Getting back to Engineering

Posted on 20 Apr 2021 @ 4:01am by Lieutenant Commander Remington Dodd & Ensign Teela Tjaansz & Petty Officer 1st Class Timothy Nelson & Petty Officer 3rd Class Ramon Machado & Petty Officer 3rd Class Kara Sem
Edited on on 24 Apr 2021 @ 2:31pm

1,647 words; about a 8 minute read

Mission: S03 Ep 03 Trouble in the Sticks UXSys 659842 (Incidentals) Phase 2
Location: Main Engineering
Timeline: Just after beaming back on board from the planet

[ON]

-Main Engineering-

Nicci had finally gotten back from the planet and was given the rest of the day off yesterday to recuperate. Sometimes being an officer, seeing things in space, could be hard on you, and luckily the captain on the USS Tomcat realized it. Today, she felt better, but she still saw some tough things and it'd be a while before she'd be back to normal, emotionally. But professionally, she was quite capable of compartmentalizing and getting things taken care of on the ship.

Her travel mug of coffee warmed her as she drank and walked into the main engineering area and did a preliminary status check. The engineering emblem was red, and resembled the one from the 2280s, a nostalgic time for her, as one of her ancestors was a captain on a refit Constitution-class ship, the USS Henry Lee. The family was important. It grounded you, tied you to your past, and they lived on in you, and your actions reflected on them. That's how her parents had taught her as she grew up on the farm.

Here on the ship, disconnected as possible from that, she was very much in her element.

"Billy, grab a team and get the starboard ventral RCS thrusters re-aligned," Nicci said, as she took in the overview. "Their firing is a bit sluggish."

Billy Ramp nodded and took off to grab two more engineers to get on it. While they were in orbit, RCS thrusters were more important to maintaining a standard orbit, so it was important they stayed in working order. Their firing was off by microseconds and the thrust generated was about 94.51%, but she knew they could get it up to 97.22% with just a few tweaks.

"Greetings, Nicci," Pril stated as she saw her. "I trust you had a good chance to rest yesterday. Welcome back and good to see you back."

"Pril, good to see you again," Nicci said with a wan smile. "We're going to be needing some help with the transport emitters today. I'm banking on a lot of use, so double-check signal strength, error correction, data integrity, and object integrity with a few test pods while we have a little downtime today. Have Machado work with you from the transporter room, and make sure he verifies the transport pads also. I don't want any accidents."

"We will get to work on that, as I am going to be on one of the next away teams, I do want them to be operating in peak condition."

Machado was walking by when he heard Pril and Taggert talking.
"No worries, would be happy to get the transporter systems verified and operating better. Are there any particular system issues we need to look for?" Machado asked.

"Well, no system issues I see just yet, but I had an away mission and the survivor's situation rattled me a bit," Nicci answered, a bit of emotion showing through her normally reserved and professional demeanour. "Read the report when you have some time. Verify the targeting scanners too, to make sure we've got those working to spec, or above spec, if you can."

"Roger, Ma'am, we will get to it," Machado replied as he looked at Pril and then headed out to get to work.

Nicci tapped a few controls as the two enlisted left and opened a comm line to Lt. Dodd, who was spending time up on the bridge of the ship, leaving her down in engineering to mind the store.

=/\=Lieutenant Dodd, this is Taggert, do you have a moment?=/\= she had the video line open also.

=/\= As a matter of fact, I do have a few moments for you my favourite assistant chief. Is there any wrong? =/\= Dodd replied.

"Nothing's wrong, just wanted to check in up there. Thanks for making sure things were covered yesterday once I got back," she answered. "It was rough down there. I think even a Vulcan might've been rattled by what Jessie had to do there. She's a real hero. Without her and her parents, honestly, a dozen planets might've been infected by now."

"You were brave and did the best you can do. I am certain Jessie will be viewed as a hero when this situation goes in the record books. I am sure she has more to share but the stress and trauma will keep it repressed for a while. But I feel you were the right choice for that last mission. Glad to have you back on the ship and tending to my staff in engineering. To bring you up to speed, Pril will be on an away team on the bad planet, Machado is helping get the NEVS set up for those that have not gotten it yet but need it. Nelson is there to act as your assistant if you need him and he also will be the one to help deploy the delivery method for the killing agent for the bad planet when the time comes. Tjaansz is on fire with her abilities to keep on top of the other issues while everything else is in motion. I think you can keep the rest of the staff in check as that will help you feel back at home.

Nicci blushed a bit at the compliment. Sometimes it was hard for her to take compliments, and as she listened she knew about repressing stress and trauma herself. Of course, she vented her frustrations well on the holodeck, so she had a good outlet for her emotions of all kinds. "Thank you, sir, I appreciate it. I hope she can stay safe over there. It was creepy enough on what we called the 'safe planet' in our briefing. Fixing some machines will be good to destress a bit. Good to know Nelson's here to help out. He's a good engineer, and Teela, well, she's an Aktevan savant, which is a bit redundant. I love her insight. She can cut through all the drama and mess and cut to the heart of what's going on."

"Your spirit is why I like you as my right hand," Dodd stated. "I know you will be back in the swing of things and keeping busy and watching my back and everyone else's back. You make me proud as a Jedi Knight would be of his apprentice. The force is strong in you and I am thankful to have you on my side."

She smiled at his kind words, but she gave a puzzled expression, "Jedi knight? Is that some feudal Japan reference or something?"

"Ha Ha, I am sorry. I sense your confusion," Dodd replied with a whimsical smirk on his face. "Walon and I watch an ol' Earth movie called 'Star Wars' last night and parts of that were floating around in my mind while I was talking with you. They just sort of found their way into what I was saying."

"Ah, I see," Nicci said, understanding. "I'm a fan of old movies too. Quaint and funny at times. Maybe the ship should have a movie night sometime. I know a good 1920s movie palace program on the holodeck I brought from Earth."

"Great idea, Nicci," Dodd replied. "I think after this mission we should all get some sort of movie night established to help the crew morale and lead to more comradery amongst the crew. Besides, I would love to be exposed to more culture myself."

She smiled at the compliment, "Thanks. I watched some historic movies, mostly 20th-century films, since that was when people were really creative when the medium was brand new and technology was advancing, and they had some real limits on what they could do with practical effects. Nowadays, we can just holo-edit everything. Limits help creativity bloom and...sorry. I get sidetracked about history. It's just fun to me. But man, people used to get worked up about crazy stuff back then. I should probably get back to work, though. I was going to get Teela on some computer core work, reconfigure our compression algorithms, get an estimate of how much space we can gain if we get to the version 45.8 LCARS system."

"Maybe when all this over, you and I can go get a drink and talk history," Dodd replied. "I will let you get back at it as I too need to get working on my assigned task for the bad planet. Good luck and great thinking about the maintenance of the computer core, keep me posted."

"Will do, Chief," Nicci said as she got up to resume her duties. She smiled and left, catching sight of the purple pointed tail of Teela.

Dodd then nodded with a polite grin towards Nicci and then walked out of engineering to get to work on his task for the mission ahead.

"Hey, Teela," she called out, rounding a corner into the corridor. "I got the new specs on LCARS 45.8.159..."

"Oooh, I love this one!" Teela gushed, getting excited over the software like few in Starfleet could. "There's a totally new warp coil synchronization routine in there during startup that pulses like the Schumann Resonances of my planet! It's like a wave of comfort washing over you when you translate it into audio! And the chroma and Luma signals on our displays finally take into account the weird colours so those of us who see infrared and UV don't hurt our eyes looking at our screens all day. "

Nicci smiled at her exuberance. " Glad you're upon it. We're checking in on what the upgrade entails and how much space we can save in the core... "

[OFF]

LT. JG Nicci Taggert
Asst. Chief Engineer

LT Remington Dodd
Chief Engineer

Ensign Teela Tjaansz [P: Taggert]
Engineer

Petty Officer 3 Kara Pril [P: Dodd]
Matter/Energy Systems Specialist

Petty Officer 3 Ramon Machado [P: Dodd]
Engineering Officer

Petty Officer 2 Timothy Nelson [P: Dodd]
Propulsion Specialist

 

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