Acquiesce

Posted on 25 Jun 2018 @ 5:25am by Staff Warrant Officer William Griffin

778 words; about a 4 minute read

Mission: The Search Begins
Location: Squadron Command Center, Deck 12
Timeline: MD2, 1030 Hrs

In the small office of the chief of support craft operations, hidden in the corner on the bottom floor of the squadron command center, Lieutenant Quinn Winner and Warrant Officer William Griffin sat across from each other. Rather, Griffin sat while Winner stood, they were still nearly eye to eye. The small office was nearly filled by the desk and Griffin's frame, giving the room a claustrophobic feel.

"Lieutenant," Griffin grumbled, resisting the urge to stand and instead letting his hands attempt to destroy the arms of the chair he was sitting in. "I. am. fine." He ground out each word clearly, "I need to be on deck with my kiddies."

"Mr. Griffin, you are far from fine." Lieutenant Winner, the chief of support craft operations and one of his two bosses, replied. He had been both concerned and angry that yet another incident had happened in the maintenance hangar. That was two serious incidents in one day, two preventable incidents. "You were, until very recently, covered in intergalactic bat guts. Your nervous system apparently took some kind of shock and you almost went blind!"

"Sir, you're over-reacting. I got covered in goop, my skin tingled and my eyes watered a bit." The maintenance chief countered, "aside from the damage to my ego, the medic said there ain't nothing to be worried about."

"If it were up to me, you'd be in sickbay under observation. And since it is up to me, that's where you're going, right after this meeting is done." Winner riposted, his tone serious.

"Sir..." He growled, his naturally gravel voice turning rocky. It was in Griffin to argue the point, he really did feel fine, aside from the continuing ghost of a tingle down his right leg and the way his right eye was kinda itchy - that was a weird sensation, itchy eyeballs - all part of the Starfleet life, he supposed. "Yes sir."

Winner was surprised he didn't get an argument from the famously cantankerous maintenance chief, but he worked not to show it. He had found in his short time working with the man that his bark, when he chose to employ it, was truly terrible, but his bite, thus far, had been as gentle as a Labrador puppy. What trepidation he'd had in talking to the man had faded. "Chief, sickbay aside, we need to talk about the safety protocols in your hangar. That's two avoidable, preventable incidents in one day. How am I supposed to explain that to the XO?"

"Lieutenant..." Griffin stalled, a rare event, but he hadn't considered it from the boss' point of view. Accidents happened, especially when working around highly tuned, compact, hot systems while trying to work as quickly as possible. "I know it looks bad, especially crewman Jackson's stupid mistake."

"You're damn right it looks bad, Chief Griffin. Bad enough for the XO to ask me what I'm doing about it. So what do you suggest we do about it?" Winner asked, he wanted to give the big man a sense he had some input in solving the problem. Griffin, while unconventional as a non-com with his infamous gruffness and bad temper, was a well-liked and competent man.

Griffin grimaced, he knew what the answer was but didn't want to say it. The idea of it made his stomach drop in dismay. It would be so utterly and entirely tedious. However, sometimes there wasn't a choice. "I suppose the best thing would be to run re-training in safety for all the maintenance teams, followed by safety testing." He grumbled reluctantly.

Winner smiled thinly, "boring, I know. How about this? Give a surprise safety test first. Anyone who passes it doesn't have to do the retraining." He suggested, "It doesn't seem fair to retrain those that don't need it. I'll be doing the same for the flight deck crew."

"That," Griffin mused, wondering momentarily if he could somehow let slip that a safety test was coming a few days before to give his boys and girls time to study and then dismissing it. The lieutenant was right, after all. "Is a good idea."

"Write up a test plan and a training schedule and have it on my desk by 1800 hours tomorrow, chief." Winner told him, "you can get started while you are sitting in sickbay. Dismissed."

Ah. Hell. Griffin had hoped that Lieutenant Winner had forgotten about the sickbay thing. He nodded and turned, only just avoiding a wobble as his weidly tingling right leg momentarily refused to move. He heard Winner catch that by the intake of breath, and then the stern "Sickbay. Now Chief." that followed him out the door.

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