Gremlins and Grease Monkeys

Posted on Friday March 8th, 2019 @ 15:53 hours by Vysara Elani & Mayterial Droz

Mission: Pixie Dust
Location: Main Engineering, Deck 4, S.S. Fawkes
Timeline: MD01 - Early morning
1162 words - 2.3 OF Standard Post Measure

Just before the Fawkes had departed the agreement between A'Dana and the Fawkes had expired. The Engineer, Damien Walker, had returned to his earlier posting and May was left without a capable Engineer. She had put up the Engineer position for the entire week and all she had gotten was freaks and geeks. That was until a Bajoran engineer had crossed her path, Vysara Elani. She was certainly qualified, overqualified on many counts, and she seemed like the right fit for the crew. It had all been short notice and she had joined the crew mere moments before they had been ready to set off. Being left without time to properly welcome her aboard last night, May headed into Engineering first thing that morning to make sure that was rectified.

Vysara had spent most of the night in Engineering, getting herself familiar with her new work place, not having even bothered to unpack. She'd just tossed her duffel bag and 'go-bag' in her small room and headed straight down. At one point she'd gone up to the Mess Hall to grab some food and a fresh coffee. Now, she was comfortably on her back, underneath the environmental systems console, checking the integrity of the isolinear chips that had been installed instead of the standard cardassian design ones that the ship had been built to work with. Adding technology of different design into an existing techno-system always created possible issues...issues that lead to destruction and crashes, numerous of which she had investigated over the years.

So, once the system diagnostic had revealed existence of design mergers, Elani knew she needed to make sure the systems weren't in any way rejecting eachother. As such, she didn't hear a set of footsteps at the entry to Engineering.

"Miss Vysara?" May could only see two legs coming out from under the console of the environmental systems, she wanted to assume it was the newly minted Engineer but it was always good to make sure.

There was a surprised bump and a muttered curse, before the prone woman wheeled herself out from underneath the console. "Ah, Captain Droz, good morning!" Elani said with a somewhat tired smile as she rolled to the side and clambered onto her feet. "Good to meet you in day time." Vysara nodded.

"I thought I'd drop by and see if there's anything you need." Mayterial stood in the doorway and smiled a bit at the new Engineer. It was still early morning, but seeing Vysara with the lack of sleep there was no doubt about it that she had a long list of things that still needed doing. With Engineers that always meant a long list of parts that needed to come in.

"Well I do need a few parts for us," Vysara stepped over to a nearby console where a few PADDs of various designs lay. She fished one of old Bajoran design and handed it to Mayterial. "Don't worry, critical systems are fine, these are just the extras I'd rather us have than not, for a just in case situation. If we can look at getting that at our next port?"

"I'll look into it with our Quartermaster." Mayterial only gave the PADD a cursory glance, "Good to hear the critical systems all check out. It's a bit of mish mash in there, sometimes." She gave a sheepish grin. She knew sometimes corners were cut in favour of cost and with Vysara's background she'd reckon there'd be some tension building up there.

Elani nodded, giving Mayterial a soft smile. "I understand, believe me. Sometimes you can only get what you can afford. Sadly sometimes it costs more in the long run if it leads to a bigger failure. I'll prioritize necessities, so we can spread the costs if necessary so we don't over stretch the budget vs earnings. But if I tell you we need it, I'm not exaggerating it. I've seen and investigated too many failures to take things lightly."

"That's why I brought you on board, miss Vysara. I expect you to tell me when we're at risk for falling out of the sky." Mayterial had experience in power distribution and resource management from her stint in Starfleet Ops, but the nitty gritty engineering side of things had always eluded her, "I hope I can trust you not to requisition unnecessary upgrades and prestige parts." While the core of the Federation worlds had moved away from acquiring wealth and prestige as a goal in life some other colonies were still very much on that track. She didn't want to be spending too much on part because someone printed the logo on it for them.

"Captain, I'll requisition what we can realistically integrate into this ship and what will not get rejected by the overall system. It will rarely, if ever, be prestige, and it will always be necessary. This ship needs a major overhaul and upgrade before it can take frivolous parts and newest tech." Elani said honestly as she picked up a cloth from the nearby console and began wiping her hands with it.

Mayterial subconsciously ran her hand across the surface of the warp core housing. The ship was doing just fine, "I will do what I can to make the necessary resources available to you, miss Vysara." a complete overhaul wouldn't be in the cards for a long time coming, "let's make sure we keep her flying, as long as you do that I can keep the new parts coming your way."

Vysara nodded, smiling. "We understand eachother, Captain. Do we know what our next job is, by the way?"

"We're heading for Langley Station at the moment, it's at the border with the Cardassian DMZ. We need to make some stops before we get there. Passengers and cargo to unload and load. I'm hoping to have some leads by the time we make it to our first port." Mayterial really had a hard time getting people to talk to her from the old days. They didn't want to have anything to do with her knowing what history the ship had. She'd have to do some personal convincing of 'old friends'. At the rate this was going, with the half-packed cargo bays, she'd run out of money by the time they docked with Langley.

Elani nodded, "I'll make sure everything is green here, so that we make our appointments on time."

"That's all I can ask for, thank you miss Vysara." The captain gave a short and polite nod in the direction of the engineer and stepped back out of the Engineering bay. The man that they had borrowed from A'Dana had been a very capable man, but this woman seemed like an equally adequate, more permanent, fixture for the engine room.

Vysara watched after Droz with a curious look on her face for a few moments, before shaking her head and returning to her work.


Mayterial Droz
Captain

Vysara Elani
Engineer