Maintaining the Mundane

Posted on Fri Nov 15th, 2019 @ 12:10am by Chief Petty Officer Benjamin Thor

Mission: Sounds of Silence
Location: Engineering
Timeline: Not Long after 'Meeting the "family"' before the events of the mission unfold

Petty Officer Ben Thor entered Engineering to start his shift on what he thought was just another day. He had heard through the grapevine that they were getting a new Chief Engineer assigned to them and that they were due imminently, but even so that didn't prepare him for the mood the on Duty Lieutenant was in when he arrived.

"Ahhhh, Ben my good buddy." The Lieutenant started, shivers started running down Ben's back, he only acts like this when he wants to pass on some mundane task. "The inertial dampeners are reporting to be slightly out of alignment, would you be a kind soul and get them sorted out for me."

Despite the pleasant tones being used Ben could tell that the Lieutenant was in a bit of a mood, almost as if someone kept cutting him off while he was talking earlier, and boy does he like to talk, Ben thought to himself.

"Sir, I would gladly go and take a look at the Inertial Dampeners, I will go as soon as I..." Ben started to reply.

"Excellent, off you go now, the new Chief wants it looked at straight away." The Lieutenant interjected before Ben could finish his sentence.

Ben quickly nipped into the office to drop off a PADD before grabbing a tool set and heading down to the Inertial Dampeners.

----- A little while later -----

Once Ben had reached the Dampeners he started up a diagnostic to run, as per procedure, but also started running his own tricorder scans as well as conducting a visual inspection and low and behold they were slightly out of alignment, not enough to cause bouts of space sickness or to cause disruption to the warp capabilities of the Astraea.

"Computer are you able to re-align the Inertial Dampeners" Ben asked.

"Negative, they are operating within acceptable parameters"

Ben let out a slight sigh, "oh, of course they are." Ben muttered. Knowing that stating that the the Lieutenant would not cut it as he had probably already asked the computer the same question and only sent Ben as he didn't want to get his hands dirty.

Ben opened a panel next to the inertial dampener and grabbed a small coil spanner and started making minor adjustments.

"Computer, please report any changes to the alignment of the Inertial Dampeners" Ben asked the computer, being unable to run his tricorder scans whilst making the adjustments.

"Affirmative" the Computer replied, "There is a 0.005 degree, 0.004, 0.002, 0, 0.003 degree variation."

Cursing slowly undid the final adjustment he made.

"There is no difference in alignment, the Inertial Dampeners are working at 98 percent efficiency"

"98 percent?" Ben asked back to the computer.

"Affirmative, there is a small degradation in the backup relays, we estimate it will need further maintenance in approximately 5 months."

Ben put down the coil spanner and picks up his tricorder to confirm the computers assessment. "Well i'll be..." he started before grabbing a phase compensator out of his tool bag and started to bring the relay back up to spec, "might as well save myself another trip down here" he muttered to himself, once he was satisfied the job was done he asked the computer.

"Computer, Run a full diagnostic on the Inertial Dampeners, I want to know if even a screw is loose in there."

And then he sat there for a while, flicking through a letter from home while the computer double checked the Dampeners.