The sounds of banging and shouting filled Joshua’s ears when he boarded the Hippocrates. He was stopped at the entrance and automatically offered his hand for a blood sample. After it was confirmed, the guard nodded and let him pass. Joshua moved through the passageways until he came across an old friend.

“Ethan, how are you?” Did you get the plant?” Joshua said, handing a PADD to Ethan. “I guess my job du jour is helping you out.” He put up his hands in defense, “Don’t worry, I’ve been hanging out with Ensign Montañez and the Yellowjackets, so it won’t be like last time. I’ve got some experience in building and repair under my belt.”

Ethan read his PADD as he made his way through the corridor of the Hippocrates. He was eager to get started, and finally had received his first assignment. It was going to be a big job, getting this ship operational again in such a short amount of time, but he was eager and looking forward to the challenge. 

Hearing someone call his voice, he looked up from the PADD, nearly bumping into another officer when he saw Joshua calling out to him. He smiled, and made his way over to him. “Yes, thank you for that, by the way! I’m extremely happy to report that it is still alive, somehow.” He laughed a bit and then continued, “Well, I’m looking forward to seeing your new skills in action! This is some assignment, but it should prove an interesting challenge!”

Joshua nodded, “I told you, it’s a hearty one. We’ll have you up to more challenging plants in no time! Don’t get too excited, the stuff I was putting together was low stakes. Medical supplies, biobeds, and the like. No real immediate risk of someone getting hurt if I put it together the wrong way.” He continued to keep pace with Ethan, “So what’s on the docket for today?”  

Ethan laughed, “I’m looking forward to it!” He pulled up his PADD to answer Joshua’s question, then read from his duty assignment, “Well, let’s see here, looks like I’ve been assigned several tasks up on deck 4: realign the EPS flow regulators, recalibrate the internal sensors, and run several diagnostics on the bio-neural gel packs to ensure they’re running to design specifications.” He put his PADD down by his side, “Looking like it’s going to be a full double shift by the sound of this, should be interesting!” 

“Wait… ‘double shift’? I’m not sure I signed up for that. But with your unending enthusiasm, it should go by quick.” He glanced at his own PADD. “It looks like my orders say, ‘Don’t break anything or otherwise cause engineers more stress and work’. There are a bunch of other words in there, but that seems to be the jist. So lead on!”

Ethan laughed, “Don’t break anything or otherwise cause stress and work… sounds like they’ve ordered you to not touch anything.” He pat Joshua on the back still laughing, then motioned for him to follow. Ethan made his way to the turbolift, commanding it to take them to deck 4 as soon as they both were inside. “I figured we could start with the gel packs. I know you work with plants mostly, but plants are living organisms as much as any gel pack I suppose.”

“Yeah, I’m great with living things. I did a thesis paper on the bio-neural gel pack technology. Fascinating stuff. I imagine I could be a little less than not useful.  And that’s probably why they assigned me to this job,” Joshua chuckled. “Or maybe they didn’t have anywhere else to put me. I know a lot of the scientists are doing daily jobs to help the effort. The effort for what exactly none of us really know.”

Ethan smiled, “You did your thesis on the gel packs? That is awesome, my friend. Those things are so highly sophisticated, even now I sometimes have trouble understanding how they operate fully.” The turbolift arrived on deck four and he continued down the corridor towards the wall junction while going on, “I guess it’s the blend of organic and electronic components that always threw me off. They always reminded me of the Borg when I studied them, who knows, maybe that’s where we got the idea in the first place.” He laughed at the preposterous idea.

“The idea was to increase a starship’s processing speed by combining the organic with the technological. The organic circuitry allowed computers to think by using ‘fuzzy logic’, and operate quicker by making educated guesses to complex questions rather than working through all possible calculations. This allowed the computer system to correlate chaotic patterns not offered within the parameters of conventional starship hardware. This came at a price, as Voyager taught us, as it makes computer systems susceptible to organic life forms’ weaknesses. Chiefly among them viruses and bacteria.” Joshua smiled, “Pages 12 and 13,” he frowned, “or was it 15 and 16? Honestly, it’s been a while since I read it.” He scratched his head, “Sorry, you probably didn’t want a history lesson.”

“And you have it memorized! I bet we can make an engineer out of you yet, Joshua.” Ethan smiled, picking up his head as they rounded the corner and arrived at the junction. The gel packs were first on the long list of work for today, but at least he had good company to help get everything completed. “Alright, you start here, and I’ll work the junction right over there. First one to finish their diagnostic wins.” He smiled, patting Joshua on the back then heading off to get started.