Bridge Control Specialist - Offerin' help
Posted on Wednesday 19 September 2018 @ 21:11 by Commander Save'ena (Sav) Tillatix
Mission:
The New Collective
Location: USS Merlin - Deck 25
Timeline: evening shift after borg incident
2742 words - 5.5 OF Standard Post Measure
ON:
Sav left the turbolift in a humorous mood. She had a nap, a meal, and was in a clean uniform, courtesy Medical. And, to top it off, they would check on her in a couple of hours to make sure she was okay. Medical sure was making sure that 'light duty' meant light duty, especially after getting fixed up from shrapnel wounds. What she was not aware of was Medical and Counseling were making sure that there was no negative reactions by her to male crew in light of the missives from Starbase and her medical records.
She verified her tech belt was unsealed to be at the ready, as well as her L'Tandrey Wrist computer had the Federation Port connect as well as diagnostic pin needles and harness at the ready. She now looked around for any Officer in charge, knowing that Enlisted could not say yay or nay on what repairs she could jump into.
As per usual, Stephanie was not hard to find. You just went toward the biggest area of loud. When Sav entered, She was dressing down an enlisted crew man. "So lemme get this straight." She said in slow, measured tones, but as she spoke the volume of her voice seemed to be steadily climbing. She was gathering a ring of Engineers who decided rubbernecking was the best use of their time. "The reason half the EPS taps on Deck Nine are out is because you were too busy flirtin' with Crewman Simmons t' pay attention t' yer job?" She reached out a hand and grabbed him firmly by the chin tilting his head gently from side to side. "I don' see na implants, so ye'r na a Borg."
The crewman tried to defend himself, but he floundered. "I, uh, that is..." O'Hara could be scary when she was mad, and by the look on the crewman's face, he was terrified. O'Hara had a reputation for being more than a little volatile and unpredictable when it came to discipline. He was afraid to talk with the Chief's hand clasped around his Jaw.
Stephanie released him as her mouth twisted into a deep frown. "So I can only guess this was a result o' th' depths o' yer ineptitude an' yer na actively tryin' t' kill all o' us. So here's what's gonna happen, Crewman." She snarled. "Ye're gonna fix everythin' ya fecked up on Deck Nine, then first thing tomorra morn, yer gonna report t' waste extraction an' stay on that detail until I decide otherwise. Simmons is lucky he's na one o' mine or he'd be right there wit' ya. DISMISSED!"
The crewman scurried away, seemingly thankful that he'd gotten out of it with his whole skin intact, and Stephanie looked around at the Engineers. "An' jus' what're you lot lookin' at? Get back t' work! Th' bloody ship ain' gonna fix itself now, is it?"
Sav quietly waited until the dressing down was finished. While she would not have done it in such a way, she also didn't have any history with the enlisted in questions and he may have needed it as a reminder to how close he could have been to a Captain's mast. After the scurry of officers and enlisted settled down with people off to their places, she now moved over to be within the front sight of Stephanie. Of course, her pristine uniform with its light duty marker at the left lapel was out of place among the not so clean uniforms of those who had been working to get the ship back into shape.
Sav churred, the erotic and exotic 'purr' sounding low in the hubbub of Engineering, to let herself be known in case the Chief Engineer was lost in thought about what was next.
Steph was still frowning when she heard the purr, and turned on the source, ready to unleash a new round of Irish fury on it's owner. She took a deep intake of air and opened her mouth. Then her eyes rested on Sav's neck... Specifically the pips. Even when she spoke, still managed to sound supremely annoyed but still respectful all at the same time. "What can I do f'r ya commander."
Sav now spoke up, saying, "Chief Engineer, if ya pahlease, Ah am Lieutenant Commander Tillatix, Bridge Command Specialist, reportin' fer Damage Control Duty. Ah am verah good with Aux Controls, Computah systems, communications, ana sensors. Whereun might yah like mah services?"
"How's yer cred wit' th' almighty?" Stephanie deadpanned. "Because prayin' is about where we're at right about now." She scooped up a PADD from a nearby console scrolling her thumb along it's length. "Lets see," She mumbled to herself, then to Sav. "Stop me when you hear one you like." She began reading items. "Microfractures an' minor bucklin' on th' port nacelle. Th' aft dorsal shield emitter is STILL na quite right. Numba three torpedo tube is jammed. Th' main navigational deflector is outta alignment..."
Sav flicked her expansive tail as well as her expressive ears as she interjected, "Hold up, Sir. Ah can help with either Shield Emitter orun Deflector. Ah can get them aligned, no problem Sir." She churred again lightly, adding, "Ah don't have any forte ina fixing metals or unjamming mechanical stuff, just electronics. Ifin yah have any Aux control consoles needin' fixin, Ah ama really good ata those."
Stephanie looked about bewildered for a second. "Sir?" She asked as she began looking around. With the way her day was going, she expected to see the Captain standing directly behind her.
Sav cocked her head slightly at this. Then again, she was a Lt. Cmdr while Stephanie was a Lt. jg. However, this was engineering, and Stephanie was CEO. Sav nodded and said, "Yes, Sir. As you are Chief Engineerin' officer ana Ah will be workin' under yah, yah become mah superior officer, thus, the Sir is merited despite ourun ranks."
When she realized Sav was speaking to her,she rolled her eyes. "Sir..." she muttered. "Well I neva..."Then with the hand that wasn't holding the PADD, she reached up and grabbed one of her breasts. "Are these hard t' see?" She shook her head and let go, sure she had made her point. "If ya wan' th' job, th' deflector is all you."
Sav churred out in humor, the chortle-pur sound taking on a lift in tone. "Ana, tis is confusin, once more. Ah thought 'Sir' to a superior officer meant male ora female, but Ah ama mistaken, again." She shook herself, a Mephetian gesture for clearing the air. She spoke once more, "No Ma'am, not hard to see, and very nice feminine form yah have, Ma'am. Now, on the Deflector, tis on Deck 27, Ah have it and will do yah proud, Ma'am."
"Fine, Fine," Stephanie said. "Good luck t' ya. Oh! And take Bayel with you." The chief Engineer sucked in a deep lungful of air and screamed the name through the engine room.
A Bolian woman appeared at the chief's elbow. "You bellowed, Chief?"
"Why don' ya give th' commanda here a hand with th' main deflector? You can give her some o' the same unimitigated joy ya've given me today."
Chastened, Bayel nodded and nodded to the Lieutenant, then turned to the commander.
Sav smiled to Bayel and said, "Glad ta have yah, Bayel. Let's get movin... we'll go through te' jeffries tubes." Sav went off quickly to a jeffries tube with access to deck 27, two levels below where she was. As she approached it, it seemed to swing open of its own accord, opening its maw wide to swallow her.
Sav said to Bayel, "Mah race isa tree dwellin', so Ah will make quick work of the climb. Meet yah down at te' bottom. She jumped into the jeffries tube adn began quickly sliding down.
Bayel stood there, here jaw working on it's hinge, but no noise coming out. There was no way she could hope to keep up with Sav. She sighed and grabbed a hold of the ladder and started climbing down.
The door swung shut behind the two as though a jaw closing in on its prey. Unknown to any nearby, Sav had used her telekinetics to open and then shut the door using the port controls beside the jeffries tube, and once in the tube, Sav was in her element. Mephetians were a tree dwelling sentient race and racing through Jeffries tubes was similar to racing through a tree road. Sav landed with ease at the junction and headed towards the opening nearest the deflector control station. Once there, she waited for Bayel to join her.
Panting and out of breath, Bayel reached the bottom of the tube and wanted to ask a string of stupid questions like 'How did you do that?'... What she did was wheeze uncomfortably.
Sav looked apologetically to Bayel and patiently waited for her to regain her breath before they went on.
The two went through the opening and quickly made their way to the Deflector control station. She found a current work crew of two enlisted working on the panels in the station. She came up to them and said, "Bayel and I are here to help. What have yah found so far?"
One of the Engineers looked at Sav. "We have a 7 micron variance in the targeting array, Commander. We can't track it down, and The Chief won't let it slide."
Sav replied, "Hmm, let me have a look at it. I am well versed in sensor paths and controls." Sav hooked up her wrist computer and a holographic display sprang to life. As she made sure that all eyes were on it, she touched the side of the panel and used her cyberapathy to leap into the circuitry and let the information flow lead her to the issues. Bingo, first one found. On her holographic display, a module with number lit up. Sav said aloud, "Replace Phase shift module 27-MDC-13-4a, please. It is showing good, but its intermediate buffers are bad."
"That's a 2 hour job minimum," Bayel said. "O'Hara will be mad enough to chew neutronium."
Sav nodded her head in understanding. "If it is a two hour job minimum, let's get it done as quickly as possible without mishap. If it takes longer, fine. If it is shorter, fine. Quality is of the utmost, people. What do you say?"
"As long as it keeps the Chief from yelling at me, I'm okay with it." Bayel responded. "I get that this is her first deep space mission, and she wants to do a good job, but she's really high strung. It doesn't seem like she's going to be all that enjoyable to work for. The last Chief Engineer was a lot more laid back. But I suppose she's getting things done. We're going to be back up from this attack in 12 hours. I mean, I would have done some things differently..." Bayel was engaging herself in the Bolian trait of idle chit chat, which was probably the reason O'Hara wanted her out of the Engine room in the first place. She launched into a dissertation on how she would have handled things differently, starting with the chief first came on board.
Sav watched over the replacement of the module while listening to Bayel. One ear remained focused on Bayel while the other would shift to listen in on those doing the repairs. Sav would interject with supporting comments that did not disparage Stephanie, such as, "She had made Chief Engineer, with her own unique command style", "What result are you looking for in doing it in that order?", "When you become assistant Chief Engineer, remember that and work towards your own command style", etc
Two hours later, Sav churred in good humor. She replied, "Alright, good. We can proceed along the diagnostics. Realize, people, without those paths flowing past last known, we cannot further troubleshoot and fix te' problem, ayuh."
Sav felt the paths open and directed her wrist computer to display the diagnostic paths. She felt the signals being stymied and blocked at several junction modules. Now the three dead modules in the junction panel between aux computer steerage alignment control and shift amps going to the coils. Sav called out, "CSAC-5A Modules 3, 7, and 8 are out. Replace them, please, and then we will check the amps."
"They read as normal, Commander," Bayel responded.
Sav lit up the shipyard diagnostic patterns, which showed out of tolerance. Sav smiled as she replied, "They may read as normal, but full diagnostic patterning IMD shows otherwise. Please, replace them ASAP.
"Yes, Sir." One of the crew said. What followed was an animated discussion between the Engineers about whether the replacement modules were stored in Cargo Bay 1 or 3... until one of them asked the computer who said they were stored in Cargo Bay 3. By some unwritten arrangement, the crewman who was wrong went to retrieve them.
Sav secretly smiled as she waited for them to sort it out. Gentle one ups and games were par the course for friends and work environments, and showed these crew got along well.
Ten minutes later, he came back with the part and the work began.
The paths lit up as the Deflector alignment diagnostics began to chime their merry signals of checking through the arrays. Even as they did, Sav felt a small niggle at the base of her skull. Everything would check out... but...
Sav said aloud, "The data is checking, but... the recursive signal graph seems off to me. Hmm, let me try..." Sh reached over and began manipulating the diagnostics data with another shipyard routine designed to find borderline amps. She smiled to herself as on amp lit up as borderline. She grinned and looked to the others, saying, "And, found a nasty little critter. One amp is borderline, and could easily go into cascade failure on the next heavy current through it. If that happens, it would harmonic blow upstream and take our deflector offline again. Get amp 5 of the Fifth Array replaced, and the deflector should go right into alignment."
"Yes, Sir," one of the Engineers said as they carried out her orders.
Sav waited for the amp to be replaced, diagnostics completed, and alignment chime to announce itself. She nodded to the others, saying, "Great job. Onto the next." She hit her communicator.
=/\= Lt. O'Hara, Cmdr Tillatix. Deflector Array repaired and aligned. Sending details via Padd. Next task please, Ma'am?=/\=
=/\= Ya can' be done already. =/\= Stephanie answered. =/\= Well, I got nothin' else unless ya suddenly developed an affinity f'r sealin' microfractures an' reenforcin' structual integrity on warp Nacelles. =/\=
=/\= Not particularly Ma'am. I cannot do metallurgy or realignment of crystalline aligned steel. If you have nothing else, I request to go to my quarters to rest as prescribed by my light duty chit, Ma'am.=/\=
The Chief sighed audibly over the open comm link. =/\= Yer doin' me a favor. =/\= She said. =/\= You do you, thanks f'r th' help. Feel better. O'Hara out. =/\=
Sav hit her communicator one last time, saying, =/\= Tillatix out.=/\= She turned to Bayel and the others and said, "Thanks for your help, all. I will put in a good note into your service records fer yah. Anytin' else yah would lahke mah help with?"
"No thank you, Commander," Bayel said. "I appreciate your assistance, and I'm sure the Chief does as well..."
Sav's tail shook in pleasure as she turned and made her way to the nearest turbolift. While she would really love to help some more, she did feel tired and wanting some rest. Of course, she felt guilty of getting that rest while others were still working, but she knew the why and that she had to let her body recover from the major surgeries that were just a couple of months past, well, for her, besides the earlier shrapnel removal from the bridge console exploding into her.
She entered the turbolift with a large yawn. That yawn showed off her needle like front teeth even as the doors closed upon her.
OFF:
Lt. Commander Save'ena Amilia Tillatix
Chief Flight Control Officer
Bridge Command Specialist
USS Merlin
LTjg Stephanie O'Hara
Chief Engineer
USS Merlin
