Daniels yawned and scratched himself as he dawdled down the corridor. It had ended up a good night - a complete change from the pace of the day before. He felt relaxed and happy again. The world, he’d decided, wasn’t a bad place at all.
He’d arrived back on the ship a little early so he could get the drop on the Commander, as well as check in on Security. He loved surprising them with snap inspections - though he remembered how much he’d hated them, he also remembered how much better he’d worked when his commanders had indulged in them. He knew that as long as he kept them fair and fairly infrequent, they’d work for his team, too.
Grieg’s office was just ahead, so he slowed and ambled over to the door. He didn’t expect any reply at this point, for he’d reviewed the exit and entry logs and had seen the time Grieg had logged back aboard, but rang the chime anyway.
He was astonished to hear the "Enter." come from within.
The office was only small - essentially a console with a few chairs and a set of currently empty shelves - but it was all he would need. There was a small planter to the side of his desk, holding some green leafy thing that added an interesting scent to the air.
As he stepped into the room, Daniels was amazed to see that the First Officer was bright eyed and alert as he looked at him, and there was absolutely nothing about him that suggested he’d had a late night. Must be great tri-ox! he thought with a snicker.
"Take a seat."
Doing as he was bidden, the Security Chief watched as Grieg did something to the monitor.
"I’ve been going over your record, Matthew." he began. Daniels cringed.
"’Daniels’." he corrected automatically. "I really hate ‘Matthew’."
Grieg paused, then continued.
"You’ve had an interesting career so far. I only hope you don’t repeat the striking an officer thing too soon."
"Don’t be an idiot and I won’t." Daniels murmured into his beard.
"However, I didn’t call you in to discuss that, except in passing. I know that the Captain feels you show a lot of promise as an officer, and from this I can see that as well. However, there are a few things we have to get clear from the outset. You already know of the restrictions put on you by Starfleet?"
"I know they won’t let me drink while I’m aboard, and can’t be drunk when I come back." Daniels snorted. "As though I have a problem!"
"It’s not the alcohol, it’s the discipline, though I think you know that. To that end, I’m implementing the specifics as of now.
"Upon returning to the Fairburn after a shoreleave, you will report directly to the CMO, who will test your blood alcohol level…"
"Aw, come on!" Daniels sputtered, rolling his eyes towards the ceiling. "You can’t…!"
Grieg ignored him.
"The replicators have been programmed not to serve you anything alcoholic, nor will anyone in the lounges. If you are found with an alcoholic beverage you will be placed on report. If you are found consuming one, you will be suspended. Anyone else found giving you one will be put on report.
"For the time being you are officially on probation. You will not be allowed to take a rostered command of the bridge, and will be allowed to only in extreme emergency situations. Do you understand?"
"Yes, I understand." Daniels growled. "I understand it’s all a load of…!"
"Don’t make it any worse for yourself." Grieg warned. "These will be in effect only until the Captain is convinced you’re able to function without them, so essentially if you do a good job, you’ll be able to get back to it faster.
"However incidents like last night’s dance with insubordination and this report I have of you lining your security detail along the forward airlock and blocking the people coming in from McKinley aren’t going to help your case at all.
"Even if you don’t feel it, you have to show some respect for the chain of command. Personally I don’t care what you think of me, I don’t care what you think of the Captain and I don’t care what you think of anyone else aboard. But professionally you are required to show deference for those above you and be a role model for those below. That’s the unwritten part of being a senior officer. If you want to be a fool, then leave the fleet."
Grieg sighed and looked towards the sulky officer, his face set.
"All that having been said," he continued in a more conciliatory tone. "I was wondering if there was anything I can do to help you get settled in. I realise that you and Elek may already have problems; I’ll try to give you as few shifts with her as I can, though it’s going to be difficult, given your respective positions on the ship. You will have to work with her, as she will with you, especially on away missions. But is there anything else I can do to make it easier for you?"
Daniels started in surprise. After the great long list of restrictions, this was not what he expected to hear!
"What?!" he spat, then checked himself. "What… oh, ummm; nothing springs immediately to mind. Sir. Can I think about it?"
"Certainly." Grieg replied. "Well, if that is all, Doctor Willbanks is waiting for you in Sickbay for your first test. Report to her and then go on to the staff meeting."
"Yes, sir." Daniels grumbled, still resentful of all that had just been thrust upon him. Why, if I’d known what I was getting myself into… I would have accepted it anyway. he realised with sadness. He slowly got to his feet. "Can I go?"
"Dismissed." Grieg replied.
"Are you kids moving yet?"
Susan wasn’t irritated - yet. She’d allowed herself, and more importantly the kids, plenty of time to get ready this morning, knowing that the day you wanted them to move the fastest is when they’ll go slowest. At least she’d managed to get that big lump she called a husband out of bed and fed on time. She looked fondly at the man, who was munching through his toast as he read over a PADD in preparation for the meeting this morning. He was often an annoyance, but he was a good man, and she loved him very much, save when he was a pain.
She sighed and shouldered into her uniform.
"Kids!" she cried again, stepping across the room to look into their rooms. "Time to get up and going!"
Lily was in the process of dressing, she noticed as she looked in.
"Alright, alright!" Lily said as Susan withdrew. "I’ll be there in a minute! What’s for breakfast?"
"Toast." Susan replied as she moved into the other room to see to Jason. "If you want anything more you’ll have to get it yourself. I don’t have time today."
She heard the mutterings about replicators being nearly instantaneous, but these were forgotten at the sight of her son’s bulk still contentedly curled up in his bed.
"Oi!" she cried, poking at the curled up back. "Time to get up!"
There came an incoherent complaint from beneath the bedclothes as the bulk shifted.
"I mean it!"
"But it’s cold." came the sleep-slurred comment. "Just five minutes more, please?"
"No! You’re going to get up now!" she insisted, hauling the blankets off him.
There came a squeal of protest as the pyjama clad youngster was revealed.
"Oh, Mum! What did you do that for?"
"Because I have to get to work and you two have to be at the play center before I go, understand?"
"Oh." He stopped to think for a moment, then looked up at her, shifting around on the bed to sit up. "What should I wear?"
She’d known this was coming and had taken steps last night when everyone else had been asleep.
"I’ve set your clothes out over there." She indicated the pile of neatly folded clothing on the dresser. "You’ll wear those. Now get ready!"
He shimmied off the bed obediently and headed for the dresser with a meek, "Ok."
She sighed and left him to it; he’d have to be checked on in a few minutes to put him back on track but she knew she had a few other things to see to this morning other than an easily distracted son.
Lily was sitting on the couch now, with a piece of toast in her mouth as she tried to put a sock on. Susan smiled wryly and picked up a PADD, which she took over to a chair and began studying as she twisted her hair into a braid.
"Who put out the books?" Lily asked quizzically.
Startled, Susan looked up and saw her daughter’s gaze fixed on the shelves.
Thankfully Ian fielded this one, allowing her to go back to her study.
"Your mother did after you all went to bed." he explained. "Are you nearly ready yet?"
"I just have to put on my shoes."
"Good. Jason!" Ian’s call was really more a bellow - understandable given Jason’s talent for distraction. "You ready yet?"
"Almost." came the uncertain reply.
Buried in crew and efficiency reports, Susan murmured,
"Could you check on him, Ian?"
"Sure." he replied, stretching as he unfurled himself from the chair.
She knew what was coming next, and tensed herself for it.
"What are you doing with that?! Get ready now or you’re going out like that!"
"Dad, I was just…"
"I can see what you were doing, now get dressed! Lily’s ready already!"
The last strand of hair slipped into place and Susan could concentrate more fully on the PADD. This didn’t stop her chipping in to the argument.
"Do it now, Jason Randall, or you’re going to get put in there as is! Hop it!"
"You heard your mother." Ian said. "Now I’m going to stand here and wait. If you aren’t ready in five minutes…"
Jason made some incoherent noise of disappointment, but started moving none-the-less.
Susan resignedly shook her head, but kept reading.
"Mum?" Lily’s quiet voice interrupted. Susan looked up into a plate of warm toast. "Would you like some?"
Susan smiled and took a piece.
"Thanks. Have you got everything?"
"I think so."
"Well, we’ll be going in a few minutes, as soon as your brother is ready, so don’t start on anything new, alright?"
"I won’t." Lily promised.
"And save some of that toast for him, please."
"Ok."
Finally Jason came limping out of his bedroom with one boot on and one off. Behind him his father stalked like a thundercloud - Ian was never at his best when he had to deal with children and prepare for the coming day at work.
Susan looked up at him.
"Right." she said. "You’re not going to have time to eat now, you’ll have to eat on the way there. So get your boot on and go into the bathroom to wash, and I want you out of there in five minutes! Clear?"
"Yes." Jason muttered. wrestling the boot on to his foot in the most awkward way imaginable. Both parents sighed and rolled their eyes, knowing mornings were going to generally run like this from now on. After all, they’d always gone more or less like this before…
"Wow! I’ve never seen a sunburned Bolian before! Do you all go that dark shade of blue?"
"It didn’t come out until this morning." Rell grouched, glaring at Daniels, as it hurt too much to cross his arms. "It never does. Right now I wish I was like the firebirds I saw on Perret IV during a survey there - they lived on the lip of a volcano and made their nests from the lava! Never got burned!" Then he snorted, shifted on the edge of the bio bed and chuckled, "Froze fast, though. Can’t win ‘em all, I suppose. Ah!"
The blue knot of agony returned as he tried to shrug, then perceptibly shook his head at himself and his folly, a slight smile on his jolly features.
Lisa came back into the room at this point and frowned at Daniels’ pose against the doorway.
"You’re clear. You can leave now." she said snippily. The Security Chief smiled evilly.
"Well, it must have been all that physical exertion I did last night. Man, she nearly tired me out with all the things we got up to! Phew! Must have driven all the alcohol from my system too, coz all we did was drink; well, apart from…" He laughed.
"Like I want to know." she sighed, then turned her attention to Rell. "This is really rather bad, isn’t it?"
"I’ve been too long out of the Terran sun, I think." he sighed, sagging into himself as any other position caused too much pain. "It used to be fine at Utopia… All the domes, you see; they keep the UV filtered beautifully."
"Why didn’t you get inoculated, then? Wouldn’t have taken you more than a few minutes." Lisa asked, preparing an instrument from the nearby tray.
"Ah, well, Commander Grieg came sweeping up to me last night from out of nowhere. I was just about to start climbing up the warp core when he approached me and asked if I’d like to go diving with him. You see, I learned early on in my career that when your First Officer asks you to go on shoreleave with them, you go, particularly when they can quote how long it’s been since your last shoreleave! But as he wouldn’t let me go down in my uniform, I had to take the time to change, and by then I’d completely forgotten that I hadn’t renewed my UV vaccine. Boy am I sorry now!"
With a careful finger Lisa touched the hot blue flesh of the Bolian’s shoulder. As he cringed, she commented,
"Yes, I’m sure you are."
"Say, are you guys going to go to the staff meeting this morning?" Daniels asked conversationally from the door. Lisa snorted.
"What do you think?"
"I was." Rell replied more evenly. "What time is it?"
"We’ve got about seven minutes before it’s due to start." Daniels continued, smiling.
"Damn. I’m not going to be able to finish all this by then." Lisa sighed. "Look, I’ll get the surface settled down for you, but if you can wait until after the meeting for the rest…?"
Rell smiled as best he could with a healing unit being plied across his burnt face.
"Anything is better than nothing, and as long as relief is not too far away I think I can handle the wait."
"Ok." Lisa said agreeably.
"Yeah, but do you know how long the Captain’s gonna talk for?" Daniels leered from the doorway.
"Mister Daniels, you are dismissed!" Lisa said angrily, but didn’t bother to look up from her ministrations.
"That means I can go wherever I want to, doesn’t it?"
"No, it means get out of here before you have this healer unit surgically implanted into your backside! Now go!"
"Oh, you’re no fun." he sniveled and shuffled off. Rell sighed and started counting.
On "five", Daniels stuck his head around the door again.
"How would you implant it there?" he asked.
Rell put a restraining hand over Lisa’s white knuckle grip on the healer.
"Daniels, I’ll see you at the meeting, ok?" he softly commanded. Daniels sighed.
"All right. See you there."
"Don’t judge him too harshly." the Engineer said to the doctor once Daniels had finally gone. "He’s a pain, but underneath the lot, he’s really a good man."
"I think I’ll have to take your word for that, Commander." she sighed. "You can put your top back on now; that’s about as much as I can get done without us being late."
"Ok." He grunted as he reached behind himself for his uniform top. The burning was still there, but at least it wasn’t as all-consuming as before. Then he swung himself down on to the floor. "Let’s go."
