James T. Kirk

Lt. Harris showed up a little early, only to find that that meant he was the only one there besides the Captain and the First Officer.

Awkward.

"Afternoon, Sir. Sir," he said, nodding to both of them respectfully. He waited, hoping they wouldn't want to make smalltalk while other people arrived. He sucked at smalltalk.

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"Have a seat, Harris." Jim gestured to a chair. The head of security... was it just his underlings, or him as well? That... would be the question he needed answered.

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Lt. Mercado was let into the room, and clicked his heals together. "Sirs." He hoped this meeting wouldn't take long. He was still attempting to unearth the Head of Security's office from under the mound of paperwork and no yeoman had been assigned to him for this provisional period.

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"Have a seat." Jim gestured to the other chair, looking between them. He leaned forward, eyes narrowing. "Mercado, is it?" He studied the man who had been promoted after the... incidents with Alex. His eyes went back to Harris, "Harris. What were your orders regarding the Romulan prisoners?"

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"My orders, sir?" Harris looked a little confused. But since he always looked a little confused, he mostly just looked like Harris. "I've been doing brig detail for gamma shift. Nobody in, nobody out. That's about the shape of it."

He paused, frowning. "Is this because of what happened when I called sickbay on account of that one prisoner trying to burn her arm off?" He shifted uneasily in his seat. "I shoulda called for security backup, too. I wasn't thinking."

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Jim's eyes narrowed more, "That's all you got, as far as orders?" Gamma shift wouldn't be responsible for feeding them, though.

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"Yes sir?" Oh, shit. That probably shouldn't sound like a question. Harris cleared his throat. "Yes, sir. Just your standard guard detail orders."

With bonus insane prisoners.

"I don't know if there was anything different for alpha and beta shifts, though. I've been on gamma for more'n a month."

And wouldn't that teach him not to play cards when he was already half-plastered?

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"I want you to tell me exactly what happened down there in the brig, the night that Nero was injured." His tone Spock would have recognized as the tone he held when he was Captain, not Jim. His body posture changed just a little, almost like an aura around him.

It didn't hurt or help that he was angry, and containing it well.

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"Yes, Sir," Harris said. He didn't add that there was a bare-bones summary in the incident log. Obviously the Captain wanted to hear it directly from him. He gathered his thoughts. "It was near the middle of the shift. I was standing at the guard post, on duty, and I saw that one of the prisoners was holding something to the force field - it sparks, you know? I went closer to see what it was, and realized it was a knife. Then she held it to her bare arm. And, uh, burned herself."

Harris looked a little green with the memory.

"She kept on holding it against her arm like that, and there was this smell..." He trailed off, then shook his head as if to clear it. "Anyway. Yes. I called to sickbay because she was injured - injuring - and, uh, to be frank, I was a little panicked. I realize now that I should have called for more security officers, too. But I didn't."

"Um, so, then a nurse came down. Christine Chapel. And she sort of took over. The prisoner was unconscious by then. She went in and treated her, and took the knife away. Then she talked to the other one for a while. She wanted to make sure that that one wasn't armed, either, but there was no safe way to do that with her conscious, so they just talked. The prisoner said she'd show her her knife if she would turn the lights off, and that was easy enough to do, so she did. And she - Nurse Chapel - asked me to keep the lights down, and to report what'd happened to the rest of the security detail. I wrote it up in the log."

He paused for a moment, then nodded. "That's all I remember. Nurse Chapel left after that, and the prisoners were quiet until the end of my shift."

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This time, his gaze went between Harris and Mercado. He spoke quietly, channeling some of that anger into it, "Now, tell me. Why did they have knives? Why weren't the prisoners searched?" His voice gained no volume, but then again it didn't need to.

His fingers curled together before he forced them to relax. He had to be Captian here, not Jim. A Captain's reaction, not a Jim reaction.

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"I do not know sir," Iora responded. "Standard operating procedure says that all prisoners are searched. I'm still trying to get my department under control. I'll have a word with the security staff. Seems like we need a bit of refresher courses." Not that it would have been a loss if the damned Romulans had managed to kill themselves. Save the government the cost of a trial.

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...Jim thought for a second he saw red. He turned the full extent of his gaze on Mercado, "...excuse me?" He said slowly. "Excuse me? A word? These aren't refresher course material, this is a grounds for dismissal! Two prisoners, two deadly prisoners, weren't searched for weapons! One decides to nearly kill himself! Then I find out one of the nurses ends up in the cell with the prisoner... what if Chapel had been killed!? What if something had happened further down the line because those two had hurt someone, or themselves further? Searching the prisoners is a god damn security BASIC!"

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"I stand corrected," Mercado said, clipped. "Sir." He'd feel bad if the nurse was hurt. "And yes, you should have had extra security in there if you even let the nurse in there...which I'm still not sure why you did, Harris. Especially with the bastard cutting its arm off. Better to lose one lousy prisoner, than a member of our crew."

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Harris shifted uncomfortably. The Captain was pissed, obviously. He could almost see the interrobangs flying through the air. And while that was bad enough, Mercado's weird indifference was worse. And the combination. Damn. Best he could do was keep on keeping on, though.

"Sirs. I made a mistake," he said. "I shouldn't have lowered the field to let Nurse Chapel in without backup. I acknowledge that." He paused. Training said he should stop there, but it all seemed so... "In my defense - inadequate an excuse as it is - the Romulan was unconscious. I perceived the threat to Nurse Chapel as minimal, and the threat to the prisoner if she should go untreated as more severe."

It was still stupid, though. There was no excuse good enough for that. And hindsight made Harris want to travel back in time and kick his own ass. Sure, the nurse herself had told him to do it, but of course she did! She was medical. It was her job to worry about people who'd been hurt, but it was supposed to be his job to keep it from happening to more people.

The thing with the knives, though...

"As far as how the prisoners had weapons, I can't explain that, Captain. All I can say about it is that there was no indication in my orders that they hadn't already been searched and disarmed, so I assumed they had, on account of how it's procedure. And then the one of 'em was disarmed while I was on duty, but I couldn't do anything about the other one without backup. S'why I notified the shift after mine and put it all in the log."

Maybe he should have followed up on that? Harris was used to having a commanding officer above him who took care of things like that. But maybe he needed to learn not to assume that the people higher up in the hierarchy knew what-all was going on.

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Jim closed his eyes as he thought about when the Romulans had been beamed on board. He had been working in his office, so sometime during Alpha shift. Later Alpha shift, if he was right. His eyes opened and he grabbed the PADD he had brought with him, quickly pulling up information. Who had been on the brig when his orders had come down? When the Romulans had been beamed in?

His eyes went wide at the names - in particular, who had been in charge at that exact time.

He lifted his head and tried to keep his gaze calm as he looked at Mercado. "It says here that the shift that the Romulans were beamed on board... you were in charge. You were the one that received my instructions." He was the one that had failed to make sure the prisoners were searched. It had been, unfortunately, Harris that had been the one that had ended up discovering that they hadn't been the hard way.

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"I was also up in my office dealing with a personnel issue," Mercado responded. "Something that should have been okayed weeks ago. If I had been down there, you can bet they'd have suffered a full body invasive cavity search." He didn't quite manage to keep the sheer hatred for the Romulans out of his voice. They'd blown up the ships, and tortured his Captain. And no one of course bothered to let Security do their job and help with rescuing the Captain. No, they had to go get folks from another dimension to do it. Security was pretty much the laughing-stock of the ship, and he'd had more transfer requests on his desk anyway from folks disillusioned with the Enterprise.

"Frankly sir, most of my crew would rather be in any other department from mine, so they're trying to get their asses transferred."

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"Dammit, you're Starfleet! You're supposed to be able to take charge down there- it falls on your shoulders if one of your crew doesn't follow orders! Something as important as this!? You know damn well who Nero and Ayel are, you should have made sure! Did you even think to ask, or did you just push off something so important onto someone who didn't matter as much?" Jim was pissed, and it was starting to show through heavily.

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"Yes I am Starfleet, sir," Mercado said, very stiff, very proper. "Which is why I take care of my own, first, and foremost, since no one else on this ship cares to."

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Jim's entire body tensed up, froze in place. There was just a brief second of shock before it turned into a cold anger. "...what was that, Lieutenant?" His voice was level, even as he started to stand up.

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"I said, sir," Mercado stared evenly at his Captain. Maybe this would hurt his career, maybe not. At this point, he just wanted his Captain to hear it. "That your security department feels crapped on. Feels like they are the joke of your ship. Feels like no one else is going to watch out for them. So, sir. I try to take care of them myself, sir. If I remember right sir, I was arranging a religious day off for one of my crewmen that day that he put in a request for two months ago, that no one." Lt. Alexander. "Bothered to okay. I take full responsibility for my mistake in trusting them. But the only ones who haven't moonlighted to other departments, are pretty much the extremely loyal to you and unseasoned like Harris here. Of course, the fact your own crew doesn't bother to let us get seasoning has nothing to do with the matter."

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"You had an entire shift to check into that. You didn't, and in the end Nero almost killed himself." He slammed his hands down on the table as he stood, "You know how I feel about them," the tattoos still pinked on his face, "but we're Starfleet, dammit. As an officer, you're supposed to be able to put that hatred aside and deal with orders as they happen! I know all this stuff happened thanks to Alexander not doing his damn duties and ending up as some drunkard, but you were promoted to fix up things down here! If they feel so 'crapped on' like you're suggesting, maybe security needs to step it up a notch! I can site a dozen times so far I've heard of some bullshit happening down here in the brig ALONE that shouldn't have happened, not to mention other places on this ship! I need members of security here who at least do their damn job and do it well."

Jim paused and looked to Harris, his voice calming, "I'm not blaming you for what happened, though you need more training."

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Mercado relaxed a little when it looked like Kirk wouldn't go after Harris. Harris was a good man and didn't need his Captain taking his head off. Just young.

"Then maybe you should tell me, when you hear about those breaches sir. Rather than expecting me to psychically know when my crew is screwing up. I'm only human, not Betazoid or Vulcan." He inclined his head respectfully towards the First Officer. "Sir. We would walk through fire for you. We were incredibly disappointed when we didn't get to do our job and come along to help get you back. But if we don't get feedback, we can't know what we're doing wrong."

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Harris was a little perturbed to hear himself described as unseasoned, but it was certainly true that he could benefit from more training, if he was going to be stuck on brig detail for much longer. All of his previous experience prior to being transferred to the Enterprise had been as away team support. He missed it. The beautiful simplicity of just shooting things. And occasionally knocking science officers to the ground in the nick of time to keep them from getting shot. Good times.

Regardless, he knew enough to recognize that this was an excellent time to keep his mouth shut. So he did.

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"If you paid attention, Mercado, you'd know about every one of those breaches. Every single time there was a breach, I have made sure a report has comes down to security. You weren't around for all of them, not in command for sure, but you were for this. You and I both know that Alexander is getting removed from this ship, and after this, give me one good reason the same shouldn't happen to you." Jim's eyes narrowed.

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He hadn't wanted the job in the first place. But he was better qualified for it than anyone else. "I haven't recieved any such reports sir. And because anyone else will have even less experience than me. Not to mention no one wants the job. What I could use is a someone to help get my paperwork under control, considering your First officer is sending me pointed reminders that Security is two quarters in arrears on their reports. Tell me which of my men are performing at less than optimal, and I'll start dropping by the brig on surprise inspections."

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"I'm telling you that you are performing less than optimal," Jim said tersely. "Because of your lack of attention to detail, the one of the prisoners managed to hurt himself and could have potentially hurt one of our crew."

He thought about the chilling report from Jim not that long ago, and let a breath hiss through his teeth, "Whose bright idea was it that the prisoners wouldn't be fed?"

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"That is the kitchens," Mercado said. He was not taking responsibility for other departments fucking up. "We give the prisoners what we're sent."

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...Bull. Shit. Jim wasn't even going to stand for that. "You are not going to push off responsibility onto someone else! Prisoners in the brig are your responsibility! Its security's job to make sure that people in the brig are taken care of, including making sure that they've been fed! If you're going to feed me some line about the kitchens, it still should have been your job to go make them give it to you! If you knew no food was coming down to them, even on your shift alone, you should have fixed the problem!"

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"Sir, as you are unhappy with the services I have tendered, I resign effective immediately and will inform the rest of security that they should resign as well. I will have a request for transfer to some other ship or Starbase on your desk as soon as possible," Mercado had had it up to here with the spoiled Captain who seemed to think Security was responsible for everything going wrong all over the ship. Maybe he'd assign one of those other dimensional people to lead it and crew it.

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cso-spock.livejournal.com

"Lieutenant." Through this entire meeting he had only managed to dull his hunger, not eliminate it completely. Now it seemed to worsen again as this crawled towards its conclusion. "Forward your request to my office instead, and I shall see it processed with the utmost efficiency."

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