<USS Avalon> Issues and Egos

Issues and Egos


by Lieutenant Joshua McEntire and MCPO Amanda Stirling

*** Takes place before Eavesdropping <My wasn't that a long time ago! ;0)>

Master Chief Petty Officer Amanda Stirling stood outside her commanders office. 
She was not happy, in fact she was downright ashamed of herself. What are Dad 
and Uncle Aaron going to say? I really messed up this time. She began pacing 
again something she'd picked up from her father, a Marine legend no less. But 
family ties wouldn't help her now. Time to face the music. She pressed the 
chime.

"Come," JoshieMac answered, studiously examining the security reports for the 
change of shift, signing off on them one by one as he reviewed each in turn. 

Bringing herself to attention in front of 'SecuriMac' as he'd been christened 
on the lower decks, Amanda offered him the PADD containing her report of the 
incident in the shuttlebay. "It's all there sir."

"It usually is," He sighed, smiling slightly, setting it on the pile with the 
others. "Thank you." Noticing that she remained at attention rather than 
leaving as usual, he looked up curiously. "Yes, Chief?"

"Begging your pardon sir, but why would anyone want to steal a fifty year old 
relic? More to the point why guard it in the first place?" She frowned. 
"Shouldn't it have been in a museum somewhere, especially as it was carrying 
markings from the Intrepid class Avalon?"

Joshie raised a brow and picked back up the PADD he'd yet to even glance at as 
her words struck him. "Steal a....OH, FUCK NO!" he scanned the PADD quickly, 
his fair skin flushing as he stood up angrily. "How the HELL did you let him 
get past you?"

Amanda wasn't surprised at this sudden outburst. She had, in fact, come here 
expecting much worse. Refusing to allow herself to flinch or get flustered as 
so many often did when faced with his displeasure, she responded, "Didn't see 
anyone sir. Presume it was a site-to-site. Saw no-one. I brought you the report 
personally, since the comm didn't seem to be responding and I thought I ought 
to report it immediately." She relayed the pertinent details. "The override was 
so good, I barely had time to get out of the variable gravity area and to the 
control booth before the shuttle had left the bay." 


Amanda rolled her eyes, Dad had warned her that sometimes officers didn't get 
everything the first time round. "Sir, the comms didn't work and the shuttle 
bay controls were locked out. I'd have used a grappling hook if I'd had one, 
but what would I have tied the rope to that would have held an accelerating 
shuttle?"

"Hell if I know," he growled, rising and heading for the door. "But you can be 
damned sure I would have tried SOMETHING! Shit just doesn't get to just take a 
powder on my watch, dammit, especially not when I have someone who's supposed 
to be the best I've got watching it!"

Amanda felt her mother's temper rise, and her father's good sense squash it 
flat. She kept her voice level, "I tried everything in my power that I could 
do. A great engineer said once 'The more complicated the plumbing, the easier 
it is to bung up the pipes.' If I had been trusted with more information maybe 
I could have done more, but I resent the implication that this breach is purely 
down to me Sir." 

JoshieMac looked at her in disbelief. She'd just had a shuttle stolen from 
under her nose. Rather than bypassing power relays to the bay doors or 
shackling the landing pegs, or resetting gravity to prevent lift or ANYTHING 
that might have prevented it, she let it go, and now, rather than accepting her 
responsibility as one who'd failed in their assignment she stood before him 
trying to pass the buck. Fine. Fuck it. He'd take the heat, since ultimately it 
was his departments screw up, but she didn't get completely off here and now. 
His voice very calm, dangerously so, he answered, "And I resent the knowledge 
that I put what I believed was my very best down there to guard it for a reason 
and I turned out to be wrong. You got all the information you were entitled to, 
Chief Petty Officer Stirling. The fact is, your not entitled to explanations. 
You had your orders. And your orders were to guard the shuttle and make sure 
nobody got near it. Not only did someone get near it, they g
 ot in it
 and and they got out in it. Excuses be damned, it does come purely down to 
you. Oh, don't worry, I'll take care of it, I'll go to Grace and officially, it 
will come down to me, God forbid your fuckup should be reflected in your 
record, but in truth it'll be both of us, and you damned well better know it. 
You for allowing it to happen, and me for thinking you were the right one for 
the post in the first place. Clearly believing in your capabilities was a 
costly error on my part. It won't happen again. Dismissed."

Striding past her without a backwards glance, he exited his office as well, 
making his way toward the low-tech quarters to confirm his suspicions while he 
back-doored the news of the shuttles disappearance to Grace as he believed 
Stirling should have sent it to him, coded through the console at her chair, 
the lights telling her what the shipwide comm's could not, thanks to the 
tampering of the visitor in Low-Tech four-ten. A visitor he was certain was no 
longer there.

She snapped and followed him into the corridor. She'd been up before the boss 
before but to be bawled out like that she felt was unforgivable. Grabbing his 
shoulder, she whirled him round to face her.

"Lieutenant McEntire, I was told to guard the fucking shuttle. When I tell you 
I was locked out and could not do anything I would expect you to believe me. Or 
do twenty years of job experience mean nothing to one of the glorious McEntires 
of Starfleet?"

She narrowed her eyes, "I had limited information to work with, I think what 
really burns you, is that you knew exactly what we were up against and whoever 
it was bested you. And I will NOT have my arse chewed on because of it. Take my 
rating for all I care but I will not tolerate being dressed down like that 
because your ego has been right royally pricked."

He looked at her evenly, his voice calm, his temper in check."Twenty years of 
job experience are only valuable as a representation of what you should be 
capable of and clearly aren't unless you're spoon fed all possibilities like a 
rookie cadet. Never mind my surname, I'd have expected more from someone with 
yours. However, if you have a problem working with a McEntire, or me 
personally, I'm sure a transfer of department could be arranged immediately, if 
I can find anyone else willing to take on an insubordinate incompetent more 
interested in making excuses than accepting responsibility such as you've 
proven yourself to be." 

A gathering of onlookers had appeared at Stirling's outburst, and seemed to 
grow at an alarming rate as Joshie responded.

Glaring hard, his voice took on a dangerous edge as he continued, lowering it 
so that only she could hear him, still preferring that this remain between 
commander and subordinate as it should have and deeply angered that she'd 
chosen to make her mistake part of the ships scuttlebutt rather than just 
letting him assume the responsibility as he'd said he would, "Like it or not 
this is a military ship, with the expectations that once orders are issued, 
they are to be followed. No excuses. Whether or not I believe I was bested, 
whether it burns my ass or not has nothing to do with the fact that you fucked 
up. When you're told to monitor and guard a shuttle and it's bay, as your 
orders were, it's expected that you know enough to look for things that could 
go wrong and defend against them. You didn't, and you were dressed down for it, 
as anyone else would have been. Live with it. As to what you will and won't 
take, that was decided when you signed up and put on the uniform. You're 
 gross
 insubordination following your dereliction of duty are enough at this point to 
negate that choice, however, if you want an out I'll be happy to provide it for 
you in the form of a recommendation for dismissal. Otherwise, step back, shut 
your pie hole and put yourself in line, PO Stirling. I have work to do. 
Dismissed."

Amanda had had enough. She hissed back "Seeing as my rank is diminishing every 
time you use it Sir, I may as well finish what I started. When I say I tried 
everything after the fact records will bear that out. Standard procedures were 
followed prior to the event. If standard procedures were not sufficient this is 
information that should have been supplied. Unfortunately information of that 
nature was not attached to the briefing and seeing as this is evidently some 
sort of temporal bullshit, details of the occupant were not available."

A flash of inspiration caught her unawares. The shuttle, the occupants ease at 
bypassing things no one should be able to. "Hell's Bells, the bloody thing was 
from the past. From the Avalon-B." More memories of that ships history were 
recalled. It was relatively easy, most of the 'Avvy brats' ran this ship. "Who 
was it? Your father or your namesake Joshua?"

"What part of dismissed have you failed to grasp? It isn't important where the 
shuttle may or may not have been or who may or may not have been aboard it from 
your standpoint, Chief Petty Officer Stirling." he made a point of stressing 
her rank since it seemed so much more important to her than her orders 
apparently had. "What does matter is that you let it go. You can continue to 
defend your actions and make guesses all you like, but the fact is that had I 
wanted someone who only went so far as standard procedures any lug from our 
department would have been sufficient. You were put on that patrol for your 
attention to detail, with or without orders to attend to them. It was in your 
file. You were overcautious, sometimes to the point of being maddening. You 
were ingenuitive and thought outside the box to assure your own success. It was 
because I wasn't in a position to give out more information than I did that you 
were selected. I won't make that mistake twice. Now, since you
  seem to
 have forgotten the meaning of the word dismissed, let me clarify it. You leave 
and if you must continue this blathering, do it at someone else, or better yet, 
you stand here and bitch about how difficult I am to work with while I go back 
to work trying to locate our missing visitor before while it still may be 
possible. Either way, we do not continue wasting each others time any longer. 
Understood? Good. Now let's try it again. Dismissed..."

"Fine, Sir. Since you seem so worked up over the fact he's lost and we're both 
responsible for that, would you prefer to work on the problem alone or have 
assistance?" she crossed her arms defiantly under her breasts.

Refusing to even dignify her ongoing insolence with an answer, he strode 
forward to the turbolift and closed the door quickly behind him, unwilling to 
waste anymore time on pointless banter. Once it had begun moving and he was 
truly done with the harpy in the hallway, he punched up in the requesition for 
her transfer on the PADD he carried, sent it off quickly, then turned his 
attention back to where it should have been all along....recovering the missing 
shuttle.

Of all the insolent, small minded, big-headed officers I've ever had the 
misfortune to meet.. "And so ends the career of Amanda Stirling." She muttered 
to herself.



"If there's nothing wrong with me... maybe there's something wrong with the 
universe!" 
~ Dr Beverly Crusher (ST:TNG, Remember Me)



                
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