So You're Going Places

Posted on Wed Nov 25th, 2020 @ 10:32pm by Lieutenant Commander Evelyn Rozia
Edited on on Sat Dec 5th, 2020 @ 3:25pm

Mission: Enforced Intermission
Location: USS Scherezade
Timeline: Four Months Ago

Red lights flashed around the entire engine room, which was bustling with activity. The whole room shook as if the ship had been hit by a massive blast of energy. "Secondary plasma conduits are compromised, rerouting through the tertiary Jeffries tubes and locked them down."

The Trill woman nodded from her console, "We need to repair those conduits pronto, the Tubes aren't rated for that level of plasma. Marinau? That's all you." A redhead nodded and switched her station readouts to another screen before disappearing around the corner at a jog. "Ralph, give me an update on those shield repairs."

"I've got them as the top priority on the power systems. Forty percent and rising." The main engineering doors hissed open and then closed again.

"Weapons are at ninety percent, we can transfer power over to shields if we get critical." She remarked, "I want damage control team three to the hull breach on deck two, right now." She punched in the commands to the appropriate team lead as something entered her peripheral vision on the left.

A young girl, no more than eight years old, came skipping into view, big shit-eating grin on her face, "Evie, Evie, I've been sent to bring you to momma!" Her eyes widened at the several officers and crew looking intently at their screens, "Oh, shit!" She clamped her hands over her mouth and went about as red as the red alert lights.

"Pause scenario." 'Evie', also known as Lieutenant Evelyn Rozia, barked and the rush of people as well as the displays went static, though the thrum of the engine went on as well as the red alert flashing. She looked down at the girl, "What did you say?" Her voice serious.

"Momma wants you in her ready room..." The girl said quietly, demurely, knowing she was going to get in trouble.

"I heard that one." Evelyn said quietly, going down to one knee to be on the same level as the girl, "What was the other thing?"

"It's not my fault!" The girl said, bursting into tears, "I'm sorry, Evie, I didn't mean to come in while you were gettin' the ship all blowed up! I just wanted to tell you momma needed you."

Having mercy on the girl, Evelyn swept her into a big hug, wrapping her arms around her, "All right, it's all right, I know you're sorry... Do you know why your mom wants to see me?"

The girl shook her head as she tucked it into Evelyn's shoulder, "Nuh uh, you muss be in trubble." Her voice was muffled.

"Well then, let's go find out. Lieutenant Ralph can take over for me, I'm a casualty now." She winked at the Lieutenant.

"And can he fix the engine, too? It sounds wrong." The girl said.

"Yeah, Ralph, fix the engine." Evelyn laughed as she picked up the girl and propped her on her leg, "Tell you what, Bon-Bon, you tell me what the engine should sound like while we're on the way to the bridge and I'll forget what you said.

A bright smile flashed across the girls face and in a pitch that would be higher than the normal thrum of the warp core, began a steady pulse as the engineer carried her out of engineering to a chorus of chuckles from the group left behind.

Evelyn dropped Bonnie off with the security officer on the bridge, where she was supposed to be at that time, before requesting and being granted entry into the Captain's Ready Room, "Cap, you wanted to see me?" She asked as she made her way up to the desk, "By the way, Bonnie might make a fair engineer, she already knows when the engine isn't sounding right."

Captain Olivia Rachard laughed, "You've told me once or twice before, Eve, she does love to tinker with things. In fact, the reason she's on the bridge is because I've got someone reprogramming our replicator because Miss Pain-In-My-Ass got to it and set everything to have an extra dose of chocolate in it. Everything."

Evelyn shook her head slightly, "But that's not why you wanted me, right? That's what I've got Ensigns for. You did, after all, pull me out of a pretty intense scenario down there." She saw a flush on the Captain's cheeks, just barely there, then sighed, "She was supposed to get me AFTER the scenario, wasn't she?" A nod, "Oh well."

"Yup, but she ran off before I got the 'after' part explained. So, I've got a question for your old self, Arcturus, wasn't it?" Evelyn responded with a nod this time, "I know he was R and D, but did he ever work on the Skipdance project?"

That caused Evelyn to think for a moment, "Archie was more of a weapons system guy, but Skipdance sounds familiar... It was in the theoretical phase when Archie... Took a vacation from his former body and came over to me. Quantum Slipstream Drive, wasn't it?"

"That's the one, what do you know about it?" A raised eyebrow from Olivia.

"Makes warp speeds seem slow, but really energy intensive and for prolonged periods messes with structural integrity and ship systems." The engineer said offhand, "Could really open up our borders with it."

"Truth. So I got orders from up on high to tell you to pack your bags, Eve, not that I want to pay attention to them. You're headed back to Earth to work with a new hull, no designation yet, but bright, shiny new Odyssey-class ship. I think they're retiring birds like the Scherezade here and popping the names onto new construction coming out of the yards. Hell, maybe I'll get lucky and they'll give your bird to me." Olivia grinned maniacally, though she knew it wasn't likely.

"And they want me to oversee construction?" Evelyn asked in a voice like a muse, "Should go to a Commander that's assigned to whatever base it's being put together at."

"That would be Commander O'Hern, Utopia Planetia Shipyards. He's not the CO of the new ship, just babysitting the construction crew." Interruption. "You're there to babysit the Q-S-D and it's engineering area, make sure they put it together the way an engineer would want it. Learn everything about the new Drive and be able to teach others about it." A soft smile from the Captain, "It means that the Brass thinks you're pretty special, Evelyn. Any thought on who to replace you here?"

"Ralph." There was no hesitation, no question whatsoever. "I mean, I think he's ready for his own engineering room, just didn't think it would be MINE!!" She laughed at the thought, "But he'll do. Just threaten him that if he makes a mess of things, I'll come back and tear him a new one."

"You got it Eve, now, you go put things together and I'll get Bonnie to help plan a surprise going-away party that you'll be surprised at, right?"

"What party?" Evelyn feigned shock with a wink, "Why would I get a party?"

"Good girl, now go away, shoo, take a shower, you smell." Olivia joked with the engineer, "And congratulations, Lieutenant Commander."

Evelyn stopped two steps away, "Lieutenant... Commander?"

"What, did I stutter?" The Captain laughed, "It won't be official until you get to your new posting, but someone had to tell you and I called dibs on it. We'll have Bonnie pin them on you later."

"Thanks, Livia, no really, thank you."

"No, Eve, thank YOU. Just keep up the good work and I'm sure we'll see you around." The Captain smiled at Evelyn before making one more shooing motion, "Go get ready, and remember: Be surprised."

OFF:
Lieutenant Commander Evelyn Rozia
Chief Engineering Officer
USS Scherezade