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I'm also having a problem with what the CMDCM actually does on the ship. (How do you refer to the CMDCM typically? Petty Officer?)
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I'm a sub guy, so can't help much here. I was on two surface ships, but they were repair ships, so the structure was a bit different. (On a repair ship, the repair department is at least half the crew.)
You'd probably refer to the CMDCM (actually, I don't recognize that, maybe because I haven't read much science fiction) as the "Command Master Chief". He is the senior enlisted on the ship and is generally responsible for order and discipline. He might be considered to be a liaison between enlisteds and officers. It seems to me that the traditional role of the Executive Officer was order and discipline, but it seems that it has been delegated. After trying to write this, I'll have to defer to someone else. I never knew what the guy really did except that he was supposed to be powerful but I didn't like him and thought he was a bit of a hypocrite (the last one I knew). (Fraternization is not allowed, but the power that goes with rank, both officer and enlisted, often are a factor when rules are ignored.)
On a submarine, we have the Chief of the Boat. Administrative duties include things like assigning bunks and watchsection manning, scheduling training, and attending to disciplinary matters so that they didn't have to require action by the CO (i.e., non-judicial punishment). Like every other enlisted, the Chief of the Boat holds a rating (job specialty) and so during general quarters or battle stations, he would generally man a watch related to his primary training and qualifications. (Unlike the Command Master Chief, I think, who stands on the bridge with the CO and XO.) The Chief of the Boat is not necessarily a Master Chief Petty Officer (E-9). (Surface ships have no shortage of Master Chief Petty Officers, so I would expect the CMC to actually be a Master Chief Petty Officer.) On a submarine, since we have two enlisted communities (nuclear trained and non-nuclear trained, which in practical terms is generally engineering and non-engineering), there is also a senior enlisted for the nuclear trained personnel. He is also usually, but not necessarily, a Master Chief Petty Officer. His title is the Engineering Assistant, and I would expect that he would defer to the Chief of the Boat in terms of positional authority even if he were senior in rank. Both the Chief of the Boat and Engineering Assistant, from what I remember, are assigned billets, which means that someone is specifically assigned to fill those positions and are not automatically given to the senior person by rank.
Or I could be remembering this completely incorrectly. I guess I must admit that I'm getting old and my memory is failing. Either that or too much exposure to radiation has rotted my brain.