OPS is the operations officer. He is the guy who oversees the operations of the ship. By that I mean what the ship does and where it goes. Such and who do we attack and where do we attack them from.

He is normally a higher ranking officer compared to other departmental officer’s onboard ship. Most of our departmental officers were either ensigns or lieutenants. Our OPS was a Lt. Commander, same as our executive officer. As a matter of fact most OPS officers end up becoming XO’s in their next command. It follows a logical progression that officers normally follow up the chain until they are a commanding officer.

As an engineer I rarely saw the OPS officer unless I ventured into the dark world of combat. Or we were refueling the ship. He was always at the forward refueling station to make sure we filled as quickly as possible.