Katie Fiddles While Nero Yearns

Posted on Sat Jul 27th, 2024 @ 1:52pm by Lieutenant JG Katie Kellerman

Mission: Doing What We Do Best
Location: Engineering
Timeline: Just after Nerd Alert

“Lieutenant Kellerman?”

Katie turned and saw a man who was easily five years older than her, but only one pip on his collar. He had a padd in his hand and was looking at her impatiently.

“Hi, You must be Nero,” Katie said, brightly. “I’m Katie. We’re going to be working together today.” She held out a hand.

Nero looked her up and down, then did it again, then took her hand and shook it. “The pleasure is mine,” he said.

“I’ve got a lot of work to do in the computer, and I need a second pair of hands to help with some of the fixes, as well as some hands-on things around Engineering,” she said. “You up for it?”

“Sure, sounds fine,” Nero said. He was fiddling with his padd nonstop the whole time she spoke, and she had a pretty good idea what he had loaded on it. Whatever distraction he had at work, he was eager for another fix.

What would Kally do? she thought. Nah…better not do that… her mind answered. Then an idea came to her. It was, in fact, a very Kally idea, but she was going to make it work for her.

Katie had him sit down across from her and tapped on her console. A rejection buzzer sounded. She frowned and tried again. “That’s odd…” she said. “I can’t log in. Must be first-day flubs,” she said, smiling at Nero.

“Yeah, probably,” Nero said, half listening. “Should I come back later?”

“No, no, I don’t want us to waste half a day,” she said. “Could I borrow your padd and use your login?” She batted her blue eyes at him and smiled.

Nero shrugged and put his computer access login on his padd and handed it to her while he played a strategy game on his console, waiting for something to do. Suddenly, his console went blank. “What the--”

“There we are, all logged in,” Katie said happily.

“Why did my console go dark?” Nero said.

“Oh, I took the liberty of blocking you from all the entertainment programs in the computer,” Katie said, smiling sweetly.

“What? I wasn’t…why did you do that?” he said, angrily.

“So that you’ll focus on your tasks,” Katie said. “But, here’s the good news. I’m isolating and ranking all your programs by frequency of use,” she said, her hands flying over her terminal. “As you complete assigned tasks, I’ll begin to unlock the programs. If we get it all done, you’ll have total access back. Think you can earn them all back?” she looked at him challengingly.

Nero stared daggers at her. “Who the fuck do you think you are?” he said.

Katie tried not to be intimidated and stared back. “I’m the person trying to save your ass by giving you a good performance review today,” she said. “Our boss knows you don’t focus on your work. Do you want to wind up at Starbase 80 or something?”

Nero glowered at her, but sat back down in his chair. “Definitely not,” he said. “Hell, I barely want to be here.”

“Then help me help you help me,” Katie said. “Here. Trace the interactions with this program,” she said, sending him a section of code. “I’m going to start cleaning up patches. Once you have it mapped, let me know and we’ll get it fixed.”

Nero grumbled, but tapped his console. “All right,” he said.

The next few hours were akin to babysitting a toddler who didn’t want a nap. Nero had to use a bathroom, get a drink, stretch his legs, etc. Everything he could think of to avoid focusing on his work. Going to the bathroom was short-lived as whatever console he tried accessing had already had all distractions blocked and he couldn’t stall. His only reprieve was when she'd been briefly called away, but when she returned she was all business again.

He’d tried getting her involved in conversation, but when she was buried in code, she was hyper-focused. He tried flirting, but he picked the wrong twin for that, and she was able to resist his charms. He tried insulting her and getting her riled up, but she turned her big blue eyes on him and pouted and he backed down from that quickly. He hated his job but he wasn’t trying to be a complete dick.

Slowly but surely, his attention span stretched a bit. Katie had him running errands, which got him off the console and out of Engineering at times. Some of them took him longer than they should have, but she let it go, given he did eventually come back and they were making sufficient progress.

Eventually, even Katie’s eyes were starting to water and she closed her eyes and took a breath. She looked over the computer and was impressed. They’d made more progress than she thought. Shutting things down had indeed allowed them to go through things faster, and a few of their fixes had had a cascade effect that wound up resolving other issues. The replicators were now all online, and deck seven was no longer too hot. The rest was largely back-end repairs that only the Engineers would notice, but between that and Lieutenant Jade’s teams working around the ship, they should be making real progress.

As Nero came back from his last assignment, Katie handed him his padd. “Thanks for your help today,” she said.

Nero took the padd and shrugged. “Didn’t have much choice, did I?”

“You could’ve just refused to work,” Katie said. “Or you could’ve snuck off to the mess hall and not come back. But, you did, and I appreciate it.”

Nero shrugged, dropping into a chair. “You’re welcome, I guess.”

Katie watched him for a moment. “You said you didn’t want to be here,” she said. “Why not?”

Nero snorted and looked at her like she was simple. “No one wants to be here,” he said, voice now dripping with annoyance. “You mentioned Starbase 80? We’re the last stop before that hellhole. When you’re still competent, but too much trouble, they send you here to forget about you. No one on board wants to be here, Lieutenant. They’re all just sent here to be kept out of the way.”

“Oh,” Katie said, sadly.

“What’d you do to deserve it?” Nero said.

“I…actually cracked into my previous ship’s systems and got myself transferred here,” she said. “I wanted to be with my sister.”

“What a sweet, sentimental, stupid move,” Nero said. “Let me give you a tip: don’t do things for family.”

Katie picked up on his tone. “What did you do?”

“I signed up,” Nero said. “Made the old man proud. All he ever wanted was another Starfleet Engineer in the family. His son working on the engines just like he did. Didn’t care that I hated it, didn’t care that I didn’t want to be in Starfleet. Just kept pushing me towards it.”

Katie wasn’t prepared for the anger coming off of him, but she weathered it. “I see,” she said. “So…you hate being here, and you just avoid work.”

“Yeah, great insight, Counselor,” he grumbled.

“So quit,” Katie said, making him look up in shock. “Did that seriously not occur to you?” she said.

“Not really….” he said. “My father would be devastated.”

“Yeah, but maybe it’s time to let him be. He can’t just trap you here, only you can do that,” she said. “Soon as we put into a starbase, you should resign. Your dad wanted you to be a Starfleet Engineer? Great! You are! Now it’s your turn.”

Nero was breathing hard like he just ran a marathon as what she said sunk in. Suddenly he lit up and jumped to his feet, grabbing her and kissing her. “That is the best idea I’ve ever heard,” he said.

“Glad I could help,” Katie said. “But…there’s a tradeoff.”

He paused. “What?”

“Give us your all while you’re still here,” Katie said. “Have my back and I’ll have yours and when we’re back at Starbase you can bail with a clean conscience.”

Nero mulled it over and put his padd down. “I’ll give it a shot.”

“That’s all I ask,” Katie said, smiling.

Nero nodded. He looked at her again.”So…shift’s about over. How about dinner?” he suddenly shifted to a charming smile.

Katie blushed and smiled. “Rain check? I’m exhausted, and I haven’t unpacked yet.”

“Sure,” Nero said. “See you around, kid.”

Katie waved as he left. She turned back to her console and reviewed their progress. There were a couple of minor things left, then she’d head back to organize her quarters.