The Grand Tour
Posted on Fri Apr 3rd, 2015 @ 9:52am by Captain Elsa Gunning & Chief Petty Officer Miles Watt [PNPC: Kennedy]
Edited on on Fri Apr 10th, 2015 @ 8:40pm
Mission:
The Night Cries
Location: Main Engineering [USS Farragut]
Timeline: 2278.43: 1400hrs.
Captain Elsa Gunning was beaming with pride. That is to say that she was, internally, beaming with pride. Her face carried the same stoic countenance that she always reserved for shipboard practices. She had a reputation to uphold and she wasn't going to give it up for some shakedown crew.
She felt the hum of the deckplates under her feet, a variance in the engines which the Chief Petty Officer touring her around the ship assured her would be taken care of.
The truth was that she liked it; it reminded her of her first posting aboard the USS Athens, one of the first Miranda-classes. Its deckplates shook like it was on a faultline and interior bulkheads would burst for no reason.
She loved that old ship.
“The bulkheads in this entire section were completely removed and replaced,” Chief Petty Officer Miles Watt said, pointing as they strolled through the corridor. “You can see the difference as we cross sections. It results in even more efficient compartmentalisation which means it’s even safer in the engineering section for the crew in case of a catastrophic hull breach.”
Gunning barely registered the words of the Chief as they moved through the corridors toward main engineering. You'd seen one engineering section, you'd seen them all and a fresh coat of paint wasn't going to make any difference. Until she had her Engineer and her team in place and they were whipped into shape, the engineering deck might as well have been another broom cupboard.
The chief’s face beamed as they approached what he considered the piece de resistance and he stood to one side of the hatch, trying in vain to inject some measure of suspense into his voice. “And here, Captain,” he said, “we come to the jewel in the crown of the engineering section. Now, prepare yourself … it’s a lot different to what you’d expect.”
Chief Watt tapped the door control and stood back, forgoing the ta-da in favour of an awed silence.
In fairness, it was impressive. The move to a vertical warp core had done wonders for the space management and the aesthetic of the room but it didn't compare favourably to the USS Pilgrim. She had taken that ship round the block and kicked it to pieces- she had driven it so hard that Starfleet had to decommission it at the end of its second tour.
It was where she had first encountered Aidan Rackham, one of the officers who would be waiting at Cestus III for the Farragut to arrive. When she met him, he could barely control his anger and was prone to long bouts of depression but she felt like she had moulded him and turned him into an officer worth having.
He was her pet project.
Unperturbed by Captain Gunning’s apparent indifference to the tour, Chief Watt continued. As she seemed to vaguely inspect the engine room, he had an idea that was sure to pique her interest.
“Captain,” he said, a grand smile on his face. “Would you like to see something truly impressive?”
Gunning acknowledged him but showed no real indication one way or the other.
“Look over here, ma’am,” he said, gesturing over to one of the consoles on the outer starboard bulkhead of the chamber. He tapped at the console, pulled up a diagnostic of the dilithium matrix. Watt, a warp technician by trade, beamed with pride as he stepped back with a sweeping gesture to the telemetry readout.
The chief looked to the captain, a proud smile illuminating his face. He tilted his head back toward the console. “Hey?” he said. “What did I tell you?”
"Very impressive, Chief." Gunning replied flatly, unsure as to what she was looking at. "You'll have to forgive me, I'm no engineer. What am I looking at?"
Watt's shoulders visibly slumped and half a breath escaped his mouth as the realisation struck him, as it often did, that the person he spoke to wasn't a warp technician. To Watt, it was like they spoke two different languages and held two vastly different and incompatible cultures. His mouth went dry and suddenly he was embarrassed. What were you thinking, Miles?
"Oh," he said. "Um, yes, I'm sorry, Captain." He cleared his throat and pointed at the readout, trying to sound professional again. "This readout shows the efficiency gradient of the intermix chamber." He traced a finger across an arching green line that rested a few centimetres above a similar orange line. "Here we have the warp core's current output rate and here" - he pointed to the orange line - "we see the pre-refit output, superimposed for demonstrative purposes."
"I see." Now that it had been made clear, Gunning was impressed by the significant leap in efficiency between the two warp cores but she had no intention of letting Chief Watt see that. She assumed that flipping it upright hadn't made the difference.
The chief cleared his throat again. "It means, ma'am, that this warp drive moves you faster and keeps you out of spacedock longer than the old configuration." The smile returned. "It's very exciting."
"I'm sure it is." Gunning's face never changed. It had barely changed at all during her entire time as a Captain. She firmly believed in ruling with an iron fist, an iron fist grasping an iron rod, with a spiked iron ball at the end of an iron chain. "How many personnel will it take to keep it running at optimum efficiency?"
"Well," Watt said, stroking his earlobe as he considered the question. "The full complement on the warp crew is forty technicians and two chiefs."
Gunning's glare was enough to cut steel. "That wasn't my question, Chief Petty Officer Watt. How many personnel will it take to keep this warp core running at optimum efficiency."
The chief flushed and averted his eyes as best he could while his brain churned out the answer. "As long as the maintenance is kept up, she'll continue to run just as you need it, ma'am. My shakedown team - that's, uh, a crew of ten, ma'am - was able to complete a full maintenance round on the core in thirty-six hours. But that was in spacedock and there wasn't any pressure. You'd want more people on the crew if you're on a five year, ma'am."
"I expect a full appraisal of the engineering department to be presented both to myself and to the chief engineer when they are aboard ship. If you need more people, we will take more people. Nothing," Gunning's eyes narrowed at the Chief, "nothing will be left to chance on this mission. Is that clear?"
Watt had been at attention since the moment the barrage began with those cold, cutting eyes. Now he stood straight backed, his hands clasped behind his back. "Yes, ma'am!" he replied. "I'll make sure it's done, ma'am."
"Good." She replied with a coolness in her voice. "I want to see a draft by the time we arrive at Cestus."
Captain Elsa Gunning
Commanding Officer
Chief Petty Officer Miles Watt
Engineering Supervisor, Shakedown Crew
USS Farragut
