Early Morning Problems in Engineering

Posted on Sun Mar 16th, 2025 @ 2:11pm by Lieutenant JG Alicia Santos & Commander Karl Rogers

900 words; about a 5 minute read

It was early in the morning when Karl left his quarters. The corridor was quiet and mostly empty. A few officers who were getting an early start were shuffling on their way as well. Karl kept his gaze down towards the padd he was holding while his other hand held a hot cup of coffee. He had made a hobit of getting up early and spending a few quiet minutes reading and enjoying his coffee in the observation lounge. Normally, there were few to no other people there, and those few who were present were also trying to enjoy a few quiet moments before beginning their day so it worked out for everyone there. Karl was passing the turbolift doors when someone hurried out of the opening lift doors and ran straight into him.

Alicia had pulled another double shift even though she was certain that the chief operations officer would be upset with her for doing it. As the leading engineering officer she felt that it was her responsibility to keep the engines and power systems running smoothly. It didn't help that the entire engineering staff that had been assigned to the Eclipse were all ensigns who had never operated a warp core outside of a simulation. It seemed that the majority of the Eclipse crew were newbie officers who needed constant monitoring, and that fact alone annoyed her since she felt like a mother hen.

Alicia had been considering heading to her quarters for some down time when an alarm had rang out from the impulse engine monitoring systems. There were usually no officers assigned to the impulse control room during the third watch shift, since the systems all reported to the main console in engineering. It did mean that she felt an overwhealming urge to hurry to go check on the alarm. Without bothering to wait for the turbolift doors to open fully, she slid through sideways and turned to rush down the corridor. Unfortunately, there was someone directly in her way and Alicia slammed into that person.

"Damn," she muttered as she stumbled and held her hand out to steady herself on the bulkhead. Looking up, she spied the executive officer and added "Oh, shit," under her breath quietly.

Karl hissed as his extremely hot coffee splashed all over his hand and part of his wrist. "Ow, hothothot!" he muttered quickly. "Damn!" he added as he grabbed the now empty mug with his other hand and shook hot coffee of of his hand. Glancing up he noticed the woman who had ran into him. Reconizing the lead enigneer, he managed a smile. "Where's the fire, lieutenant?" he said.

"No fire Sir! At least, I certainly hope not!" Alicia replied quickly as she jumped to attention.

"That was a joke, lieutenant," Karl said as he wiped excess coffee from his hand on the back of his jacket. "At least, I certainly hope there's no fire. It there was, I'd like to know why I wasn't informed."

"I'm so sorry, commander," Alicia said. "There's an alarm in the impulse engine monitoring systems that went off. I was on my way to investigate, since there's no one in the control room at the hour."

"I see," Karl said with a small nod. "I can certainly see why you would be in a hurry then. Do you think you'll need any help?"

"It's probably nothing, but I'd love for someone to be there in case I do need assistance," Alicia said with a smile.

"Well, in that case, lead on lieutenant," Karl said with a smile of his own.

Alicia tried hard not to blush as she led the executive officer down the corridor towards the impulse engineering control room. Arriving at the secured door, she entered her security code to open the door and headed in. Taking a quick look at the systems monitoring monitor readouts, she frowned for a second before she sighed and tapped in a command. The alarm silenced. Turning towards the first officer, she smiled.

"I'm sorry to have wasted your time, Commander, but it was just a monitoring alarm," she said. "The new systems don't like it when you don't physically check on things every few hours."

"That's quite alright," Karl said, frowning thoughtfully. "So the computer controlled systems still require someone to physically check the monitoring systems, even though you can do that remotely from engineering?"

"Yes, Sir," Alicia replied as she double checked the monitors to ensure that everything was indeed running correctly. Turning back to the first officer, she nodded. "But even then, there's not always enough time for engineering to do that, specially if we get caught up on something else. We're just too short staffed."

"I'll talk to Walker and see if we can get operations to help out with that," Karl said. "They're partially responsible for engineering systems anyway."

"Thank you, Sir," Alicia managed to not stammer at the suggestion. "But if you don't mind, Sir, I've got to lock up here and get back to engineering."

"Of course," Karl said as he started towards the door. "Keep up the good work lieutenant," he added before he continued on his way to the bridge.

Alicia managed to finish checking on the impulse systems before she locked out the control room and headed back towards engineering. It was, at best, she thought, a strange way to start her day.

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