Requiem for a Duty Officer

Captain's Log, supplemental
Lt. Cmdr Green Armadillo, commanding officer, USS PVD-2

I lost a member of my crew today.  Crewman Lozza, a Tellarite hazard system officer, was conducting a routine systems overload exercise.  I doubt that I even read the entry in the assignment list when Lt. Thol K'jhyv, head of my engineering and operations departments, put it on the list for my approval.  These types of tests go off without a hitch more than 80% of the time.  Occasionally, the exercise fails, uncovering some flaw in our response procedures.  Once in a while, a crewman even ends up in sickbay.  The odds of a mishap killing someone outright are low - but apparently non-zero, so I suppose it was a matter of time.

I can't say I really got to know Lozza very well.  Her file says that she was occasionally stubborn, but generally congenial and a member in good standing of the Founders of the Federation association.  I wouldn't say that she was an uncommon quality officer, but she was a hard worker.  I vaguely remember her face, and past missions she carried out without a hitch.  She's not the first crewman I've lost, and undoubtedly won't be the last, but the sheer unexpected nature of the incident sticks with me.

Every day, I approve dozens of assignments, big or small, routine or rare.  Sometimes I knowingly send men and women - usually well aware of the danger - off the ship and into harms way.  And sometimes the person who does not come home is the quiet crewman running routine tests in the very heart of my own ship.  Such, I suppose, is the burden of commanding a Federation starship.