Elbow Room
Posted on Wed Oct 28th, 2015 @ 10:00am by Lieutenant JG Charles Kramer [PNPC: Rackham] & Chief Petty Officer Frederick Nau
Mission:
The Belle of Bellatrix
Location: Administration Offices [H Deck]
Timeline: 2278.54 1330hrs
Tucked away at the very back of H Deck, where the only view out of the ports was the streak of the warp engines, lay the administration offices. Their title was even more glorious than their appointment, one tiny office with three desks which were supposed to house Records, Legal and Finance. It was little wonder that Lieutenant (JG) Charles Kramer preferred to do his work anywhere else.
On one of the rare occasions that he found himself heading to the office during the day shift, he was surprised to find it occupied. The Legal Officer, a chippy little guy - Stevens if Kramer remembered rightly - could be trusted to bugger off and leave him be and did most of his work from his quarters but the Finance Officer was a different story.
Being the Records Officer afforded him a few perks and access to the personnel records was one of them. Frederick Nau - Chief Petty Officer and Finance Officer : assigned to USS Farragut after falling foul of a Command Admiral. No further extrapolation available.
Kramer stepped up to the door of the office and it parted in front of him, leaving a mere two feet from his own desk which was, for all intents and purposes, crammed into a broom closet.
The first thing he noticed was that he had forgotten tidy away his coffee cup from a few days ago and thought about submitting it to Lieutenant Windsor as a science experiment but before he could think of a grand name for his new mould colony he realised he wasn't alone.
"You must be Nau." He said flatly by way of a greeting to the man who occupied the office with him. "I'm Kramer - good to meet you."
Nau looked up from his work at the arrival. He noticed the Lt.JG's pin on the fellow's uniform and a slight smile (smerk?) crossed his face. "Glad to meet you, Kramer. Hope you're not here for your credits - they get doled out at the beginning of each month to everyone. Including us." Nau sat back in his chair, and looked around at their surroundings. "Well, I've seen tighter quarters in my service..at the least they give us a window." With those words Nau gave a bigger smile and stood up and extended his arm to Kramer. "Right off the bat, you allergic to tobacco smoke?"
Kramer shook the hand and noted a slight tinge of acrid smoke in the air. The ship's air filters took the worst out but it was still detectable and not entirely disagreeable. "No, that's fine by me. I thought I'd come and work here for a bit since the seniors are always complaining that they can't find me."
Nau stretched out his arms. "Well, take a seat and relax and enjoy the 'view,' I'm just going over some paper work here myself. Trying to 'borrow from Peter to pay Paul,' so to speak. This is beginning to look like it will be a 'two bowl' job."
Kramer chuckled. He knew how thin their resources were - in fact both he and Nau probably knew better than the Captain himself - but he hadn't realised it was so bad so soon. He took his seat and began poring over the ship's logs, looking for the data he needed.
"Did you hear about that fight in the mess last night?" He asked, trying to make small talk.
Nau's head picked up. "A fight? Did you hear what it was about or over?"
"Yeah, couple of juniors went toe-to-toe over a girl or something." Kramer had been in the mess at the time but had avoided getting involved beyond eavesdropping. "It all escalated pretty quickly, truth be told."
Nau looked back at his papers. "Leave it to the 'shave-tails' to duke it out amongst themselves." Nau coughed. "Umm, present company excepted, of course."
'I wouldn't claim to be any better than them." Kramer said with a wry smile. "I dunno, it all seemed a bit much, even for over-zealous, over-sexed officers."
Nau stretched out his arms and yawned. "Speaking about the mess, my eyes are beginning to see double - care to take a walk to it and sit and enjoy the elbow room and something to eat?"
"Sounds like an excellent idea." Kramer replied, doing up the flap on his uniform.
Chief Petty Officer Frederick Nau
Finance Officer
Lieutenant (JG) Charles Kramer
Records Officer
