“Anything I should know about today?” Harlow asked as she joined her XO, Commander Ashfield, in the briefing room before alpha shift’s morning operational meeting.

He looked up with a smile, the skin at the corners of his blue eyes crinkling. He had deep lines there, which said he smiled often, but she had yet to see much evidence of that. Since they’d met a few days ago, the commander had been polite and reserved. But that was to be expected with a new captain. They didn’t know each other well yet, and both of them were still working out how each other operated. Or rather, she guessed, he was working out what her command style was, and how to work with her.

“No ma’am. Not that I can see from this,” he replied, looking down at the ever present padd in front of him, his hand movements crisp and precise as he moved through the files she could just see flicking over the screen. She didn’t recognise the filing architecture, or wait…

“That looks a lot like the operations system on there…” she frowned, then blinked as he looked up. “Apologies, I didn’t mean to read over your shoulder there.”

“No… it’s not a problem. And actually, yes, you’re right,” he said, turning the padd to show her. “I use an adapted version of the operation filing structure. It’s… familiar to me.” He shrugged. “I guess you can take the boy out of ops, but you can never take ops out the boy.”

“That is…” She watched as he moved between files. She couldn’t make head nor tails of it. But then the mandatory operations system training at the academy had been the one she’d found the hardest. “Fascinating. I would never have thought of doing something like that.”

She turned her own padd for a second so he could see the screen. It was standard issue and on the standard settings. “See, very boring.”

A hint of amusement washed over his face. “I doubt there is anything boring about you, Captain. I’ve seen your range scores. I’ve never seen levels like that across so many ratings. Actually, I’ve never even seen some of those ratings. I had to look them up to see what they were.”

“Sign of a bad upbringing,” she quipped, opening the files she had ready for the meeting. “Or is that the ability to play pool and darts? I never can remember.”

Ashfield chuckled. “I’m fairly sure that’s pool and darts. Definitely pool and darts.”

The door behind Ashfield opened and the senior staff began to file in. Harlow smiled as they all nodded and took their seats around the table, catching the eye of their chief operations officer, McGowan, and nodding back. Ashfield looked at her as she did, a question in the back of those blue eyes but he didn’t ask it as Cav rolled in just as the door was about to close.

“Lieutenant Cavendish, I’m afraid you don’t get to pick a seat,” she said, nodding to the last empty seat. Next to her. Which was interesting, especially given the early stage of the game.

Half of the senior staff were new to the ship, so they didn’t know her but they also didn’t have any allegiance to the previous command team, and half were new to her but not to the ship. Normally, there was at least one career-driven officer on the senior staff, who would normally make a bee-line for the seat to impress her… or there would be an ego-driven officer, who wanted the seat to give the impression that they were part of the command team. The fact that there didn’t appear to be either was… different.

“Not a problem, captain.” Cav grinned as he sauntered around the room, taking his sweet time to get there. She ignored him, amusement rolling through her. Cav looked good, and he knew it. Boy, did he know it. If he didn’t fly a ship like it was a part of him, then she’d have kicked his ass off her ship when he’d arrived as a cocky ensign.

McGowan watched him for a moment, then caught her gaze and gave a little eye-roll. Harlow bit back her snort of amusement. Of all the people in the room, she wasn’t surprised that the Chief Ops had seen right through Cav straight away.

“Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for coming,” she said, sitting forward and clasping her hands lightly over her padd. “Let’s do the round robin. Starting with Lieutenant Cavendish, since he was last in… daily departmental report please.”

Cav threw her a wide grin, but his tone was brisk and professional as he replied. “Flight control is good. Daily system checks came back clear and… basically, credit to engineering,” he said, nodding over the table to the Chief Engineer. “She handles like a dream but she’s fast as f—“

“Thank you, Lieutenant,” Harlow spoke over him quickly, turning her attention to the next officer. “Doctor, how are things in sickbay?”

The briefing went smoothly, each of the senior staff assuring her that their departments were running smoothly. The last to speak was McGowan, a small frown on her brow.

“Everything is reading fine, captain,” she said, then shook her head. “There’s just something I can’t put my finger on though. It could be nothing, but I’d like to run an expanded diagnostic.”

Harlow nodded. “We’re on an easy run at the moment, this is where we check everything out and make sure we’re operating at one hundred percent.”

”Of course, captain.“ McGowan nodded. “Thank you.”

”No problem. Now, if there‘s nothing else?” She looked around the table, but no one else spoke up. “Okay, then let’s get up and at’em. Any problems, you know where I am. Dismissed.”