Heartbeats and Talking Walls

Posted on Mon May 4th, 2015 @ 12:19am by Lieutenant Dave Marz & Lieutenant Commander Le Austin

Mission: Ill Tidings
Location: Main Engineering - Chief's Office

Lieutenant Marz walked into main engineering and headed for the chief's office. His office. Those words still felt a little strange to the engineer. He had never been a chief before. He wasn't about to admit it to anyone, but he suspected it would be awhile before it did settle in. He always hoped he would get to be promoted to chief in some place where he already knew the ship or station he was on. Every piece of equipment had its own quirks, trying to learn them while also being the leader of the team was going to present quite the challenge. He hoped the scheduled meeting would be a good first step in meeting it head-on.

"... off by at least ten percent. We need to tighten that back up," Austin was saying as he briskly led a young Ensign around the warp assembly. "We can improve performance there as well. If the dilithium--"

"Sir!" The ensign stopped cold and saluted.

Austin's eyes fell on Marz and he sighed, "You're the chief?" He asked, not quiet as professionally as he should have.

Marz's eyes twinkled slightly. Should have known that even that moment wouldn't go quite exactly as planned. "Is there a problem with that?" He asked, giving the subordinate some rope to either save himself, or hang himself.

"What?" Austin asked, suddenly. "No.. I mean... gah..." You're not in charge down here, anymore, Austin! "Lieutenant Le Austin, reporting for duty as Assistant to the Chief, sir." He said as he snapped a sharp salute, trying to salvage the introduction. First impressions and all.

Out of reflex, Marz returned the salute before smiling. "Take a breath. Everything's going to be fine. Our collars appear to match, so unless surrounded by anybody higher up on the food chain, I'm Dave." He held out his hand.

"Nice to meet you, Chief," Austin replied, glad that his initial reaction hadn't been too sour on his new boss. "Call me Austin," He replied, accepting the hand to shake. "Have you heard the walls, Dave? Seriously?" He asked, not taking the time to think about how very insane that statement sounded if Dave didn't know what he was talking about.

"Heard the... walls?" Dave was starting to wonder if his assistant was firing on all thrusters. He couldn't remember any reference to the walls in his readings. "I'm afraid you have me for a loss, Austin."

Austin pinched the bridge of his nose and chuckled, "I'm not crazy, I swear." He assured the man.

He held up his hands in front of him as if to say, 'Wait, let me start over' then continued, "I was about... seven? Maybe eight at the start of the Bajoran Occupation. My family was involved in the resistance, and they brought me along. Most of the time, we didn't have a place to sleep, much less scanners to look for problems with our equipment," He turned and walked over to a wall, "We learned to listen for our ships to -tell- us there was a problem. In the walls, in the conduits... if you listen, you'll hear it," He explained, pressing his ear to one of the bulkheads and motioning to the CEO to come over, "Come here and listen." He said, "You'll see what I mean. It's pretty obvious right now..."

Thrum-thum-tiss-thrum-thrum-tiss-thrum-thrum-tiss

That damn little tiss just didn't belong.

Marz listened for a moment before his eyes brightened. "Oh, the heartbeat. My mother was a nurse. Guess we just have different terminology. It hadn't really started to register yet, since I'm new on the station." He put his hand up to the wall, almost trying to feel the vibration through the metal. "When were the plasma injectors last recalibrated?"

"Yes!" Austin said, cuffing his Chief on the arm. "Exactly! I checked the logs: My crew was the last one to recalibrate the plasma Injectors. It's been way too long! Not to mention the matter/anti-matter effeciency is down to 98%! It's all wobbly. We can get this place in tip top shape in no time, working together, but I don't know when I'll get called back out on the Montreal so we gotta work quick, eh?"

Marz sighed, and headed for the food replicator. "Makes sense, the amount of repairs that have been needing to be done around here. Sometimes the less important looking maintenance issues get pushed aside or delayed. Do that long enough, and you start having serious issues. I think the trick is going to be in crew scheduling. I was thinking one maintenance shift for every 2 repair shifts. We stagger it so we always have teams working on both, and it should give the station the support it needs. Will give varying duties to the crew, who likely feel like they've been running an unending treadmill. Also, it'll help pinpoint those engineers that either need an upping in their education in certain areas." He left unsaid that it would also illustrate those who would be better served in other areas of the station, because that was something that he didn't like to discuss until necessary. "I'm getting a coffee, you want anything?"

"Raktajino, and that sounds like a perfect plan. Not to mention, it'll help us weed out any weaker links. There's always a need for busywork to be done, and there's usually at least a couple that need to do it," Austin replied with a shrug. He was never one for mincing words. "How are the repairs looking so far? It looks like there was some super structure work being done when the Montreal docked."

Marz returned with the beverages, handing one over to Austin. "Alright, then, we'll have to make the most use of you that we can, then. With the new team structure that's going to be implemented, it might be a good time to shuffle the shifts and teams. You can help me with that, seems like you dart in and out enough to have a bit of a grasp on what's going on without being too entangled with it. Not asking any confidences to be broken, just a nudge when appropriate."

"Not a problem," Austin replied with a nod. "I know a lot of these guys from before. Easy enough to keep things moving," It was good to be planning again, to be working no something alive. So long on the Bajoran derelict had left him yearning for something to build, not take apart.

"Excellent. Let's get to work." Marz said, taking a sip of his coffee, and for the first time, the chair behind his desk.