Close Quarters
Posted on 21 Jun 2021 @ 4:04pm by Commander Calliope Zahn & Commander Thaddeus Zayne & Lieutenant Commander Lance Quinn (*)
Mission:
M2 - Sanctuary
Location: Shuttle, orbit of obsidian
Timeline: MD 04 1200Hrs
2328 words - 4.7 OF Standard Post Measure
Ensign Marcello Burdock rubbed the sweat off his palms as he took his seat in the back of the runabout. The Bolian was honestly hoping no one would notice or remember him. The first time they had met, he'd been dismissed by his Department Head, LtCmdr Quinn, because Quinn had disapproved of the order in which Ensign Burdock had been running a diagnostic protocol on a subroutine. It wasn't pleasant being told he was a weak link and he had spent the rest of the day reviewing diagnostic protocol and cursing himself as well as Commander Quinn. He'd never worked with anyone who would actually dismiss you for a minor efficiency issue and was humiliated by the entire experience.
Refraining from groaning, Marcello looked at the backs of the two heads already in the piloting and co-piloting stations in the cockpit. How could his assignment have possibly been any worse? Commander Zayne was in the Pilot's chair. Zayne was the new Station XO and the legend who had survived the void on the skeleton crew and then during the Battle for Obsidian Command had rescued a whole gaggle of civilians holed up in a sealed of portion of a depressurized deck until found three days later. A hero. Also the man who had replaced that really pretty Executive Officer.
He'd only seen her that once, when Marcello had been excused by Quinn. He hadn't forgotten her look of compassion, although it had amplified his embarrassment at the time. He didn't really believe most of the rumors about her, particularly not the one claiming she'd shot someone for insubordination. Although some people could surprise you when they snapped, he hadn't seen that in her personality at all. There was plenty of other scuttlebutt to choose from though: she was stealing supplies and reselling them, she had given away sensitive data to state enemies, she'd been possessed by an alien life form, she was a clone replacement and her original was dead, she'd had an affair with an admiral who poisoned her either as attempted murder or as part of a threat to shut her up. To make matters the absolute worst, Marcello had also learned the former XO was married to his boss, the Engineering Chief who was in the Co-pilot's station in this self same runabout.
The Ensign pulled a little on his collar and wondered if the environmental controls were a little hot, but dared not bring it up at all.
It was best to focus on why he'd been assigned. He was supposed to assist Quinn in evaluating some of the satellites from the dysfunctional Radiation Shielding Array over Planet Obsidian. The RSA had been damaged when Obsidian Command had been taken up into the Void, and the effect on the planet had been severe. Now that the station was in working order, it was time to re-establish the RSA. Ensign Burdock decided that was all he needed to focus on to get through this. More than he wanted to impress anyone, he simply didn't want to flub it up. Better to be forgotten for good work then remembered for failure.
"Are you getting anything from the RSA network?" Commander Zayne asked, slowing the Arrow-Class Runabout Void Runner over one of the suspected malfunctioning satellites. The runabout was one of the older ones in the stations flotilla and the only one that had stayed behind after the mass exodus, then only because it had been under heavy repair. Her core had had a major malfunction and had been in several large parts on the maintenance deck when everything went down. Chief Barmeadow had put her back together piece by piece and it had been their only means of getting around outside the station in the void. Naturally, the craft had a special place in his heart, so he'd gone straight to it for this little mission.
Captain DeHavilland had been adamant in their last conversation. Relations with the people of Obsidian had to be improved at whatever cost to the Federation. Those relations started by making sure that the RSA was back online and protecting the people once more. She had insisted that they wouldn't be able to make any progress with the locals until that baseline protection was re-established. That's why he'd taken on the job himself, and enlisted the Chief Engineer to help him. This had to be done right and quickly. He wasn't going back to DeHavilland empty handed.
Thaddeus slowed the shuttle and angled the bow towards the satellite so that the forward glass was facing the top of the orbital device like a pencil facing the paper. Looking straight at it, the panel looked a bit beaten up, but not more than any other he'd ever seen. It had been in orbit of this planet for a long time, victim to the constant radiation of the star Loki.
"Sensors are showing a serious quantum degradation of their nadion emitter coils," Lance replied. After a heartbeat, he added, "That means their radiation shielding won't be effective." The second sentence was spoken in a thinly-veiled patronising tone; as though Lance were speaking to a complete idiot. He wasn't going to verbalise that part, naturally. But the distate he had for the man sat next to him as well as the long and tiring shifts in both engineering and at his wife's bedside had left their mark. His normal temperament was less contained than it might have been under other circumstances.
"Can you manage the repair via transporter, or do we need to suit up?" Thaddeus asked, his attention focused on the piloting maneuver and the RSA signal relays. "It appears that the panels around us are communicating appropriately. Let's hope that fixing this one doesn't highlight ten more malfunctions," he added as an afterthought. If this panel caused issues with others, they'd be at this for weeks.
Burdock involuntarily blurted, "Oh, no!" and then blanched in horror at his outburst. He didn't want to have to explain he was terrified of space walking. One of his friends had recently died walking the hull in the middle of the battle for OC and he'd been having nightmares about it. He wasn't about to blurt all that to two all-business commanders however. He gulped, "I mean, it shouldn't be necessary to space walk. Transporter. Transporters will work. We can beam the coil assembly into the hold and examine the degradation."
"Then do it," Lance responded sharply. "The less time we spend talking about it and actually doing it, the faster the work can get done and I can get off this stupid shuttlecraft."
The Ensign wanted out just as quickly, but it was somehow not assuring to know that the Commander was in a rush. There was already sweat around Burdock's collar and he mopped his forehead with his sleeve. "Of course, Commander." For a long pause he forgot how to call up the menu for transporter controls and then jolted with the recollection, switching the displays and directing the sensors to the nadion coils. "I have a lock on—" He stopped mid sentence. Burdock had to remember if they needed to include the switch the capacitors to the processing circuit. He was afraid to ask. "Yes, I have a lock." He repeated, his voice uncomfortably high with tension. "Engaging transporter beam..." His finger hovered over the key he hadn't yet engaged, flooded with doubt—
"Don't rush, Ensign," Commander Zayne respond to the ramblings of the nervous Ensign. "Captain wants this operational, that means we're not going back until it's done and done right," he declared. "Take your time and do it correctly," he finished. Not that he really knew what the correct means of repair was. While he had more than his fair share of Engineering training over the years, it was by no means his strong suit. Security and Flight were his bread and butter, more so the former than the latter. But then, that was why he'd brought Quinn along for this mission. He needed an expert. But he wasn't going to let one man's eagerness to get back to the station cause their fix to be half-assed or worse, take twice as long.
Convicted by Commander Zayne's correction, Burdock held his frozen pose and then backed his hand away from the control to ask what felt like a humiliating question. "Commander Quinn, uh, do you think, I mean, should I switch the capacitors when I beam the coils?"
"What kind of question is that?" Lance fired back incredulously. "Of course you should switch the capacitors. The annular confinement beam will fuse those coils in seconds and add hours of work to a simple task like this." He frowned. "A first year cadet would know that. Honestly, how you escaped the Academy with a commission..."
Burdock's hands were too shaken to work the transporter now. Should he have known that? He felt cowed and frozen and small, and sniffed back the pain of Commander Quinn's denouncement.
Thad glared coldly at Quinn, "Lieutenant Commander, if this is an example of your leadership skills, we're going to have a big problem," he declared icily. "So. Try again," he said, gesturing to Burdock, never once taking his eyes off Quinn.
Burdock gulped and his throat went dry. He was about to be the instrument of an object lesson to his superior and he suspected that would make him a most hated object in Quinn's memory. Burdock's eyes begged to not do this but Zayne wasn't looking at him.
"Yes," Lance raised an eyebrow at the Ensign, fixing him with an intense stare of his own. "Do try again. The Commander does believe in second chances, after all. Failing at a task you're assigned to shouldn't mean you're completely incapable or incompetent."
Focus, focus, focus, Burdock had to tell himself as he scrolled past the correct menu to signal the capacitors to switch, then had to go back around for agonizing seconds until he brought up the protocol and entered the signal. A small series of confirmation tones sounded to denote the switching was complete. "I switched them, sir." He said in a small, humiliated voice, like a schoolboy made to redo his figures. "beaming the coils now." He engaged the transporter.
"Go and check on them when the transports done," Commander Zayne ordered, "I'd like a word with Lieutenant Commander Quinn."
The moment the hum of the transporter beam finished relocating the coils from the satellite into the back of the runabout, Ensign Burdock shot out of his seat practically tripping over himself to get to the hold, secure it, and get the initial diagnostic scans running. He was still within earshot and eye shot, but eager to put any distance he could between himself and his superior officers.
"Any particular reason you're purposely being an ass?" Commander Zayne asked, "The kid's clearly nervous. You riding into him unapologetically isn't helping," he shook his head. While he'd hardly ever been accused of being warm and cuddly, he'd never been purposely malicious to anyone. In the instance he found someone fully incompetent he simply avoided them or, as his position improved, retasked them out of his way.
"The irony of that statement from you is remarkable," Lance sighed. The fact that this was the man who had been given the role of XO simply because an Admiral had decided to 'ride unapologetically' into Calliope was indeed a sore point. "A nervous engineer helps no-one," he continued. "A nervous engineer forgets to replace the baffle on a warp core. Or mis-aligns a plasma flow. Or doesn't notice the pressure gauge on a fusion core monitor." He glared pointedly. "A nervous engineer gets people killed. So while I may be acting like an 'ass', I remain firm in my conviction that nervousness serves no practical support to anyone."
"Yeah? So what about that conversation made the Ensign less nervous, as that's so important?" Zayne asked. "Sounded more to me like you've got some bug up your ass, and you're taking it out on the kid. That's not how it's done. You check your baggage at the door," he ordered. Internally he was shaking his head at the man and it was making him start to wonder to himself about Captain DeHavilland's choices. First an XO that screwed the proverbial pooch and now her engineer husband that couldn't manage to lead coherently. He briefly considered that the two would be interrelated, but he brushed that off. Surely this man wasn't so stupid as to believe that he had anything at all to do with everything that had happened.
Funny that you're so concerned about a young officer now, when it doesn't really matter, Lance thought to himself. He rolled his eyes. "No baggage, Commander. Just ensuring that a 'kid' doesn't end up blowing a hole in the side of this vessel and ending all of our lives," he said. "Merciful as that may be."
While overhearing snatches of the cockpit discussion from the back of the cabin, the Ensign kept his head down and decided his best plan of action was maintaining silence. Determined no to earn another ounce of ire, he entered his observations about the fused coil in a report on a pad instead. Internally he decided all he could do was endure this day and request a transfer. He'd only been on Obsidian Command a few weeks and he'd more than had his fill. No doubt Commander Quinn would be the first to sign off on his request and everyone would be that much happier with the arrangement. With his decision made he did his very best to tune out his superiors as they dropped ever further into harsh whispers. Besides, he told himself, there was no way all of that was really about him. Whatever was happening, was something the gun came loaded with.
