===== Bridge, USS Chimera ===== Shane was sitting in the CO's chair having the bridge duty. Since the departure from SB Bragg life on the Chimera was returning to the usual duty routine, including Shane's turns to be "on the Watch". To be honest, Shane liked it to be on the bridge. The bridge was the command center of the ship, the place where the most command decissions were made ... a place where the informations from all over the ship flew together ... a nexus. During routine time ... like hours of flying straight forward on the designed course, there was little that required the attention of the officer in charge, the bridge crew knew their job and the officer in charge was there just to do 'The Watch' Shane leaned a bit deeper in the confortable seat and continued reading a large PADD he was holding in his hands. A thoughtfull expression was settled on his face ... he was focused on the content of the PADD and only a Red Alert could now disturb him. He was studying informations about the Spinward march and the X'Chi. Two vital bits of the whole story. The contact between Starfleet and the X'Chi was quite limited and the data aviable about the race the same. Shane learned hardly anything new aside from what was said on the senior officers meeting. A point that stuck his head was the X'Chi collective mind. It was not like the collective of the Borg ... Shane would guess more like a hive mind. A hive mind can reach almost an genius level when there are many 'bees in the hive'. The same logic implies that the less 'bees in hive' the lesser the intelligence of the collective mind would be. Shane noted this as a possible theory that needed discussion with the Science department! . LtJg Oriana or the freshly promoted Ensign Weranis could have a look at that theory. The material about the Spinward march was MUCH more abundant. Varius ships under various various conditions entered the march and experienced various events. From space rifts, time tunnels, quantum singularities, through worm holes and space anomalies of all kind ... one thing was clear to Shane. The march was not a kid's playground. Shane's mind drifted over to the modifications the Chimera has undergone and that were "supposed" to shield the ship against time anomalies. The new devices were a prototype and one thing was sadly known about prototypes ... they often tended not to work "properly". It was quite a risk for Starfleet measurres to send out a ship with a prototype technology into a dangerous area ... but for the SSF it was daily's bread. Shane was not happy about the report that Rangi wrote to the General and him about the increased number of injured crew that could be connected with the prototype technology. He could understand her point and the point of the ship's DCEO McTaggert as well, but was there an alternative? Without the technology they could forget their mission ... the Chimera would be most probably soon affected by the march's anomalies soon or later ... and that was what they wantes to avoid. It was quite interesting that the crew (Shane including) often tend to forget that they were part of the Starfleet special forces. Till now Chimera was little affected by the fact that it was an SSF ship. The crew consisted of a vast majority of ordinary fleet officers (with the rather interesting fact that many of them were once crewmembers of the USS Archer) and "ordinary" maries ... former parts of the Marine Core. There were hardly any "core" SSF crew on board. For a part it was logical. The Chimera was a new ship, hardly 3 years in space and the crew was made from SSF greenhorns. SSF COMM only slowly started to rise the requirements for the crew. Afterall, it was hardly imaginable that SSF COMM will trust a highly classified mission to a crew that was just 6 month ago a regular fleet crew or a marine complement on some planet. Intel first wants to discretly check the crew and mainly the Senior officers. Step by step ... with every next mission a bit more classified ... that was the standart way of SSF ... and Shane saw NO reason why the Chimera should be treated otherwise. There was a thing that made him feel a bit unease. It was something Keylor told him after the senior meeting when Shane was objecting Keylor's decission to fly a shuttle and lead a team by himself. Shane was not glad about the General's decission. Fleet regulations 'suggested' the CO to stay on board and coordinate the mission from the safety of the ship, but the CO had the ultimate right to decide otherwise. And Keylor of course (Shane grinned) made such a decissionw with an annoying regularity. Almost every time when the situation outside the ship looked "interesting" .... that means dangerous and exciting, the good old General decided to take a "peep" there. The fleet regulations said that the XO was personally responsible for the CO's safety when he is on an away team ... but the usually event was that keylor was on some away team shooting some aliens and Shane was ordered to babysit the ship. So much to personal responsibility ... {“Keep an Eye on this Harker fellow. It was bad enough that Command saddled us with Palmer, but with the sudden Appearance of Harker, I really wonder what else is going on here. This smells like some covert second operation going on here, though I can’t prove it.”} said Keylor after the senior meeting. Shane was not happy about having Intel operatives on board the Chimera, even less when not beeing told about their identity and real purpouse but the most unpleasant feeling was not to know where a crew members loyality were bound to. If this Harker guy was really an Intel operative ... will be "kick" for the Chimera when it comes to any crisis or for Intel? Shane glanced forward and saw the back on MCpt Harker behind the helm console. Shane was not used on marines beeing helm officers and the green uniform of the MCpt was somehow distracting for him. Most probably was the MCpt a good shuttle pilot with much experiece in the march, but if that will be enough to pilot an Interpid class ship safely through it was an another question. Anyway, Shane said to himself that keeping a close eye on the MCpt and the Mission specialist could prove to be "lantinum worth". Shane spoke to LtCmdr. Palmer only briefly on two or three occasions and he had no time to make him an opinion about the woman. Besides that fact that she was an attractive blonde. ===== End of log ===== Cmdr. Shane Guzman XO USS Chimera