New Officers Part 2

Posted on Sat Jun 13th, 2026 @ 9:26am by Captain James Stewart

1,993 words; about a 10 minute read

Mission: Mission 01 Shakedown Cruise
Location: Captain's R & R Room

Mu=On=
Captain’s Ready Room =

After Andi had left the ready room, James had decided to have a meal and relax before the next meetings he had with the Admiral or any of the new Crew that was coming aboard. As James picked up the Burger and had taken a bite out of the food item, which he had not had for the last few days, this had been the first time since coming aboard the new ship himself. Suddenly, looking over at his monitor, James noticed that he was getting a new Chief Medical Officer and a Chief Science Officer.

The first was his Chief Medical Officer, Toulaine, who held the rank of Lieutenant Commander. Meanwhile, his new Chief Science Officer, who went by the name of Muffy Harrington, who held the Rank of Lieutenant, as he wiped his mouth with the tissue, he opened the com channel and said, =/\= This is Captain James Stewart, would Lieutenant Commander Toulaine and Lieutenant Harrington, please report to the USS Churchill as soon as possible, Stewart out =/\= closing the channel and continued on with his meal

Toulaine and Muffy were just finishing a breakfast of biscuits and sausage gravy, home fries, a kind of hashbrown, and some rashers of bacon when ops passed on the message from Captain James Stewart, and they finished up quickly and left a tip for the extra service the waiter and the waitress who had helped them the night before and again this morning.

Both of them took a moment to make sure they looked professional, their uniforms were clean, and their ponytails were still smooth and not messy. Then they cleaned out their temporary quarters on the Starbase, thanked them for the wonderful stay, and they boarded the shuttle Arapahoe, and disembarked from the Starbase, beginning their approach to the Churchill. They then contacted the Churchill, asking permission to dock, explaining that this would be one of the extra shuttles for the Churchill and would be stored in her shuttle bays, somewhere.

After getting permission, Toulaine guided the shuttle into the open mouth of the shuttlebay and inside, gently set down and went through the shutdown protocols.

Muffy opened the airlock and requested two anti-grav carts from the flight deck crew. Upon receiving the trams, she began to load up the crates, separating them between the two trolleys. Once everything was taken out of the cargo area of the shuttle and loaded onto one of the two anti-grav pallets, Muffy went back in to help Toulaine without appearing to do so, to disembark from the shuttle and both women stopped at the bottom of the ramp.

“I am Lieutenant Commander Toulaine and this is Lieutenant Muffy Harrington. Permission to come aboard?” Toulaine said, leaning heavily on her cane, a little pinching around her eyes showing some pain.

The deck officer gave a professional salute. “Permission granted. I have the codes you both need for your quarters, the bridge, the senior officer deck and lounge.” Handing each woman a padd. “The Captain would like to see you in his ready room as soon as possible.”

“We will head up there after we drop these anti-grav trolleys to our quarters. Please let him know we are here and should be with him in a few minutes.” Muffy said and then stopped, after carefully looking at Toulaine. “Actually, can I get some help with the second tram? Doctor Toulaine will have a difficult time pushing hers and walking at the same time as she needs her cane.”

The deck officer pointed to an Ensign and assigned him to help with the second cart and the three of them left the shuttle bay and made their way to the senior deck and their assigned quarters where they left the pallets and thanked the Ensign for his help and went together to the Bridge and stopped at the Captain’s Ready Room and rang the chime.

James picked up his plate, walked over to the replication unit, and called, “ Come,” placing the plate inside to recycle. He began to walk back to his desk. He sat back down in his leather chair, waiting for the visitors to enter.

Muffy grabbed Toulaine’s arm and helped her inside the ready room and onto the couch and made her put her legs up. “Take your meds, Toulaine; I can almost feel your pain. Stop being so stiff with pride.” She waited and watched until grumbling, Toulaine stopped trying to fight her friend to stand up and took a hypo from her pocket and pressed it against her thigh, and the relief was almost palpable. Nodding, Muffy then turned to look at their new Captain.

Muffy turned to face him and saluted. “Lieutenant Muffy Harrington, Captain Stewart. On the couch is Lieutenant Commander Toulaine. She is an amazing doctor, but tends to put her own needs at the bottom of her list, and she needs to move them up so she can better do her job. And I’m sorry about the breach of protocol, but she was about to fall over, and she needed the help

“Welcome aboard, Doctor, Lieutenant Harington”, replied James, looking back at the Lieutenant. He continued, “Please take a seat and tell me about yourselves? “ as he gave a slight smile.

Muffy smiled and sat down across the desk from him and then looked at Toulaine. She lifted her hand in question to her friend.

Toulaine sat up a little taller and was working the muscle cramps out of her leg and began to talk. “I am Andorian, as you can see, and I also have no last name and no honorific like most Andorians have. The reason for that is that after the accident I had in my fourth year at the academy, I was disowned by my family and people and was cast out; my own race will no longer recognize me, thus I have no right to a last name or honorific like other Andorians.

“As you can see, I still bear the scars of that accident and will be living with the fallout of it for the rest of my life. For the longest time, I liked no one and no one liked me, but I was always respected for being one of the best doctors alive who doesn’t let emotions color the treatment of any patient, and I often work on enemies as well as allies when it’s needed. So I know as much about Klingon, Romulan, Cardassian, and Allasamorph physiology to treat any injury they incur.

“Then I met this piece of blond giggles who saw through my screen of not caring and refused to leave me alone and treated me as a friend from the beginning and started noticing things and doing things for me without my asking that made my life easier, and I realized that I needed her acceptance and friendship. And we were able to get to know each other, and she made me part of her family of choice. By family of choice, I mean the special people she gathers around herself to help her become what she calls being human rather than the porcelain people that her biological family are.

“So she is my sister now, along with a paraplegic named Alice and her husband, another person escaping the porcelain people named Ian, and we all call a farm/ranch in Texas home. I promise you that even though I have no bedside manner, I will be the best doctor you know. I will keep sickbay in order and will refine the skills of all the medical staff we have. And I will do my best to help keep Muffy controlled, as she tends to be OCD about her science projects, labs, solving mysteries and problems using science and at time she forgets to use her filter, and if she thinks it, she says it without editing it or thinking that it might not be appropriate to say.”

Muffy shrugged a little and turned back to the captain. “Well, I do tend to let my mouth run away with me, and I do obsess over my projects and in doing labs to find answers and solutions to the point I forget to sleep and eat and take care of myself. And Toulaine is my sister, as with Alice and Ian is my brother-in-law, and I love them all and will do anything for them to the point of giving my life to keep them safe and happy.

“I believe that science includes things like homemaking skills that require science to perform, like sewing, cleaning, cooking, etc. I also make sure the soft sciences are not forgotten in my department, like historians, psychologists, archeologists, and other things that deal with the mind and the past. Yes, plenty of the new hard sciences like cartography and stellar cartography, quantum physics, and mechanics, etc. I work with Medical, Engineering, and Security to make things run better and faster, and for Security, I help them be more efficient in their jobs. But only when I have the sanction of the department heads of those other departments.”

Muffy looked at Toulaine and then at the Captain. “I don’t know what else to say.”

“I see,” replied James, leaning forward towards both of his new officers. He continued,” I hope you both enjoy your time on the Churchill.” He finished,” I’d like a full report on the status of both the Medical bay and Science labs,” as he hoped that they had been finished with installing the equipment.

Muffy stopped a moment before standing up. “Uh, Captain, there is one other thing you should know. I developed a special technology that creates a locked point wormhole. One point is the farm in Texas, and the other is this.” She reached inside her uniform and pulled out what looked like an old-fashioned skeleton key. I have given one to Toulaine, so she is also locked into the wormhole. And, as per Starfleet Sciences safety protocols, so this doesn’t fall into the hands of someone who might misuse it, I am to give you one. It will activate when you touch it, and only your touch on this key will open this end to take you to Texas. It also will bring you back.” She put a copy of the key in her palm and held it out to him. “It is your choice if you take it, but if you don’t, you do need to log in that you declined the key, that it was offered and it was explained to you.” Then she waited.

“Thank you for the trust. I will not abuse this “ replied James, taking the key from her and walking over to a drawer that would only open for him. He placed the Key inside and closed the drawer again. He finished, “ I give you my word on the Honour of my house,” pointing to the sash on the wall of his ready room.

Toulaine spun her legs around and gripped her cane tightly and rose to her feet. “When do you want the reports, Captain?” She asked, the professional doctor and department head now.

James replied, “Give it 3 hours; I want a full evaluation of each for the Admiral after last time,” as he did not want to go through that again after losing so many cadets and his wife. He concluded, “That is all, dismissed,”.

Muffy and Toulaine left the ready room and both women sighed a moment. “Only three hours? Well, let’s see what we can do and we will fine-tune it after the report is given.” Toulaine said softly to Muffy. “We better hurry.”

Muffle helped Toulaine to the lift and took her to sickbay before going to science and getting started.

Off

Capt James Stewart
Commanding Officer

&

Lieutenant Commander Toulane Doctor
Chief medical officer

&

Lieutenant Muffy Harrington
Chief Science Officer

 

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