Bowels of the ship
Posted on Tue Jun 25th, 2019 @ 2:49pm by Ensign Dana Wakefield
Edited on on Wed Jun 26th, 2019 @ 12:35am
1,168 words; about a 6 minute read
Mission:
Episode 7 - Home Again
Location: Pioneer Operations Center - Deck 6
Timeline: MD001 1200 hrs
It was not every day that the Chief of Operations personally joined a damage control team, she was more accustomed to directing them from the comforts of the bridge, than getting her hands dirty but after that battle before the ship had landed she had made a deal with the Pioneer that she would personally carry out some repair and upgrade work in return for its compliance…so here she was, a deal was a deal after all. Taking a mouthful of barley warm coffee from a mug, she quickly found a seat at the back of the small room, the junior officers chatting amongst themselves hadn’t noticed her arrival, a small smile crept across her face as she watched and listened to their interactions, they seemed to be a close-knit team and she wasn’t going to darken the mood, she knew only fine well the effect of knowing a senior officer was present, they would tense up, the talking would stop and the mood would grow sombre, so instead she sat back, smiled, finishing her coffee waiting for the briefing to begin.
“Well, to be honest, I thought we were goners. We were falling apart at the seems running around like headless chickens, just trying to keep the ship together” One of the young male junior officers said to one of his female colleagues.
“Oh, you are always full of drama Kevin, I mean look at that time you called for to your quarters when that giant spider was terrorising you, and it ended up being no bigger than a rice crispy. We’ve been in tighter spots and worse situations, I have every faith in the command structure and senior officers, and I knew we would get out of it and look, we ended up landing the goddam ship, how cool was that.” Replied the young women stood next to him
Dana quietly giggled as she eavesdropped into the conversation, and easily visualised the scene with the young man the spider, he and the girl were clearly good friends and worked well together, she clearly kept him grounded, but suddenly he leaned in a little closer to her. “Oh, come on, up in their ivory tower. They don’t get their hands dirty with us plebs, I mean when was the last time that you even saw the Captain doing a ship tour, or any of the elite offer to help us out, they sit there pressing buttons, having us run around the ship keeping it together and all spick and spam, while they take all the credit.”
“Now, now Kevin, we are a cog…” she began before he shook his head and placed his hand over her mouth. “Now please don’t go giving me we are a cog, part of a bigger wheel which interconnects to the smooth operation of the whole speech, just admit it, without us the bloody other cogs would all fall off.”
The young woman was just about to protest but the doors to the room sprung open and a young man briskly walked in carrying a whole load of padds, several heads turned and looked at him and a few people stood a lot straighter, he was the one clearly in charge today. “Good morning, people.”
“Morning” a chorus of replied echoed around the room
“Well we certainly have our work cut out for us today, although the majority of the primary systems were repaired and are fully functional, there are still a lot of secondary and back up systems that need attention before we arrive back at Empok Nor for some well deserved R and R.” The room cheered in response “Afterall, we have been particularly busy lately, but hopefully today we will be able to concentrate on our tasks without been redirected here there and everywhere, because I hear on good authority that a certain red-haired Chief Operations Officer, whom I am sure gets perverse kicks out of just reassigning tasks and duties to us, isn’t on the bridge this morning.”
The room responded by cheering and clapping, Dana simply glanced around and if by instinct the young women turned with a wide smile on her face as though she felt Dana’s eyes burrowing into the back of her head, the smile slowly began to drop when she looked at Dana and glanced at her red hair, before turning back to the clapping crowd and then back to Dana who simply smiled at the young women.
“Erm…sir…” she tried to say, but it was more a soft whisper that no one would have heard over the clapping. Instead, she reached for Kevin and pulled at his uniform.
“Ellie, what is…” he said turning his gaze falling on Dana, still half clapping, before he stopped, his smile simply started to fade as well.
Dana couldn’t help but chuckle, she had two, junior officers, dumbstruck, staring at her, so she simply gave them a little wave and a large smile. The officer in charge still making fun of Dana in a kind, mocking way.
“Sir.” He yelled, trying to force a smile back at Dana. “Sir.” before a sea of heads all turned to face him, then Dana, then back to the officer in charge, then to Dana, before gasps and the realisation of what had occurred made the room fall deadly silent as though an airlock had just opened and sucked all of the oxygen out of the room, the room parted like the red sea and Dana smiled at the officer at the front of the room.
“Well, your face almost looks as red as my hair.” She teased as he almost dropped the PADDS in his hands. “This button pressing, perverse assignment changer, thought she would get her hands dirty helping the plebs.” She replied with a smile staring directly at Kevin. “That’s if there are course no objections.”
A look of horror appeared on both Kevin and the junior officers face, oh how they both must be so embarrassed, “and I particularly wouldn’t mind hanging out with. Kevin.. was it” she said pausing and “Ellie?”.
“Ma’am, yes Ma’am not a problem.” He replied beginning to thrust PADDS into peoples hands “Kevin, Ellie you have been assigned to carry out repairs to the navigation subsystems and some minor damage to the power relays, oh a couple of neural gel packs need replacing while you’re in the vicinity.”
The two young ensigns looked at each other, then at Dana who was just smiling. "Excellent, I was meaning to take a look at the navigation systems and carry out some minor upgrades, she said reaching for her communicator.
The two young crewmembers almost sighed in unison, now their shift was going to be overshadowed by Dana, who would now have to be on their best behaviour.
Lieutenant Dana Wakefield
Chief Operations Officer, USS Pioneer
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