> It took only a few moments to generate the reports that she wanted,
>after she entered all of the requests in. She found that those stations on
>the major contested borders- Romulan Neutral zone and the Cardassian DMZ -
>had unusual number of casualties. Unusual meaning more than 40% of their
>missions. The number of repeat mission was also a staggering number. On
>those same borders it appeared as if 50% of the missions were repeat- same
>location similar intended goal. However, the alarming correlation was that
>the vast majority of the casualities were occuring on the repeat missions.
>The more times a mission was repeated (again same location or similar goals)
>the higher the number of casualities.
She was extremely angry about what she read, and she felt a throbbing
headache coming on because of it. She made a draft of a standing order
forbidding repeat missions to the same locale unless absolutely necessary,
making sure it was understood there would be a review of repeated missions,
and if any were found to be unnecessary, the CO would be formally
reprimanded or worse, depending on the frequency and severity of the
violation. She didn't send it out, but kept it in draft form. She may
need to add to it later.
>As kitanya started to go over the reports, she found many of them to be dry
>and somehow lacking. Very similar to those she read from Outpost Pumace.
>Perhaps a bit more digging she woudl find that Pumace was not an isolated
>story....
She spent the rest of the day and into the evening, looking at the numbers,
reading the reports. It was obvious no one had bothered to do this kind of
overall review in a very long time, and it was also clear that
imcompetance, laziness and neglect were the trademarks of her organization.
She rubbed her eyes, tired of reading the same sad story over and over
again. Granite and Pumace were just examples of the larger problems. Good
people getting hurt because of incompetant CO's, like Granite, and good
people driven to despair because they weren't allowed to do their jobs,
like Pumace.
Spec Ops was a small part of Starfleet; their numbers were not very big,
and yet they served a vital function that could not be replaced. So she
did not have many people to choose from to fill the gaps and replace the
problems. She'd fixed two problems, but there were so many more she
couldn't possibly fix them all anytime in the near future. Silently, she
wished for a hundred Aureliuses, devoted, honest people who only wanted the
best for their division and for Starfleet. But she only had one, and so
they would have to stick together and do the best they could.
She got up and got a cup of Caitian coffee from the replicator, then sat
back down to see what else she could glean from the fragmented reports.
(eh?)
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A little girl asked her father, "Daddy? Do all fairy tales begin with
'Once Upon A Time'?"
He replied, "No, there is a whole series of fairy tales that begin with
'If elected I promise'."
