Introduction Through Chaos
Posted on Wed Aug 12th, 2020 @ 10:32am by Lieutenant JG Kikua Mahone & Lieutenant Alan Harrison & Master Chief Petty Officer Lucas Nilsson
1,911 words; about a 10 minute read
Mission:
Equivalent Exchange
Location: Maintenance Building
Timeline: MD -05 : 1520 Hrs
The mid afternoon for the Starfleet engineers of Haumea Colony had, typically, fettered down in activity. Rarely was there a task request during the shift changes, but since half the Engineering team ended up outside of the building they called home base, it was difficult to say if people were finishing up their tasks or simply hiding from more. Today was little exception; few people were in the building itself, with an appropriate number of maintenance requests to go with them.
Of course, when events were boring in for the Engineering staff, that meant they had time to develop new technology. Or, that was what Kikua was calling whatever he was programming the industrial replicator to create. He was asked to be here, as the young man was in-between assignments. but that didn't mean he couldn't help the colony out. Maybe the denizens wanted a 'Daucin-catching vacuum.' But finding out how to program it to be harmless to the creature and still contain it... that would be another matter.
Alan walked through the front door of the engineering building into a large open area. He still had his bag flung over his shoulder and was a bit worn out from the walk over to his new office. He noticed a receptionist, presumably who also served a dispatcher of sorts for engineering needs in the colony, catching some sleep at their desk right near the entrance. Alan guessed that it was the mid-afternoon lull, so there probably wasn't much work to be done. He would have been shocked if he observed this behavior from a member of Starfleet, but the receptionist appeared to be a civilian or was at least out of uniform. He made a mental note to address that behavior before the captain decided to perform an unannounced inspection of engineering, although Alan personally didn't see much harm in catching a few minutes of sleep if there was no work to be done - it was better to be alert than to make a mistake in the practice of engineering.
Continuing his walk around the ground floor of the facility, Alan noticed a large glass-walled room filled with equipment. There were a few people with Starfleet uniforms located sitting inside the room. Thankfully, most appeared to be working and, at the very least, conscious. He walked through the almost noiseless automatic door into the room. Nobody had seemed to notice him enter, especially not the particularly high-ranking petty officer napping in the corner. He cleared his throat audibly, hoping people would take note of his presence.
Kikua tossed a look over his shoulder, adding a blink or two in as he turned from the at-work replicator. "Huh." He looked toward the others, before giving Alan a blank expression. Then his eyes wandered to the pips adorning the man's collar. "... Oh." Another cast glance toward the small grouping of engineers around him and an awkward silence, before he picked up one of the nearby wrenches and clanged it against the metallic wall behind him. "Everyone, Lieutenant Harrison is here! Look lively!"
Lucas was startled awake by someone shouting and clanging something metal against something else metal. He wondered who'd distributed his rest. Looking around, he noticed everyone standing at attention facing someone he'd never before. This person had an engineering uniform and more than a single pip on his collar. He suddenly remembered that the new chief was supposed to arrive today and snapped to attention, embarrassed.
Alan chuckled to himself at the rapid change in his new staff's demeanor. "At ease, everyone. In many cultures, an afternoon nap is commonplace, but the work day is usually longer to compensate." He hoped this would ease the visible tension in the room, while subtly discouraging such behavior in the future. He turned to the man who had just hit the wall with a wrench. "You must be Lieutenant Mahone," he said. Turning to Lucas, he said "Master Chief... Nilsson, I presume?" He'd taken some time to read about the senior members of his new staff on the transport to Haumea.
"Uh, yeah," came Kikua's reply, as he snatched up the PaDD resting on his tool cart to take a look. Then nearly fumbled it in one hand, catching it with the other, before getting a good gander. "We usually take longer shifts anyways. Staff here's been a bit sparse. We had a buncha engineers dash off when the last Chief Engineer transferred out. Then another bunch of them disappeared when they saw one of the native creatures chomp through some bulkheads - I'll get you all the details on that one. But we've compensated temporarily with longer hours with time for naps and snack runs. As uh... suggested, really."
Kikua rubbed the back of his neck. "Colonies and I get along, so I'm used to practically living like this anyways, but I know some of the other engineers wouldn't mind more than a few hours between their shifts. So I think I speak for more than myself when I say you're a sight for sore eyes."
"Disappeared?" Alan thought out loud, reminding himself to read up on recent events on Haumea, given all the strange things he'd heard about. Turning to look at everyone in the room, all of them seeming to be senior members of his new staff, be continued, "I'm going to be honest with you all. This is my first time in a leadership role in Starfleet. I was an engineering officer out in the fleet and then taught about computer systems at the Academy, so I'm new to this whole management thing. I'm going to be relying on everyone here so we can meet the unique challenges of this planet. Now that that's out of the way, is there anything I should be aware of about the department?"
"Not a bad disappear, Sir. They just uh... didn't show up for their shift the next day... or the day after that... then someone checked the shuttle logs and a bunch had run off with the nearest frigate. That was a nightmare to paperwork out." Kikua gave a shrug. In a motion, he removed himself from his work, shortening the distance between himself and Alan. "There's a good bit we can go over, but why don't we have a tour? Then when the rest of the next shift comes in we can have introductions before the changeover's complete." Kikua made a pointed motion toward one of the various doors. "... Yeah?"
"Sounds good to me," Alan replied, starting to walk in the direction that Kikua had motioned. Alan also nodded for Lucas to tag along. He was the most senior enlisted member of Starfleet under his command, so he figured it would be good to get a pulse on the enlisted side of his new department. Lucas stood up, still a bit groggy from his nap and began to follow Kikua and Alan.
As they left the room, Alan asked both of them, "If you don't mind me asking, what are your stories? How did you end up on Haumea?" Alan had read their files, as he had for many others in his new department. However, he wanted to get a first-hand account, since service records were a bit too formal for his tastes.
"Bah, I'm sure you've figured that out by now." Kikua had sat down at the desk of the office the trio entered, rooting about and pulling out odds and ends. "Can't hide the relation to my brother. That and he thought I could use more experience." The young Mahone was more than happy to pass the torch off to Alan, and it showed in how quickly he cleared stuff from the insides of the desk. "I've been hopping colonies for years though, only made sense to put someone with that experience in the position. The Master Chief's story is way more interesting over here."
"I see. He did mention you briefly when we talked just now. Nothing bad, don't worry," Alan remarked, "Master Chief, what's your story?"
Lucas figured if there was a time to make a good impression on his new boss, this was it. "Well, I've been in Starfleet for a while, sir. Not long after I joined, the Dominion War broke out and I saw a fair bit of action. Since then, I've hopped between starbases and ships too many times to count, but this is my first colony. I've been in Starfleet for about 25 years now, so part of me thinks they sent me here as a last hurrah before they ship me off to the Academy or to teach new enlisted," he said with a chuckle, "My specialization is structural engineering by the way, sir, specifically emergency repairs."
"The best specializations here, by the way." Kikua commented. "We got a handful of new recruits who have the training, but not experience. The Master Chief's one of the best we've got for what we need on colony."
"I see. So I take it structural integrity is a big issue here then? What is the current state of our infrastructure, Master Chief?" Alan inquired.
"We're still getting everything up to code, to to speak, so it's a work in progress, sir. Some of the buildings became quite dilapidated since the Kane colony was abandoned way back when. We haven't had anything major since that bulkhead got chewed through. Oh wait, there was that sinkhole that opened up under a storage building a few weeks after that," replied Lucas, remembering some of the more interesting events that had marked his yet insignificant time on Xaeprea, "It's definitely made for some interesting alerts in the middle of the night."
Alan was a bit taken aback by the sinkhole remark. "Lieutenant, how well would you say the engineering department handled these unusual events?"
"The colony still functions." Kikua stated plainly. "We had a kerfuffle before I arrived, people trying to salvage parts from the wreckage while trying not to interfere with whatever investigation the Security department had going. One thing you gotta know about my brother is that he's very... 'waste not, want not,' so if he sees perfectly good parts, he's gonna use 'em. Even if he doesn't know how to put 'em together or make 'em work."
He made a vague gesture to the direction of the Command Center. "We've got a specific maintenance team that specializes in that sort of thing now for repairs and stuff. Past that, we had quite a time when I did arrive with these little mineral-eating fluffballs who we had to develop a fix for because they were eating through the equipment. - That's been solved, by the way. Turns out they don't like plastic polymers, so now everything that's outward facing gets this enamel coating. Good stuff. Huh... am I missing anything, Chief?"
"That about covers it, sir," Lucas added.
Alan made a mental note to check in on the engineering staff he saw during his visit to the Captain earlier. This was definitely going to be an interesting assignment. Maybe it wouldn't be as boring as he was worried an out-of-the-way colony assignment would be?
"I appreciate the sitrep. If there's nothing else, I haven't had a chance to drop by my quarters and get settled in. I'll stop back by later today, but make sure to contact me if something starts eating through another bulkhead," Alan said with a chuckle.
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