'Correcting' Through Supervision

Posted on Fri Aug 20th, 2021 @ 4:17am by Captain Calypso Skyie & Lieutenant JG Jenna Jade & Lieutenant Commander Tyler Driskill

Mission: The Boneyard Heist
Location: Main Engineering

They had met the Cadet outside of engineering and Calypso had instructed her to wait until she was called. The conspiratorial smile that the Commander had on her face would have done justice to a fox that had its prey cornered. What she had in mind would humiliate this Lieutenant, but after what had happened with her Exec? Worth it totally. She plastered a frown on her face, what she'd really want the engineer to see first, then looked up at Tyler, "You ready?"

Tyler gave a nod and gestured for Cally to lead the way. It was polite because she was a female and the Commanding Officer "I'm ready" was all he said to her.

Cally took off at a fast walk, the walk of an officer that was upset and wanted everyone to know it. It was meant to 'force' Tyler to have to half-jog to keep up with her. As she strode into Main Engineering, she was at least somewhat happy to see that Lieutenant Davenport was standing at one of the consoles, pecking at a screen. Of course, she couldn't see what was on it, so perhaps it was a bit premature. "Lieutenant Davenport?" She called out, causing the brown-haired woman to start and spin in place, "We need to talk."

Panic filled Laura's eyes and a hand scrabbled behind her as she heard and then saw Calypso coming. She worked to get herself under control as she hit whatever button she wanted to and stepped forward, seeing Tyler coming up in her wake, "Commander, ma'am, I am, of course at your disposal." She got out with a quaver in her voice, "Is this about the list? I'm doing the best I can, C-Commander Driskell can verify, I gave him a list as well, even sent an updated prioritized list of what needs to be fixed first, I know you're not happy, but it's the best we can do." She was trying to get information out without being interrupted.

For her part, Calypso let her. It wasn't like she didn't have proof on her person, "Yes, the Commander told me, what?" She glanced over at Tyler, "Actually, how long did you say that the Lieutenant say it would take to get underway?" She knew her tone of voice was sport on annoyed.

Tyler was glad Cally wasn't mad at him and he never wanted her to be. "Weeks" Tyler looked from Davenport, who was a whole different person to Cally.

"Weeks." Calypso repeated, wheeling back on Davenport, "Why? What is going to keep us here?" She raised both eyebrows, body posture demanding the answer just as much as her words.

"W-w-w-well, we've got major structural problems." Laura stammered, "And we've got to repair them or at least strengthen them, and and and the reaction, we need to replace our dilithium crystals. W-we can't get very far with the ones we've got. They don't provide enough power and could affect our warp bubble."

"The waiting period for a new set is about three months for a Luna-class." Calypso begrudged the information, "But we're not going to be here still at that point. Whether it's inefficient, what we have is what we have. Your job, Lieutenant, is to get us able to be underway. What do you need?"

"A month. Six weeks." Laura glanced at Tyler, "And we have to go slow. I suppose we can try to recrystallize them, but it could destroy them too."

Tyler was no engineer, but he knew Calypso wasn't staying here for six weeks. "Can we get more people from the star base?" he asked Cally "I'm more then happy to pitch in where I can" he added.

"I'm sure your assistance will be invaluable." Cally said in an offhand manner, eyes never leaving the engineer, "And no, we're going to be losing the maintenance engineers after tomorrow in any case. Our next round of junior officers and crew will be here tomorrow. What were you just working on?" She asked Laura.

"I was..." The engineer started to look back at the screen, but resisted, "Checking the routing of power relays." It sounded like she was making something up that sounded reasonable. "Our conduits appear to be in good shape and aren't affected by our structural problems?"

Calypso caught the the hesitation, but went on, "And why did you just reuse the list that the maintenance crew when you talked with Tyler here?"

"Because I-" Davenport started before catching herself, "That's ridiculous, why would I do that? I went through a diagnostic and detailed scan that I initiated as soon as I got on board! I don't-" She stopped at a cutoff wave from the Commanding Officer.

"Tyler?" Cally asked, hoping he'd take the initiative here to explain what he'd seen.

"A total disregard of the command structure, playing video games on your PADD" he took a few deep breaths.

Calypso almost sighed, but through sheer force of will held it back. This has been a moment for Tyler to expound upon things, but he was… Panicking? Working himself up for anger? Something to discover, that was for sure, but not here, not now.

The pause gave Laura a chance to try to gather her thoughts, she WAS in a full panic now, “I, I do have games on my PADD, everyone does! When you take a break, they help give your mind a break and and and I use them to reset my brain so I can come at a problem fresh after a few minutes!” Her eyes darted back and forth between the two of them, “And I respect both of you, you’re the top two officers of the ship and I’d never ever ever disobey an order!” Her breathing was shallow and accelerated.

Eyes narrowing, Calypso could almost feel the frenzy coming from the human engineer despite having her empathic sense clamped down like steel. She took half a step forward, seeing the flinch by Davenport in response. When she spoke, the temperature in the room seemed to plummet to the floor, “Lieutenant. Despite the fact, and I mean fact, that you were sent here because your former CO couldn’t wait to get you off his ship, despite that this ship has been set up to fail, because myself included, none of the experienced officers has a clean record, there is only one reason I don’t relieve you for cause or demote you to Ensign for the FIFTH time. If I do that, rest assured that you’ll never get another half pip again, because if that didn’t teach you a lesson, your next step isn’t a court martial, it’s a trip out the airlock.”

Laura’s eyes opened, “You can’t threaten me like-“

“Yes, I can.” Cally cut her off, her voice never, not once going above what sounded like a loud whisper, “If I ordered Commander Driskell here to march you to the closest lock, toss you inside and flush it and then write a report saying it was a malfunction, he’d do it. That’s what it means to be the Captain of a ship. It means that I do what I need to do, no matter what it takes.”

The engineer's eyes went back and forth between Calypso and Tyler, obviously looking for the Executive Officer to rein in his boss, but seeing that it wasn't happening, "I... I.. You can't, I mean, it would be found out and then, but..." She just gabbled, unable to complete any sort of sentence, overwhelmed by the threat.

For her part, Cally took a slight breath, "But I also don't know much about engineering, so how do I keep you honest?" She gave a slight smile, then tapped her commbadge, "Jade? Get in here."

It was only a couple of seconds before someone in the uniform of a Cadet, with the gold piping of either engineering or security as the trim, with the four bar pips of the final form of the Academy walked in laconically and came over to the CO and stood rather aloof, Cally glanced over at Tyler and then stared down Davenport, "This is Cadet Fourth Class Jenna Jade, she's on her cadet cruise with us. Tell us a bit about yourself, Cadet."

The Cadet came to an at ease stance and even smiled with a southern accent, it seemed, "I'm in the last stages of my engineerin' courses, ma'ams, sir, with an emphasis in power generation and warp physics. I wasn't just recruited by the Academy to beat up on Marines in tennis," She teased Cally, given their past times on the court, "My sophomore science project in high school was designin' a warp probe. Mah design was a bit clunky, call it the size of three probes put together." She shrugged, "Academy actually invited me in to build the thing and test it, and it worked."

Cally's eyes opened wider, she'd known that Jenna was an engineer, but she hadn't known that this was the specialty. The dark-haired cadet had genuinely surprised her on this.

Tyler was rather impressed by the Cadet "Welcome aboard." the First Officer said politely. "Sounds like the Cadet should be running things here in engineering" he suggested to Cally in a partial joke and dig at Davenport.

"Actually, she basically will be." Calypso stated, with the spluttering of Laura in the background, "Lieutenant, you are going to have the Cadet with you all day, every day, whenever you are on duty. She's going to oversee everything you do or don't do, then report to me. If SHE thinks you're slacking, I'll take that as expert testimony on the matter." It was a cruel smile.

"But, she's not even an officer yet!" Davenport almost shouted, "She doesn't know what she's doing, she's only a cadet!"

"That's true, ma'am," Jenna shrugged, respectful even to this woman that her CO obviously didn't like, "But ma'am, Ah'm second in my engineering class. Davies is higher rated than me, but he's takin' easier courses."

"What do you know about dilithium crystals?" Cally asked quietly, now wondering 'what if', wishing she'd gotten talking to the Cadet before.

"A lot, ma'am." Jenna replied, "Why, what's wrong with the ones we've got?"

Davenport snorted in derision, disregarding the non-engineers, "Ours have degraded to the point that they won't provide enough power to put up a warp field stable enough to get us where the Commanders want us to go fast enough to suit them." She gave a wary look at Cally and another 'help me' look at Tyler, though she figured that would go nowhere.

Jenna looked interested in that, "And Ah'm guessin' that it'd take too long to recrystallize them because we can't get a new array..."

"That's right, impossible." Laura responded, "Good to know your schoolwork has let you see the obvious."

"What if?" Jenna took a half-step towards the containment unit for the matter-antimatter reaction before catching herself, "A Luna has a relatively similar configuration to a Centaur-class ship, a lot larger of course, with a pod on top, but..."

"We can't use a set of crystals from a Centaur, even if we could get them." Davenport laughed and Cally placed a hand on Tyler's arm, "They definitely won't provide enough power."

"No ma'am, they won't, but the lattice is also significantly smaller." Jenna agreed, "What Ah think we could do is use a set of Centaur crystals to 'crown' the Luna set, to provide the additional attentuation and once we've got the time, possibly use them to revitalize what we've got through recrystallization." She glanced over to Cally, then to Tyler, "Ah think it could work, but Ah'll need to run some tests and acquire a set. Ah'd know in probably about twenty-four hours."

"It's a better solution then our current" he looked at Jenna and then over at Cally "of course it's your call." Tyler wasn't trying to step on the boss ladies toes at all.

"Do it." It was an instant call on Cally's part, pointing at Laura, "You are going to help her. Until we get a more senior engineer in, Gods help us, you're the Chief. We leave in eight days, Lieutenant, Cadet, no later. We get our last batch of crew on this end in five days. If we aren't ready to go, there will be Hell to pay. Do I make myself clear?"

Laura deflated, "Yes, ma'am." She still wasn't sure if she should believe the CO about dumping her out an airlock, but best not take the chance.

"We'll be ready, ma'am." Jenna Jade stated confidently, "Ah'll check in with you every four hours, Skipper."

Cally smiled then, not a feral smile, not a devious one, but a genuine one. "Come on, Exec, let's go find someone else to bother." She tugged on his arm as she turned to go, then waited until they were outside the doors, "I didn't realize she had a specialty like that... Might save our asses."

"It very well might" Tyler spoke softly "she seems to be better equipped then most senior engineers."

"At least some..." Calypso agreed, "All right, what's the next fire to put out?"

"I'm working out staffing rotations" Tyler paused for a second "you know so we are prepared when staff actually arrive." He made a quick check of his PADD "waiting on most of our medical supplies" he was going on what he thought was most important.

A slight crinkle sounded as Cally pulled out a pair of candies from one of many pockets, unwrapped one and popped it in her mouth, holding out the other one in offer to Tyler, “I’ll take a crack at getting the medical supplies.. I know some people in the body and fender shop, since this thing’s manufacturers warranty has expired.” She patted her leg, the one that had been broken twice and regrown once. "But, I need to take a swim... Dealing with her? Makes me feel dirty."