Hit The Ground Running

Posted on Tue Aug 24th, 2021 @ 4:02am by Lieutenant JG Jenna Jade & Ensign Rene Rouen

Mission: The Boneyard Heist
Location: Bridge

Rene was on his back and performing a manual check of the sensor processing interface at the Science I station. He had gotten to his quarters after leaving Faith's and had set the ship's computer to run Level One diagnostics for all the bridge stations. He had arrived at the deserted bridge about two hours ago. He heard the turbolift doors open and someone walking across the deck. "Hey can you hand me the magnetic coupler from my tool kit?"

"Not a problem, suh." A smooth Southern accent came from the footsteps that had entered, moments later the coupler came with a smallish hand following it as the woman with the voice came down on her knees and gave a slight smile, her uniform adorned with the four thick bars of a Cadet in her last year, "Mind if Ah ask what you're tryin' to do, sir?" Jenna asked, some what surprised to even see him on the bridge.

Rene took the tool and reset a number of processing units before sliding out and sitting up. He used a rag to clean his hands. "There was a processing delay from the main sensor pallet to this consoles display screen. I was just seeing if a recalibration would fix the problem."

Jenna brushed back a few strands of her dark hair as she pondered the problem, then gave a half shrug, "Could be that. Also could be umm..." She bit her upper lip gently as she thought, "Something in the routing, a programming error perhaps? Did you check the update log to see if it's runnin' the most recent upgrade, sir?"

Rene pulled himself up from the deck and as he gave Jenna's question a moments thought. He gestured to the console. "You mind checking for me Cadet...." His voice trailed off as he had no idea who he was addressing.

“Jade, suh, Jenna Jade.” She introduced herself as she stuck her head into the open space first to do a quick check to make sure everything was safely connected before coming back out and standing again, “Engineerin’’, which, Ah’d guess, you’re not?” She gave a shrug, “Ah’m more of a power specialist, got a project runnin’ downstairs, but Ah can sing the song and dance the dance with a lot of other things.” She powered up the console and began expertly navigating the menus until she reached the one she wanted, then grimaced, “This version should have been updated about five years ago.. Five gets you ten, it’s causin’ at least half of your delay time.” She sounded totally relaxed, “Want me to start the update, sir?”

"By all means." Rene gestured at the console. Yesterday he would have given the attractive young cadet a head to toe checking out as she turned to update the software. Today he simply studied the console display as she proceeded with her work. She was definitely proficient at her job. He finally gave a short chuckle as the response time aligned with acceptable protocols. "Have to say, if I had started with the software check, I would not have had to crawl through the hardware for 45 minutes before you showed up." He turned to Jenna and nodded appreciatively. "Thank you."

“Mah pleasure, suh.” Jenna smiled at him, “Most people don’t realize that the software does need to get updated, usually it’s done monthly as part of Operations’s normal duties, but with a mothballed ship, like Chimera, the shipyard crew might do it once a year, which apparently they didn’t do in this case, much like making sure the dust isn’t an inch thick in crew quarters…” Jenna shook her head, also keying for the rest of the consoles ion the bridge to find and install the updates, “Mah roommates and I walked into our quarters and you could see the layers of dust and dirt on the table, once the air cleared after we kicked up a bunch just walkin’ in.”

Rene nodded his head. He had walked into a similar situation after getting to his quarters following making sure Faith made it to hers, though in his case all the cleaning was done just by him as the stateroom had not been assigned a second occupant yet. He gave a tired chuckle. "At least you had a partner to work with cleaning up. I pretty much just made sure my replicator could make coffee for this morning and fell asleep on the couch." He looked at his watch and realized that shift start wasn't for another 45 minutes. "Hey, you eat breakfast yet?"

She verified that the programs were running properly, then looked up, “We’re issued time for breakfast?” Jenna asked with a laugh, “The Skipper’s takin’ her morning swim right now and Ah was plannin’ to make sure we had a full update on ship systems for her mornin’ meet with Lieutenant Davenport. Christ knows the Lieutenant isn’t goin’ to do it herself, and the Skipper needs to know.”

Rene gestured around the bridge. He had arrived a couple of hours ago and ran diagnostics on all the bridge stations and then performed general preventive maintenance checks and services on the systems. He pulled up the list on the bridge engineering station what faults he'd found that were outside his level of maintenance. "There's the current update as of an hour ago for everything on the bridge."

Jenna looked over the list, then reached out and tapped in the updating of ship’s console programming at the bottom of the list, “You’re tryin’ me that that Ah now have over half an hour of free time to do somethin’ as mundane as gettin’ breakfast? Hell, sir, you’re mah new favorite person!”

Rene let out a soft laugh, a wry grin remaining on his face after his laugh. "I do have that effect on people. So...how about that breakfast. Last meal I had was ration pack 17 aboard a shuttlecraft at about 1600 hours yesterday afternoon."

“Replicated a peanut butter and jelly sandwich before crashin’ last night, sir.” Jenna faked throwing up, “Replicator ain’t makin’ the peanut butter right, don’t try it until we get it fixed. Until then, a good hearty breakfast sounds right up mah alley.”

Rene gestured to the turbolift. "After you mon amie."

"Tu parles français?" Jenna asked, eyebrows raised, "
Ma mère a toujours dit que cela ne me servirait jamais." She chuckled, giving a slight curtsy at his manners, "It really isn't of much use, except in certain cases, but my mother always said it's good for a girl to speak somethin' other than just Standard."

Rene gave a good natured laugh as they boarded the turbolift. "I grew up in Paris. You learn to speak both French and Federation Standard."

“In Columbia, it isn’t quite that way.” Jenna admitted, “Standard is good enough nowadays, especially with the translator, but more knowledge I ever hurts.”

Rene pulled a PADD from his pocket and handed it to Jenna. "That's a list of all the deficiencies I found on the bridge systems this morning. Would you mind taking a look and making your recommendations on what to prioritize?" The turbolift stopped as he finished speaking.

The younger woman took it and started running down the list of issues while they walked, occasionally taking one of the list items and shifting it up or down, "Wish Ah could take this sort of list to accomplish in a day..." Jenna remarked with a half-sigh, "Relatively easy all in all, you should be able to get one thing started and while it's runnin' you can get somethin' else started. Easier than realignin' two sets of dilithium crystals from different ship classes to function as one."

Rene nodded as he gestured to the PADD. None of the listed deficiencies would take very long to correct individually, but it was going to take a maintenance team at least a full day to complete. It then dawned on him what Jenna said. "Whoa! Wait! What? Is the Chief Engineer trying to repair the warp drive or blow up the ship in a spectacular manner?"

Jenna gave a shocked look at Rene, "Chief Engineer? What Chief Engineer?" She laughed loudly, "And if you think Lieutenant Davenport would be able to handle this problem, you've got another think comin', suh." She shook her head, "No, suh, this is mah project, given to me by the Skipper herself. You see, this is mah specialty. Ah'm a power specialist, Ah'm good, very good with matter and antimatter reactions, besides, Ah've run some simulations and you'll never know it if I do it wrong, Ah promise."

Rene had little clue who this Lieutenant Davenport was, but he looked at Jenna with a mixture of she was either the brightest engineer of all time...or the craziest. He had a vague suspicion that it was equal measures of each. "How do you plan to compensate for the instability of using dilithium crystals of two different sizes in one warp core?"

"Instability?" Jenna gave him a look of an expert who was trying to find a way to explain to the amateurs, "It's only unstable if you've got a broken pattern of crystals, which is why you have to be careful not to shatter the matrices. Admittedly, I've got a height differential from combinin' the old Luna crystals with partially depleted Centaur crystals, but by adjustin' the anti-matter flow, you can adapt for that. When we're given a couple weeks of relaxing, Ah can use the pairs sets to revitalize and recrystalize the Luna set to a workable level, but we don't have the time at the moment, so the Skipper says."

"You're the engineer...which means...", Rene paused to give a wry grin. "Working miracles is part of your job description."

They entered the mess hall as she shook her head slightly, "Ah'm not an officer yet, just a Kay-det, but as Ah said, this is my specialty. Miracles aren't quite expected of me quite yet, but soon, soon."

"You get us to the starbase on time and I'll bet the Captain grants you a field commission." Rene gestured to the seating area. "You grab us a table and I will get our food just tell me what you want."

“Blueberry pancakes, extra butter, two orders of bacon, three eggs sunny side up, four sausage links and a nice large coffee, black with two shots of espresso, if you don’t mind?” Jenna batted her eyelashes at him.

"Coming right up." Rene moved off to the replicators to get their breakfast. He, uncharacteristically for him, missed her batting eyelashes. He had a considerable amount on his mind. It took him about a minute to arrive at the table with their breakfast. He sat down across from her. "Bon Appétit."

Her pancakes were piled nicely and Jenna took a moment to drizzle them with the syrup, as well as dousing her bacon and sausages before rubbing her hands together and began to shovel food into her. There were a few seconds where her cheeks looked much like a chipmunk overdosing on nuts before she got down the massive bite and looked at him apologetically, “Ah know, Ah know, where am Ah gonna put all this? Don’t worry, Ah’ll burn all of this off by supper time, always kept busy.” She followed with a drink of the scalding coffee, just how she liked it, then stuffed a whole sausage link in sideways.

Rene was astounded by the appetite Jenna had. "How do you keep that figure while eating all...", he realized what he said and an embarrassed blush spread across his face. "Oh my, sorry. I mean you must work out to maintain that gorgeous...oh merde...um...shutting up now."

Jenna flushed a slight red herself, “Merci, monsieur.” She said quietly, swallowing hard to get the sausage down while trying not to laugh, though her eyes did just that, “You aren’t the first one to make mention of my appetite.” She shook her head slightly, “And aside from all the actual work Ah do, which helps me keep from becoming a balloon, Ah also play a fair spot of tennis and occasionally a few bouts of fencin’.” She shrugged, “Less of the swordplay, because once Ah got into the Academy, it was that or Tennis and Ah was only third sword in mah high school, but number one in the region with the racquet.”

Rene's face lit up. He gave a genuinely excited smile. "You fence? That's fantastic! I fence. Maybe we could get together and cross blades sometime." He took a sip of coffee and gave her a wink. "I promise to take it easy on you the first time."

She raised one hand in the traditional concession of a touch in the salle, “Ah may be able to hold my own, especially if Ah get in some practice before. Well, okay, Ah might get a point in the match if Ah get lucky, but Ah’m game if you are.”

Rene grinned feeling a bit of his old self returning. He took a really good look at Jenna. 'She is gorgeous and she likes to fence", he thought to himself. "Well, perhaps we should truly assess your ability. I have a number of holo novels that offer great swordsmanship sequences. You have to have a lot of skill to make it through...without getting run through. Care to take a holodeck adventure with me sometime?"

“If we can find a time when Ah’m not desperately needed in Engineerin’?” Jenna nodded, “Sounds like it could be fun!”

"How about we meet in Holodeck One tomorrow night after final muster?" Rene glanced at Jenna curiously.

She grimaced at that thought, not the fun of enjoying a program, but the timing of it, “Ah might not be able to make it that soon… we’re starting the dilithium matrix recombination in the mornin’ tomorrow, no guessing how long it’ll take to maintain stability. When Ah say it could take forty eight hours of nothin’ but watchin’ for the slightest deformation from acceptable parameters, Ah’m not sayin’ it in jest. What we’re tryin’ has never been attempted before that Ah’m aware of, heyll, it could even end up blowin’ the ship up before we know what’s goin’ on.”

"I understand." Rene thought for a moment. "How about we get together after we're underway to Starbase 614? We should be on a normal watch bill by then when the majority of our officers and crew are aboard."

Jenna nodded slowly, “Hopefully by then, Lieutenant Davenport won’t need a babysitter anymore, or at least less of one.” She agreed, “Bein’ an engineer isn’t an easy job, but whoooee, do we know how to have some fun!”

Rene chuckled. He decided that Jenna did seem like a fun person to hang with. He quickly finished his coffee and bagels before reaching across the table to shake hands. "It's been a pleasure meeting you Cadet Jade."

Jenna glanced between his hand and the last piece of bacon on her plate with the suspicion he might actually be going for that. Her left hand flashed out and grabbed the bacon and stuffed it in her mouth, leaving the plates in front of her now empty except for the crumbs of pancake, “Jenna, Ah think you should call me Jenna.” She reached out with her less sticky right hand and shook his.

"In that case, I insist you call me Rene." He shook Jenna's hand, a smile on his face. "Bon jour, mon amie."

"À bientôt mon amie." Jenna smiled back at him, "Until later."