for 12 hours and he should have been properly rested and full of energy too, to do the four more hours left in his duty marathon.
He blinked, yawned, and finished the last sips of coffee, black as the soul of a Romulan, before he entered Cargo Hold II, where more work awaited. Some emergency from the science department.
oO When was the last time an emergency did not come from the science department? Escaped experiments. Transformed crewmembers. Doomsday discoveries. Lack of spare push buttons for PADDs, because they were constantly writing and erasing their notes. Pick your poison, when the Science department calls… Oo
And an emergency it really was. Commander Jovenan jumped him before he could even say hello or put down his mug.
Jovenan: Thank you for coming, Lieutenant. ::turns, gestures at cargo holders:: Look at that!
Fortunately, caffeine, saccharides, taurine, riboflavin, and other similar substances—those barely pronounceable, definitely not healthy chemicals derived from even less healthy parts of the periodic table—that were previously in his mug and should help him restart his focus as his brain, now quickly started to flow in his bloodstream, and began to kick in.
Still... she pointed at the crates. They were in the Cargo Hold. The Cargo Hold should hold crates.
Bergmen: Ehm. Ehm. ::nods:: What’s a problem, ma’am?
She scratched her cheek, and Bergmen didn't know why, but that movement sparked a primal fear in him of something he hadn't yet realized was coming.
Jovenan: I, uh, I don’t know what happened at all. MPMF gel is difficult to acquire because it can’t be replicated without specialised equipment. The filaments degrade very quickly, so it can’t just be stored until we get more, either. This- this is not at all what I ordered!
oO Degrading experiment I haven’t on my shore leave bingo card. Escaping? I think yes… Does gel escape when it degrades? Could it count as an escaped experiment? Oo
Ollie smiled in a way that he was told calms others, as best he could.
Bergmen: Don’t worry, Commander. We'll look into it and find the issue, be sure. Do you have an order? ::smiled more::
She handed him a PADD. At first, it didn't make much sense to him, but he quickly realized that he was holding it upside down. In a discreet moment, he turned it around so she wouldn't notice. Not that she was paying much attention to him; her focus was firmly on the crates in front of them.
Jovenan: I ordered… I think I ordered, at least I meant to order, 5 tonnes of MPMF gel for the prismagon energy experiment I was hoping to run. An active optical data cable that is coated in the MPMF gel and moved in space can function as a kind of sweep net. However, the length of the cable needed is inversely related to the amount of the gel surrounding it. This… this is just 500 kilograms of gel! I can’t use the 100 metres of cable I’ve reserved for this, I’d need a kilometre of it!
oO M…something gel. Degrades fast. There should have been more. Yeah, I get it. Oo
Begmen nodded through the explanation and slowly walked to the crates to check whether the manifest matched what they actually had in front of them. It matched, yet the order was different. Technically. Material description was the same, volume really differed, material code string…
Bergmen: Hmm…
The thoughtful hmm probably wasn't what the commander expected from him, especially since it didn't hint at any positive or negative tone. His hmm was simply thoughtful, neutral, and sterile—like a freshly cleaned holodeck.
Ollie pulled out his tricorder, loaded the order from the PADD, and then used it to read a contactless data chip from one of the crates.
Bergmen: Hm… That’s weird. ::looks doubtful:: Interesting.
Lieutenant nodded to himself, watching the tricorder's screen before turning to Jovenan.
Bergmen: May I ask you to accompany me?
Jovenan: Response
Bergmen approached a nearby console, inserted his tricorder into the designated port with a satisfying click. The device whirred to life, lights blinking as it accessed the database. A stream of detailed information began scrolling across the screen, providing an overview of the order's status and its meticulous tracking throughout the delivery process. Ollie nodded, as it confirmed what he had been worried about.
Bergmen: Do you see those two strings? ::points on screen:: Up to fourteen digits of sixteen, it’s the same, but those two last differ, and these letters after the hyphen that are not in your order? That’s a problem.
Ollie scrolled up the tracking document, and there it was.
Bergmen: They haven’t five tons of this MPMF gel of yours, so someone in line decided in his greatest wisdom to substitute. Those letters after the hyphen? HCS? Highly condensed, stasis field. And those two numbers that differed? That indicates the material is meant to be used in scale, like... like the shipyards. You got your five tons hypercondensed into five hundred kilograms. ::glance to Jovenan:: I’m not a scientist, so this is a question for you as an expert, but do you have the means to…
He struggled to find the right term for the process, and his expression made that clear.
Bergmen: …ehm… decondensate your gel? ::smiles apologetically:: Because this is not refundable.
Jovenan: Response
TAG/TBC
–
Lieutenant JG Ollie Bergmen
Operations Officer
U.S.S. Artemis-A
A240009JC1