Engineering Issues

Posted on Tue Dec 9th, 2014 @ 10:01am by Captain Jack Solomon & Lieutenant Zhao Quan

1,110 words; about a 6 minute read

Mission: Mission 87 - Disaster
Location: Main Engineering, USS Ark Royal
Timeline: En Route to Hunster III, After leaving SB400...

After his meeting with Commander Coleman, Jack left the bridge and headed to Main Engineering via the turbolift. On the way there he was aware of the fact there was no overall Chief Engineer for the mission. Due to his previous experience, Jonathan has assigned Jack to this position and Jack had decided time was of the essence in getting the maintenance list dealt with and making sure the Ark Royal was up to specs.

He entered Main Engineering and took a quick look around. He still felt a surge of excitement being on an Ambassador class starship and seeing the Warp Core happily throbbing away made it all the more comfortable.

Jack took the oppurtunity to look up two young officers he had chosen to assist him as he entered the Chief Engineers office. He tapped the comm button. "Lieutenants Quan and Wooldridge, please report to the Chief Engineers Office," he said over the comm.

After arriving on the Ark, Jack, together with Watson, Travers and Walshie, signed on the main crew roster after embarkation, then headed down to engineering deck 2 to meet up with Dye and Truman. Jack wanted to run some procedures past the squad for when they beamed down at the disaster zone. The teams that were going down needed familiarisation with some specialist equipment and jack wanted to run the squad (and himself), through these procedures.

They strolled into engineering and met up with Dye and Harry, who were running through some Warp drive alignments with CPO Hartley. “Alright guys, found it alright then” said jack, thumping Dye on the back. “Yeah we got there alright, I almost killed an AB for nearly running me over with a trolley though” “hey, think about me I WAS run over” exclaimed Watson. “Jack, I learnt from up top that we’re all being assigned to Beta Watch and Alpha’s taking us out” said Dye, furiously scrolling through a PADD detailing Warp core temperatures. “Ok, you heard him, everyone too quarters, get bedded in and we’ll meet up later for tea, biscuits and SATCOM testing” said jack, already remembering his cabin was on deck 8, section 3, room 112.

Before he could take 3 steps however, the tannoy rang out. “ Lieutenants Quan and Wooldridge, please report to the Chief Engineers Office, I repeat Lieutenants Quan and Wooldridge please report to the Chief Engineers Office, thank you." “No rest for the wicked mate” sniggered Travers. “He’s only been on the ship 10 minutes and he’s already been called to the headmaster’s office” chimed in Truman. “I’m being called on to be told I’m being promoted to captain boys, don’t you worry, I’ll see you at defaulters tomorrow, now be off with you” said jack, smiling but wondering where the Chief engineers’ office actually was.

Fortunately Zhao had already found the Chief Engineers office while touring the ship, so when the message came over the intercom he was able to get there in fairly quick order. He hit the door chime and on the command entered the room.

As he walked into the room he could see the officer sitting at the CE's desk, then he saw the officers pips, "Oh no.... I get to play nursemaid to a Junior Grade, great!.. Full Lt Zhao Quan as requested."

Jack nodded as he stood up to greet Lt. Quan, however the "Full Lt" remark fidnt go unoticed and he prepared himself for a difficult briefing once Wooldridge arrived. "Thank you for coming Lieutenant. I'm Lieutenant JG Jack Solomon. During the mission I'm Captain Colemans XO and I've been assigned to be Chief Engineer to make sure we're running at our best," Jack paused. "Your assistance during this time would be appreciated, regardless of rank." Jack finished. During his career, he'd dealt with this before and decided working to peoples strengths was best.

after asking about 6 people where the office was, Wooldridge finally walked into the office. awaiting him was another JG and a full LT. the JG he knew as Jack Solomon a junior on Gamma Watch on 400. the LT he was not familiar with. he walked up to the LT, being the senior officer present, and saluted him, stating "Sir, LT JG Wooldridge recourting his order".

Zhao looked at the junior officer "Sorry Lt. Being the senior officer doesn't mean anything here. We both report to the officer behind the desk".

Jack picked up on Quan's frustration about Wooldridge's assumption but he could also tell that young Wooldridge had some lessons to learn. Hopefully Jack's idea would work out the kinks between them. "Gentlemen, I have a task for both of you to work on whilst we are enroute to Hunster II," he began. "For the duration of this mission I am filling the roles of three people: I'm XO to Commander Coleman, Liaison to the fleet and this ships Chief Engineer so I need people I can rely on," Jack explained before pausing for a moment.

"After meeting with Commander Coleman, he has ordered that in anticipation of the need to evacuate the planet's population, he wants Main Engineering to work on getting everything with the transporters ready. He doesn't want to lose anyone due to some transporter malfunctions. This includes replicating more transporter pattern enhancers and making sure more power is transferred to the transporters," he went on to hand the both of them a PADD each.

"Gentlemen, I'm putting you in charge of making sure extra Transporter Buffers are in all of the Transporter Rooms as well as the Cargo Bay Transporters I also want Auxiliary Power Generators in all of the Transporter Rooms, including the Cargo Bays too. Whilst I realise this is asking a lot of the ships Warp Core, so I want constant vigilance on the power flow and on the Warp Core's performance with regular updates," Jack ordered whilst explaining his orders to the both of them.


Zhao nodded, the job in hand was important and he would get on with it. "Anything else, Lt?" While he knew it wasn't the officers fault that Commander Coleman had ignored rank and put the junior officer in charge, he wasn't happy and would take the matter up later, either with the commander or his superior in the form of an official complaint.

Jack stood up from the desk and walked around to face both Quan and Wooldridge. "No, thats it for now," he started, "But I want you two to know I'm counting on you both whilst on this mission...I need a dependable team and I came head hunting to you both first. Lets get to work. Dismissed," Jack ordered.

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