For Serena, one of the great things about her new assignment was that it wasn’t a warship. Well, technically, Starfleet vessels weren’t strictly categorized as such. Sort of like the difference between semi automatic and super semi automatic. But compared to an overpowered little devil like the Defiant, or the portable torpedo distribution system that was the Akira, a ship like an Olympic class was a lot less spartan when it came to creature comforts and accommodations..

Yes, she understood that if her luck held, she might end up barely spending enough time in her quarters other than trying to sleep in a place that wasn’t the on-call room in sickbay. But she was still hopeful, still holding on to her last few bits of optimism that her luck was changing, and maybe, just maybe, she’d have a decent home with a liveable space, and be able to live normally, or as close to it as she could.

Gods, she hoped she didn’t just jinx herself.

But before anything else, she had to report to the XO. The thought made her wince inwardly, even as he did what she could to present a cool and calm exterior. A day late and she nearly missed ship departure, which would have been bad, but she didn’t and she made it on time. And her lateness was due to a series of unfortunate events.

She really hoped her new boss’s boss was the reasonable, forgiving sort, instead of having to deal with an NJP.

The ship was pretty busy, plenty of crew walking quickly to wherever they were going and the goldenrods busy doing last minute engineering stuff in open panels every couple dozen meters that she walked. They were about to get underway after all.

The bridge was even more of a beehive of activity, with people coming and going as the ship was preparing for departure. The computer told her where to find the XO, and she’d looked at the basic files of the command staff so she knew which names and faces were important.

It wasn’t long before she spotted the man himself and made a beeline for him.

Iggy just looked at the engineer stood in front of him, then sighed and rubbed between his eyebrows, his other arm folded across his chest. “Okay, so you’re telling me that even with the full service last month, the replicators are still on the fritz?”

“No no, sir,” the man was quick to reassure him. “It’s just that certain menu options are not always available.”

“Coffee,” Iggy stated bluntly. “Coffee is not always available. Do you know how many people we have on this ship?”

The engineer just blinked at him.

“We have a hundred and thirty-nine operational crew, and over three hundred visiting medical personnel,” he said. “And every single one of them runs on coffee. If there’s no coffee, then we’re going to have a mutiny on our hands.”

Having reported for duty to countless officers in her relatively short career, and making it to the rank of Chief in that time, Reena learned to stay within the ‘Goldilocks zone’ anytime an officer was in a conversation with someone else. Close enough that they know you’re waiting to talk to them, seabag hitched high on the shoulder and fully visible to express a sense of urgency considering the weight of the damned thing, but at the same time, far enough away to be out of the reach of any ‘backsplash’ should the conversation turn sour.

And hearing what they were talking about, it was definitely bad.

War? Famine? The warp core suffering a catastrophic breach? All of those were horrible situations, and what she was hearing was rated on the same level. Are they crazy? Don’t they understand how chemically dependent most people were to coffee? Mutiny was right. If they didn’t get this fixed soon, the crew was probably going to lynch the one responsible for this horrific affront to caffeine.

“I…” the engineer looked down at his padd, at a loss for what to say. “I mean, we can run the diagnostics again and see what we can do.”

Spotting the hovering NCO out of the corner of his eye, Iggy smiled and clapped the man on the shoulder. “Failing that, replicate some bloody kettles, man! Put them in all the galleys!”

The engineer scurried off, and Iggy turned to the woman waiting for him. “Can I help you, chief?” he asked with a smile.

Reena smiled as she stepped closer to introduce herself. She already knew who he was from the basic crew files available to personnel, but while she thought he was pretty photogenic from his bio, the picture didn’t quite do him justice as she met him in person at last.

“Greetings, Commander. I’m Serena Veren, your new Critical Care Nurse.”

Now she had the option not to mention the issue looming over her like that proverbial sword dangling over her head, hoping he wouldn’t bring it up. But she didn’t want to start her first day of her new assignment being evasive, and truthfully it wasn’t her style either.

“I would have been here days earlier but having to travel across a whole quadrant comes with its own set of complications.” she said as her smile turned wry, handing him the PADD containing a local copy of her documents for his review. “But excuses aside, I apologize for my delay in arrival, sir.”

“No worries at all, at least you made it before the kickoff or you’d have been playing catchup with us so welcome aboard.”

He smiled and offered his hand. The departments on the Alkahest were more than a little odd. Given it was a medical vessel, there were a lot of medical staff aboard, but only a small group of them were actually the sickbay team for the Alkahest crew. The chief was one of them.

“Everything is a bit manic at the moment because we’ve just received mission orders,” he told her. “We’re about to leave the station, so if you’re confident heading on down to your quarters and finding main sickbay, then you’re more than welcome. If not,” he nodded toward one of the benches along the back of the main bridge. “Take a pew for a while. I’m headed down to main sickbay after we’re underway.”

Reena blinked, hoping her surprise wasn’t evident on her face.

Oh thank Gods he was nice! Was this it? Was her luck finally turning around? And while she had her share of considerate officers, he was even offering to lead her down below himself. Seeing how he was one man running this chaotic show, she was even more amazed he made the offer.

“Oh well thank you sir,” she was quick to say with sincerity. “That’s very kind of you, but seeing everything you have to deal with right now, I wouldn’t want to be in your hair especially when you’ve been nice enough to look past my tardiness “ She chuckled. “Plus, I’m feeling my luck is coming around and I wouldn’t want the bad luck to rub off on you, so once you give me my room assignment, I can spare you the trouble sir.”

Iggy whipped a padd out of his pocket, frowning as he checked through the new arrivals list. She was easy to find. Serena Veren was the only chief coming aboard. “Okay, here we go. You are…. Deck seventeen, corridor four, room LM-thirty four.” He smiled as he looked up at her. “Can you sing?”