A Repeated Request

Posted on Mon 9th Oct, 2017 @ 11:17pm by Lieutenant Commander Alora Baro & Lieutenant Commander Andrew Eberstark
Edited on on Mon 9th Oct, 2017 @ 11:17pm

1,936 words; about a 10 minute read

Mission: Unity Week
Location: OPS Chief's Office
Timeline: MD 1/ 1330

After her meeting with Lt. Commander Graves, seemed like a good officer on first meeting, she had a information rich but concise briefing from Petty Officer 2nd class Quinn. She still had yet to see her quarters. She'd ended her briefing with the petty officer hear in her office, well, compound. A suite of rooms that she overheard someone call 'The Hub', it was everything a Chief needed at their fingertips when working from their office. Meeting rooms, workshops and the like. What would be main engineering on a starship but somewhat more complex.

Alora's dark hair was still tied back and her eyes intent as she dove right in. She'd meant to do a quick stop by, wave the flag, and go to her quarters to unpack and rest from the long trip. What she got was 'ooh shiny project syndrome', as her old roommate called it. She hated to leave something undone and liked to get a jump on this. So her backpack and repair kit sat in one corner of her still spartan office while she dove into the computer, trying to get a fuller sense of the over all health and status of the department as it were.

Someone brought her a cup coffee and she nodded distractedly a 'thanks'. Her stomach grumbled but not enough to break her focus as she bent to her task.

Walking quickly along the deck, Andrew couldn't help but feel irritated. After all the coordination with Unity Week, he wanted a solid few hours of helping his staff catch up on repairs and diagnostics around Vanguard. Instead, he found himself walking to the main office of the Operations department having to personally request a temporary rerouting of power. The past two requests have been met with little resistance from the acting Ensign and Andrew couldn't understand why this one would be any different.

Following that line of thought, Andrew really didn't put much thought into his appearance as he made his way to the entrance of what was the Chief of Operations' office. With his uniform sleeves slid up, disheveled hair and uniform, Andrew was more focused on getting in and out as quickly as possible to get back to work.

Rehearsing his speech, making it as diplomatic as he could in his current state of emotion, Andrew finally noticed the difference in atmosphere around the young officers he walked passed them and stopping at his destination. As he pressed the door chime, Andrew glanced around him and realized that this conversation may not be as straight forward as he had hoped for.

It took Alora moment to realize someone hit the chime. She wasn't being rude she was literally excluding everything not related to the task at hand. Fortunately she'd trained herself to leave some fission of awareness and so after a moment her brain nudged itself and she glanced up at the door. She did one slow blink, sort of a visual way of clearing her mind for the next task and said, "Enter"

Entering the office quickly after the delayed response, Andrew's first glance at the woman behind the desk confirmed his earlier feelings. This was indeed not the Ensign he was accustomed to. Noticing the Lieutenant rank on her collar, he made the obvious conclusion he was looking at the new Chief of Operations on Vanguard. The Bajoran seemed focused on the console in front of her without paying much notice to her visitor. The few seconds of delay as she looked up allowed Andrew to regather his thoughts a bit and straightened his uniform.

Andrew empathized with her situation of inheriting a department on the fly and hid his irritation of being diverted from his work as he spoke, introducing himself, "Lieutenant. I'm Lieutenant Eberstark, Chief of Tactical and Strategic Operations. Welcome aboard. I'm sorry to bother you but I actually wasn't anticipating you being on duty already."

Jadera gave a brief rueful smile, "Neither did I." She said with a self deprecating humor in her voice as she stood and offered her hand, "Lt. Baro Alora, new Chief of Ops and you're not a bother. Handling needs is part of my job yes?" She said with a gentle smile.

Shaking the woman's hand, Andrew gave a knowing smile in return, "I know the feeling. Even if you don't consider me a bother, I'll try not to take up a lot of your time," before he made his full proposal, Andrew paused and decided to ask, "I don't suppose you've been fully acquainted and brought up to speed with some of the power fluctuation issues we've been having recently?"

His intention wasn't to offend, but even Andrew could hear the underlying frustration in his voice as he asked the question. Giving a tired smile, he shook his head and sighed, "Sorry if that came off a little confrontational. I just didn't want to blindside you totally with my upcoming request, but as you can tell, sometimes my manners are the first to go when I get focused on work."

"You're fine..." She smiled, thinking he was a nice guy despite that he seemed so concerned over being rude, and closed her eyes for the moment, her mind worked a bit like a computer with its own tips and tricks for memory as she scanned her recent memory. "No not yet but if it was considered routine or low on the priority list I may not have gotten to it yet, what's the problem?" She asked, leaning against her desk attentively listening.

Brushing off what Andrew considered and unintentional slight at his question with a smile, he handed over a PADD to the woman, "Well I'm not exactly sure how your interim department head classified it before, but I've been in somewhat frequent discussions over the topic. The basic issue at hand," motioning to the PADD he just handed her, "is that the relays that currently are responsible for powering the external secondary tactical systems and for consequently diverting emergency power to the primary systems are shot and need an overhaul."

Sighing in mid description, "My staff and I attempted to augment the relays, reinforce them, you name it. Unfortunately those are only temporary fixes. They appear to have just been overused and no matter what we do they are just to inconsistent to be trusted in my opinion. One time there fine, the next no power, and the next an overload."

Thinking to himself as to why the relays were that worn caused Andrew's mind to wander a bit, but his curiosity would have to be satisfied another time. He still couldn't get a read on the Lieutenant as to if she was anticipating his request. He assumed so and continued, "What I was hoping for is to borrow a couple relays, from nonessential systems of course, and divert power to keep those systems up and running for the time being, while we complete our overhaul."

Andrew wasn't sure just how much, if any, relays the Starbase could spare, but figured it was worth a shot asking before he tried to get creative.

As he talked Alora grew thoughtful as her mind analyzed his plan. She listened fully then as he finished she nodded once and sat in her chair tapping furiously on the computer console, "Moment please..." She gestured he could come around the desk if he wanted. She was focused now, she was unwilling to make a snap judgement, but her mind moving swiftly. On the screen was data on the relays powering the external secondary tactical systems and the like per the most recent diagnostic. It matched a general one floating in her mind. "First off you should not be doing this on your own, I'll talking to someone about that..." She paused studying the screen.

Andrew followed her direction of stepping behind her desk taking a look at the screen. He admired the immediate dive into finding a solution to the problem as he saw her eyes dart across the screen. Standing behind to see the screen, Andrew gave a guilty smile, "Well, let's just say that I preferred to handle the situation internally if possible so I wouldn't be too hard on your staff there," pausing, "Don't worry, I wasn't going to do anything too drastic without first consulting your department."

She smiled distractedly but reassuringly, "Well that'd good at any rate." She paused studying the screen. "I'll want to eyeball it but they do appear to need replacing however robbing from other systems is not my first choice...lets see..." She tapped a few more keys, thinking that the unknown Ensign who processed this request was going to be on the graveyard shift for awhile, perhaps she'd have them write a paper on properly assigning levels of importance to repairs, finally she found what she sought. "Ah! looks like a cargo ship recently delivered spare parts yesterday, the ones we're not yet making for ourselves."

She was still a little amazed at the manufacturing facilities they did have but that was neither here nor there, she leaned toward the computer on her desk. " They're still storing the items into the proper supply caches but it looks like we were sent a number of relays that should meet the need...."

Andrew's eyebrows raised at the news as he took a step closer to the screen to get a closer look, "Well that's a relief and a fortunate break. That's the first one I think I've gotten since coming aboard," sighing just at the thought of him or his staff not having to put in another double shift, "Thanks for the help, Lieutenant. Saved us from doing unnecessary work. And I can't stand unnecessary work. Do you think you can spare some people to help iron out the best plan for repairs in the near future?"

She nodded, "I'll make time to take a team and look over your relays to determine best plan of replacement, we've got some time on them so I think we can take the time to do this properly...." She judged looking at the status of the relays, their recorded condition. "To be safe maybe later this afternoon, I never completely trust computer's judgement on these things, always best to look it over just in case..." She finally looked up then and gave a slightly distracted but genuine smile, as she refocused her attention from schematics and damage analysis back to the Lt. in her office.

Walking back around her desk, Andrew gave another smile as the woman looked back up at him, "Completely understood. Sounds good to me. I'll alert my team to the change of plans. If we can get this finished quickly, we can move on to the next set of problems," seeing the look on her face, Andrew gave a wave of the hand and shook his head, "Don't worry. Nothing to do with power relays. Hopefully you won't have to hear from my department bothering you again for a long while."

Alora grinned, "There's always another set of problems isn't there? Well here's hoping both of ours are easily sorted." In a tone that said she didn't expect them to be but hey a girl can hope right?

Returning the smile, Andrew nodded, "Hope for the best, expect the worst I suppose."

Turning towards the exit, he continued, " Well, I better get back. Again, welcome aboard Lieutenant. And thanks for taking the time. Appreciate the help."

"Anytime..." She called after him, meaning it before diving back into the land of relays. Her sense of challenge already engaged.

 

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