Incident Report

Posted on Mon Jun 9th, 2025 @ 10:41pm by Lieutenant Ayana Hillis & Ensign Kasm

970 words; about a 5 minute read

Mission: Cead Mile Failte
Location: USS Washington

Ayana had been quietly working on an incident that had happened during the crew rotation. She couldn't believe such things would happen on a Federation ship, and the captain had been upset regarding the incident as well when he heard about it. With Imik dealing with most of the security matters, Ayana was tasked with dealing this particular matter. She was in the bowels of the ship, the lower decks that she had not explored in some time. The computer had told her she could find who she was looking for down here, Ensign Kasm.

She turned the corner and nearly ran into a short bearlike being. "Ah ensign, I was hoping to speak with you."

Kasm stopped moving to keep from running into the dark human. Having dealt with beings that all basically look the same except for their varying furless skin colors, considering that the ship was full of them, he was not surprised at the appearance of one on the ship. Though there had not been many crew wandering the corridors of the engineering section of the ship.

Stepping back so that he could look up into the face of the officer in front of him after glancing at the rank insignia on the sleeves, he grunted and said, "Lieutenant", sniffing the air, "female, human. What service can Kasm perform for you?"

Ayana took a brief moment to take in this monstrous sized being. She had seen bears before, even seen a Gorn, but Kasm was certainly unique in appearance. "Ensign, I was reviewing a report that came in regarding an incident when you came aboard. My understanding is that when you came aboard, some disparaging remarks were made towards you by a pair of crew, is that correct?"

Kasm blinked a couple of times and pulled out a personal mini PaDD, once activated he repeated the word "disparaging" though he hashes it up a bit. Ayana could see from her position looking down that he got a stream of writing in an unfamiliar language displayed on the device. When done he put the PaDD away and returned his focus to the officer standing before him.

"Yes" huffing a bit "the human disparaged me, I corrected his attitude, and it will not occur again. The humans associate also agreed that there would be no repeat of the disparagement." As Ayana watched and listened, it was clear that Kasm was not actually speaking Federation standard, but his own language as she can hear the guttural sounds coming from his throat, this is overlaid by his universal translator converting his speech to something she can understand. It was almost like watching old Earth 2Ds where the lips move then the words can be heard.

"You are here to inform me that the attitude of the human has been successfully corrected by their superiors and that it will not occur again on this ship?"

"Partly" Ayana replied, considering her words carefully. "The captain was not happy to hear about the incident. The officers in question have been relieved of duty and pending further investigation, are preparing to be shipped out. Such behavior is not acceptable aboard this ship. However, I still need to deal with you. While you were the victim in the incident, as your superior here, I need to make sure we have a complete understanding. You are not the first person to be part of this exchange program to be aboard a Federation ship. I need to know your capabilities and your weaknesses. For example, why are you not speaking Federation standard? If you are unable, why have you not adjusted your UT to avoid delays in information transference?" She was being stern but extremely professional.

Kasm huffed before responding "many questions." Working his snout Ayana could see a nasty set of incisors that would make a beaver jealous in addition to a full set of razor-sharp saw teeth. "Human words do not work for us, too complicated. We are a simple, fewer words express more." Pulling out his mini-PADD again he waggles it in front of her.

"This, given by Academy. We are always adjusting the words; new humans mean new words." He saw she is about to say something and continued before she could vocalize her thought "Academy put Federation words in this" waggling the PADD again "and Federation meaning for words, but not human meaning for words. Humans change meaning when they say Federation words."

Ayana nodded in understand. "Very well. I understand you are in quite a unique situation. We will simply need to adjust your UT for a faster transmission rate. I'll let Cmdr Celes know so she can send someone from Operations to make the needed changes. Glad we got all of this cleared up. I'd like to pair you with one of our more experienced security officers for the time being, allow you to acclimate easier to the ship and protocol here. His name is Lt Phoenix. You should be able to find him near the armory. I'm sure we'll speak again, and you'll meet Lt Imik soon as well."

Kasm's facial expression didn't change much that Ayana could see, though trained to read body language indicators, and considering that most humanoid races have similar reactions, Pandorans apparently don't fit into any of her expectations hominid data sets. Obviously, she needed to spend more time with this new enigma to better learn how to read him.

"I serve this Consortium; I will engage with Lt Phoenix to learn my tasks for the success of the Consortium." At this point Kasm blinked a couple of times and stood unmoving.

"Yes, well, good" Ayana stammered. "Carry on ensign" she said and essentially dismissed herself by walking away. This new officer was definitely going to be something new for her to learn about.

 

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