First Day at Work

Posted on Mon Mar 28th, 2011 @ 7:55pm by Lieutenant Tavish 'Tav' Ross & Master Warrant Officer Janet Greenfield

1,358 words; about a 7 minute read

Mission: The Forests of Mythraeli
Location: Main Engineering, Deck 36

ON

The doors from the corridor to main engineering parted as Tav stepped towards them. He entered the room, which extended out to his left towards the stern. The familiar 'pool table' master console came into view as he walked around the corner to face the warp core.

The matter/anti-matter reactor thrummed gently, as the tell-tale lights moved slowly towards the reaction chamber. The bulkheads and floor plates seemed to reverberate slightly with the frequent throbbing of the power plant.

Tav surveyed the room as he moved aft towards the warp core. Everything seemed tidy, staff were going about their business and were working, or at least had the appearance of working, all-in-all things seemed to be a in a good state. He stopped at a console on the port side of the room and examined the display for a second. The power generation was slightly below optimal efficiency, that would need some fine tuning, but overall there seemed to be no major problems.

"Excuse me," a curt female voice said, interrupting his observations.

Tav turned around to locate the source of the voice and found a human woman, slightly taller than him, of slim build and sporting short light blonde hair, standing looking at him. The woman wore the rank insignia of a Staff Warrant Officer.

"Can I help you..." she asked, pausing for a moment as she checked out his collar. "...Lieutenant?"

"I'm Tav Ross," he said, hoping that his name alone would spark some knowledge of his identity in the woman's mind.

He had no such luck.

"And, Lieutenant Ross, what does that mean to me?" she asked, with the same curt tone.

A smile spread across Tav's face, for some reason, despite her attitude he liked this woman, maybe it was because she was challenging an unknown person in engineering, or maybe it was because she didn't seem to care about what she said.

"I'm the new Chief Engineer," he explained. "This is my first day here, I thought I would take a look around first."

"Ah," the woman replied. "I'm Warrant Officer Greenfield, Engineering Co-ordinator, or Janet if you prefer."

Tav smiled and held out his hand, to which the woman took hold and shook firmly.

"I expect anyone visiting engineering to report directly to me or the Shift Manager before doing anything," she told him. "That includes you, or even the Captain. We can't have people wandering in here doing whatever they want, it's too dangerous."

Tav nodded, "I agree, I should've come to see you first."

"Good, now that we've got that cleared up," Janet said, changing the subject. "I have the full shift reports for the past week, we've relocated the Chief Engineer's Office to what was the storage locker, and I've scheduled an overhaul of the PTCs around the saucer fusion reactor because they're bringing the efficiency down by about 3%."

Tav nodded again, the woman was like a waterfall of information. "You've relocated the Chief's office?"

"Yes, at the request of the last one," she explained. "It didn't seem appropriate to have the duty engineer and technicians running in and out, what with the isolinear subprocessor access being in there and the defence power allocation terminal. So it's in that room now."

She pointed to the door on the starboard side nearest the pool table. The sign still read 'Storage Locker 36-412-A'.

"It was an enormous closet, everything got stuck in there, but it makes more sense to have a dedicated private office, something they obviously didn't think about when they designed the class," Janet said. "Here, take a look, I'll get a coffee... you want one?"

She walked away before Tav had the opportunity to reply, at which point he called out, across the room, "paksor blend, black, please!"

As Janet went to retrieve the coffee from the nearby replicator Tav rounded the pool table and tapped the control panel beside the door to gain entry. The door slid open revealing a sparse, but newly furnished office, complete with high-back seat, desk, small round conference table, a few shelves and a cupboard. There were no decorations, but a Klingon dagger had been placed on the desk, presumably for the office's intended recipient.

"Oh that's not for you," Janet informed him, as she returned with the coffee and followed him into the sanctuary. She placed down the mugs of coffee on the conference table and retrieved the knife. "That's for your predecessor; I'll send it on to Starfleet Medical for him."

She dropped the knife into the yellow smock she was wearing and sat down at the table. "Sit down, get comfortable, it's your office, isn't it?"

Tav did as was suggested, although he wasn't entirely sure why, when the woman was supposedly his junior, in rank at least. He picked up the mug and took a sip of the coffee. The strong, dark, aromatic liquid hit the spot, just what he needed.

"So, Janet," he began. "I take it you've been aboard Calypso for some time?"

"You could say that," she replied, running her fingers through one side of her hair before sitting back in the chair. "I've been on board Galaxy-class vessels for twenty years, I'd like to think I know them inside out, but I'm always learning. I was on the USS Venture before this, and part of the SCE which did the refit for Galaxy-two. Hence, I got the illustrious job of running engineering here, on a daily basis of course."

"I'm glad to have someone with your experience," Tav replied after taking another sip. "I was previously on the Excalibur which is a totally different beast to the Galaxy-class, this seems much more refined, probably down to the fact it's been fine-tuned over the years."

"Excalibur-class ships are still raw, you're right, although the Calypso's design is getting old the technology is upgradeable due to the size and everything inside can be stripped out and refitted if needs be, like this office, for instance," she agreed. "Storage cupboard one week, office the next, you couldn't do that on an older or smaller ship."

After a momentary pause while they gathered their thoughts, Janet began again, "how do you like to run your engineering department then?"

"I'd like to think I'm quite relaxed," Tav responded immediately. "My door will generally be open and I prefer for the shift managers to keep things going, along with yourself of course. I'm quite hands-on though, I won't be spending every hour in here, I like to get into the thick of things are get my hands dirty."

"A true engineer then," Janet said, nodding with an impressed smile. "You don't generally get those in solid gold pip variety."

"It's good to be the exception to the rule," Tav remarked, smiling back. "I get bored sat in my office all day, and I don't really get to see anything."

"Well I could install holo-projectors in here to give you a nice view..." Janet joked, looking around at the ceiling for installation points. "It wouldn't take much actually, the ODN runs right over here."

"No, it's fine, I'll just go and do repairs," Tav confirmed, grinning slightly.

"Anyway, Lieutenant," Janet said, having finished her coffee. "I need to get back to doing some work, unlike you officer types. I'm sure you'll find some padd or schedule you need to mess around with and reorganise. If you need anything give me a shout - as I say, all the data you should want is right there on your terminal."

As she got to here feet Tav did the same and extended his hand. "Thank you for the welcome and the coffee."

"It's the last time I get coffee, sir," she said, making her way to the door after shaking his hand. "I'll expect you to make it for me in future, after all I run engineering."

As she crossed through the door she turned around and gave him a wink before continuing back to work.


OFF

Lt. Tav Ross
Chief Engineer

SWO Janet Greenfield
Engineering Co-ordinator / Computer Specialist

 

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