=/\= "Thank Q" =/\=

USS Grail : Engineering Report

After her communications with Brennan, Janice also called up a list of available engineering personnel who could aid in the problem while they were in the staff meeting... which she realized was only minutes away. She’d have just enough time to get something ready to explain to the senior staff. Janice examined the fracture until Kaitlyn finally arrived, with a Cardassian in tow.

Brennan looked at her questioningly. "What’s wrong, sir?"

She waited to answer the question, instead calling together the rest of the staff. She cleared her throat.

"It seems we have a bit of a problem. One of the plasma coolant tanks on the warp reactor seems to be showing a fracture. I’ve narrowed it down to which one. Your job," she turned to include everyone in her glance, "is to repair it as quickly as possible. I’m sure the senior staff will not be happy with the delay in our departure. Let’s try to make it as quick as possible. Okay, guys, Brennan and I must return to the senior officer’s meeting where we have to break the news to them. We’ll be back as soon as we can, though, to aid in the repairs. Get to it." Quickly, everyone began bustling about.

Kaitlyn looked at Janice from behind, staring blankly, and thinking of the possibilities. Janice turned around to Kaitlyn and pulled her aside. Not saying anything, she then walked with Kaitlyn to the turbolift.

As they were walking, Kaitlyn said, "The only two possibilities are one, a mechanical defect, and two, sabotage. I’d prefer to think the first is the most likely, even though it does show quite a bit of incompetence in the people who constructed this ship..."

Janice waited for the doors to close then ordered it to pause.

"Kaitlyn, there is more to this than meets the eye. I didn’t want to bring this up before the entire engineering crew, but that damage didn’t occur naturally."

An astonished look crossed Kaitlyn’s face.

Janice continued, "I know. But if you think about it, how could this kind of damage occur between last night’s scans and this morning, unless it was intentional. But that could just be a bad scan - so I looked further. The damage was done from the outside. Specifically, from a hard impact on the outside of the tank."

Kaitlyn gave a frustrated grunt, and remarked, "If it’s not one thing, it’s another..."

"I don’t want to make any rash conclusions... but this is definitely worth bringing up in the meeting, at least," Janice added.

"I agree, but if we are to say that it’s likely to be sabotage, do we have any records that might implicate somebody?"

"I haven’t had the chance to investigate. That will have to be done after the staff meeting since we’re probably late already." She quickly checked her internal chronometer, and realized that they just might get there on time after all...

"We’re late and still haven’t even got that report completed."

Janice looked worried. "Not completed? I hope you don’t mean to say you haven’t kept your part of the bargain," Janice said in such a way as to emphasize that it would not be a good mark of an assistant to fail on the first assignment given her.

Kaitlyn gave Janice a patronized look and was given in return, a wide grin from her. She seemed a bit mischievous at times, but good-hearted at others. Kaitlyn, as if to appear unaffected by her light nature, said nonchalantly, "Of course I kept my end of the deal." And Kaitlyn handed Janice the padd with the last half of the report. Janice raised an eyebrow as if to show that she was impressed. Kaitlyn subdued a smile at this and said, "Satisfactory?" Kaitlyn felt ridiculously formal and was about to laugh at herself, but thought otherwise, and it merely came out as a nervous chuckle.

Janice smiled warmly at her and said, "Thank you so much, Kaitlyn. I really do appreciate it. I owe you one... How would lunch be tomorrow? I’ll prepare some of my favorites. We can get to know each other then, as well. Sound good?" Janice offered.

Kaitlyn immediately responded, "No thanks..."

Janice looked bewildered, her face falling. "Why not?"

Kaitlyn shrugged, not really sure what to say as a reason and she was fresh out of excuses. "I guess there really is no reason. I was thinking that there might be a lot of work to do, but I don’t see how lunch would hurt anything. Lunch it is, then."

Janice didn’t want to be too pushy, so she asked, "Are you sure?"

"Yes, positive. Now what about those reports?"

"Oh, I’ll just put these two reports together, and hope it will be enough. Thank you again. Computer, resume." The familiar hum of the turbolift again filled the room as Janice began punching on the padds quickly.

Kaitlyn attempted to think of a way to bring this up in the staff meeting during the ride. Should she just come out and say it? Let Janice do it? Or give an introduction explaining their scans of the warp reactor and its coolant tanks? Undoubtedly, the Captain would ask what the computer records were during that time, if they said it was sabotage. They couldn’t answer that question.

Silence proceeded their trip back to the meeting room. They arrived

just about on time. Everyone was there, but the Captain had not started

speaking. Janice gave Kaitlyn a quick look as they walked in, as if to

say, * Well, here goes! *

Janice allowed Kaitlyn to walk in first, taking the back to be able to judge the atmosphere in the room. Kaitlyn was unsure of herself, and unsure of what to do about their discovery at the moment. Epic watched Kaitlyn and Janice walked in, and Kaitlyn wanted to tell him what she knew, but the time would come for that later.

They both a took a seat across from each other. Without much introduction, the meeting was called to be back into session, and Corvette Hunt then Logan Castle gave their personnel listings. After Castle was finished giving his list, no one said anything. It was presumably their turn to give their personnel listing.

Epic Terrakian looked at Kaitlyn, then at Janice. Janice stood up and said, "Before we give our staff report, there’s something more important that should be brought to attention." Without further introduction, Janice continued, "We, that is, Miss Brennan and I, have reason to believe that a problem has manifested itself in Main Engineering. I don’t want to make any rash conclusions, but I don’t believe it was purely mechanical, perhaps even sabotage."

Janice turned her line of attention from everyone in the room, to Kaitlyn alone, smiling slightly. It was her gentle way of saying ‘it’s your turn now’. Janice sat down, and Kaitlyn in turn, stood up, then said, "One of the plasma coolant tanks on the warp reactor shows a fracture. It should take only a couple hours to repair, but after the inspections of the reactors’ systems were done, it shows up later to have this fracture, which is a result of an impact on the outside of the tank... The sudden appearance of this fracture and its convenience in time (that is, just after the inspection and just before take off) is a good indication that it was done intentionally."

Kaitlyn sat down after saying this, her hands were shaking from the nervousness she always experienced from talking before a group of senior officers. She allowed her words to sink in, and waited for some type of response from the Captain in regards to this matter.

Instead Epic Terrakian, staying seated, asked, "What information have you two gathered about this in your investigations?"

Janice answered this question, explaining, "Sir, I discovered this minutes before the staff meeting resumed, and haven’t had the chance to do any real investigating. We have scanned the rest of engineering, last night, and I believe that is the only problem that has manifested itself." She handed Epic the padd, having already memorized the stats. "If you look through, the ship is completely in order." She sat down, waiting for Epic’s reply.

He glanced through the readings on the padd and looked up at Janice, saying, "This will be fine."

The room was silent audibly, but everyone’s response to this was loud and clear in their thoughts : they were going to be heading out on a mission that was already dangerous with a saboteur on board.

Janice’s assurance that "the repair will not delay our departure significantly" comforted no one.

Terrakian changed the subject (or perhaps not) by asking, "Now who are the members of your staff?"

Kaitlyn could offer nothing. In fact, she wished she knew who was assigned to Engineering herself! Fortunately, Janice came to the rescue by bringing up something on her padd. If she had the personnel listing all this time, why had Kaitlyn not been given a chance to see it? The simple reason was that she hadn’t asked.

Janice started : "Our complete engineering staff will be as follows :

The people on the Alpha shift along with me is my assistant, Lt. Kaitlyn Brennan, then Ensign K’tel, Ensign Casia Adran, Ensign Robert Delagi and Ensign Charlotte Koscearny. K’tel is a male Klingon, Adran is a female Betazoid, Delagi is a male terran, Koscearny is a female terran. The Beta shift has Lt. Kestra Prynne, Ensign Charon, Ensign Nila, Ensign Livok, Ensign Jennifer Harken, and Ensign Lynne Baillie. Prynne is, for all purposes, a terran female, Charon is a male Cardassian, Nila is a female un-joined trill, Livok is a male Vulcan, Harken is a female terran, and Baillie is also a female terran.

The Gamma shift has Lt. Stacey Porter, Ensign Ladun Mesker, Ensign Jerome Bryant, Ensign 100101, Ensign 011011, and Ensign Elizabeth Wilson. Porter is a female terran, Ladun is a male Bajoran, Bryant is a male terran (native American), 100101 and 011011 are ‘male’ Binars, and Wilson is a female terran."

Kaitlyn wanted to show that she knew something so she added unnecessarily, "Lt. Prynne is section leader during the Beta shift, and Lt. Porter is the section leader during the gamma shift."

Thinking further, Kaitlyn continued, "Charon and Bryant have been assigned to different shifts purposely, and it is expected that a standing restraining order be placed on Bryant. I ask, in reflection of the altercation which took place earlier, that none of my engineers be transferred away and that disciplinary actions be left to me."

Kaitlyn worried that Janice might think she was being a little bit presumptuous by acting as if she had the right to determine this, but Janice did not pay much attention. The important thing was that their report was now concluded, and it was someone else’s turn to take their shot at explaining their staffing. Eve Mallory took this as her cue and in a matter of seconds, she reviewed some information on her padd, then stood up and said, "Lieutenant Eve Mallory, Science Chief." She continued to give her outline of the staffing in the science department.

<OOC: I hope no one gets mad at me for not color-coordinating the shifts. :) Also, I have further to explain about Lt. Prynne, but that will have to wait for another post. And please note that Bryant is an EM in engineering, the only one in this dept., and will be working mainly with ops; he can still be found in main engineering with everyone else usually, though. And, Viv, I’d just like to say I’m sorry, but it is a fault of mine that I am too impatient but my reasoning was that I didn’t want this post to get too far behind schedule.>

=/\= "Listen to the unbroken, nonexistent drone..." =/\=

Kaitlyn Brennan, Asst. Chief Engineer, USS Grail

Lynne Baillie, Chief Engineer, USS Trailblazer

ICQ #6664187, IRC Nick (Undernet)--Kestra

=/\= "Silent like the sound of a proceeding cyclone..." =/\=