JesanaeTekani
It is functionally impossible for the junior officers on a ship to solve any complex problems, with the occasional exception of plucky privates on their first assignment. The senior staff handle all crises completely, and any lower crew allowed in on it are usually best never seen again after it's over. Allow them to melt into the backdrop -- they complicate the plot too much. Basically, if your main characters can't solve it, it's not solveable.
Right, and your main chatacters must always be the captain or general's senior staff, with the captain/general/other always the most important one.
((I know this one has gone into myriad times, but not quite in this detail.))
When a male and female are having an argument with no one else in the immediate vicinity, one of them will always be in the middle of a rant when the other one kisses her/him. I trust I need not explain further, although I will point out that if they ever argue again, they will never rant or get angry, they'll just be having differences of opinion.
And, any male/female pair who are put into a situation where they are either (a) alone together or, (b) forced to undergo contact that is in any way intimate, or (c) both, over an extended period of time, with eventually develop a romance, and this will be directly related to the events of (a), (b), or (c).
Now back to my favorite subject: In any male/female pair (couples, siblings, special agents, etc.) where the characters are of any significance whatsoever, the female will be the one to die, if one is to die but not both. If the characters are of little importance, kill them both, of course, but if you insist on it being only one, the male should be the one to die.