Chewing The Dragon's Tail

Posted on Mon Dec 22nd, 2025 @ 5:56am by Lieutenant JG Jenna Jade & Lieutenant JG Rala

Mission: A Princess Of Tial
Location: Operations Office

Jenna was in a combination of marching and slumping all at the same time as she entered the Operations Center for her next piece of work to do. It had been a request from the Chief of Operations, Rala, now that T'Pinga had been off the ship for a few days. She hadn't had a chance to congratulate the Draakri yet, but there would be time for that. She dropped her duffel bag with a 'clunk' and reached inside her pocket for the hypospray that she kept there. She reached up and with a hiss took a dose of the product inside and took a deep breath as energy seemed to course through her veins again.

That done, she stepped over to the other door in the room—the one that led to the actual Chief Ops Officer’s office—and pressed the chime.

Rala was in the office, attempting to reorganize the veritable mountains of paperwork that T’Pinga had previously been handling—and, to be fair, the Vulcan had been doing so with the efficiency and precision stereotypical to her species, but Rala found her predecessor’s organizational system frustrating to work with, so she was trying to come up with something that worked better for her.

She was so focused on her task, PADDs in two hands while the other two poked at her computer terminal, that the door chime made her heart rate triple and she dropped one of the PADDs. After taking a second or two to collect herself, she called, “Who is it?”

"Rala?" Jenna replied. "It's me, Jenna, here to solve... Whatever the problem is that you've got going on? I can't remember what you said it was?"

“Right, come in,” Rala said, admitting the engineer to the office and setting down her other PADD. “Thanks for coming by. That project...” she stood, rolling her chair out to the side of the desk so Jenna could see it. Unlike most chairs on the ship, this one had a relatively large cutout between the seat bottom and back, the two parts only being connected at one side. “Chairs that don’t make me kink my tail to sit in them—and I’m sure the few Caitians and other tailed folk on board will appreciate them too.”

"Ah'm sure they will." Jenna stated dryly as she took a look over the chair, walking around it, "Ah'm not sure Ah'll be able to certify them for safety with just the one point of contact, but if it's made out of the right materials, Ah suppose it'll work?"

She paused, rolling the chair back to its normal position behind the desk. “I’m working on a plan to replace many of the public and duty-station chairs on the ship with similar designs. I’d been meaning to bring this up with the Captain or XO basically since I came on board, and I finally remembered to pitch it to the Captain yesterday. She wanted a more detailed plan. So...” she paused, scrabbling through the other two dozen PADDs on her desk, finally finding the one she wanted and offered it to Jenna before continuing, “I was hoping to get your help double-checking my designs and figuring out feasible timeframes for production and installation.”

"You're kiddin' me, right?" Jenna asked as her arms crossed over her chest, "Of course you're kiddin' me." She looked at the Draakri and how she stood, "You're not kiddin' me." She decided, "You wanted me to come here to plan out materials and design and TIMEFRAME? Me? The Chief Engineer?" Her voice was in a growl now as she thrust her arms down to her sides, "What do you think we do down in Engineerin', play games on our PADDs all day? Ah've got at least a dozen things that need doin' by the end of the day and not enough time to do them in even if Ah focused on them, and you want me to sit down and plan out details of 'production and installation?" Her voice rose in pitch as she talked.

The engineer’s surprisingly irate response caused Rala to withdraw by a half-step, her ears angling down and back and one hand coming up slightly toward a calming gesture. “Uh...yeah,” Rala said cautiously, “It's not that urgent, though, and you could certainly delegate it to another engineer if you’re that...” She was about to say ‘busy’, but she trailed off as she thought a bit more about what Jenna had said, rather than just her hostile tone, and compared that with her own experience in the Thunderchild’s Engineering department. “That’s...an awful lot of work for one person in one day, especially for a ship that hasn’t been in combat or the like recently," she said, quiet concern in her voice. "We may not know each other super well, but I wouldn’t have figured you for someone to take on so much. What’s going on?”

"Oh, Bless Your Heart." Jenna said in a super sickly-sweet voice, "You poor sweet summer child, no we haven't been in combat recently, but the problem about starships and especially this one is that everythin' will always go wrong. You weren't here when we pulled this hunk of junk out of long-term storage, so you don't know half of what's gone on." Jenna's voice had a snarl to it, "Ah've been effectively the Chief Engineer since Ah got on board For my Cadet Cruise! Ah had a history with Cap'n Skyie at the Academy and so she set me as a watchdog over Lieutenant Donahue, you didn't get to know her, which meant Ah was runnin' Engineering as a Cadet in her final form."

Jenna spun hard away from Rala, took two steps and spun back, fire still blazing in her eyes, "And this ship was a mess when Ah got here! You think a DOZEN things is a lot? This ain't nothin! The problem is when Ah was on Tial, nothin' got done! Some routine stuff here and there, but everythin' else got put off to the side and whenever ANYthin' goes wrong, who is the first person people call? Me!" She made a harsh gesture, a hand cutting off to the side, "'Mah replicator's broke, Jenna, can you fix it?'" She said in a mock-whiny voice, "'Jenna, Ah can't seem to get the lights to dim properly, help me!'" She rolled her eyes theatrically, "God, Ah'm a Lieutenant Junior Grade in charge of an all-up starship's Engineerin' section which is perpetually understaffed and Ah only officially graduated the Academy a YEAR ago or so!"

She glared at Rala, "And now Ah'm bein' asked to plan out fabrication and implementation for a shipwide rollout of somethin' else entirely? Fahn. Did you get the Captain's approval for all this crap? Have you even TALKED to the Captain about it? What about the safety studies? Did you put these through a repetitive motion test? How about if the ship takes fire? What'll happen if these get hit by a solid item, will they shatter into pieces and become shrapnel? Will they stay in one place? ARE THEY COMPATIBLE WITH CURRENT SHOCK FRAME STANDARDS?" Her voice raised even further in volume and grouchiness to the point where she wasn't QUITE yelling. Yet.

Rala bristled, almost literally, and opened her mouth to verbally fire back in nearly the same tone of voice, then stopped herself. She took a deliberate breath, and with forced calmness, said, “Yes, I talked to the Captain; as I said, she asked for a more detailed plan, which is what I’m trying to give her. Yes, I’ve done every test I can think of without actually making them; they should be just as safe as the current ones. I wanted a fresh pair of eyes to make sure I hadn’t missed anything, and to help me work out a plan for which ones to make and swap out, when, and in what order. But if you’re too busy to even suggest someone else to help me, it can wait.”

Rala had stepped closer to Jenna and her voice had gradually gotten somewhat harder as she spoke, but now it softened again. “But you didn’t answer my question, Jenna,” she said, taking one more small step toward Jenna. “I’m even more sure now that this isn’t like you, so please,” she reached a hand up toward the other woman’s shoulder. “Tell me: What’s going on?”

“Ah said Ah’m fine!” Jenna barked as she jerked away from the hand, “Ah just have a lot to do and not enough hours in the day to do them and not enough people in Engineerin’ to do everythin’ that needs done AND all of the routine work as well.” She retreated two steps and furiously made some notations in her PADD, “I’ve got you down in the queue now, non-critical, routine and ad hoc. Unfortunately that means you’re currently at the bottom of the list, because this issue is only a quality-of-life issue rather than somethin’ that needs fixin’ so the ship runs at it’s best.” She looked up with one more step backwards towards the door, “Was there anythin’ else that needs my attention?”

Yeah, the insides of your eyelids, Rala thought. “Jenna...” She sighed. “We don’t need our Chief Engineer—or our friend—” Rala said, both speaking collectively on behalf of those who already considered Jenna a friend and in the hopes of getting to know the engineer better herself, “—overworking herself to the point of burning out or making mistakes, which sure feels like where you’re headed. And if someone gets hurt because of it?” She gave Jenna a concerned look and left the thought hanging.

"Then they need to work more carefully. Ah don't approve of anyone takin' shortcuts in their work, especially not myself." Jenna stated sharply, "Ah'll be fine. And as soon as Ah can get someone down here to help you with this production and implementation issue, Ah'll have myself or them here." She turned and dipped to pick up the duffel bag and started towards the door again.

“Jenna?” Rala said as the door opened. “Take care of yourself.”

For a moment Jenna considered not replying, but didn't turn back as she left the room, "Ah always do."