Meeting the Blue.

Posted on 15 Apr 2023 @ 9:15pm by Lieutenant Leland Hawksley & Lieutenant JG Thex sh'Zoarhi

3,494 words; about a 17 minute read

Mission: S3 Episode 5: Diplomatic Incident/Hydaransz Again (Main)
Location: Main Engineering, CEO Office
Timeline: Current

[ON:]

Thex was feeling happy with herself as she wiped some of the sweat off the white cloth she had tied around her forehead. She'd almost finished removing the ship's gell packs and only had a few more to do. Including the one in the chief office.

Leland arrived in the main engineering of the USS Tomcat after having been on an away team mission to the Starbase to analyze the Ambassador's disappearance. Hawksley found his way down to the central core, fluxing as it did, its deep blue emanating dilithium energy.

Checking his Engineering status padd as he walked and tapped some buttons on the pool table. He nodded to Ensign Willox and a few other officers as they passed him. Hawksley’s eyes then read that all the gel packs were changed on the Tomcat, a mountain of a task in itself.

Entering his office, Leland set the padd on the tabletop and leaned to the side, watching Lieutenant JG Thex sh'Zoarhi replace the gel pack.

Watching the exact replacement, Leland furrowed his brow. “First. Let me introduce myself. I’m Lieutenant Hawksley. You must be Lieutenant JG Thex sh’Zoarhi?” The female Andorian had a good service record. “Welcome. I was away on a mission while you were transferred. It is nice to meet you.” Hawksley stated. “Once you’ve finished, please have a seat.” Hawksley chuckled. “Looks like you finished your work right to the Engineering Office.”

Thex had almost finished her work when her antenna detected the movement even before the door had opened. Turning to meet her new boss she gave him a polite smile. " Nice to meet you boss. Just about finished here. " She said as she returned the panel to the wall before returning her tools to her belt. Despite the extra weight around her waist she still moved gracefully as she took a seat. " Need to see the replacment report boss?" she inquired.

"Please. Thank you." Hawksley had smiled in return. Thex was a courteous Andorian. Leland almost sensed a hint of emotionality. Eyeing the report, the Gel packs indeed needed to be replaced and on the massive scale that Thex had completed. "Your work seems to be in order. I appreciate the formatting of your work, attention to detail is very well done." Leland didn't want to give his new DeCEO a large head, not just yet.

"So. Thex. May I call you Thex, or do prefer the Andorian sh'Zoarhi?" Hawksley set the review of the gel padd aside for the moment on the desk as he leaned back, watching as Thex took a seat on the other side.

"Thex will do just fine Sir." She responded feeling very happy with herself. " She's a lovely ship you have here."

“Thank you, Thex. It is not my vessel—our good Capt. Somers makes us feel that it is everyone who contributes. However, as an Engineer, you must understand the commonality. We get to drive her wherever the captain wants her to go.” Leland watched his new Deputy Chief. “That in itself is a special feeling.” Hawksley smiled as the thought was true.

“When most engineers hear that they are to be stationed on an Akira Class vessel, they are either ecstatic or… I haven’t met any others who haven’t been overly happy. She is a lean vessel. As you know, you replaced all her gel packs in several shifts. On most starships, that would be a cumbersome exercise. Thank you, this means we are ahead of schedule for maintenance and operational measures, Thex.”

Leland relaxed in his seat as he leaned towards the replicator. He was to get a coffee. “Can I get you anything? I’m about to order myself a coffee as we chat?”

" A coffee will do just fine sir." Thex replied liking her new boss. He reminded her of her the chief on her first shipside posting. " May I ask what kept you and the away team away sir?" She enquired.

Leland had ordered the two coffees into the replicator and adjusted for a general creamer and sugar assortment on the tray. Alongside was sweetener, which Leland used instead of Sugar. He was not trying to be lean. He just liked the chemical taste. He paused, taking a drink and offering Thex a coffee with the assortment.

“I had several instances where Engineering was called upon the away team mission. Mainly detailing the state of the USS Rosenthal. Shambles, complete wreck not worthy of a tug to bring back to the Starbase, unfortunately.” Leland sat in his seat and moved to the table, setting his coffee aside.

“Thex. Tell me a bit about your last assignment.” The Chief had wanted to understand better how to serve the interests of his crew mates’ interests and encourage them. “What did you learn that you could bring to the Tomcat? How was your former Chief?” Hawksley looked across his padd in front of him “on the USS Aberdeen?”

" Ler? She was great. Knew what she was doing and could identify a problem with the ship at a moment's notice. It was hard to have a joke with her but she was Vulcan after all. Aberdeen was a great assignment if a little boring. The Ezriunta sector is a rather peaceful sector. Most of the work was helping out older freighters whose engines had failed. Lead my first away team on one of those missions. Took the ship back to the nearest starbase as well." Thex replied calmly.

Hawksley had smiled a bit and said “It’s alright. It’s ok to relax. I am not the Captain of the vessel, just a Chief of Engineering on a Akira Class vessel. Not that it is a bad thing or at all!” Hawksley stated reminding Thex. “Quite the advanced vessel, if I so say so myself. The cool thing about it. And a killer hull and spatial designing from Starfleet Engineering Corps.” He took a drink of his coffee.

“Next up we need to work on some ICS Deck Nodule anodyne relays on the following junctions aboard the Tomcat.” Hawksley had passed the planned work orders on his Engineering Padd to Thex to review. \

“Please provide comments freely in this department. Here the more questions, the better, both safety-wise and communicative-wise, for productivity and speed as necessary.” Leland was sure there would be no problem. "When working with Tomcat primary junction sets, you’ll become used to decks 03,06, and 08, respectively.”


“Standard tachyon phase cleansing and proton vacuums are used to clean the conduits for the bi-product of neutrino emissions. Those pesky sub-proton products!” Hawksley imitated angst jokingly at an unseen issue to contend often.

“The tachyons do happen to clog up sub anomaly now and then on the Akira designs!" "Lucky, it is only a small issue with many general de-bugging with engineering easily with hand phase coil receivers.” Which were used to neutralize the proton de-bugging elements.

"Seems simple enough to keep it under control. You'd think the design team back at the shipyards would have caught it." Thex added.

Leland shook his head. “No. No faulty designers, but rather the physics of the universe we travel when creating various warp bubbles. “We take the extra neutrino and Niz OR gasses to be recycled and used in the matrix of the Bussard assembly.”

Hawksley got up from his seat, bringing along Lieutenant JG Thex. “This engineering is an incredible place. As you know, it holds a lot of power, the main computer for engineering, this ‘pool table’. We can control the entire vessel from complex but instantaneous commands. This is why we have become engineers. I get the thrill of harnessing the Galaxy’s raw and potent matter and anti-matter. The building blocks of life.”

"Then, what drives you to work and excel in engineering?" Hawksley asked in the curiosity of the officer's daily superior skills that an Officer in Engineering on the Tomcat should hold, to do well.

" A never-ending curiosity for what lays behind the next star and a desire to go there," Thex replied after thinking about the question for a second. " I've always found taking electronics apart and seeing how they work calming from childhood. Guess the bug never went away as the humans say."


We take apart technology with the sparks of ingenuity and the need to understand. The need for a logical structure to the understanding of something. Quite logical." Hawksley had winked.

"I have grown up similarly. My parents often used to give me a unit of a new piece of handy technology, knowing I would deconstruct its insides... And they would have their units for themselves." Hawksley paused, positing. "At least I fixed almost every piece I had taken apart of a device."

Leland stepped around the engineering deck, highlighting the various sub-compartments and systems. He took a drink from his mug of coffee.

"Any questions you might have, Thex? In regards to shifts, anything at all."

" I would like to know what my shift pattern is going to be sir. My last posting had a three-shift pattern is it the same here?" The blue Andorian enquired.

“Good question Lieutenant.” Hawksley always dropped the JG part considering it unnecessary, at least in his presence. “Thex, we are running on a three-shift schedule; however, for the foreseeable future, until I am satisfied with your competencies on the Tomcat, I will be on Alpha shift with you.” Leland then looked around.

“I like my Deputy of the Department to have an office. Thus, you will have your computer set up inside my Office. We can share while both on Alpha, and after that, you will have free reign as your office upon designated shift at the time.”
“How does that sound?” Hawksley gave a firm nod.

"Sounds completely reasonable sir. As my records and actions will show I won't let you down." The sapphire girl replied confidently with a smile upon her face.

"I am sure you will not." Hawksley grinned, remembering stating such things the first time he had taken over Engineering from his predecessor.

"Any other questions you have this morning?" Hawksley had looked at his padd and then the time. "If you forget and have some, don't hesitate to shout me out." Leland took a drink from his mug of coffee.

"Why don't you come with me to Deck 06? I have a malfunctioning pump agitator for the kethalizine H4 tanks. Sometimes they need a good residual hypersonic vibration to re-set the initializers. These hardware and technical issues rear their heads daily, not routine, just something you work with and go with the flow."

" Sounds good sir. Lead the way and let's get her fixed." The blue girl replied grinning as she made to gather her tool.

He paused at the doorway while Thex got what she needed: an engineering tricorder. Leland took an engineering kit. "These things help the day go by."

" As does this," Thex added as she held up a flask of coffee that she had stashed in her tool kit.

Leland grinned at Thex. "Well, well. You are my type of Engineer. A+ on that thinking." Leland then stepped into the entrance to the Jeffries tubes. "We'll take the Jeffries tubes. This way, I can show you the interlocks along the way and the ones to look out for, Thex."

Stepping in and up, Leland began his rather long tour through the Jeffries tubes to deck 06.

Thex followed close behind him humming one of her orion-dancing songs as she did so. She'd done some crawling in the tubes to get some of the gell packs, but to say she knew her way was a very distant thought. " Were there any changes of the tubes from the blueprints? " She enquired.

Leland shook his head on his way. “No, no changes. Just minor adjustments to nodes in various sectors of the ship. Little things can throw off even the most engineering elite. This one time…” Hawksley began as he was gripping another rung and heaving himself up to deck 04. “There was a change to an LCAR readout sticker. It was in the updated manifest. The reason code was A1104. But the actual coding was A10114. Mistakes do happen. It took a whole month of engineering pre-mature initialization segmentations to figure out that there was a faulty label somewhere on Deck 09.” Hawksley snorted, shaking his head at the past issue.

“Tell me, Thex. What engineering issues have you had Ensigns working on other assignments?” Leland asked curiously.

" I've had them on standard ship's maintenance protocols as well as finishing of repairs you had listed in engineering." The andorian replied. " everything that we can do without spacedocking her should be done or almost finished."

"Correct. This is how the workflow segmentation charts flow. Any work that can be completed will be completed outside of the space dock in a timely fashion, with safe operating procedures, and in a freehold teamwork environment. It is among the values I like to set for my Engineering staff." Hawksley nodded.

Leland then corrected his last queries posed to Thex. "What engineering complications have you experienced on your most recent assignments, for which you solved with 'out of the box' theory?" Leland wanted to understand better how flexible the Lieutenant regarded tasks and teamwork.

" Oh that's an easy one," Thex said as they kept moving. " My last ship was the Aberdeen. You know how hard it is to keep the old Excelsior running these days. Half the major repairs have had to be a mess of repairs from multiple different ship parts to keep her running. To keep her Primary Electromagnetic Flux Capacitor running I had to replicate parts from shuttles and a civilian freighter to make something that could fit the connector."

Leland listened to Thex. He thought and then grinned. “Sounds logical.” He nodded. “I must admit, Thex. Being an engineer on such an old vessel as an Excelsior class has a sense of romanticism. A grand creation of a bygone era, yet you still maintain the core components of its lifeblood, keeping that era alive.” Hawksley finally met the junction of Baker and 18.
He reached out his large hand, helping Thex into the corridor.

" She is truly something. It's amazing her hull is still holding up as well as it did. " Thex replied as she took his hand.

At baker 18, Hawksley waited for Thex to right herself and then pick up her tool kit. Leland then followed down the corridor. They were both now in the main ship thoroughfares. He spotted the hallway junction. A panel was soffit along the corridor, allowing easy access to the hallway EPS and flow regulators, the deck main computer access points, and gel packs.

Taking off the walled compelling and setting it aside, Leland set aside his tool kit and lent his engineering tricorder a good scan of the systems as they connected to the tricorder. A beep alerted Hawksley that the junction point connected to Thex and Hawksley tricorders.

The data then flowed in. What would they find? “What are you scanning Thex?” Leland wanted to see if they could pull out information from the raw data set before performing a system operations scan, which could also be completed.

" The Particle Phase Transmitter." Thex replied as she looked at the incoming data. " It needs replacing the most so it's a good place to start."

Leland checked the data lines and recognized the repeater data. There certainly was an issue with the particle phase transmitter. “Now, when there is an issue with the particle phase transmitter,” Hawksley reached the panel and punched in a few buttons. “We should check the up flow diamatrix. I don’t know if you had this issue on the Excelsior, but particle phase levels might be distorted.”

Leland then handed Thex the phase spanner. “Would you check the up flow regulator and see if there is an issue with the diamatrix?” Hawksley asked.

" Thex nodded and gave a professional" on it sir." as she got to work. Taking the spanner she removed the flow regulators cover allowing her to get her a reading of the flow. " Particle levels appear to be off by 0.5 percent." She said calmly as the results came through

Leland paired his tricorder to Thex's and read the interference coding. He paused and then rubbed his chin. "0.5 is not that bad of a deviation, although it could cascade fast enough. I've seen them." Hawksley had pointed to Thex's toolbox. "Place a micron-delineator to the fault set line. We can correct this little bad boy."

" On it." Thex replied as she picked up the micron-delineator. " Better to get this fixed now. Could really cause an issue down the line." She added.

Just as Thex had stated, there was a beep in Leland’s tricorder. He punched in a few buttons. Shaking his head, he turned to the manifold lever. “We’re starting to create a static breakup downflow on the deck. Leland got up, walked down the hall a few meters, and opened the cowling wall. He knelt and then tapped a few buttons on the regulator of the EPS flows.

“There is a mixing starting up here. I need to shut this line down.” Hawksley had turned to Thex just up the way. “Shut er’ down, Thex.”

The blue girl nodded as with a few twists of the micron-delineator and the flick of a wrist and a switch.." the flows off." she called to her boss.

Hawksley watched the engineering tricorder verify that the flow had been halted. He had started re-programming the micro delineator flow regulator parameters for the deck section output.

Easier said than done, as Hawksley chewed away at the programming of the new set protocol parameters to enact flow regulators for various situations into the EPS conduit.

He paused, entering the new program into the corridor mains and re-setting the program to a stable flow output.

"The flow should be stable now. How does it look from your end Thex?" Leland asked through the coms.

" Everything looking good boss." Thex called from her position as the results came through.

“There is a mixing starting up here. I need to shut this line down.” Hawksley had turned to Thex just up the way. “Shut er’ down, Thex.”

The blue girl nodded as with a few twists of the micron-delineator and the flick of a wrist and a switch.." the flows off." she called to her boss.

Hawksley watched the engineering tricorder verify that the flow had been halted. He had started re-programming the micro delineator flow regulator parameters for the deck section output.

Easier said than done, as Hawksley chewed away at the programming of the new set protocol parameters to enact flow regulators for various situations into the EPS conduit. His brain was brilliant where engineering codes, coding, and data augmentation inputs were concerned.

Leland paused, entering the new program into the corridor mains and re-setting the program to a stable flow output. “There...” He bit the side of his half-stuck tongue he often let loose when thinking hard and deeply.

"Ensign. The flow should be stable now. How does it look from your end Thex?" Leland asked through the coms.

"Everything looking good boss." Thex called from her position as the results came through.

“Tell me more. I want stats and data model presentations in the prompts of the mains,” Leland asked for more as he wasn’t satisfied with that response. “I am not satisfied with the response. Please add more.”

Hawksley grunted in thought. He wasn’t angry. It was just Hawksley's coach aspect within, finding details essential.

"Particle levels are falling to 0.4 per cent and falling. Flow output is separating back to well within safe parameters at 0000.6 per cent mixing. " Thex added.

Leland had to calculate how the changes to the flow would affect the EPS wattages to the Decks utilities, which supported Tomcat’s service structure.

Altering the EPS output support locks with his matrix calculator allowed a new distribution calculation for the auxiliary fusion generators.

“All right.” Hawksley had entered the padd directions to his tricorder and then to the main computer of the deck. Paused, updated, and then re-set the systems at nominal operational parameters.

“Thex.” He smiled. “Good work. I think we’re all done here. Pack up, and let’s check the next few regulators on this deck just to be sure.” Leland watched Thex.

Thex nodded and with the precision of only a pro made by Starfleet academy packed up her tools in recorded time before slipping it onto her back and began to follow her boss down the corridor. They had work to do.


[OFF]




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