Reporting In

Posted on 20 Mar 2012 @ 1:12am by Lieutenant Lilou Zaren & Command Master Chief Markum Quinn

1,387 words; about a 7 minute read

Mission: Episode 00 - Pre-Deployment
Location: Chief Engineer's Office, USS Galileo
Timeline: MD 05 - 1615 hrs

Lilou Peers did not consider herself someone who was easily impressed. Not by people anyway. Starships, of course, were an entirely different matter. They maintained life and labs and the promise of possibility in spite of the relative apathy of space. That was impressive by any standard. But people. People just were. Often, they did very little with their time and those that did do things often chose to pursue activities and interests the point of which evaded her. She genuinely liked people... she simply wished she understood them more; she tried. Still, Lilou found she was not often impressed.

And here she was, palms damp and heart curiously aquiver, outside the Chief Engineer's office. Markum Quinn. She'd researched him, just like she researched every other superior officer she'd ever had. In order to be useful, it helped to know what skills you needed to develop to balance the needs of those who gave you work. The less she specialized in common with them, the safer they felt and the more freedom she had to get her work done in peace. But the more she'd read on Quinn, the more curious she'd become. There was a whole section of his record hidden behind the tantalizing word 'classified' that buzzed her brain. And what wasn't hidden was... spectacular. For the first time, she found herself wanting to learn from him rather than away from him. He'd worked on such a wide variety of ships, studied and specialized in such diverse fields... Useful ones. Ones that people appreciated in the long run far more than some smart-ass starbase brat who got by with string and spit and wits. She took pride in the fact that her patch jobs were better than the repair attempts others on the Algonquin had managed over weeks of work, but Quinn... Quinn, if she could glean even a fraction of his knowledge and expertise, he could lead her on the path to building starships. Great ones. Just by the diversity and depth of his experience. Which meant, for the first time, she actually had to care what he thought of her. Which made her very, very nervous.

She scrubbed her fingers through her cropped brown hair, bound it into a pair of twin buns that she hoped weren't too askew, and tapped the door panel before she could put it off any longer.

Markum was sitting in his chair with a PADD in one hand, and a large mug of sweetened iced tea with two lemon wedges floating among the liquid and crushed ice in the other. He was going over the current Warp Dynamics and Efficiency Report for the previous shift when he heard a rapping at his door. "C'mon in, it's open." He barked in his trademark raspy voice.

Lilou stepped inside when she was admitted, clasping her hands behind her back to keep from fidgeting. "Warrant Officer Peers, reporting for duty, Chief."

As the Trill female walked in, Quinn stood up and offered a hand after he wiped the dew from his beverage off of it onto his pants. "Please, have a seat." Quinn sat back down and asked. "So tell me about yourself Peers. I read your Starfleet Record a day or two ago, but to be honest, a PADD does not let me know you, and I want to know each one of my engineers, their weaknesses...not so much, those can be worked on, I want to know your strengths and your goals."

She accepted his hand and shook it once, firmly, before following his instructions. Sit, stand, come, go; sometimes she felt like she should be wearing a collar. Then again, the uniform felt tight enough around the neckline to count. She sat, resting her hands on her knees. It was almost too simple and straightforward, to just sit down and tell him what she wanted and what she could offer... but he'd asked, hadn't he? "I..." She blinked, unsure where to start now the the opportunity presented itself so readily. "I'm small, I'm fast, I can fit into small spaces, and I can think on my feet. I spent the last four years shuttling between an overstaffed, underused Cheyenne class and an understaffed, overused Tekne miner. I got a reputation over there as a problem solver, but that's largely because no one else seemed to care about the state of that miner. They were just waiting to tow it to a scrap heap once it had outlived its usefulness. I have a lot to learn, but I learn quick, and I plan to do my level best to keep the Galileo running smooth and easy as long as I'm with her. Sir."

Quinn listened to the young lady sitting across from him as he took another sip from his over-sized cup with full attention. When she finished he sat his cup back down. "Good to know you've had the joy of working on a junker. Now you get the pleasure of working on a rookie ship. Brand new ships are nice and shinny, and look good on service records....but they can be persnickety, and obtuse. They never run right because the morons that design them haven't been on a ship since the last Constitution-Class was sent to the scrap heap."

Quinn swiveled his chair around to his left and stood up and walked to his backwall. Next to the large Master Systems Display was a small white board with a marker on it's small ledge, along with an eraser. "This is the current Fix-It board, Peers. Next to the item/system is a name, or three or four. These are the teams that are assigned to repairs for that system. You will not be assigned a repair. You have more experience than most of those kids out there, so that automatically gives you some seniority. I want you to find where you feel you can be most helpful, and assist anyway you can in expediting the completion of your chosen repair. Once things are at an acceptable level, you can go on to the next assignment."

She nodded, biting the inside of her cheek to keep from grinning outright. He was right, of course. She'd been expecting a challenge when she'd signed up for this ship and she knew from stories, if not from personal experience, that new starships always came with a host of beta issues. Someday, if she did everything right, she'd change the way new ships were designed; ship and starbase hopping on the lookout for the next breakthrough technology to keep the Federation on the cutting edge. But that was then and this was now. Daydreaming about could-be's was useless. She focused on the board and inclined her head, considering the already substantial list he'd compiled. Meticulous. She could have cheered. "Yes, Chief." She paused, unsure if she'd been dismissed or not. She wondered if she should have started with her structural systems background, but... well. He'd asked for her strengths and she'd given him her best one. She'd just have to look for an opportunity to prove to him she wasn't just a laser-torch repair bot. There was time. "Thank you, Chief."

With a smile, he eyed the eager engineer. He knew the look in her eye, it was the same one he dtill gets when a true challenge came about, and he was expected to solve. "Now get out of here Peers. You're interrupting my crossword puzzle time."

A short half-snort/half-laugh erupted from her unexpectedly; she caught her tongue between her teeth to silence it, standing quickly and saluting. As she headed for the door, her mind was already buzzing with the information on the board, organizing it and reorganizing it, considering the tasks by priority versus interest level...

"Oh, Peers." Shouted Quinn from behind his PADD, "You're my new Assistant for the day. Don't screw up."

She paused, glanced back at him over her shoulder, and tried and failed to mask her contentedness. "Yes, Chief," she said and slipped out the door. Assistant. She nearly capered, but cooler heads prevailed. She'd congratulate herself for not completely mucking up, maybe, once the work was done.


OFF

Master Warrant Officer Lilou Peers
Engineering Officer
USS Galileo

Chief Warrant Officer Markum Quin
Chief Engineer

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