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Chain Of Command reaction
Jan. 5th, 2008 12:48 amThe ceremony is the first obvious indication that something is really happening.
Not that a certain amount of protocol isn't followed on a starship every day; Sariel's used to it, likes it, even sticks to it when other officers have dropped formalities and started using first names. but that's protocol, that's expected, that's standard.
the sound of the all-call to attention isn't.
And that's just what everyone hears patched through to every communication unit on the ship, heartbeats and breaths before orders are read and not simply spoken, before the computer's automated voice responds to a terrifyingly final-sounding command, and before the ship changes hands in a slow blink. that's not just the usual protocol.
That's something truly serious happening farther up the Enterprise's hierarchy than sariel ever wishes to go. That's something certain to unsettle even the most seasoned of crewmembers - even Troi, even Riker, even Selar might be shaken by the sheer abruptness of the change.
Never mind the change itself.
and never mind all the fundamental shifts the change entails. there are minutia, and there are obvious differences in style and character and method, and there are details on every level in between the two extremes. Sariel's in the corridor, headed for the nearest turbolift when she spots a science officer as green as she is with something water-filled and transparent held carefully in his hands. He's exiting the lift she's entering, and it's only as the doors close that she realizes just what her fellow junior's been delegated to carry down from deck 1.
Em and Sonya give a back and forth account of their morning across the table at lunch, one taking up the story each time the other pauses for breath and both insisting, though Em's cheeks pinken as she does, that even if Geordi kept his gripes to himself, all the other engineers could *tell* that he thought the new captain's orders were unreasonable too. they certainly did.
Word gets around as the afternoon progresses, filtering down from department heads and senior subordinates; three shifts are now four, eight hours are now six, and the old gamma shift has to make way for a delta watch that didn't exist yesterday. Everyone's bumped back, a handful of officers are shuffled in place and Sariel is assigned bridge duty from six in the evening to midnight. she's nowhere near too proud to admit the flip-flop her stomach does when she finds out she has the rest of ship's night to herself.
there are little things, and there are obvious things, and when all is said and done no one is left untouched by at least one of a million alterations in reality. Even lowly junior officers feel it.
and even though she can't and won't speak for anyone else, Sariel is quite certain that she's far from the only one who's thoroughly rattled by it all.
Not that a certain amount of protocol isn't followed on a starship every day; Sariel's used to it, likes it, even sticks to it when other officers have dropped formalities and started using first names. but that's protocol, that's expected, that's standard.
the sound of the all-call to attention isn't.
And that's just what everyone hears patched through to every communication unit on the ship, heartbeats and breaths before orders are read and not simply spoken, before the computer's automated voice responds to a terrifyingly final-sounding command, and before the ship changes hands in a slow blink. that's not just the usual protocol.
That's something truly serious happening farther up the Enterprise's hierarchy than sariel ever wishes to go. That's something certain to unsettle even the most seasoned of crewmembers - even Troi, even Riker, even Selar might be shaken by the sheer abruptness of the change.
Never mind the change itself.
and never mind all the fundamental shifts the change entails. there are minutia, and there are obvious differences in style and character and method, and there are details on every level in between the two extremes. Sariel's in the corridor, headed for the nearest turbolift when she spots a science officer as green as she is with something water-filled and transparent held carefully in his hands. He's exiting the lift she's entering, and it's only as the doors close that she realizes just what her fellow junior's been delegated to carry down from deck 1.
Em and Sonya give a back and forth account of their morning across the table at lunch, one taking up the story each time the other pauses for breath and both insisting, though Em's cheeks pinken as she does, that even if Geordi kept his gripes to himself, all the other engineers could *tell* that he thought the new captain's orders were unreasonable too. they certainly did.
Word gets around as the afternoon progresses, filtering down from department heads and senior subordinates; three shifts are now four, eight hours are now six, and the old gamma shift has to make way for a delta watch that didn't exist yesterday. Everyone's bumped back, a handful of officers are shuffled in place and Sariel is assigned bridge duty from six in the evening to midnight. she's nowhere near too proud to admit the flip-flop her stomach does when she finds out she has the rest of ship's night to herself.
there are little things, and there are obvious things, and when all is said and done no one is left untouched by at least one of a million alterations in reality. Even lowly junior officers feel it.
and even though she can't and won't speak for anyone else, Sariel is quite certain that she's far from the only one who's thoroughly rattled by it all.
