Traan showed up to the busy shipyard for his first day on the job. He was to report to the Directors office. When he walked in the large open bulkhead double doors that led to the SCC, the place seemed abuzz with activity. As he walked in, strung out infront of him was 3 large wells with wrap around consoles, each manned by 2 or 3 officers of varying rank, mostly wearing yellowshirts, but a few redshirts were scattered about.

Traan had sobered up with the thanks of Doc Jos ‘hangover cure hypo special’, and had showered, ate, and put on a fresh uniform before reporting here.

When he found his new boss, the short, portly, balding, and sweaty Commander greeted him with a bright smile and a hearty handshake. He told Traan that he had recalled his name from Luna yards when he had been assigned there a few years before. He also said that he had saw his name on the recent promotion list, and had requested him personally. Traan did vaguely remember the man from his early time on Luna, something about the morning briefings whenever he was on Alpha shift was percolating memories in his brain.

The commander seemed a bit busy and somewhat in a rush, but promised to chat with him later in the day. The control centre was a long large room that houses the offices of the senior shipyard staff and the 3 wells stations. As Traan looked more closely at them. He saw that each well had a small name plate above the rear step that respectively read; Shipyards Operations, Repair Section, Starship Construction.

The Director had told him to check in with Lt. Shelly in ‘our well’ and shadow him as a part of his orientation for today’s shift. Traan went and found the Lt who appeared to be in his mid 30s in the well labelled ‘Shipyard Operations’.

‘Lt Skelly?’ Traan said as walked down the stairs.

“Heyo, you must be our new guy, Traan right?” He shook Traans hand. There was a redshirt ensign and yellowshirt Lt JG manning the console in the well. Shelly turned to face them and Traan walked up beside them.

“Yes sir, I’m looking forward to working with you. Its nice to be back in a yard… nice big place you got here.” Traan said.

“Its big, I’ll give you that…but after a few days you won’t be thinking its nice, haha….anyway I’ll give you the quick rundown on the place. This right here is what we call the well, those other 2 wells are for the repair and construction guys. I read your file, I know you came from Luna, and you were with the tactical guys on the construction side. We are the Shipyard Operations side, we’re the glue the and the guts that keep this place running, we can operate without the 2 of them, they cant do a darn thing without us… They need us for everything from scheduling to hauling to deliveries, heavy equipment operators, and everything revolving around safety. We dont repair or build the ships, we do everything else. Got it? Good, so this room is called Central, now, we have wells in the control rooms of each of the other hangars aswell, the civilian hangar one we call well 2, the one in small ship hangar we call well 3.” Skelly had this routine down to an art at this point. He’d been their for nearly 2 years and had briefed almost 30 new Shipyard Operations officers in that time.

‘Yes sir….by the looks of things you got new construction on the left and repairs going on on the right out there?’ Traan observed as he was staring out through the 35 metre wide 7 metre tall bay window infront of the wells that looked out on the large carvernous shipyard.

“Quick study, I like that. Yeah, we also have a 2 other large bays and a few other smaller ones… come on, I’ll show you.’ Shelly said and he and Traan then left the well and walked over to the large window. ‘Okay so you see the large hangar door down there. So that leads to the small ship hangar. Ok then, if you look up, that massive circular hangar door at the top, that leads to the civilian ship hangar. That massive door straight across from us in the entry and exit, its wide enough to fly 2 galaxy class ships through side by side with rooms on the end. We have to look after all of it….So, over here, through that door at the far end, that leads to a large open landing deck called Central Pad 1.’ Shelly walked along infront of the to other wells and towards another large set of double doors on the opposite wall from the entrance as he decided to give Traan the full tour. He sensed Traan would be a valuable asset and probably inherently knew many of the finer points of the job Shelly might teach him if he had Traan just followed him around.

He continued. “If you through here, and then walk across that you’ll run into the Work Bee Hive. If you keep walking around the perimeter past the bee hive, you’ll get to one of the Fabrication yard balconies. There’s a few of those in each hangar. The fabrication guys place the stuff they make on the balconies, we pick em up and deliver it to the Repair or Construction guys or the civilian hangar, wherever its going ya know?

‘Yes sir, a parade of bee’s, barges and haulers running all day as it should be sir.’ Traan marvelled at the size and scope of it all. The main hangar they were now standing in was huge. Twice the size of the drydock he worked in on Luna. Luna had had 4 of their drydock and thus, was a slightly larger facilities as a whole, but the shear volume of the bay he was in was awe inspiring.

‘Yep. You get the drill, so you were in charge of one of the Tac Systems teams in one of the Luna Drydocks right?’ Shelly stopped and looked at Traan.

‘Yeah, I was in drydock 3 for majority of the time. I finished up in dock 1 for last several months finishing up the installs on a couple of Gagarin class ships, hulls 7 and 8, what would become the Orpheus and the Zhukov’ Traan recalled.

‘Well, honestly then, if you’re up for it, instead of shadowing me all day and not learning much, why dont we get you out there learning the yard. You certified on workbees?’ Shelly asked.

‘Class 4 on all the variants sir, accept the brand new ones, I’m only class 3 on them.’

Shelly chuckled ‘Oh don’t worry, the new ones get signed out first thing within 2 minutes of each shift starting hahah, if you’ll be in one it’ll probably be one of our workhorse mark 8b’s(a 15 year old, but reliable version of the venerable workbee)…but no, I was going to say, why dont you hop in one, and head down to repair bay 5 there. You see down on the right, there, that big T46 barge with the blue and red lights on right now.’ Traan nodded and Shelly continued, ‘Good, head down there, Ensign Trusk and Chief Horvath are down there, we got 2 ships that are having their hull plating reattached after some major repairs. That area there in bay 5 and 6 is going to be a madhouse all day with haulers bringing hull panels over and our guys grabbing them with work bee’s and delivering them to the Repair crews to reattach. Head down there, park on the barge and help Trusk keep an eye on things down there, jump in and give a hand wherever you can.’

‘Yes sir. Sounds good. Do they still blow the horn at lunch time and shift end sir?’

Shelly chuckled ‘Of course, we wouldnt be much of a shipyard if we didnt now would we… Head over and sign out a workbee, I’ll head back to the well and get you clearance. Welcome to the Bravo Shipyards Lt.’ Shelly said as he began to walk back to Central.

And there he was, back at ‘home’, about to fly out into a busy shipyard, Traan was back in his element and for the first time in months he was heading into his comfort zone.