During his first week in the Shipyard the senior staff had slotted Traan into various different roles from day to day. Though the shipyard operations team almost all wore yellowshirts(aside from the dozen or so comms techs who operated the external comms in their ‘well’) there was a surprising amount of specialization that developed within each shift. They always needed expert workbee operators, dispatchers, riggers, joiners, gantry and scaffolding builders, liaisons and hauler jockeys, and each work crew of 6-20 Shipyard ops people had to be lead by an experienced boss.

The schedule for shifts in the Shipyard were made 2 weeks in advance, though small day to day changes would occur due to the nature of the job. It also depended on the other 3 ‘sections’ in the shipyards; repair, Starship Construction, small craft maintenance.

His first few days had been spent on Horvaths team reattaching hullsections and disassembling gantries and scaffolding to allow the 2 vessels to launch. He then spent a shift and a half working as the third man in the ‘well’ up in the civilian hangar. Up there, the shipyard operations crews always had to move lively as things were much more disorganized then the starfleet shipyard below them. He finished the last half of the next day as ‘Number 2(second in charge)’ on a large crew rigging and carrying loads from the fabrication yards out to a massive type T hauler orbiting the station. The load was relief construction supplies for some colony.

Before his 1st day off at the end of the week, Traan now found himself in the well in Central. He was serving at the internal shipyard comms station. He was essentially the shipyard ops team dispatcher for the shift. Right before the shift had began, Lt Shelly and the Dep Director had come over to the well, apparently Lt Shelly was getting promoted and placed in charge of the small craft maintenance section. He would have been the third man in the well during that shift. Now it would be just Traan and the comms tech there for that shift.

‘Uh, yes sir. I think I can handle things here for today, schedule doesnt seem too busy. Another big load going out to the hauler, we have the crew prepping drydock 4 for the new Gagarin class keel to be layed, and then our routine crews. Easy enough… Congrats Lt, you go whip those jockey techs into shape down there in the small craft yard.’

Shelly smiled and nodded at Traan, ‘I’ll still be around, they’re making me move into one of the offices in here.’ He motioned his head sidewaze towards the 2 level, L shaped stack of offices in the corner of large control centre. Shelly would be in one of the smaller offices on the top level, next to the Director.

The Deputy Director then stepped down into the well and came up behind Traan. ‘How’s the first week been Traan? Thinking of requesting a transfer yet?’ He said with a slightly nervous laugh. In actuality, the dep Director had heard several good things about the Lt the past week.

‘Nah, I’m settling in great sir, I’m starting to get the hang of things now. I haven’t done any work in the small craft section yet though.’ His head shifted toward Shelly as he smiled and gave him a chin raise, as if to say, ‘request me down their sometime’.

‘Well that’s good to hear Lt. Keep up the good work, come and see me after your shift, we’ll have a chat.’ His voice gave away no indications as to the nature of what that chat would be about. Then he and Shelly just departed.

Shelly would have been the senior shipyard ops officer on during that shift as he was the shift leader for alpha shift, but now, apparently it would be Traans responsibility. As Shelly and the director wandered down towards their offices, Traan was left alone, with his thoughts…oh, and an entire shipyard full of people doing a thousand different things, that he was largely responsible for….on his 5th day on the job.

‘ Shipyard Central we need those workbees over here pronto, we got 2 loads ready’ the comm came in on Traans earpiece.

Traan snapped to and opened the channel, ‘Please identify, who is calling Shipyard central?’

‘Repair team 2, we called for those workbees before the shift started. We got loads stacking here.’

Traan didnt play the slack comms game and neither did anyone else on the shipyard ops team. Often in the locker they all complainted about the repair and construction crews being terrible with their comms etiquette.

‘Repair team 2, this is Shipyard central, workees en route, our yard is 10 minutes away from you down in bay 9. You should see the formation approaching on you left in approximately 2 minutes. Shipyard central out’ He changed over to the construction side comms. ‘Alpha and Bravo crews, we have the USS Ganymede preparing for departure on your right, leaving bay 6 for engine testing, clear the area between her and the exit. Shipyard central out.’

The remainder of the day was rather routine, and the mood in Central was calm, slight murmurs of chat and orders and comms were heard from the wells, it was about 45 minutes until shift change. For Traan the last major job of the day was the launching of the last major load today go out to the hauler.

It was a large, but realitively light load of lightweight construction materials, emergency rations, and comms arrays. Traan had cleared the ship for departure in about 3 minutes, en route out the hangar doors to the large hauler parked outside again. As always the flight plan and departure time was logged and plotted on the ‘joint plot’ a map of the shipyard with a 3d overlay of vehicles and their routes plotted out on it. They had one in each well.

This is what made what happened next so inexcusable. Apparently the internal comms guy over in the repair well(to Traans rights in between traan and the Construction well and the offices beyond) had cleared a load of antimatter and Dilithium to be delivered to the USS Pardagast in bay 5. The repair well operator had not considered the fact that the hauler being lauched by Traans crew would intercept the course of their barges of A/M and Dilithium right as they were crossing. It was a rookie mistake, and very dangerous, as the proposed plot for Traans was clearly visible as a feint line on the ‘joint plot’.

In 37 seconds, the repair crews barge would be struck by the hauler. It appeared as though no one had noticed anything. The ‘joint plot’ shifted with the haulers course now becoming a solid line on the plot as he launched. Traan saw this and in about 2 seconds, realized with horror what was gonna happen.

‘HEY! REPAIR! Get that barge out of the way of my hauler, they are on collosion course!’

The guy on the internal repair comms shouted ‘stop you’re hauler!’ Which was nearly impossible, haulers did not stop on a dime. Luckily the senior man in the repair well realized the issue and immediately grabbed a headset.

‘No! Its too late. You get those workbees to punch it, get that barge moving now or there gonna get hit!

‘REPAIR CREW 3, PUNCH IT! HAULER BEHIND YOU CANNOT STOP, GET OUT OF THE WAY!’ The Sr repair operator nearly shouted into his headset. The worbees had actually increased thrust as the Lt JG had been speaking.

It was close, but the barges was able to get out of the way, by a few metres. If the vessels had struck and the antimatter tanks had ruptured, the entire area near the fabrication yard and leading bay likely would have been vapourized in the resulting explosion.

Several frantic, and intense conversations then ensued in Shipyard Central. The Deputy Director had actually been chatting with the Asst Chief of the Repair section. A safety investigation was ordered. Shouting between wells in Central was usually frowned on, and Traan had only seen it once before, a few days ago up in the civilian dock when a ship had almost hit a pylon. There, the sr shipyard officer had yelled at the  well crew of the civilian control operator to make it turn to starboard.

To say that the crew in the repair well next him had a strip ripped off of them would be an understatement. Traan had overheard all of it but did not jump in or leave his well to go join in the near hysteria. He stayed at his position and finished his shift. The senior operator had relieved the internal repair comms operator minutes after the event. And for the remainder of the shift, the Asst Repair Chief stayed in his well to make sure nothing else happened and to investigate what had happened.

As his relief arrived about 4 minutes before shifting change, Traan did the handoff and then noticed the Deputy Director and Chief and Asst Chief of the Repair section chatting about 25 feet away, occasionally glancing in his direction. Traan them grabbed his Thermos(he always brought warm Andorian Mtn Spice tea with honey and lemon since his second shift) and walked towards the rear of his well, thinking he would head to his locker, catch a drink with the boys and tell em about the monumental idiocy the  repair guys performed this time.

As he walked up the stairs out of the well, the 3 came over to intercept him.

‘LT? Can we have a word?’ The Deputy Director said, not sounding as cheery as he always did.

Thinking he knew what this was all about, he began apologizing to the Repair section leaders ‘I know were not supposed to holler between wells sirs, I was just tr….’

He stopped as the trio began laughing ‘What are you talking about Lt? You were well within your rights to holler at our guys. You might have saved alot of lives today Mr Traan. We just wanted to come thank you. You might have saved our well operators from a court marital too’ the Chief of Repair reached out and shook Traans hand.

The Asst Chief added ‘That was lighting fast thinking Lt. I checked the logs, you were hollering at our guys 11 seconds after they let the barge launch. Great catch, and like the boss said, you might saved alot of lives…with the amount of anti matter that was on that barge…’

Laughing in shock Traan said ‘Are you kidding me, it was loaded with A/M…I take back the apology, Im glad I hollered at them.’

‘We are too… thats why I want you to take Shelly’s role as Sr Shipyard Ops O for alpha shift. And, your first assignment is writing up a safety memo about what happened here today and how we can avoid it in future.’ Said the Dep Director.

‘Sir…’ he was about to try to refuse the positional promotion. He had only been here a week for Kirk sake. ‘Yes sir. The fix is easy cross reference all traffic and flight paths even ones that havent launched twice before authorizing launches, and just keep everyones head on a swivel…’ he said looking at the two repair Chiefs who nodded in agreement.

‘Note it in the memo Chie…Lt.’ the Deputy Director almost referred to hom by his old rank of Chief. It was obvious to Traan, that the Deputy Director had heard alot more about him then he had heard about the director during their time together on Luna.

And there it was, Traan had recieved his 5th new assignment in the past month and a half.