Working Out Some Kinks

Posted on Mon Apr 29, 2024 @ 2:57pm by Ensign Zayde Park & Lieutenant JG Francis Rossi

459 words; about a 2 minute read

Mission: One Giant Kaboom
Location: Main Engineering
Timeline: MD-01, 0800

Francis inhaled deeply, looked around, and then smiled. As soon as he joined Starfleet, he realized that he wanted this someday, an engine of his own to look over. The warp core was thrumming strongly in the background, making Francis smile. He walked down a ladder, nodding to several junior officers. Crossing to the master systems display, he tapped a few series of commands.

“Hmm, how long has the starboard power coupling been out of balance?”

Zayde looked up from his station and at the chief engineer. “Pardon me sir?”

Francis tapped the screen. “The starboard power coupling, how long has it been out of balance?”

Zayde looked over at the display. “I honestly don’t know, it wasn’t like that yesterday sir.”

Francis frowned at the young ensign and tried not to say something snippy back. “Clearly, it wasn’t like this yesterday because I didn’t notice it yesterday. Did anyone log it?”

Zayde ducked his head and tried not to look overly embarrassed. Instead, he called up the duty logs of for last night and started scanning through them. There was no mention of the imbalance, resulting in having to give Francis shake of his head. He knew that wasn’t the answer the new chief engineer was looking for but it was the only one he could give at the moment.

“I’ll run a diagnostic,” Zayde offered. “Standby.”

Francis resisted the urge to snap at the young ensign; reminding himself that everyone had to start somewhere and that he had made similar mistakes himself. Besides, it wasn’t all his fault, there were other officers that should have noticed it as well.

“Sorry ensign,” Francis said. “I shouldn’t have been so snippy, it’s not your fault. The supervisor overnight should have noticed it.”

“It’s okay sir,” Zayde said. “Diagnostic is running now, should take about an hour. Other than that all other systems look like they are in the green.”

“First time serving on a Constitution class ship?” Francis asked.

“Yes sir,” Zayde said. “What about you?”

Francis nodded in agreement. “Yeah, my last posting was aboard a Farragut class ship, the Carolina.”

“Workhorse of the fleet,” Zayde said. “Or at least that’s what I’ve been told.”

Though he had never been onboard the older Farragut class, he knew they were often used in everything from defense and patrol to scientific and first contact missions.

“They do a little bit of everything,” Francis said. “Though the Carolina mostly got herself into trouble with various special phenomenon. How much longer on that diagnostic?”

“Another hour,” Zayde said.

“Good,” Francis said. “While that’s running I want to talk about increasing the field strength of our main navigational defector.”


OFF:

 

RSS Feed