Engineer Coming Aboard

Posted on Sun Jul 16th, 2023 @ 3:46pm by Commander Jon Kia & Lieutenant JG Alicia Santos

931 words; about a 5 minute read

Alicia hummed softly to herself as she walked into the engineering compartment. She had finished settling into her quarters and was ready to dive into her work and see what made the Eclipse so special. Seeing an officer who wore the rank pips for a lieutenant commander, she guessed the he was the senior officer and headed over. "Sir, Lieutenant Santos reporting for duty," she said as she braced to attention.

Jon had spent the morning running diagnostics and getting engineering squared away before moving on to checking on the operations systems throughout the rest of the ship. Taking a break, he was sitting at one of the monitoring stations with a cup of coffee when a junior officer interrupted. Turning, he nodded. "Lieutenant Santos," he said as he frowned a bit. "You're the senior engineer with experience that's been assigned to be my lead engineer?"

"Yes, Sir," Alicia said. "I served on board the USS Rand before being assigned here to the Eclipse."

Jon nodded and finished his coffee in a gulp before he stood and walked to the replicator. Putting the cup back, he turned back towards Santos and nodded. "Stand easy," he said. "What class was the Rand?"

"She was a Nova, Sir, which was why I was told I was being assigned here to Eclipse," Alicia replied. "I helped rebuild some of the Rand's engineering systems last year, and I had a year of specialized training on these types of engineering systems at the Academy."

"Was that by your request?" Jon asked as he thought. He wished he had taken a break long enough to study the files on the operations and engineering crew being assigned.

"It was," Alicia answered. "I prefer these smaller ships, specially the Nova class. They're just well designed by my opinion."

"You won't hear an argument from me," Jon said with a chuckle. "Well, you'll probably be my lead engineer, which sounds like that will be fine since you're experienced with specialized training. The majority of the other engineers we're getting are fresh academy ensigns, and I've got one other senior officer in the whole operations department to help me. So, you get to keep engineering running smoothly for me."

"I can do that, Sir," Alicia said with a smile. She hadn't expected to be named a lead, since she was still a junior grade lieutenant. It wasn't unheard of, and on smaller ships like the Eclipse it did happen more often than on larger ships. "I hope I don't let you down, Sir."

"Just do your job and you'll be fine," Jon said. "Now, I've been running diagnostics all morning, and everything checks out fine. There are still a few things that need to be checked manually, but they're routine daily checks and I'm going to let you jump straight in. I'll give you a day to do your evaluation and file a report on engineering. If you find anything that needs attention, take care of it."

"Yes, Sir," Alicia said with a nod. After a seconds thought, she continued. "Do you know how Eclipse performed during her maiden and trial voyages?"

Jon nodded. "There were a few hiccups in the matter and anti matter flow regulators during the trial runs, nothing major but we pulled them anyway and checked. There was a dent in the input lines on the primary regulator so we inspected the new ones before we installed them. We also had a few minor problems that we ironed out and kept an eye on during the maiden voyage. Nothing else came up and the maiden voyage went smoothly, but some of these new systems are brand new designs and parts with a single nine hour trip on them. I'd like to keep an eye on everything until I'm satisfied that there's no more gremlins hiding somewhere in the works."

"Gremlins, Sir?" Alicia asked, not sure what he was talking about. She had never heard the term before, and so she was a little concerned.

"Tiny, evil mischievous devil critters that like to destroy or at least tear stuff up just for the fun of it," Jon said. "In mechanical terms, anything that naturally goes wrong is called being cause by gremlins. There was also a late twentieth century movie called Gremlins, just in case you do any research."

"What's a movie, Sir?" Alicia asked, not sure if she knew what her new superior officer was talking about.

Jon sighed and shook his head. "Oh, you sweet summer child," he whispered. "Look it up sometime," he answered, speaking to Santos and trying not to shake his head. "Ok, I'm going to go check on operations, you get started on engineering."

"Will do, Sir," Alicia said with a smile. People and history related things she didn't know much of, but engineering systems were something she knew what to do with. And she had an entire engineering department to get familiar with, which meant she was going to enjoy learning the new systems.

"Oh, and when the academy graduates show up, keep an eye on them," Jon said. "The last thing I need is to explain to the captain that a bunch of kids wrecked her brand new ship because some idiot touched the wrong thing."

"I'll keep a close eye on them," Alicia said. "Do you want a report of recommendations after I've had some time to work with them?"

"That might not be a bad idea, I'll leave it up to you. Good luck, lieutenant, and welcome to the Eclipse," Jon said before he headed out of engineering.

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