State Of The Engine Address

Posted on 26 Mar 2018 @ 10:07pm by Lieutenant Reginald Hawthorn & Commodore Harvey Geisler

1,692 words; about a 8 minute read

Mission: Crossing Over
Location: Bridge
Timeline: MD36 || 0830 hours

Reggie was going to start installing stairs on the Black Hawk. Turbolifts were quick and convenient as all get out, but they didn't give a man much room to really get up a head of steam. Now a flight of stairs, those allowed for a certain degree of physical expression. You could stalk up them, pound the boards as it were, announce the coming of the righteous storm.

A cheery 'You have reached your destination!' was not a fitting complement to the rage bubbling in his guts. His fingers were grease stained, his uniform jacket besmudged, and one eyebrow was in the process of smoking from a spot welding incident where to few hands had made the work dangerous. Dangerous, but needed. He stepped out onto the bridge, knuckles whitening around the heavy ruggedised engineering PADD he held in his hands. On it was a list, and an abbreviated one at that, of the critical ship systems under repair.

"Cap'n?" he asked, making his way towards the man leading this ship of fools. "Ya got a minute?"

Harvey, just like an hour ago when his Chief of Security came to the bridge in a huff, was standing near a console, eyeing the readouts to get a better feel for the ship and its recovery process. He was about to go on an impromptu tour of the damaged areas when he heard the Chief Engineer's voice. Harvey turned to face the man, said, "I do," and pointed to the Conference Room.

Reggie walked in ahead of the captain, and give the table a thump with the side of his fist, checking to make sure it wasn't wobbling or falling apart.

"Where do you want me to start? With how much time we've shaved off the lifetime of the warp drive, or just how much of the critical spares we've used to keep the lights on? I ain't talking about stem bolts here, I'm talking nanomachine assembled devices whose tolerances cannot be met with the industrial replicator's matter resolution," he began, hardly waiting for the door to close.

Harvey arched an eyebrow and crossed his arms in front of him. "A bit of context might be preferred, Lieutenant," he warned, sensing that whatever discussion that was about to occur would not go well.

"Context?" Reggie said, unable to high the incredulity in his words. "Sir pardon my bluntness but you got all your marbles back, they all lined up right? You do know the Hawk's been put through the wringer with the untrained pushing every button on the ship that comes with a warning sticker? Warning stickers that were in Federation standard. Like 'Danger'? We were this close-"

He threw up two fingers touching.

"-to experiencing first hand our very own baby big bang when some clod with heavy fingers restarted the warp core. I mean Lockheed Utopia build a good core containment vessel, but there are parts in it that are gonna need to be swapped out a decade ahead of their planned maintenance dates." Reggie grumbled.

The Captain's eyes narrowed, and his crossed arms fortified their positions. "Bluntness indeed, Lieutenant. Did you, perhaps, in all of your anger realize how close we were to losing this ship since our arrival here? No power. No memories. A benevolent species was willing to cart us all away and take our ship as a prize. Imagine what would have happened if I hadn't ordered that core to be restarted?"

"Hey, real hero of the show was the EMH who figured out how to get folks memories back. You restarted the core with a pulse feedback of .02 milteslas in the primary intermix chamber. By the time I got my head back, we were in the .1's and our very own warp core excursion event! No EMH, no memories, and your bought of deluded heroic's would have gotten us and a quarter cubic light second of space vaporised!" Reggie snarled, hand sat his side and shoulders straight. IF the Captain was fortifying, then Agamemnon had reached the gates of Troy. He ground his teeth, and pushed the padd into his hands.

"These are my demands as Chief Engineer."

"Demands?" Harvey echoed, already missing the subdued Vulcan that went missing as soon as they entered the zone. He held the padd, but made no attempt to look at it. "As I understand it, you inherited the position from Lieutenant T'Pai. Shall I have someone else inherit it instead?" If Reginald was going to draw the line, then Harvey was going to make him cross over to the Captain's side.

"Blue fire you redshirted types are sure stupid when it comes to the important things. Ship goes boom, you don't get to look all heroic like in the holo novels. Hard to look dashing looking like Willie E Coyote," Reggie tapped the padd's rugged sides. "That there is a generous timetable for repair times. My deck knockers need that time to get the warp core back up to strength and replace the blown out magnetic constrictor rings. I'm gonna have work crews out on the hull replacing the hull panels that got blown off, you can't rush that unless you want the armour sheets to bunch and warp. I'm also gonna be emptying one of the antimatter containment pods, we'll syphon the anti-lithium into the other pods whilst we strip the damaged pod and either recommission or scratch build a new one. And for all of that to happen, and for me to sign off on the work, I need 31 hours and change. We can make it 28 if you can get Op's to delegate a few work crews to the cause."

For once, Harvey understood what it was like to be in Honeydew's shoes. Commodore Honeydew had been in command of Starbase 211 where Harvey had been long stationed as a subdepartment head for several years. Harvey had always had a chip on his shoulder, which was oft displayed through his own bluntness, aggrivation, and disregard for others. Despite that, he was very, very good at breaking down viral diseases and creating cures and treatments. For that, he was tolerated. Had Alison not died during the war, Harvey would have likely gotten worse with his age.

The fact that Harvey recognized a little of his old self in the young engineer did not show up in any of his facial expressions. Instead, he glanced down at the padd and reviewed the information. The Chief of Security's outburst from a short while came to his mind as he prepared his response. Thumbing his approval to the workorder, Harvey handed the device back to the Lieutenant. "Get it done, Lieutenant. You've got sixty hours."

A strangled something came out of Reggie's throat, a pointed finger wagging uncertianly at Harvey.

"I...you want to say that one more time for the ear that's workin' right? Had an N2 tank blow a seal in Cargo Bay 5, popped an eardrum so I gotta be mishearing that number." Reggie said dazedly.

"Look around you, Lieutenant," Harvey said, nodding his head at the conference room windows behind him. Rather than stars, it was filled with a vibrant blue background, slowly swirling with energy: the barrier to the Finnean Convergence Zone. "See that barrier there that we had to punch through to get to this point? That means, we've got no support, nowhere to resupply, and nowhere to get a proper refit until we're done in here. We can't afford a hasty patch job here. I need your best possible work, and that's gonna take longer than thirty-one hours. Don't you agree?"

"Well...yeah, yes of course. It, just...you take the wind from a man's sails like and he's left adrift in his thoughts," Reggie grunted, rubbing a hand on the back of his head. "Reckon what this means is I gotta invite you to the ceremony."

Harvey grunted with a hair of a smirk. "I apologize for cutting off your tirade, which was well rehearsed by the way. Sorry too about the warp core. Hindsight is a wonderful friend though. Memories or not, correct procedures or not, we're fortunate to still have the ship and to be able to continue about our mission. I'd do it all over again if I had to. And, don't assume for a moment that I'm a stupid redshirt. The only reason why I have this ship is because the Consortium broke the last one. And I sure as hell don't want to lose this one. Keep the ship together and flying. That's all I ask."

"Easier said than done when Command types mistake the main engineering control board for a grand piano," Reggie grinned. "And it was only a little rehearsed. I learned from the knee of titans of industry back home on Montana, you ain't seen me hit my stride. And I read the report, computers already programmed to fly us back into orbit, by all means, necessary if this ship hits the atmosphere. No offence but the ship crashes it won't be because me and mine were snoozing."

Now the Captain's smirk was real. "Good," was all he said in response to that. "You've got your time for repairs, and approval on the workorder. Anything else, Lieutenant?"

“Yeh. We do this, we do it right and make the proper signs to keep the Maker on our side. Warp core gets fixed I’ll need you in Main Engineering to sign off and officiate the naming ceremony. Dress whites should do it, nothing fancy,” Reggie said, taking the pad back from the captain and looking it over. “We’ll skip the small ceremony for the anti matter pod. Seem’s a might silly, but the Core need’s him that calls’em to wilful action. I’ll send a comm or a runner to get ya when the time comes.”

Reggie nodded, turned about face, and strided from the conference room.

Harvey remained behind for a moment, maintaining his smirk for just a few more moments. Between him and Lieutenant Di Pasquale, he certainly had his hands full. He just hoped that there weren't any more like them...

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