The New Intern

Posted on Tue Sep 2nd, 2014 @ 11:48am by Lieutenant JG Allison Price & Cadet Senior Grade Jeffery Halloway [P: Anderson]

Mission: Vagrants, Vagabonds, and Thieves
Location: USS Jackal

[ON]

Allison Price was pacing. No, she didn't have some crisis to contend with or some malfunction to fix. The Jackal was in fine working order, just as she left her. She wasn't contemplating some deep mystery. She wasn't even impatient, pacing to pass the time while she waited for something to happen. It was none of these things, but she was nervous. Today she was getting a new intern. Her intern. She had worked with another one briefly before he had moved on to a different assignment on the station, but he was different anyway. That cadet had never intended to be an engineer. He was on the command track. But this one, Mr. Halloway (PNPC), did want to be an engineer. And that made Allie very nervous.

He was coming in on the same co-op program that had brought her to the station in what seemed forever ago. She knew what she wanted to do with her career, and she had already achieved much by being awarded the engine room on the Jackal, even if the ship did mostly stay near the station. But she felt that she wouldn't be where she was without the help of her mentor. Chief Bones had moved on to a new assignment just as she came aboard as an Ensign, but she still thought back to everything he had taught her during her internship. She only hoped that she could do the same for Halloway.

Coming around a bend in the corridor, Jeffery could see the Jackal's assigned docking port up ahead. It had taken him a little longer than expected to find his way down from his new quarters aboard the station. One reason for this was because of the station's sheer size. Starbase 332 was much larger than any other facility Jeffery had ever lived in. Basically, it contained everything needed to operate as a fully independent Federation outpost, which was actually quite a lot. Familiarizing himself with all this new space was not going to be easy.

Another issue Jeffery had to contend with was the additional security checkpoints. Things did not seem all that much different from when he and Anderson had passed through on their way to the Montreal. In light of continued Sojourner activity in the region, station security was taking few chances. That was why he was supposed to be meeting with his supervising officer tonight. Access to the station's garrison vessels was strictly controlled and he needed his supervisor's verification in order to start working his new assignment. In fact, as he looked down the corridor, he could see a young woman pacing back and forth in front of the airlock. That must be Ensign Price, he thought to himself, I hope she hasn't been waiting for too long.

She spotted the cadet as she turned around for her return trip, in the middle of planning out her introduction. Seeing him arrive right on time actually threw her for a loop, and left her a bit flustered. She strolled up to the cadet and offered a hand. "You must be Cadet Halloway. I'm Ensign Allie." She paused a moment before realizing that she didn't complete her thought. "Sorry, Ensign Allie Price," she quickly added, stressing her last name this time. "I'm going to be your SO during your time on the station. I guess welcome aboard!"

"Thanks," Jeffery said, offering his own hand in return, "A station this big is going to take some getting used to." Beginning a new assignment was always a nervous time for those involved. There was a lot of uncertainty to deal with, especially when you weren't all that experienced to begin with. The ensign's reaction, however, certainly quelled any fears that Jeffery might have been starting off on the wrong foot. In fact, she almost seemed more excited about this assignment than he did. "I'm assuming that's the Jackal," he asked with a nod toward the airlock behind her.

"Yep," she answered, beaming. The Jackal was her ship to take care of, something she wore with pride. "That's my girl. We'll have to get your security clearances set up, but you might have already known that. Security wasn't quite so tight when I interned here."

"Tell me about it," Jeffery empathized. The idea of him having to get security clearance for the Jackal seemed completely reasonable even under ordinary circumstances. At the same time, he thought back to how difficult his and James' first experience coming aboard the station had been. There had been security on Starbase 386, sure, but nothing this tightly controlled. At least, not on a regular basis. "I'm still not sure I really understand what happened," he confessed, "Were you around when...you know...when..."

He didn't have to say it. Allie knew what he was asking about. It was the same question a lot of new people asked. Her voice grew a bit more sombre. "Not exactly. I was out of the Academy and assigned to the Jackal, but we were out on exercises. I wasn't here when it happened."

The moment Price's demeanor changed, Jeffery realized perhaps he should have given a bit more thought to his question. Whatever had blown the giant gaping hole in the side of the station must have been a serious event for everyone involved. It certainly seemed to weigh pretty heavily with Price. "You know, we don't have to talk about it," Jeffery told her, "I was just...you know what? Nevermind."

"It's fine. It's natural to ask about it. You can't really miss the damage when you're coming in." Allie shook her head and let a smile come back to her face. "But don't you worry. Captain Von won't let anything like that happen again, and she's going to make sure that we stop the people who did it. And behind these doors is one of the tools we'll use to do it," she added, gesturing to the airlock behind her.

Right, moving on, Jeffery thought to himself. There was no need for them to dwell on the subject any further. Instead, he turned his attention to the airlock before them. It seemed at first glance to be much like any other airlock aboard the station. What was not immediately apparent, however, was that a fully armed and operational Defiant-class starship sat just on the other side of that airlock. Vessels much like this one originally made their mark on the quadrant operating out of frontier outposts. A sense of eager anticipation started creeping over Jeffery the more he thought about it. "I don't suppose there's any chance we could go aboard right now," Jeffery asked, "could we?"

Allie grinned. "We certainly can. We'll get you set up with your security credentials too. Come with me." She gestured towards the airlock before moving closer to the terminal. She pressed a few commands. "Computer, activate security access credentials for Cadet Jeffery Halloway. Authorization from supervising officer Ensign Allison Price, three-two-niner tango golf."

"Authorization confirmed. Verify voice print of Cadet Halloway," the station's computer replied. Allie gestured towards the terminal for Jeffery to answer the request.

"Cadet Senior Grade Jeffery Halloway, four-one-four oscar charlie," Jeffery said, speaking his credentials aloud.

"Authorization confirmed. Access is approved for USS Jackal."

Allie smiled again, hoping that Halloway was getting excited. "Thank you computer. Request entry to USS Jackal, Ensign Allison Price, three-two-niner tango golf." She rolled her eyes towards Halloway. It was clearly a bit of a hassle to go through the security process, but it was part of the job.

"Access granted." With the computer's response, the heavy airlock door slid open. Allie gestured for Jeffery to go first.

The young cadet hesitated barely a moment before eagerly stepping over the threshold into the docking port. From what Jeffery knew of the vessel's specifications, they would be entering through a compartment located inside the very tip of the Jackal's "nose", just behind the navigational deflector. Jeffery continued forward through the warhead module and into the ship's corridor beyond. Once there, he stepped to one side and paused to wait for Ensign Price.

Allie was right behind him. "Alright, would you like the grand tour. I'll be honest, there isn't much to see. The ship is pretty spartan, but she makes up for it in other areas. Of course I know what I'd want to see, but I thought I would see if you wanted to see the boring parts first." She gave him another friendly smile.

There was really only one location Jeffery knew he would have to be concerned with. Two, if he was really lucky. The question Ensign Price seemed to be hinting at was whether he wanted to start with home turf or end with it. "Why don't we save the best for last," Jeffery suggested.

"That sounds good to me. Come along." Allie started walking through the rather cramped corridors. The small spaces were rather stark in comparison to the much larger halls of the station. On the Jackal there was just about enough room for two people to walk side by side. Even the doors were smaller, only taking up one panel instead of the more common two. Allie didn't need to show him the entire ship, even though the full tour wouldn't take much longer than an hour. Everything was so compact and close together that there wasn't even a need for horizontal turbolift shafts. The lifts that were present just moved vertically between the four decks. The first stop was the mess hall, followed by the transporter room. Then she took him by sickbay and showed him one of the empty crew quarters reserved for transitive staff. A quick trip to Deck 4 showed off the very small shuttle pod launch bay, and then finally back to Deck 1, where she took him to the bridge.

Since the ship was docked, as the blue status panels indicated, the bridge was mostly empty. But there were still a couple of officers about monitoring system status, and to keep the ship on hot standby. She let the bridge sink in for a moment. "Now, we're on the bridge. I'm sure you've been pretty curious about coming here. As I'm sure you know, the majority of the ship's functions can be run from these consoles. It's pretty empty right now, but it's a lot busier during a mission. Do you have any questions?"

Questions. Jeffery's mind was certainly full of them. A part of him definitely wanted to start taking apart one of the auxiliary consoles to see what sort of upgrades they'd decided to install. How fast had they gotten the system processing? Were they still using the old ODN relays instead of the newer bioneural gel-packs? Had they ever considered upgrading to the latest LCARS? Given how far they were from the Federation core worlds, they most likely decided to forego that particular update. Jeffery had a feeling most of his questions would be answered in due time.

There was, however, one question he was interested in learning the answer to. "How often do you think I'll get to work up here," he asked. It seemed reasonable enough. He may have been into engineering and starship operations, but that didn't mean he was ignorant of the action that took place on any starship bridge.

The redhead shrugged. "You might get to sometimes, sure." She walked across the bridge to the engineering console, located towards the front of the bridge on the port side. "Sometimes I monitor systems from here if I'm not needed in main engineering. It depends on the mission and what is going on." She spun the chair around. "Have a seat."

"Really," Jeffery asked. He hadn't expected Ensign Price to offer him an opportunity like this so soon. Sure, there was the chance he'd find himself sitting at this very station in the not-to-distant future, but taking the time right now for him to just sit came as somewhat of a surprise. There was no reason it should have been. It seemed up to this point as if Price had been making an effort to see that Jeffery almost enjoyed his tour of the ship. This was her life and her passion, something he could certainly understand.

An affirming nod from Price was all the engineering cadet needed. He quickly slipped past her and lowered himself into the offered position. From the moment Jeffery sat down, he could almost feel a palpable change. There was nothing really all that special about the chair itself. What made the difference for Jeffery was its place on the bridge and the darkened consoles now directly in front of him.

"How's that feel?" Allie asked, still grinning. She reached over Halloway's shoulder and brought the terminal to life. The controls and status displays glowed, showing the viewer the most pertinent information for the task at hand. At the moment, the engines had been powered down to a standby state. On a vessel like this one, the engines were never fully turned off, unless serious maintenance needed to be done, so that they could be quickly brought back to full strength. That power up procedure was also accessible from this station.

"Different," Jeffery confessed as he looked over the control surfaces in front of him. Despite the differences between various starship designs, even among those of the same class, many of the engineering principles remained the same. Jeffery recognized the power indicators, the warp field dynamics, the injector manifold status, as well as several other familiar systems. "Then again," he mused, "a lot of it still looks the same."

"True. There's only so much excitement in staring at a console. The bridge can get pretty busy on a mission, especially in battle. But for an engineer, this console isn't where the magic happens, is it?" She let the thought sink in for a moment. "Are you ready to go see it?"

Price was right. There was no reason for Jeffery to get himself all worked up over the remote possibility of serving bridge duty shifts. After all, a single workstation could only encompass so much. What's more, excitement had a tendency to come or go at a moment's notice, meaning there was often a lot of hurry up and wait. Besides, filling in for the bridge engineering station was not the primary arena of starship engineers. The majority of their work took place elsewhere.

"You bet I am," Jeffery replied.

"Then let's go." Price gestured for the door on the port side of the bridge. "Follow me." The trip from the bridge to the upper level of engineering was quick on the tiny ship. Allie paused outside the doors. With another smile, she walked forward and opened the double doors. The doors opened up to an upper walkway, which looked out over the warp core. "I know it's not the biggest or the fanciest engine room, but what do you think?"

Jeffery looked around the room from where they stood on the upper catwalk. It wasn't as big as the Galaxy or Legacy-class engine rooms, sure, but it certainly put out a fair amount of power despite its small size. From their position, Jeffery could see the entire engineering bay. His gaze lingered for a moment on the large Class Seven warp core that took up a considerable portion of the room before continuing on. There were more active consoles here than had been on the bridge. Most of those that were active, however, appeared to be cycling through various diagnostic modes. Like Price had said earlier, they were no doubt standing by to be activated at a moment's notice.

"It's...impressive," Jeffery remarked, "I don't think I've ever seen one in real life before."

"There's always something special about your first engine room. This is the same one I started my career on, back when I was an intern. I had a great mentor. I just hope I can be half as good to you as he was to me." Allison waved for him to follow her down the stairs, which she then took to the lower level. "It's pretty modest as far as engine rooms go, but our girl here has quite the power output." She made her way to the engine core and leaned against the safety railing. "This warp core has a different type of intermix chamber, but the idea is the same. Deuterium is pumped in though some columns while anti-deuterium comes in through the others. The meet in the center and release an unbelievable amount of energy. That power gets sent through the two primary plasma conduits to the warp nacelles. I'll take you there sometime, but this is where most of the magic happens."

"Seems simple enough," Jeffery said as he, too, leaned against the safety railing, "and probably something I'll be expected to know intimately by the time I leave here, right?"

"With a little luck, you'll be able to tear this ship apart and rebuild it by the time you leave here," Allie answered with a grin. "I've got a laundry list of routine maintenance and diagnostics that we'll be running. You won't always be working with me, but sometimes I'll be sending you out with one of the technicians. We may be called on to help with something on the station or another garrison ship too, but most of the time we'll probably be working here. How's that sound?"

"Sounds great," Jeffery replied. The idea of being sent here and there for even the tiniest little assignment didn't really bother him too much. Sure, it would probably be frustrating at times, but work like that came with being an intern. Even the shuffling back and forth between the station or other garrison vessels didn't seem like a big deal. All that mattered to Jeffery was that he was going to actually be able to get his hands dirty.

"Glad to hear it. I don't think we'll do much today. My main goal was to get you situated with your security clearances and show you around." The Ensign spun around against the railing to focus on Halloway. "I'm sure we're going to enjoy working together. Hopefully by the end you'll have learned some things that you didn't know. I certainly did. But for now, I think we should call it a night. Let's meet back here at 0800 tomorrow morning. Sound good?"

Jeffery nodded. Now that he knew how to find the Jackal's engine room, there was no reason he wouldn't be able to get there by oh-eight-hundred hours. They'd had the tour and gotten his security credentials activated. It was simply a matter of making sure he left enough time to deal with the transit system. Any shift change, morning's especially, were sure to be a major rush period for everyone. "I'll see you then, ma'am," Jeffery confirmed.

"I'm looking forward to it," the Ensign replied, quite possibly as excited or even more so than the cadet was.

[OFF]

Ensign Allie Price [P: Von]
Chief Engineer
USS Jackal

Cadet Jeffery Halloway [P: Anderson]
Engineering Intern
USS Jackal