Cold Coffee
Posted on 09 Sep 2020 @ 10:13pm by Commander Calliope Zahn & Captain Corvus DeHavilland & Lieutenant Commander Lance Quinn (*)
Mission:
M1 - Emergence
Location: Engineering
Timeline: MD03 1045
1349 words - 2.7 OF Standard Post Measure
Well, this is about as organised as a bunch of first-year Cadets trying to fly a shuttle...
Lancelot sighed as the half-dozen Engineers moved around the place. Uncoordinated and inefficient.
"You. Freckles. That's an altonian converter assembly that you're trying to mount on the side of a non-linear flux regular," he explained to a nearby crewman, who looked blankly at him, the piece of tech he was working on, and back again. "Out," Lance motioned, completely serious. It took a few seconds for the crewman to pick up his feet and shuffle awkwardly out of the cavernous room.
"You. Blue person."
"Kol," the Bolian responded.
"Whatever. You're trying to run a level four diagnostic on the fusion matrix, yes?" Lance asked.
"Absolu-"
"You failed to notice that you left the reaction intermix port wide open. That'll add four hours to the diagnostic," He explained. The Bolian blinked, probably a little embarassed. "Out," Lance motioned again. The others in the room started to fall silent and pay attention - but not to him. They'd been joined by a pair of red-collars. Lance felt his shoulders tighten just a fraction at the always-pleasing sight of Calliope, and the slightly less familiar Captain standing alongside her.
"Welcome to the Starfleet Corps of Engineers," he welcomed them dryly.
Compassionately pained, Calliope watched the excused officers leaving with the added shame of the eyes of the command officers on them and she bit her bottom lip. She would have to find a way to help them improve their situation while backing Lance's calls at the same time. She cleared her throat. "Captain Corvus DeHavilland," she motioned to introduce her friend to her husband, "Lt. Commander Lancelot Quinn."
Corvus smirked, "Pleasure to finally meet you, Mr. Quinn," she said, "I feel like I've known you the last twenty years," she added. Between Starfleet Academy with Calliope and their shared time together on the Challenger, she'd heard of and about Lance for the better part of twenty years so it was as if they'd served together themselves.
"Yes. Captain DeHavilland." Lance extended a hand to share a socially expected handshake. His eyes flicked to Calliope, who remained professionally-faced as ever. "Twenty years. Yes. I imagine it'll need another twenty to remedy the tall tales my wife will have told you," he said, mirroring Corvus' smirk as best he could. "And double that to fix all the mess we seem to have inherited," he added with a little point to the rest of the room.
At Lance's comment, Calliope could feel the crews jolt their attention back to their tasks, distracted as they had been by guests. "Power generation and distribution is obviously the lynch-pin in moving forward with just about all other systems." Calliope stressed. "I know you just got down here a little bit ago yourself, but what are your first impressions?" Internally she braced herself for the bad news, which Lance was only likely to garnish lightly, if at all, with a sprig of something acerbic.
"You really don't want to hear my first impressions," he replied. Leaning forward, he cupped his mouth and motioned to an Ensign nearby. "There are young ones present." He leaned back, knowing from Calliope's expression the theatrics were going to start to grate on them. "Power generation is indeed the first port of call. During the evacuation, there appears to have been a problem with the fusion reactors in the stardock. The damage was, by anyone's standards, pretty catastrophic. It's going to take a couple of days to bring them back online and have the docking ports running. Normally we'd have run them off the station's reactors, but the strain is far too much." Personally, he'd rather leave the doors closed instead of open. Much safer that way. "From the reports I've been handed in the last thirty minutes, in approximately ten hours you'll have enough power from the reactors we do have running to keep environmental controls steady and allow some flow into secondary systems. You just need to tell me what you want. Weapons? Shields?" He glanced at the Captain. "Hot cup of coffee in the morning?"
"Shields," Corvus replied quickly, "We'll survive on minimal replicators; we won't survive if any not so friendly neighbors come poke holes in our station," she replied. She hadn't shared exactly how paranoid she was about who might come calling on them, but at this point she was sure Calli was starting to put it together. "Shields, weapons, secondary systems, docking bays. We're going to be in no place to handle docked ships if we aren't fully functional in all other aspects," she added.
Cold coffee, then.
"I make no promises, but the theory is sound." That was sort-of Lancelot's motto over the last few years. Usually he was dealing with experimental physics, but in this case it probably applied too.
"Would you like to reorganize the team leads?" Calliope asked. It was more of a suggestion posed as a question. He seemed unhappy with how the work was being designated to people unqualified to handle the jobs they were given. That was likely a mismanagement fault more than the fault of the crewers themselves. Engineers largely had specialties and areas of expertise and needed to be assigned appropriately for the most efficient results. "I know you're going to be fully engaged in the work. If you'd like I can review their training and experience for you, including those currently due to arrive, and get you some suggestions. The right people in the right places." Calliope had spent most of her professional life organizing people and supplies and she badly wanted this whole effort not to drive Lance mad from the start.
Lance gave it a moment's thought. Of anyone on the station, he knew her capabilities far better than anyone else. Her skill with personnel and logistics, in particular, were missing from his current structure. "If you're not too busy," he nodded affably. How long had it been since they had worked so closely together? The Academy? Their wedding? "You, ah-" he glanced awkwardly at Corvus for a fraction, as though a little ashamed to admit weakness. "You do know how I feel about being interrupted while I'm working..." he admitted.
"Whatever he needs, Commander, make sure he gets it. This is one spot we can't afford to delay or short-change. We can debate priorities after we can be sure we can power all systems," Corvus threw in, not wanting to get too bogged down into the weeds herself. Her natural instinct was to do exactly as Calli was doing but if there was one thing that had stuck with her that Captain Dansby had imparted on her way off the Praetorian, it was to remember to leave sweating the small stuff to the rest of her staff. That was their job. It had been her job for Dansby and now it was Zahn's job for her.
"Roger that." Calliope entered a few thoughts into her notes about what she could begin with as far as organizing the personnel. Then she held her padd back down at her side. "We still have a few more things to tour and meetings to set up, but I'll be back about the reorg," she promised. "If you think of anything else we can do to support the work here, let me know." Then Calliope smiled a little goofily, letting some of the professionalism down, and leaned over to Corvus to stage whisper. "We'd better get out of his hair, before he chases us out for distracting him."
"If there's nothing else, Lieutenant Commander, I'll let you get to work," Corvus declared in answer to Calliope's suggestion, offering a curt nod and turning to leave.
On their way out, Calliope cast a longing glance back over her shoulder. After months apart, she'd seen Lance twice in one morning and couldn't hug him yet on account of protocol and appearances. It was all going to take some getting used to.
