You Break it You Buy it

Posted on Wed Dec 6th, 2023 @ 4:08pm by Lieutenant JG Anton Zakharov & Petty Officer, 3rd Class Kiyara de Vos

Mission: Contagion
Location: Chief Engineer's Office
Timeline: After 'Burn Notice'
867 words - 1.7 OF Standard Post Measure

Kiyara stepped inside the small office off to the side of the Main Engineering bay and without ceremony dropped the burst manifold onto the desk in front of a newly minted Chief. "I see your wounds are healing." They pointed at the burnt out component, "found the problem." A realisation seemed to dawn on them, with a short cough they cleared their throat before adding; "sir."

Anton, who had been attempting to have a 'working lunch,' picked up the cutlery knife that he had been eating his chicken salad with, and used it to move the charred remains of a burst manifold. Anton looked up "Petty Officer, this appears to be a burnt out manifold?" Looking down again, taking a closer look with his knife, it appeared the manifold had been overloaded from a power surge. "Why didn't its safety kick in with the power flow was too high?"


"A certain someone was looking to circumvent a faulty resistor and in redirecting the flow circumvented the safety in new and exciting ways." Kiyara remarked, they moved the tip of his knife to the offending part of the manifold. The electric flow was clearly visible in what was called a Lichtenberg figure on the backplate. The most interesting part of that was that it happened to find its way around the built in safety. "Combined with the new upgrades we got from our friends and Raelia." They made a motion of something exploding in their face.

"Moi" said Anton in french with his Russian accent as he pointed at himself innocently. He then looked up at the Petty Officer then back down at the manifold "Perhaps it is a matter of incompatible parts" asked Anton as he looked in more detailed at the chard out wreck of technology. Though in his heart of hearts he knew that Kiyara was probably correct

"With all due respect, sir, the parts were compatible when we installed them." Kiyara shot back at the newly minted Chief. "If you want I can write it off as a compatibility issue, but that would mean we'd have to go through all parts that were introduced by the repairs and upgrades to make sure they won't blow up in our faces." They added, it wasn't so much as a threat as it was a reminder that as Chief he had different responsibilities and that his actions had different consequences now.

"It is my experience Petty Officer third class that any sentence that begins with 'all due respect' in fact entails no respect at all. Now if you have a problem may i suggest you do not beat around the bush and get straight to the point." Anton's usual relaxed demeanour had clearly been replaced by his more stubborn streak.

"Just pointing out what caused the issue, sir, and the consequences of filing it as a compatibility issue. I'm just here to give my insight and opinion in regards to damaged parts and what we can do to prevent similar failures in the future." Kiyara wasn't one for dick measuring competitions, especially for lack of an important tool in such competitions. "You're the boss, though, so your call."

Anton gave a dry wry smile and slouched back into his chair, relaxing a little Anton said "woh be it for me to argue with my Damage Control Specialist. Next time I will be more careful. However I should mention that will continue to try and improve the ships systems to try and get us home. But next time I will give you a heads up in case i break anything again."

"Innovation creates sparks, Lieutenant, one way or the other." Kiyara smiled a bit at that. "How are you settling in to your new role? You could have other people do the innovating, you know." They pointed at their face to indicate the freshly healed wounds shrewn across them.]

"That is a good question de Vos" said Anton with a thumbs up. "Innovation....well I will never stop trying to improve things around here" he gave a wave of his hand around the general vicinity, to indicate main engineering "and I do not mean that in a efficiencies, streamlining, managing the department kind of way. I mean it in the way, that we in this department are in a unique position to run the thing (the warp core), that will get us home, and if we can make it, faster, more efficient or anything we can do to get us home just that little bit quicker, we will try. We owe it to the crew and their families. As for settling in..." his hand touched his face were the Petty Officer 3rd Class had pointed and smiled a little "well I'm getting there."

"If there's anything I can do to help with those improvements, or the settling in part, I'm more than willing to help." Kiyara offered before reaching for the manifold they had dumped on his desk and picking it back up. "I'll make sure we salvage the materials we can from this."

"Thank you Petty Officer. I appreciate that. On both counts. Carry on please" responded the Russian with a smile and a affirmative nod.