Why Just Bite The Head Off?

Posted on Sat Dec 6th, 2025 @ 8:36pm by Lieutenant JG Jenna Jade & Lieutenant JG Katie Kellerman

Mission: A Princess Of Tial
Location: Main Engineering

"And who didn't bother tellin' me that someone else was also checkin' out and workin' on the shuttles?" Growled Jenna as she all but stormed back into engineering. It had been a few hours of work alongside Quinn to at least get one of the shuttles fully back up for service and ready, so she'd stopped by her quarters for a refresher and a coffee with additives. Now she'd gone back to Engineering to get some answers and her eyes set on Katie Kellerman first as she advanced on her, "Ah know Ah sent you down there yesterday to make some scans, certainly that Petty Officer was down there as well?"

Katie glanced around but no help was coming as everyone had scattered to their assignments, and the few who remained were extremely focused on their tasks.

“You…you mean The Ghost?”

Jenna shook her head as if to clear out her ears, “The Ghost? What in tarnation are you talkin’ about?”

“The Bay Manager,” Katie said. “We started calling him that a couple months ago because…ya know…he kinda haunts the place. He doesn’t talk, he just walks around silently working. No one can get more than a word out of him.”

“Not sure what you’re talkin’ about.” Jenna grumped, “Ah got him to talk a bit, but Ah swear he’s got a ration card that he has to stamp whenever he says more than two or three words at a time. But yeah, that’s who Ah am talkin’ about.”

“Yeah I went yesterday. He’d already documented everything from the shuttles returning and was comparing them to the checkout logs.” She swallowed. “Since he’d already begun working on the analysis, I didn’t think you’d want me doing double work.”

“You didn’t what...” Jenna’s eyes flashed in anger as she stamped to one of the consoles and keyed in a few commands, “Where are your scans?” She asked, wheeling on the blonde, “If you weren’t down in that shuttlebay making your own scans on those shuttles, just what in Heyll were you doin’?”

Katie's lip started to quiver as she visibly shrank. "I...I...checked the computer systems for corruption and-and-and then, I um, verified the log and sensor recordings had been downloaded to the ship's computer, then went to the next item on my schedule which was..." she searched her memory quickly, trying not to panic at the look Jenna was giving her in the silence. "Streamlining the phaser response systems code!" she finally said.

"And did you bother to tell anyone that someone else was startin' with the shuttle repairs or even getting ready to do that? Say, someone like the Chief Engineer?" Jenna barked, "Ah looked like an absolute idiot in front of 'The Ghost' or whatever y'all like callin' him! By the time Ah got there this mornin', he'd already repaired the hull damage and was flushin' the plasma injectors, while Ah stood there like a kid who just had her breakfast taken out from in front of her." She glared lasers, if she could have shot them out her eyes, "Ah had to borrow tools just to make myself look useful, because if Ah'd had to come back to get my kit, which Ah was already plannin' to do after developing my action plan to start after lunch, Ah would have looked outright stupid!"

"I...I'm sorry," Katie said. "I assumed the flight control department logs would have automatically cross-referenced--"

"And you trusted them to do it?" Jenna opined, rolling her eyes in frustration, "While there are a lot of people on board that Ah like on a personal level, Ah do not trust any of them to log the maintenance they perform nor do Ah trust any of them to even so much as properly reprogram a replicator to create a slightly different flavor of coffee! What have Ah always said? Don't trust anyone else's records but our own, because they will always try to cover up the real problem!"

Katie winced and tried not to cry. "Yes, Ma'am. I'm sorry, Ma'am. I won't let it happen again!"

"It better not." Jenna's southron accent not only made her words longer than they really should, but it made vitriol even harsher when she was angry. She pulled up the reports on the phaser response system and scowled, "Ah suppose that Operations and Tactical weren't collaboratin' on the phaser codes? You'd think that Tactical would have wanted to be in on it, since they're the ones that use 'em."

"Mark...that is...Lieutenant Valleroy had submitted his requests regarding the system, so I was doing the preliminary patch check through the system, Ma'am. Most departments leave me to scour the computer on my own."

"Ah'm gonna have to talk to all the department heads, get them to start actually logging their requests like Valleroy. Sometimes Ah think this crew is made up of idiots." She jabbed at some of the buttons, "Make sure when you're respondin' to one of them that you tell them to submit the request properly, with a detailed description of what's happenin' or not happenin'." She looked at Katie again, "And Ah want a brief summary every day of what you've gotten done. Same goes for everyone else, so if you see them, tell them but Ah'll tell them tomorrow mornin' as well. And if anyone else is workin' on our systems or anythin' we support, you tell me right away, y'hear?"

"Yes, Ma'am!" Katie said, nerves making her voice a bit louder than she'd intended. She stood there awkwardly for a moment, looking around, then back at Jenna. "Um...permission to..."

"Yes, yes, go ahead." Jenna waved languidly, "Just be sure to be back in on time tomorrow. We've got a lot of work ahead of us."

Katie turned and practically ran for her lab, closing the door quickly behind her and diving behind her desk.

Jenna glanced at the other engineer and growled in the back of her throat. No one here was dedicated enough, none of them willing to do what was needed to get done. She tapped three of the items at the top of the list and queued them up for herself on her PADD. She still had a few hours left to go in the day, after all, someone had to do the work.