Chapter Text
Chris is administratively challenged. Una isn’t sure he’s aware of how much he gets wrong, or doesn't get at all, because she always covers for him.
The first time, she figured it was just the usual lack of time that had him ask her to fill in the forms for a new crew member's security clearance. A Captain does have a lot of things to do, after all. She filled it in, he signed it with his voice and off it went.
The second time however, she got a bit suspicious. Chris is, just like her, a workaholic. You don’t work on a starship if you dislike literally living on your job. It was a form for adding new recipes to the food synthesizer, which - as nice as food is - is not a very prioritized thing. But he didn’t have anything more important to do - which she knew, as this was when he learned how to play pingpong with the cadets. But she still found herself with the task of filling the form in, even though she had said she wanted to look through the duty rosters again. It annoyed her a bit, to be honest.
It wasn’t until the time when they needed a new station in engineering that she began to understand that filling out forms might be her task forever. See, if you need to add a system to a Starship, the paperwork (even if it’s digital, but the expression still lives) is pretty massive. First, you need to state that you even have the need for something. Then, once Starfleet says yes, we agree - you really do need this and you’ve made a good point - then you have to fill in a form to be allocated your request and Starfleet will redistribute whatever you need from somewhere else or from storage. Of course, you have to fill in a receipt once you receive the equipment. But that’s just to get the system or physical computer, then you also have to request for installation and tell exactly where it is, especially if it's a classified system. Which this is. And then you have to fill in a form to say which individuals have the right to use this classified system on this exact Starship. Of course, if a ship can’t reach Starfleet and things are done anyway, it can always be handed in later. But the forms have to be filled. And Una is completely ok with this. It means that the logistics chain knows exactly where everything is, while security knows where everything classified is and who can access it.
Chris avoids filling in the forms. At first, she thinks he is like one of those Starfleet officer who just likes to tell everyone how stupid it is that they administrate so much, what does it matter and bla bla bla . But he had seemed quite fine with the motivating form, when they were arguing as to why they needed the system. Sure, Una had to do most of the work and then he just signed it. She’d thought his reluctance was because of reasons like “it’s no use, we’ll never get it” - but now that Starfleet has approved their request it should be quick work. Theyjust have to fill in three forms to get it here, she doesn’t understand his reluctance. It’s just three forms! One to request installation, one to inform where it is and one to inform who is using it.
“Captain, we need to fill in this form today. I have received messages reminding us that if we want it when we reach Starbase 1, it has to go no later than 1800 hours today. Otherwise they won’t have time to process the request. And I’d hate for us to get an ok at acquiring it but then miss this chance to install it and use it.”
“Ok. Yes. Talk me through it.” She does. She tells him where to fill in what, but the more she does the more his eyes seem to go blank. “So there’s where I put the ID of who should-”
“No, that’s where you put in
your
ID. And your contact information.”
“Oh. Okay, I thought-” she sighs, and regretfully he notices. “I’m sorry I just…”
“It’s ok,” she is a bit embarrassed that he noticed her exasperated sigh, “Do you want me to prepare as much as I can and then we can just-”
“Please, would you?” He quickly replies and she nods. “Thank you,” he gives her a relieved, dimpled smile. Una likes feeling as if she can help him, with something as simple as filling in forms.
After this, she often just gets most of it done and then he can sign it. It works surprisingly well. They don’t really talk about it, it just happens naturally. It makes Una’s work much easier too; she doesn’t have to nag Chris about forms and she doesn’t have to find out before it’s nearly too late that he hasn’t filled it in (and she has to do it anyway).
But then there was the time when she got injured - it’s nothing major! - on an away mission and he has an idea that to help her workload, he should try to fill in the forms himself. Once recovered, Una has to spend four weeks trying to figure out how many spare tricorders he managed to request, where exactly they ended up and how to reverse the order. After this, they decide that if she is injured he should just wait.
And to the outside it looks just like another thing that makes Captain Pike such an exemplary captain. The man even hands in forms that look amazing.