Missing Shipments

Posted on Fri Apr 3rd, 2026 @ 7:11pm by Lieutenant Jane Belanger Dr & Commander Saul Whitford

1,055 words; about a 5 minute read

Mission: Echos on the Deck
Location: Sentinel Station
Timeline: Same day as "Medical Readiness"

::ON::

Whitford had gone in search of a problem that would distract from the presence of Nausicaans on the station. Lucky for him, being the station's Chief of Operations provided many distractions. Making his way down through the station, he was in search of the station's newly arrived Chief Medical Officer.

As head of one of the larger departments on the station - Operations handled freight, maintenance and personnel support for the facility - he had his hands full. Particularly, he thought, when shipments had disappeared. The Commander had been disappointed to learn on opening a manifest comparison with what should have departed the supply ship and what Medical had receipted showed at least three cases of medical supplies were missing.

After consulting his padd to orientate himself, he made his way through the clean, sleek and modern lines of the station towards one of the station's two medical facilities. The shift detail had Doctor Belanger down for this area for her duty shift, and Whitford hoped that he would get to her here.

Stepping in to the sterile atmosphere of the Medical Bay, he flagged down a medical officer, asking politely, 'is the Chief Medical Officer here?'

LTJG Larkin opined. "Yes she is Sir, you'll find her in the Morgue." He pointed the officer the right way.

Jane was hopeful that she would be able to settle for some kind of routine sometimes soon. That wasn't the day yet. The Station was new, so was most of the personnel in the medical department, including herself. A good deal of her time so far had been spent getting everybody on the same page, overseeing the work on her own plants and animals in the exobiology lab and now running an inspection of the many parts of her domain.

The morgue wasn't somewhere a medical officer loitered too often but it had its uses. She was closing the third "drawer" when an unexpected visitor walked in. She stopped what she was doing and turned to find that Commander Whitford had joined her.

"How may I help you, Sir?" she asked, checking quickly that the man seemed neither injured nor sick. He looked his usual self which led her thoughts to the other business at hand involving him. "Unless you have some good news for us maybe, regarding the missing shipments?" was her hopeful guess. This was bother nobody needed but there you were.

'Ah, no, I'm afraid not,' Whitford replied with an apologetic smile. 'I was hoping that you'd actually received them and there had been some mix-up in the paperwork.' He tapped his padd apologetically. 'Is everything alright in here though?' He asked, nodding to the drawer she had just shut.

"So far, so good. I'm just making sure that all our medical facilities are in good working order." She realised what it may look like. "We don't keep any dead bodies currently, Sir," she assured him with a general nod at the bank of body storage. "As for the missing shipments, we declared them after double checking our in-department storage. Sometimes the night shift is so slow, they decide to go ahead and get busy restocking. But this wasn't a case where they did so and forgot to report about it. We just don't have these shipments ourselves."

'Good, I'm glad you're settling in just fine,' Whitford replied with a smile, the slight Bristolian twang to his accent coming through stronger with his delight. 'I hope that the missing shipment won't be too troubling?'

"They're nothing we can't work our way around for now, but we may really need them by the time it takes to have a new delivery reaching us," Jane informed him. "Which is why I'll put out a new procurement request sooner rather than later. There is one thing though... part of the shipment is experimental technology. Starfleet Medical is beginning extended tests on new equipment. So one of those containers is not something we ordered. We were notified of the upcoming delivery and I have confirmation it should have reached us. If the shipments weren't lost then they were stolen. It's comparatively easy to sell supplies but new tech? Maybe not so much. And it's a concern. Like I said, it's experimental."

'Precisely Doctor - when you flagged they hadn't arrived, I checked the shipping consignments myself, and the cargo manifest of the transport ship that was scheduled to delivered them.' Whitford showed her the screen of his padd. 'They were clearly off-loaded from the ship, but haven't made it to your storage areas. They're on the station, we just need to find where.'

That was good news at least. Jane nodded and checked on controls for the next body drawer. All were empty at this juncture and she hoped they would remain so for as long as possible. Her staff would do follow up maintenance as needed but, on a new station, it had been her decision to check on every part of her own domain to begin with.

"Cargo bays being the purview of Operations, I expect you'll be sending your teams before every department is saddled with verifying their own paperwork and stores?" she ventured as she proceeded with her controls. "Hopefully the missing containers will turn up soon. If they don't we might have to involve Security," she shook her head, moving to the next drawer.

'Believe you me, I'll be having some of my officers looking into this - and we'll doublecheck everything that's come through.' Whitford smiled apologetically, 'I hope you won't be offended if they come along to re-do any previous paperwork. We can't be too careful, it seems fairly sophisticated. It likely wouldn't have been picked up if it wasn't experimental equipment.'

Jane frowned lightly but since nothing pointed definitely to a theft for now, she kept her thoughts for another time. "Your people are welcome of course. What matters it that we get our shipments back. I'm done here," she considered with a look around. "Thank you for your assistance, Sir. Is there anything more?"

'Not for now, Doctor,' Whitford replied, and smiled brightly, 'it's been a pleasure meeting you.'

OFF

Lt Jane Belanger, MD
CMO
Sentinel Station

Commander Saul Whitford
First Officer & Chief of Operations
Sentinel Station

 

RSS Feed