Scars of War

Posted on Mon Mar 28th, 2016 @ 12:05am by Lieutenant Commander Le Austin

Mission: Brave New World
Location: Main Engineering

Austin had taken up camp on a low console that was blown out from the fighting, as he listened to the young Engineer before him rattling off statistics. She was cold and calculating in her tone, but the slight tremor in her voice gave way to her nerves being frayed. Austin figured that all of their nerves were. He hadn't been through a hard hitting ordeal like that since the Occupation.

"... the primary power conduit on deck 47. Then we've got casualties," She said, her eyes finally catching Austin's for a moment.

"Any dead?" He asked, hoping the answer was no.

"None, sir," She replied, a hint of a smile on her face.

"Good. That's a win. Hit me with the details," Austin replied, nodding.

She began listing off all of the injuries and peril. Most of it was minor, a few cuts and bruises there, some plasma scortching here. Things got worse as she continued, though: Lost limbs - Austin subconsciously rubbed where his pinkie finger used to reside at the mention of that one - people crushed under support beams, or falling from great heights. No one had died, but there were some severe injuries.

"How many people are going home?" He asked.

"Right now, they're expecting fifteen to be honorably discharged and sent home with compensation," She replied.

Austin nodded and sighed, "That's not too bad of an under-staffing... what about the folks that won't be going home?" He asked.

"Longest recovery time is one week but... we're down about forty people right now," She explained.

Austin chuckled, "That just means the Chief has to get his hands dirty," He said with a grin. "Pick a system and fix it, okay? I'll be doing the same. Thanks for pulling this all together for me, Whitmire." He said, standing up and getting ready to find the most critically damaged system and start repairing.

"No problem, boss. I'll get to fixing," She replied, grinning tiredly.

"Good. I owe the whole damn department a beer after this," He said with a laugh. "See you around, Lieutenant! Stay out of trouble!"

"No promises!" She replied with a wink, turning to get to work herself.

It was going to be a long night.... week... but they'd get it done. They always did.

====
Lt. Cmdr Le Austin
Chief Operations Officer

Lt. JG Allison Whitmire
Engineering Specialist
NPC'd by Austin