Exploration Section

Mai ran once she was ready for her assigned duty section. She had been assigned to the Exploration Section under the command of Lt. Commander Razzl Dorgugg. Dorgugg was a Draggo, a race of tall humanoids that had very dark brown skin. They were hairless, but had a vestigial crown of feathers that ran from the tops of their heads down their backs. The face of a Draggo was relatively human with somewhat larger eyes, and a small nose with three nostrils instead of two. They had three fingers on each hand with the outer two being opposable and very long make them very nimble in handling projects requiring great dexterity. She did not know much else about the Draggo but she was sure she was about to find out.

She arrived at the section office several seconds later and the door whooshed open as she slid inside. At the desk as a tall blond human woman wearing the rank of Senior Chief, her name tag said Perkins. Mai presented herself before the chief and said, “Ensign Mai Seiki reporting for duty.” She did not salute as the Chief was not a superior officer.

Perkins glared at her with little interest and said, “Commander Dorgugg does not appreciate tardiness. He would like to speak to you about that before you report to your duty station.” She indicated the door behind her as she spoke and Mai moved in front of it and presented herself. The door slide open smoothly and she stepped in going immediately to her best academy attention, snapping off a clean salute as she said, “Ensign Mia Seki reporting for duty.”

The door slid shut behind her as her eyes fastened on Commander Dorgugg in front of her. He looked up and said quietly, “Was there some sort of power outage in your quarters that I was unaware of?” He spoke standard English with a perfect accent and did not use the universal translator that most of the alien crew members used. His words were delivered with a slight whistling sound that seemed to come from the odd third nostril on the top of his small nose.

Mai realized she was going to be in some deep shit as she answered, “No sir. I apologize for being late. I, well I had a little too much to drink last night at the party and slept through my alarm.”

Rising to his full six foot eight height Commander Dorgugg stood over her and said back in a much louder and sterner tone, “So if you had been counted on this morning to perform a vital mission you would have been sleeping, perhaps allowing your fellow crew mates to die due to your failure to perform your job?”

Mai answered quickly trying to defend herself, “Of course not sir. If I had a mission I would have been ready to go and performed my job as expected.”

Commander Dorgugg answered her quickly, his volume rising even more, “So you are a mind reader is that it ensign. You knew last night what I expected you to do today so you figured you could blow off a little steam, get a lot drunk, and just show up when you wanted to? How the hell would you know what I wanted you to do today, how would you know if you had a mission assigned to you. You were not here to find out, were you Ensign?”

Mai quickly shut the hell up and tried to salvage the situation as she said, “No sir I was not. I made an error in judgment and took my duty too lightly. I apologize and I assure you it will not happen again.”

The tall alien stood staring at her for a moment and then his volume returned to a more normal tone, “Very well report to Lt. Burns in the lower flight deck. He will show you what I want you to do. It will not be very fun, but perhaps as you say, you will be more careful in the future. You are dismissed.”