Engineering was the heart of the ship, keeping things running smoothly was an engineer’s top priority. Engineers were busy making sure the warp core and other systems remained in tip-top shape. Savu was busy recalibrating the EPS grid as a routine diagnostic showed it was off by fifteen percent. Though it wasn’t anything of significant concern, she wanted to fix it before the problem got worse causing unnecessary issues.

Savu had been hard at work when a young Ensign walked up to her. “Did you hear the news?”

Savu glanced at the young Bajoran woman for a moment before turning back to what she was doing. “Did I hear what Ensign?” She was annoyed that she decided to approach her while she was working, for what she gathered would be some gossip that she just had to tell someone. However, she didn’t let it show in the tone of her voice or her expression.

“That Commander Aarven got kicked out of Starfleet and is possibly facing prison time?” The young officer replied with a pause before continuing. “And that Lieutenant Commander Zhayva is now our new Chief.”

Savu stopped what she was doing for a moment to look at the young woman, “I did hear something like that though I don’t think that is something appropriate to gossip about. When we have work to do,” Savu said with a stern tone in her voice. She didn’t mind chatting while working but starting needless gossip about a former officer because of her poor choices was not the right choice.

“Yes sir,” came the reply as Savu could see that she might have upset her when she was just trying to have a conversation with her.

“While I understand that her circumstances are not ideal and things happened, by a poor choice she made.” Savu began as her voice went softer than the stern voice she had moments ago. “I do not think it’s a topic of discussion with myself or others when there are lots of different things to talk about.”

“Understood, my apologies.”

Savu nodded with a soft smile and nodded to the woman. “Care to assist me with recalibrating the EPS grid?”

“Yes ma’am.”

“Can you keep an eye on the console while I begin the recalibration? Let me know either when it’s fully calibrated or something critical goes wrong.” Savu said as she got under the console.

Just as they were getting started Zhayvu walked up to where the ensign was not seeing Savu lying halfway under the console. “Do you know where Lieutenant Savu is?” This caused Savu to hit her head on the console as she was startled by the sound of Zhayva’s voice. She was not expecting to hear anyone else’s voice besides the ensigns.

“Sorry Lieutenant,” Zhayva said as Savu got up from underneath the console to see her face, which showed an apologetic look. “I am sorry to disturb you but I would like to have a word with you privately.” She said getting to the point for which she came.

Straightening her uniform she looked at the new chief. “Yes of course,” Savu replied before waving over another engineer. “Continue with the realignment,” she ordered as the lieutenant nodded before picking up where she had left off. Savu turned and walked with Zhayva towards her office.

Upon arriving she took a seat that was offered to her. “Is everything alright?” Savu asked, wondering what she could want to talk to her about. Things seemed to be running better than they had been before.

“Everything is fine,” Zhayva said. “I want you to be my new assistant chief,” she replied, getting right to the point.

Savu could see the big smile that was upon Zhayva’s face while she sat there in shock, she wasn’t expecting to have even been in consideration for a position like that. “Surely there has to be someone else more experienced than I am?” Savu asked. Though she probably knew the answer to that with everything that they had all been through the last few months. They had lost a lot of good officers between the Lost Fleet invasion of the Deneb sector and then the catastrophe that was Frontier Day.

“Unfortunately no,” Zhayva said. “Though I have every confidence in your abilities to do the job just as well,” Zhayva replied. “You are a very gifted engineer that I can see going far one day.”

“Thank you, sir,” Savu replied as she sat there and thought for a few moments while silence filled the room. She could see that others in engineering didn’t hold grudges against her and the other younger officers who had turned on them during Frontier Day. Seemed like things were slowly getting back to normal, well as normal as what normal can be nowadays. “I accept the position,” Savu finally replied.

“Great,” Zhayva replied before moving on to the next item. Savu listened to what Zhayva had to say next, explaining what their mission was which caused Savu to give her a look of concern. “So, once we reach up with the IRW Aldore. I will be going with the away team, which means you will be in charge of engineering while I am gone.” Zhayva said.

“So you will all be going to Freecloud undercover?” Savu asked, paraphrasing what Zhayva had explained. She wanted to make sure she heard her correctly or if her ears were playing tricks on her. When she just nodded in confirmation Savu worked her jaw for a brief moment before blowing out of her cheeks. “I’ll make sure she stays in pristine condition,” replied Savu as she just looked at her.

“I don’t expect anything less,” said Zhayva.

“Is there anything else?” Savu asked, wondering if there was anything else she could surprise her with. Though she thought that there could have been one more surprise up her sleeve, she brushed that out of her mind as it couldn’t have been a possibility this soon.

“Not at this time no, I will let you get back to what you were working on before I interrupted you,” Zhayva said. “Congratulations Lieutenant.”

“Thank you, sir,” Savu replied before standing up from the chair she had been sitting in and heading out of her office. She walked back to where she had left the two officers. As Savu dismissed the Lieutenant she pulled up the information, things were improving but they were still out of alignment.

“What did the chief want to talk to you about?” The young woman asked. Savu could tell she meant well and wasn’t trying to be nosey but was genuinely curious.

“I got a promotion to assistant chief,” Savu said simply before she got back down underneath the console. “Now if you don’t mind keeping an eye on the console,” Savu said.

“Oh right,” she replied.

Savu caught a glimpse of a smile creeping up on the young woman’s face, which came across as if she was happy for her. This caused her to smile before she began to work on getting the EPS grid realigned the way it should be. Silence filled between them for some time until the ensign spoke up.

“It’s showing an error, a critical error with the sensor array?”

“Are you asking me or telling me?” Savu asked as she couldn’t tell from the tone of her voice whether it was a statement, a question, or even a tone of confusion. Savu got up from underneath the console to see what the ensign was seeing before she could even answer back with a response. Tapping a few buttons to see what could have caused that malfunction to happen as she was nowhere near that system.

She walked over to another console and tapped a few controls until she found the issue, “here it is.” Savu said to no one in particular just mainly talking to herself as she began to correct the error.

“The error is gone,” the Bajoran replied.

Savu nodded as she walked back over to the console she was working on and got back to work. After a while, she finished what she was doing. She closed the console and began to run a complete diagnostic to see if things were all in the green. She turned to the ensign. “Thank you for your assistance, you can go see if one of the other engineers needs any assistance,” Savu said as the woman nodded before leaving Savu to finish up. Once the diagnostic was complete and everything was back in the green she went on to her next task.