Everything's broken Captain

Posted on Sat Feb 25th, 2012 @ 9:28pm by Ensign Katarina Alphonse
Edited on on Mon Feb 27th, 2012 @ 1:41am

Mission: A New Beginning
Location: USS Nimitz, Engineering
Timeline: Day 0, 1220 hours

Kat had been on the ship for just under two hours, and already she was up to her elbows in grease and grime, loving every dirty second of it. Only an engineer could appreciate just how much everything in this day and age relied upon technology. Most people just pressed a button and expected everything to work right, never giving a thought to all the little intricacies involved in the myriad of processes that took place in between that button and the outcome.

One of Kat's hero's was a man named Montgomery Scott, one of the most distinguished engineers of his (or any), day. Kat had studied his journals and logs thoroughly, not to mention reading almost everything else that had ever been written by or about him. Scott had made a point of always getting his hands dirty with the innards of his ship, never delegating the grimy tasks to lower ranked officers. He said that he believed the best way for an engineer to learn about his ship was to get right into its guts and to learn everything about it from the bottom up, a philosophy Kat shared. You couldn't really get a feel for your ship unless you'd spent time working on every part of her. Plus, the previous chief engineer had really done a doozy of a job, it was a wonder the ship hadn't blown up yet.

"Friedman, get me a laser-spanner, I need to get these fused circuits out of here before they short out the entire replicator system!"

A few moments later a blue hand reached down and handed her the long metal tool. At least there was one other competent engineer on the ship. Friedman, a Bolian who'd been raised by human foster parents was a natural mechanic, though he'd never received much recognition for his efforts. Kat was immensely pleased with him however, having someone who knew his way around show her around the ship's worse-off features was really saving her time.

"Thanks" she said, taking the tool and beginning the somewhat hazardous process of removing the faulty power couplings that were still connected to the fried circuit relays. Hopefully she could get the system working again before anyone on the ship tried to replicate anything too detailed, else they'd end up getting a cup full of replicator gel instead of their meal or drink. With her luck, it'd probably end up being the captain.

The Captain... "Oh god!" She yelped, as she started, hitting her head against a sharp part of the bulkhead above her.

"What's wrong?" Friedman's worried voice came from somewhere above her.

"Just realized that I was supposed to report in to the captain about an hour ago. I got so caught up in the repairs that I forgot... He'll understand though right?" she wormed her way out the mess of cables and looked up at Friedman, his expression telling her all too much before he even spoke.

"Er, not so much I'm afraid. The new Captain is a bit of a.. stickler for proper protocol from what I hear. A real Starfleet tight-ass."

Kat sighed heavily, pushing herself back into the alcove and continuing her work. "Great. That's great. Well I've got to finish this now at any rate, else I'll have a whole new set of problems to deal with. Captain tight-ass can wait a little longer."

END