Nuts, Bolts, & Anti-matter...oh my

Posted on 20 Jan 2010 @ 5:57pm by Commodore Da`nal of the House of Varal

1,500 words; about a 8 minute read

Mission: M3: Shore Leave
Location: SB 47 / USS Freedom

Da`nal stepped of the lift as he arrived in the stations operationd center. He was met by an Ensign that showed him into the Commander's office. "Ah Captain come in come in. You gave us all a scare there for a while. The diplomatic community was a buzz with accusations and there was even a quite preperation of forces....just n case."

Having heard similar reports for the task force he wasn't surpised by the Commander comments. "Yes well, an unfortunate side effect. Once we reached Romulus we wee ableto resurrect ourselve and put everyones mind at ease."

"Looking at the list of repairs needed I'm surprised you made it at all."

"We were luck to find a safe port in order to get patched up.."

"Our dock master was a surprisd when he foundout that he would be removing Romulan hull plating from a Federation starship."

"I can imagine."

"Well with the amount of repairs needed I wanted to appoint an officer to serve as a liason between your Engieering Dept. and the station. Should make thing go faster with someone that know the ropes around here."

"An excellent idea. I'm sure my Chief Engineer would appreciate the help."

"Perfect." Tapping a comm on his desk. "Come on in Lieutenant."

The doors opened and a young woman entered and Da`nal stood to greet her.

"Captain." Scarlett smiled. "My name is Scarlett Blaire, I have been asked to help you out."

"Pleasure to meet you Lieutenant. Hope you like getting your hands dirty, we have a lot of work that needs to be done."

Scarlett smiled again. "Of course, lead the way."

Her enthusiasm was refreshing, he only hoped that it held up to the amount of work that the Freedom needed both to the hull as well as her internal systems. "So Lieutenant I hope you like a challenge."

"Why do you think they sent me?" She smiled. Of course Scarlett was up for a challenge, that is why she had become an engineer. She was always pushing herself to know more than anyone else and was more than just a little bit of an overachiever.

"Good. Then let me show you to your next project." He briefed her on what the ship had been through in th short time she'd been in service, including the patch good at the Romuluan facility. When they reached the repair yard he paused at the view port. "There she is."

Scarlett looked out and saw the damaged ship. It was if she was a doctor and a person that had been assaulted had been brought into sickbay to be patched up so that they could return to battle. "Looks like I will be on your ship for awhile Captain." She looked away from the ship up to the captain.

"Well I hope it won't take too long to get her up to spec again. I would hope a few improvements could be made as well." Glancing at his ship as workerbees continued to remove Romulan hull plating. "Besides, rushed repairs always make thing look worse than they are. Come. let me take you to my Chief Engineer."

Scarlett nodded and she once again followed the captain. She also knew that most rush jobs more or less looked worse than they really were. She hoped that this was the case but was also prepared for the worst. Scarlett wanted to get back to the station as soon as she could, her friends were there and they understood her and her ways. She always needed things done a particular way, the CEO on the station understood this and gave her the space to get the work done the way she saw fit. Scarlett worried how the CEO on the Freedom would take to her engineering quirks and what he would do if she intentionally or unintentionally stepped on his toes.

It wasn't long and the two found the Chief supervising the replacement of the antimatter pods that had been used to simulate the Freedoms destruction. "Chief, hope we're not catching you at a bad time. This is Lt. Blaire, she's been assigned to serve as a liason between the Freedom and the Stations Engineering Dept., as well as lending you a hand."

Lieutenant Flaherty turned at the Captain's voice, "No time like th' present Captain." he said with an insincere happiness. "Ah was wonderin' when the base would send over one of their..." the word 'Henchmen' comes to mind "Representatives." he finished, his undertones of annoyance making themselves only lightly evident in his speech.

At least she's a pretty one, they don't last long.

His thought mirrored his past experiences, being that any good looking female Engineers he had worked with in the past had found the job tedious and unfit for their nature. It was often found even among men that there were just some that refused to get into the dirty work, and even if said Engineer was excellent in other fields, it still gave them a bad reputation that followed them around the Engineering community.

Mac had no idea who she was though, never a whisper or a side comment from someone, so he was left with one of two conclusions. Either Scarlett Blair was a hotshot Engineer that no one yet knew about, or she was one of the few that managed to fly under the radar. 'I'll bet the latter' Mac thought as he extended his lightly greasy hand to the lady, "Pleasure t' meet you, Lehtenant." His words came out with his accent, warping the word 'Lieutenant' and verbalizing his opinion of the situation. It was a plain fact in Mac's book that starbase engineers had no business aboard his ship, but he was curious as to whether the young lady would be sympathetic or otherwise to his mindset.

"Well..."Da`nal had detected the slight irritation in his chiefs voice. He had expected there to be a little friction. Even though he had basically stolen Flaherty from his position as a station engineer for DS5 he had become a Starship engineer rather quickly, with all the territorial attitude that goes with being able to claim ownership over a starship's systems. He ginned to himself and hoped Flaherty would remember his not to distant origins. "...I'll just let you two get acquainted and you can divvy up the work as you see fit."

"Thank ye sir." Scarlett said knowing full well how the engineers aboard ships acted towards those that were on stations. "Weel sir, where would you like me first?" She asked when the Captain had left, her accent was getting stronger and thicker. She usually kept in so that people would have an easier time understanding her but since it seemed that both engineers were from the same region there was no point and it was one less thing that she had to concentrate on.

Needless to say, Mac was a bit surprised at the accent on the lady Officer's words. "Eh, well. . . I don't suppose ye 'ave a crew o' metal workers on that station of yours." He spoke hopefully, letting the statement ask the question for him. "That'll be Pri One on me list o' things to fix." He realized how oddly quiet the Engineering section was without the hustle and bustle of a running warp engine, it was peaceful almost, erratically punctuated with the clanging of tools or some other mechanical devices.

"We 'ave lieutenant. I can easily get them 'ere if ye like." She responded. It was nice for Scarlett not to have to contain her accent around him. It was hard enough concentrating on repairs without having to deal with having to repeat herself or slow down her speech.

"Well, I was thinkin' more about havin' 'em tear off the Romulan patches on th' outer hull, I dinnae fancy ridin' around w' them for any more time than I 'ave to." Mac's voice lessened it's amount of professional tone, a sign that he was slightly more comfortable with this particular liason officer than he had been with others in the past. Liason officers were ordinarily pretty abrasive people, prone to walking into a ship's engineering section and hollering orders immediately, all the while thinking the ship to somehow be under the jurisdiction of a Starbase while it was docked there.

This one's got a good mind to leave well enough alone and defer to the person who was on the ship when it was damaged. That'll be worth a few brownie points at the least.

"If ye can get them on that, then we can start realignin' the secondary EPS grid once their done, that'll shave us a few hours off o' th' job."

"Consider it done." She nodded and sent the message back to the base.


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Captain Da`nal
CO - USS Freedom

Lt. (JG) Scarlett Blaire
ACEO - USS Freedom /Starbase 47

Lt. MacCallum Flaherty
CEO - USS Freedom

 

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