A shower of blue-white particles began to cascade down onto the surface of the transporter pad nested in the command module of Drydock 714 of the Avalon Fleet Yards. As the pattern within the shower of energy took form, the figure of a woman took shape, growing sharper in contrast to the light that surrounded her. When her pattern was fully materialized, the form of a Captain clad in the yellow trim of an Engineering officer stood on the transporter, her eyes darting around excitedly as she took in the sights of her new assignment… nay… her new command. The thought of being in charge of the facility she’d been sent to from Brahms Station still hadn’t quite taken root in her mind fully, it had been less than a week since she’d received notice of her transfer and promotion. The fact that she was being allowed, or perhaps encouraged was the more appropriate phrase, to return to a more hands on version of the Engineering field she’d fallen in love with as a young woman was a dream come true for her.

Captain Annebell Scott stepped off the pad and thanked the technician standing behind the console, wasting no time almost sprinting out of the room and into the wide corridor beyond. Despite the command module of the Class-9 drydock not being more than a few decks in size, and less than a fourth the length of the structure itself, the corridors were large enough to accommodate nearly seven people standing shoulder to shoulder. This particular design didn’t have people in mind, but rather it took into account moving equipment and parts to and from ships docked beneath, allowing the engineers the ability to move items relatively freely to the various workshops that made up the majority of the drydock’s interior.

As with any facility, there was also a command center where refit and construction operations could be orchestrated, able to display detailed schematics and track projects of all kinds in an ‘at a glance’ style that aided the dock master in keeping projects on schedule. It was there that Bell found parts of her new team discussing the work that had been accomplished on the ship nested in the dock and what they were going to be working on the next duty day.

“Alpha Team finished removing the plasma relays on decks seven and eight, putting us a day or two ahead of schedule with replacing those. Bravo Team just finished removing the old turbolift carriages about an hour ago, so we can expect work to begin on getting their maintenance bays converted to handle the new ones being installed sometime this week. Charlie Team hit a bit of trouble with getting the fusion generators dismantled, we’ll have to push back reactor testing until later in the month, which will also push back our window for testing the new relays, so be aware of that,” the Lieutenant Commander leading the brief listed as he reviewed the notes he’d taken on a PaDD he was currently holding.

“What issues did they run into with the fusion reactor?” Bell asked without actually thinking about it as she studied the display hanging just behind the man.

The sudden question didn’t seem to bother the Commander as he responded with, “It looks like deuterium feeds aren’t closing off properly, causing leakage into the chamber preventing a full shutdown.”

Capt. Scott tapped her chin with the knuckle of her index finger a few times while she visualized the schematic for that system, “Did they try shunting off the flow from the feedback valve, forcing the deuterium to cycle back to the storage tanks to stop the leak?”

“No, I don’t believe they…” the man started scrolling through his notes on the reported issue before realizing that he didn’t recognize the voice asking the question, “I’m sorry, who are you?”

Having had her back turned to the man when she’d asked the question, Bell couldn’t blame him for not recognizing her, not even taking into account that she’d simply wandered into a meeting without so much as a word of introduction. The woman turned around, lowering her hand as she did so, presenting herself to the officer she’d been holding a conversation with.

“I’m Captain Annebell Scott, I’ve been assigned as the new commander for this drydock,” came the response to the confusion-tinged query.

“Oh…” the Lieutenant Commander said before the name registered with information he’d seen earlier in the day, “Oh! Captain Scott, yes, I’m so sorry I didn’t meet you at the transporter. I was led to believe you wouldn’t be coming to the dock until tomorrow.”

“It’s perfectly fine, Commander. I wasn’t actually supposed to be here until then, but I was so excited to see the place for myself that I decided to drop in right after dropping off my bags on the station. I didn’t mean to interrupt your meeting, I just happened to walk in when you were talking about the reactor problems and couldn’t help but try to help,” Bell said with an impish smile as she explained herself.

“No problem at all, ma’am,” the man said with a strained smile, “I’m Lieutenant Commander Gregory Armes. I’ll be your assistant dock master.”

“A pleasure to meet you, Greg,” Scott said as she walked over and gave the man’s hand free hand a firm shake.

“Likewise…” Armes replied hesitantly, unsure of how to take the Captain’s suddenly familiar tone.

“Did any other team encounter any problems?” Bell asked, turning back toward the schematic of the ship they were performing a refit on.

It took the man a minute to register that the meeting he had been leading until just moments ago had been hijacked by his new boss and struggled to find the place he’d left off in his notes, “Let me see… one of the bulk matter storage pods failed the compression test, which will require us to pull off the hull panels to replace it. The team installing the updated holodeck matrixes is having a problem getting the control system to interface with the updated hardware…” Greg paused for a few seconds while he scanned through the notes outlining projects that were running ahead or on schedule before looking back up, “That’s everything that has encounter problems so far, Captain.”

“I see…” the woman muttered as she glanced at the various areas that Armes had mentioned before turning back to him, “While you have the hull plating removed to replace the bulk matter storage tank, it might be a good idea to go ahead and pull all of them out and put new ones in. The last time I was on an Intrepid and we had that issue, the system wouldn’t pressurize properly until they were all from the same production series. I never did figure out why… could just be a quirk of the system itself, but it’ll save us a whole lot of time on the back end if we just do all of the work now. Also, get me a copy of the error list the holodeck team is encountering, I’d like to see if I’ve run into that problem before on my last ship. We did some work to our holodecks and were catching some funny glitches now and then. Oh, and don’t forget to relay the fix to the reactor team for me.”

Greg blinked several times at the rapid-fire response he’d just been pelted with before scrambling to note what he’d just been told, “Aye, ma’am.”

The other engineers gathered in the room had been watching the spectacle with a mixture of awe and trepidation as the woman who was to be their new superior seemed to steamroll through the space, offering commentary and possible solutions to issues that had stumped several of them for several days already.

“Great work so far, everyone,” Bell turned to the team that she hadn’t seemed to even be aware of until that moment, “If what I’m seeing on the status board is anything to go by, you’re all very talented engineers. I’m looking forward to working alongside all of you.”

The smile she gave the assembled officers seemed innocent enough on the surface, but more than one of them caught a hint of what her last phrase actually meant. Those that had that realization sought out their fellows, sharing looks of concern at the thought of this Captain standing before them down in the depths of the ship they were refitting, tools in hand. Lieutenant Commander Armes was not one of the members of the staff who’d made that connection… yet…