Engineering Blues

Posted on Sat Jun 22nd, 2013 @ 11:57am by Lieutenant Jourdan Abbott & Warrant Officer Sterling Kamala IV

891 words; about a 4 minute read

Mission: What Dreams May Come?
Location: Engineering

Sterling was a bright enough guy. He had taken the Academy entrance exam on a lark and passed it sufficeintly enough to garner several attempts to recruit him. He just had no interest in becoming an officer. Perhaps it was the humilty he had learned from the monks, perhaps it was just his own relcutance he didn't know. Nor did he really care. He was happy with both his rank and his career.

He had a Masters in Crime Scene Investigations and tended to think deductively and logically. He was very good with puzzels and for that matter most things he applied himself to. Most things, but not everything. He was extremely shy when it came to interpersonal relatonships especially those with the opposite sex and as he had told the Captain, he would make a lousy engineer.

And yet he now found himself approaching Engineering he had heard stories about Abbot and wanted to hear things from her directly. Besides he had decided to visit all the senior staff to get to know them.

He stepped into the Engineering section, located what he assumed to be the office and went up and chimed the door. Just before doing so he ran a hand through his hair finger combing it.

"Looking for someone in there?" Jourdan asked from across Engineering. "Not all engineer's stay in offices" she explained as she passed heading back towards the Warp Core.

He tunred towards her and gave her a smile. It was easy to smile at someone half way across the room. "No, I don't supposed they do. I'm Warrant Officer Kamala, new to the ship. I see you last night at Bazingas and heard a fascinating story about you. Do you have a few minutes, or is this a bad time for you?"

"Well, do you have a problem I can help you with? Or is it just a chit chat?" Jourdan asked as she passed a PADD to one of her engineers. "This ship doesn't maintain itself you know"

"No, I'm sure she doesn't," he commented automatically adjusting to her body language and tone. "On the other hand, she seems to be running pretty smothly right now. I'm pretty sure she'd surive a little chit-chat.

I just wanted to stop by and introduce myself, I'm doing that to all the depatment heads and I wanted to her about the steam locomotive story. It sounds fascinating.'

Jourdan stopped as well as a few of the other engineer's did curious to see how she would react.
"Well what you've probably heard is true" she said as she made her way to a nearby console. "The ship was without power so we hooked up a locomotive to run the ships emergency systems to do a reboot cycle" Jourdan explained.

"That seems like a rather ingenious and creative approach. I think you're giving yourself far less credit than you deserve. It seems to me like a rather unique feat of engineering. I've never heard of it before.

I mean I'm not exactly an expert in such matters, to say the least, but it does sound amazing. How did you pull it off?"

"With a little bit of imagination nothing is impossible. Plus it was the only piece of technology on this ship which wouldn't be affected by the Borg virus" Jourdan explained.

"Borg? I've heard a lot about the Borg, only encountered them once, I would rather have married Dar... well never mind, let's just say I hate the Borg."

"Be glad you haven't met Ruby then..." Jourdan replied simply as she turned to the console to bring up an engineering schedule.

"Who is Ruby?" he asked.

"My little girl" Jourdan said. "I recently adopted her, she was once assimilated by the Borg" Jourdan explained.

Sterling cursed under his breath and his face turned red, his spots darkening at the same time. "I am sorry, that did not come out like I meant it to. The Borg, those who haven't been freed like your daughter all have this hive mentality. They want to assimilate people and they love conformity. Slavery in other words. That is what I meant.

"I would love to meet your daughter sometime."

Jourdan had never heard someone put it that way.
"Well, I've only been looking after her for a few days. She's still adapting to living with me" Jourdan said. "I'm still trying to settle her in".

"Sure I understand and I would imagine that you're going to be very protective of her and not introduce her to strangers too quickly.

You know, to be honest, I never did have too much of an aptitude for engineering, I am glad that you do. What is it like to be an engineer, especially one who is in charge of the whole ship?"

"Its... a very busy and stressful job. Especially when someone is always talking to you..." Jourdan said.

"I may be a man, but I can catch subtle, 'Get the HELL AWAY from me hints. I'll be going now."

Jourdan put her hand down on the console causing it to bleep a few times. "I'm sorry for being so subtle, but I am trying to do my job here!"

Sterling just nodded and exited the office.

Posting by

Lieutenant Jourdan Abbott
Chief Engineer

Warrant Officer Sterling Kamala IV
Security Investigations Officer

 

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