The First Day in Ops (backpost)
Posted on Fri Aug 14th, 2026 @ 5:09pm by Tessa di'Orion & Lieutenant Rala
2,186 words; about a 11 minute read
Mission:
Die Hard: Chimera Edition (side posts)
Location: Deck 5, Ops Office
Timeline: A few days after "The Healing Factor"
Tags: Rala,Tessa,Operations,training
First Day in Ops
Tessa traipsed down the corridor with a wide smile on her face, because today was going to be a VERY exciting day for her: it was her first time that she was going to be learning what Operations did on the ship. Some of it was clear to her, Ops handled quarters’ requests and handled supplies, but from what Kally had told her, the most important thing she needed to know was how to operate a transporter for medical applications. But that wasn’t all that Tessa had to look forward too, because it would be Rala that would be her instructor!
So the young Tialan brightened as the door numbers went up and began to almost match what office she was supposed to report to, her skirt in the golden hue of the Operations section, but contrasted by her shirt which had the image of an anime girl surrounded by the curled up image of a fire dragon and emblazoned with the script ‘I’m not a damsel, I’m a Dragon!’ Picked out especially for this day to go along with this skirt and the black shoes she was told would be newly required uniform wear for her, despite that they cramped her toes.
Rala looked up from her terminal as the door chime sounded. “Enter.”
The door opened to admit Tessa, and Rala smiled as the girl skipped into the Ops office. “Ah, Tessa,” she said, getting up from the desk and moving around to give her a hug. “Here for that cross-training, right?”
Tessa gave Rala the biggest hug that was possible, though her arms didn’t quite reach all the way around the Draakri, “First day in Operations, yup!” She said excitedly, “And then I’ll have Flight Operations, Engineering, Science, Security…” She ticked off each of the other sections with fingers where Rala couldn’t see them, “It’s a lot to learn, but if it means I can fit in better here, I’m willing to do it!”
Rala stepped back and took a closer look at Tessa’s outfit, then gave her a mildly reproachful look. “I don’t think that’s exactly approved attire, kin’tra.”
Tessa glanced down at the shirt, “But I wore it because you’re like a dragon, somewhat at least, I mean like the dragons in the books that Henry and I are reading and the movies we’re watching! Besides, I’m not ‘officially’ a member of the crew, even if I’m helping out in sickbay a lot.”
Rala smiled again as a soft chuckle escaped her throat. “I didn’t make it through four years at Starfleet Academy on Earth without being made aware of my resemblance to the creatures of Terran mythology. Repeatedly.” She gave Tessa’s shoulder a squeeze. “I’m honored you thought of me, and I do like it. But in the future, maybe save it for your free time.”
Tessa sighed heavily, but nodded, "All right, I suppose... I had a couple of ideas for future days, but I'll try to come more in uniform next time. Is what I usually wear in sickbay all right, or what type of uniform should I wear?"
Rala stepped back so she could get a better mental picture of Tessa’s form. One right arm held across her body, the other on her hip, one left hand scratching the side of her snout and the other her throat. “That...is a very good question, kin’tra. You’ve been wearing Medical teal while working in Sickbay, right? My first thought was, wear the color of whichever division you’re working with on a given day, but...” She paused, tilting her head. “You’re not officially part of the crew, but you are working to learn as much as possible that Starfleet has to teach you. I think an Academy Cadet’s uniform, or something close to it, would be appropriate, don’t you?”
“And maybe I could wear that for all of my classes!” Tessa’s eyes brightened, “I mean training things, and then maybe I’ll even get to wear it for real if I can ever go to the Academy! I’ll take Henry with me, of course, but he won’t mind, would he?”
Rala stepped forward again, placing a hand on the girl’s shoulder. “Your enthusiasm is commendable, but Tessa...Henry has a job here. While I’m sure he’d drop anything and everything to follow you wherever you want to go, as I understand it, he takes that job rather seriously; and while you could technically request to both be assigned somewhere that you’d be able to see each other regularly, Starfleet is under no obligation to do so, especially on ships. Would you really want to pull him away from this, and possibly from from his career, in order to follow you on that path?” She gave a gentle smile and lightened her tone, trying to soften her words. “And what about the rest of us? Starfleet certainly wouldn’t reassign us all to Earth while you’re in the Academy, let alone any of the other campuses.”
The dreamy look on Tessa’s face looked like a balloon had been punctured by a pin, “Oh… I hadn’t thought of that… I really wouldn’t like that.”
“I’m not saying to abandon the idea entirely, dear one,” Rala said, pulling Tessa in for another hug. “Only...don’t loose those sails and weigh anchor before properly charting the course.” She released the young Baroness and stepped back to arms’ length, keeping one hand on each of Tessa’s shoulders. “I’ll start figuring out that new uniform for you this evening. It might take take me a few days to nail down a design,” she said, making a mental note to consult Henry for tips on what Tessa might like and hopefully surprising her with a touch of Tialan flair. “In the meantime, I’m not making this an order, but I recommend wearing your standard one whenever you’re on duty.”
“So gold for here, Security and Engineering, Blue for Science and Red for Flight Operations.” Tessa stated as she went from her memory, “Got it.”
“Now, on to business,” Rala said, gesturing toward her desk. Rather than returning to her chair behind it, she took one of the seats in front of it, turning it to face the other and gesturing for Tessa to sit as well. “So,” she began, “you’re here to learn about the Operations Division. Let’s start with what you already know about Ops. What do you think we do?”
"Logistics." Tessa sat primly on the edge of the chair before settling back a few more inches, "And you run the transporters and take care of the computers." Her voice was confident in those, "Oh, and take care of assigning the quarters to people! Speaking of that, is it possible that Henry and I could get a bigger set of quarters? We want to move in with each other and each of ours is a little bit small for our stuff."
“I’ll look into it,” Rala said, reaching over her desk for a PADD to make a note. “A lot of quarters still aren’t in great condition, but I’m sure I can find something.” She set the PADD down, returning her attention to her...student. Stars, that’s a wild feeling, she thought, me, teaching, like an Academy professor. Figured I had at least another decade before I’d be in a position like this, but...well, if I wanted boring and normal, I’d have stayed on Draakrona.
Rala blinked, refocusing. “You’re on the right track, especially depending on exactly how you define ‘logistics’ in this context, but there’s more to it than that,” she said. “Operations Division makes sure the ship can do what we need it to do in order to do our jobs.”
She paused for emphasis, then continued, “Technically speaking, Engineering is part of the Operations Division, just more specialized, hence the shared uniform color—similar to Medical being within Sciences, now that I think about it. Engineering focuses on ensuring the ship can keep us alive, keep us healthy, and get us where we need to go, along with overseeing any major systems design work, whether that be modifying something extant or creating something new. The rest of us, who are actually labeled as ‘Operations’, are responsible for supplying, often maintaining, and operating most of the other systems that let us, for example, scan for spatial anomalies, nigh-instantaneously move things from one place to another, and so on.”
“Hold on one second!” Tessa said as she reached for the small PADD that was on her belt where she could get to it quickly, pulling out a stylus and starting to take notes in a rapid shorthand, though the characters were in Tialan rather than Standard, though some of the words were in Standard whenever they didn’t have a Tialan equivalent. She nodded excitedly at Rala as she caught up, “So sensors are a part of Operations as well? I thought that would be Science and Engineering? Or is it that they’re the ones interpreting the scans?”
Rala nodded, smiling. “Good catch. There’s some overlap with all of the divisions, which is why we like cross-training, but in general, someone from Ops will be handling the general sensors, since the most important reason for active, continuous scanning is to spot anything that might be a hazard to the ship before it actually becomes one. Anything we find that would be of more interest to, for example, Sciences, we can feed them the sensor data, or just give them direct control of the relevant sensors if we need to. And, of course, any extra sensors that a ship may be equipped with specifically for scientific purposes, like the ones in our mission pod, are directly under their purview by default.”
More notes were scribbled on her PADD, then tapped the stylus on the table as a thought hit her, "For the navigational sensors, the ones that are constantly scanning... They're the ones that direct the deflector dish, right? How big of debris can the deflector dish handle? How small of a particle can the sensors see? What would happen if something gets missed by the deflectors if we're at a high speed?"
Rala nodded. “Right again, which is why it’s ‘sensors’, plural, and not ‘sensor’. We don’t even have to be at warp to need those systems sometimes. At just a few percent of the speed of light, the comparatively extremely sparse molecules of gas that make up the interstellar medium can erode many materials, and the impulse drives on most Starships can reach a quarter of the speed of light.” She paused, letting that sink in, then continued, “At warp speeds, nearly any collision would be devastating. The warp field itself helps with the tiniest particles, while the dish deals with larger things, and it has to be one of the most complex and power-hungry pieces of equipment on the ship in order to do so. It projects a weak deflector shield to deal with dust and the like, while simultaneously being capable of more focused deflector or tractor beams to nudge larger objects out of the way. And then anything that’s actually too big to deflect we can detect at sufficient range to steer around. The exact specifications vary from ship to ship, and I don’t remember ours offhand, but I’ll help you look them up later if you don’t feel like waiting until you take your turn in Engineering.”
Tessa grimaced at the thought of something hitting the ship at high speeds, "Our ships are heavily armored with high angularity to the armor, our deflection capability isn't that high." She sighed, "I'm sure that Lady Jeffries is going to go over this along with a lot of other things in engineering, or at least something like this. We can continue on with Operations stuff."
“We’ve just about covered all the generalities,” Rala said, smiling. “So I’ll let you pick: What area would you like to go into detail on first?”
The grin on Tessa’s face was wide, as if chaos was something she loved above all else, “Let’s start with Transporters.”
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