Engineering

Commander Kael emerged from the lift on Deck 15. It was almost what was considered the absolute bottom of the ship. So whenever she made it down here, she caught the looks most of the lower decks gave as she passed by. Some were awestruck. Some were skeptical. Others were a mix. An expected result. Command led from the top. The lower ranks executed tasks from below.

She found the chief engineer up to her waist in an exposed panel in the wall. An open tool box next to her legs as she reached in and felt around until she’d retrieved the tool she was after and went back to work. Lorena waited for several quiet moments for the chief to notice her and extract herself from the interior of the wall. This did not manifest.

Kael then cleared her throat. Finally the chief paused. Her tool stopping, and the legs shifted to reveal Dex’s face, smeared with a bit of grime from inside the panels. She blinked as her eyes adjusted to the lighting in the corridor.

“Oh. Commander. Should have said something. I’m wrestling with this damned power grid.”

“That’s what I came to check on chief. I was told you were running into problems?”

Dex sighed, shimmying out of the hole in the bulkhead and stood up, dusting off her work uniform. “Yeah. Putting it mildly. The point defense system? It’s a big draw on the power grid. Factor in the improved hull integrity field project and we’re creating an enormous burden on the power grid. Most of it can be soaked, but in some places like here? It’s just not up to the task. Not sure if that’s just down to material wear and tear, or if we drew the short end of the stick for quality control going into the parts or manufacturing. Not quite up to the higher end of the stress limits.”

“I see,” Lorena said, going silent for a moment. She’d faced a lot of problems the past few days. Most of them she couldn’t even remember. The rest? She couldn’t hope to solve alone. But this? This she could help with.

“What do you need?”

“Besides a butt load of time? Raw materials to make the parts at the specs I actually need.”

“So we need a supply run.”

Dex nodded. “Looking that way, yeah. But we’re already a few weeks out from the star base and that margin is growing with each passing day.”

“Then we source what we need locally.”

“Ma’am?”

“How exotic are the materials you need?”

Dex shook her head. “Nothing too wild. Most of it just stuff we can’t really spare much of due to all the renovations we’re making.”

“Send me a list. I’ll make sure we get you what you need. How soon can you finish the overhaul to the grid once you’ve got the materials?”

Dex glanced back at the hole she’d crawled out of. Her expression going vacant as she thought it over. She turned back to Lorena and shrugged. “Dunno. Couple days to gut the existing infrastructure and place the new lines. Feed them into the upgrades and make sure nothing blows a gasket.”

“I’ll comm you as soon as we have what you need. Thank you, chief. Carry on.”

“Ma’am.” Dex said, going to attention as Lorena excused herself. As she marched back down the corridor and turned to enter the turbo lift car, she could see Dex crawling back into the bulkhead to work on removing something.

“Bridge.” Lorena said.

A few minutes’ ride later, the doors whisked open, and she strode onto the bridge. Tib stood from the captain’s chair to shake her hand. It was a greeting routine he enjoyed doing, and she indulged in the practice.

“Welcome Commander. The morning watch has been pretty quiet so far. What news from our chief engineer? She sounded frazzled.”

Lorena took her seat with a sigh. “Resource woes. She’ll need to gut parts of the grid to make everything we’ve proposed work out. She’s feeling pressured to make sure everyone’s projects completes, but the ship is… older and thus, less accommodating of drastic new additions to the EPS grid than it otherwise might have been.”

Tib feigned a put upon look. “Hey. I prefer seasoned.” He patted the leather armrest playfully. “It’s ok. She didn’t mean that.”

Lorena smirked. “That means we need metric tons of raw resources we can’t otherwise spare at the moment.”

“You’re a woman of solutions, commander. You wouldn’t be telling me if you didn’t have ideas already.”

This time, she grinned. “I have a project for your brother assuming he’s waiting for his data to resolve on the last away mission.”

“Go on.”

“We have him run some wide band scans for mineable asteroids that hold favorable percentages of the ore’s and compounds the chief will need.”

Tib chuckled. “Danny will glance at that list and hand it back to you, naming the coordinates off immediately.”

Lorena’s grin lessened an octave. “Really?”

“Yeah, that’s not a problem. That’s busy work. But your mind’s in the right place. He’s an excellent resource. I just try not to use him for mundane work too much. His brain is better suited to theoretical and abstract issues.”

Lorena nodded. “Good to know. With your blessing, I’ll go see him in Lab 1 then.”

Tib gestured to the turbo lift. “Be my guest.”

The turbo lifts doors shut, and she tried not to deflate. She knew he was only trying to caution her about being excited about her idea, but it still took the wind right out of her sails. Still, she appreciated him helping her understand how better to use the crew and their skills. She wondered if he had to stumble through learning all that through trial and error as well? Or if it was just something he studied for? She got the impression he was probably the guy to sit around and read personnel files for hours while drinking something warm.

The doors whisked open and strode into the corridor and found Science Lab 1. When she strode in, she noticed several holo projected screens scrolling data in a circular pattern around Lt. Rain. He sat cross-legged on the floor, scanning each screen for a moment and then turning to the next. His lips worked silently, with no sound coming out. Like he was mentally memorizing the data and moving on.

“Computer freeze program,” Daniel said.

The feeds paused, and he turned to glance at her. “Commander Kael. Do you have an assignment for me?”

She cleared her throat and strode in. Reaching out, she handed him a datapad with the situation. “I do. The short and sweet of it is that we’re short on raw materials and the power grid needs an overhaul.”

He nodded absently as she spoke, like he wasn’t hearing anything new. His eyes flicked towards the holographic panels several times. He already looked bored.

“I need you to find me some resource rich asteroids we can mine so we can keep work progressing.”

“Is that all?”

She nodded.

“Computer, open a window and display sensor scan data for grid point Sector 491, Grid 27-A.”

An instant later, a holographic window appeared before her, showing several scattered asteroids. A system analysis marker showed which minerals they were rich in. She blinked at how trivially easy he made that look.

“Daniel, this had to have taken days of system analysis. You just had this knocking around?”

He nodded blankly. “Yes, sir.”

“When did you find this?”

“Fourteen days, three hours and twenty-one minutes ago.”

Lorena did the math backwards. That would have been roughly two or three days into their patrol before they’d discovered the temporal anomaly. That meant he was just scanning everything he could point the sensors at. It couldn’t be said that he didn’t use his time wisely, at least.

“Well done, Lt. Have you ever considered a posting aboard a space station or with a specialty lab?”

“I spent some time with Daystrom, but my brother didn’t like them.”

Lorena’s brow wrinkled at the name. It was making sense now. Captain Rain was protecting his brother. It was the only explanation that made sense.

“Thank you, Lt. Carry on.”

She took a step back, showing she’d dismissed him, and he resumed his work, reactivating his data program. She left the lab with a different appreciation for Daniel. Lorena wondered if some of the tech they were after came from Daniel. If it did, he didn’t say as much. But then she wasn’t sure it would even register to him to voice that.

As she made her way back to the lift, she mentally charted the path forward. They could set a small deviation route in their patrol to swing by the asteroid field, mine the materials, and be back underway with only a 24 hour loss of time roughly. The doors to the lift hissed open on the bridge and she strode out briskly towards the science station and gave the captain a nod. He returned it. She assumed he probably had a good guess of how her meeting went and let her conduct the rest of her tasks without requesting an update. She appreciated that.

“Mr. Vossk. I’ve got coordinates for an emergency resource procural mission. Captain’s override. Can you plot a course to this location from our current heading?”

“Of course.”

The saurian science officer studied the tablet briefly and then his clawed digits tapped at his console carefully. A moment later she saw a dashed route split off of their projected course into the coordinates Lt. Rain had given her, and looped back onto their designated patrol route. She gave Vossk a nod.

“Excellent. Thank you.”

She copied the amended course to her datapad and handed it to the Captain.

“I have a resource cluster we can harvest that should satisfy the chief’s needs. This amended course and timetable should only set us back a day extra.”

Tib glanced it over briefly before nodding his approval to her. “Looks good. Make it so.”

“Helm, plot course amendment One Alpha, warp six please.”

“Course plotted.” Lt. Jg. Thorne said from the conn turning back to her. Lorena realized that all eyes had shifted to her, and the Captain wore that happy grin. He’d set this trap so casually for her and she’d marched right into it blindly.

“Oh, you’re good…”

Tib gestured to the floor of the bridge in front of them. “Well? We’re waiting. What’s it going to be? What’s your phrase going to be?”

Lorena sighed. This apparently was a thing. Worse. It was a thing she’d honestly never given much thought to. She’d always viewed herself as an engine of efficiency. When she wore her uniform? She was here to work.

She bit back a chuckle as she remembered her first impression of the captain’s laid back but in control demeanor. She’d thought he was too easygoing and had concerns he’d be a pushover. That notion lasted a day or two, tops. And now he’d given her the opportunity to give the order to go to warp. She studied the main viewscreen thoughtfully.

If it was to be a momentous occasion for her career, a defining moment of sorts with all the pomp and flair that everyone seemed to prescribe the moment? Then she wanted it to be something special. She reflected on how curious it was to feel that way compared to her past self a few years ago might have just barked something terse about getting on with it. But now? She’d relaxed into the role a little more. She was more comfortable with the idea of her own command, and how she might want to lead. So? What would it be, then? A quick glance at Tib’s expression seemed to mirror the thought with a bit of amused excitement. She flashed Tiberius a ghost of a grin.

“Let’s light ’em up.”