Two Engineers, One Ship

Posted on Fri Mar 26th, 2021 @ 5:02am by Captain Taiga Aisaka & Lieutenant Hamlyn Ambrose

1,304 words; about a 7 minute read

Mission: Allegations
Location: Main Engineering

ON

Sighing, Hobb tossed the baseball into the air again, catching it in a mitt as it fell to the deck. The Captain's trial was on a monitor in the background, volume down low. Last he saw they'd still been working on the preliminaries of the trial, so he hadn't been paying too much attention.

On his desk was the PADD listing the necessary repairs still to be undertaken so the Tokyo could return to flight. It was still a long one. The Corps of Engineers, however, had asked them to pause in the repairs until their specialists had come aboard. They were due this morning, and Hobb was impatient.

It wasn't they were late. Hobb was just on shift early, restless with having so little to do.

"Anyone in here?" a womans voice called. A short woman with short brown hair and hazel eyes smiled. "Lieutenant Louise Valliere reporting as ordered sir. We're the Corps of Engineers assigned to the Tokyo"

Hobb caught the baseball, and headed for the door. Popping his head round the corner of the door, he caught sight of Valliere and her group at the door to Engineering. He stepped out, favouring the attractive brunette with a smile, 'hey, yeah, just me for now - you're early so the skeleton shift hasn't arrived.'

He counted their number as he walked towards them, 'I think there's just a few too many to squeeze into my office back there, but any of you folks need some hot caffeinated drinks before we get started?'

Louise smiled. "I'm good for now" she said simply in response. "What I do need however is a a full rundown on the damage to this ship. There are only four Armitage Class starships in the fleet, and they're still very experimental. I don't want to jump in without knowing what awaits us"

'Sure, no problem,' replied Hobb, glad of the distraction from the trial, and if he was frank, of the company. The ship had felt a little empty since everyone else had shuttled off for shoreleave or the trial. 'If you'd just follow me, I'll pull up the data on the central monitor.'

The Chief Engineer had had that monitor repaired during the flight back to Earth as it was one of the easier ways to monitor the shipboard systems. Keeps Ops happy anyway. As he led Valliere over, he typed a few commands into his PADD, minimising the monitoring display, and bringing up the Armitage-class vessel's schematics. 'Where would you like to begin?'

Valliere nodded as she tapped on the console. "The first thing we should do is to replace any damaged power conduits. We've got cases of fresh bio-neural gel-packs coming aboard. We'll be replacing all of your used ones for new ones" she explained. "These are newer versions which should speed up computer response times"

'Really, that would be impressive - the Tokyo's response times is one of the fastest I've seen in Starfleet.' Hobb rubbed his chin, 'how do you want to go about this? Stem to stern, replacing as you go? How much manpower do we have to get this done?'

"We'll be replacing them deck by deck. I have a team of just over one hundred people to do so. Plenty of trained hands" Valliere said. "I also want to take a look at your warp core"

'That's a logical way for them to do it - how long til they start?' Hobb grew slightly defensive for no real reason. If a ship was an Engineer's baby, then the Warp Core was the heart. Irrational connection to a machine, he chided himself.

He smiled, eventually, 'of course you'll be wanting to see the Core - right now?'

"Its only a routine examination. I want to see how she's handled. Afterall she was a brand new design when she left spacedock" Valliere said simply.

'She was indeed,' replied Hobb, 'and still operating within parameters,' he continued with not a little pride. He beckoned the brunette officer over, 'come on down, let's head on and have a look - just be careful. We've fixed up the glaring problems, but there's still some debris we've not shifted.'

Valliere nodded. "So" she said. "Any problems or niggles with the core or her engines?" She asked as she followed him.

'None so far. Nothing major anyway considering what the ship has just been put through. The warp engine functioned fine on the way back to Sol, it was the ship's superstructure that couldn't take the strain,' Hobb consulted his PADD as he went, 'occasionally the power output dips point five percent, but we haven't found a cause yet. Otherwise, it's great.' He pointed to the core as they approached it, 'there it is.'

Valliere looked up at the large warp core of the vessel. She nodded as it seemed perfectly operational. "So, the superstructure of the ship was the one thats straining. I think we could install some new duranium braces to the bulkheads for that" she explained. "Lets pull up a deck by deck schematic, and show me where the stress points are"

'Yeah, it's the superstructure,' confirmed Hobb as they stood in front of the core, 'it's quite beautiful, isn't it? Nothing has the same quality of light I think.' He pulled himself together, looking at his PADD, calling up a schematic of the ship on a nearby wall panel. 'If you'll take a look, Lieutenant, you'll see the stress fractures in the superstructure. We tried to keep her together as well as possible on the way home but, to be honest, we're going to need an extensive refit job to get her spaceworthy again.'

"Well, luckily I have all the resources available to me. Starfleet wants this ship back out as soon as possible. Heavens knows why," she replied. "Basically we stopped the refit on the Paladin to focus on you guys," she told him simply.

He shrugged in response, 'that's above my pay grade, and not a problem I have to worry about - so long as our end goals are the same, I have no objections to opening the Tokyo to outside engineers.'

"I don't question it either," Valliere replied simply. "We'll start immediately then" she said. "I will have yard teams come aboard with equipment within the hour," she pulled out an isolinear chip from a pocket on her breast. "Here is a schedule of everything that Starfleet wants doing, down to the minute. You can assign any of your team to help should you wish."

Hobb smiled wryly as he accepted the chip it seems as though she was questioning those orders a second ago, 'down to the minute, huh? Let's hope there are no snags while we're undergoing the repairs and refits.' He waved the chip, 'let me have a look at the schedule, and I'll assign some of my people to assist - they have the greatest experience with an Armitage-class after all.'

He looked at her, 'you'll be supervising the Yard teams when they're aboard?' he asked half-hopefully. For Hobb it was a rarity to have someone of similar rank from Engineering about the ship with which to talk.

Valliere nodded. "Hopefully we will have you out of spacedock and ready to go in no time" she replied. "Shall we get to work?"

'I think that's a great idea,' replied Hobb warmly, 'if you'll follow me, we can begin assigning teams to jobs.'

OFF

Lieutenant Hamlyn 'Hobb' Ambrose
Chief Engineering Officer
USS Tokyo

Lieutenant Louise Valliere
Lead Construction Engineer
USS Tokyo Refit Program
Utopia Planetia Fleet Yards

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