SD 241505.23 Joint log: CPO Jera Ros and Ens Kev Walker

Posted on Sun May 24th, 2015 @ 3:54pm by Lieutenant Jera'turak Ros & Lieutenant Kev Walker

1,247 words; about a 6 minute read

The gentle happy purr like hum of warp core that was propelling a starship along at warp speed was the only sound Kev could hear from the maintenance access hatch that was located on the upper support level. Vaughn, the tyrant that ran the engineering department on the Endeavour, had placed Kev on a different duty assignment for several weeks, and it hadn't taken long for Kev to realize that it was for nothing more than to punish him. Vaughn had done the same with several others in engineering, placing them on assignments where their field specialty was of little or no help at all, and there hadn't been a single person who had worked less than a double shift since the Endeavour had launched. It was almost too much for such a long period of time and some of the engineers were close to the breaking point. Kev didn't like it, but there was no way he was going to speak out against Vaughn either. It was for that reason that Kev was hiding in the access hatch on the upper support level. He was supposed to be checking the output flow regulator on the secondary fusion reactors, but that had been done a week ago and there was no reason to do it again just yet. Besides, it was also lunch time and he had cheerfully brought a few sub sandwiches with him and a technical manual to help waste the time. As long as no one found him and reported it to Vaughn, he was hoping for an extended lunch.

Jera sighed as she practically stumbled into engineering through a side access. She had been working nonstop ever since the Endeavour had left Basik. With the threat of action stations and a constant alert status throughout the entire ship, some of Vaughn's nitpicky detail duties had been shoved to the side. Now that the emergency had passed and the Endeavour was heading back to DS5, there was too much to do. For Jera it had been an endless nightmare of calibrate this, fix that, check on this system, that's not working, someone reported a problem, you're not doing enough for nearly thirty seven hours. She was tired, irritable, and tired of looking at starship systems.

"Alright, where's the great and powerfully stupid Vaughn?" Jera asked as she walked up to the assignment station. Looking at the assignments listed, she groaned as she saw her name listed.

"Vaughn's in a meeting with a bed and a pillow," one of the engineers standing nearby said. "He said he wanted a report on everything on his list done by tomorrow morning."

"He wants a level five diagnostic on the deflector screen generators while we're underway? How did that idiot pass the engineering course at the academy," Jera muttered.

"That is a really good question. Someone should ask him," someone said in the background.

"And we have a volunteer," one of the engineering duty officers said in a tone that didn't indicate that she was joking.

"I can do a level one run on the system and then I'm calling it a day," Jera said.

"You need to just go to bed, Ros. You looking like you're about to pass out," the first engineer said.

"That’s because I'm hungry. The generators are between me and my quarters. It take seven seconds to run a quick check of the system, file the report, and then I'm done," Jera said as she headed towards the ladder that would take her to the upper support level. From there it was a twenty nine meter crawl through the Jefferies tubes to the deflector screen generator control panel. She was running purely on automatic and craving something to eat which was why she didn't notice that the hatch was already open. She simply crawled through and tripped over a tool kit and into someone's lap.

"What the?" Jera muttered as she rolled off of the person's lap and looked up to see Walker. "YOU!"

Kev blinked as a lithe young and attractive female engineer practically fell into his lap. It took him several minutes before he recognized PO Ros, and then the situation became awkward. He and Ros had developed a strange sort of relationship while working together, similar to the one found between brother and sister, so much that he had even come around to considering Jera Ros to be the sister he had never had. Having a woman you considered to be your adopted sister fall into your lap was somewhat of an uncomfortable situation for Kev. "What in the hell are you doing?" he half shouted as he realized that the sub he had been eating had fallen to the deck.

"What in the nine hells do you think you're doing?!" Jera snapped back as she tried to regain her composure in the cramped space of the Jefferies tubes. She finally ended up falling down in a sitting position facing Walker. "Eating in the Jefferies tubes? Really Kev, does Vaughn scare you that much?"

"Vaughn doesn't scare me nearly as much as you do on a regular basis," Kev said as he picked up his sandwich and sighed before he threw it into the trash bag he had brought with him. "At least eating in here keeps me from being seen by him. Most of the time he forgets I'm even on the ship."

"Lucky you," Jera growled. "I haven't done anything but forty hour shifts on eight hour turnarounds ever since the last alert status was lifted."

"Yeah, you're not the only one. Every other petty officer above third class has been on similar schedules. Vaughn really doesn't care about the people under his supervision, but he hates enlisted people more," Kev said.

"I figured that last part out. I didn't know everyone else was working the same type of hours I was," Jera grumbled. "Why hasn't anyone complained about it?"

"Because the last three people who did are getting dishonorable dismissals from Starfleet when we get back to base," Kev said. "Two of them are sitting in their quarters right now under administrative leave from duty, the third was almost sent to the brig. If Vaughn hears out about any complaint, especially against him, he stomps so hard on the person complaining that it literally scares everyone else."

"Are you serious?!" Jera snapped. "He's been doing this for almost a week and no one has been able to do anything about it?"

"They're scared, Jera," Kev said with a shrug.

"And what about you?" Jera snapped.

"There's not much I can do. I'm a junior officer who might get canned at the end of this deployment anyway," Kev said.

"Then that should give you more reason to do something about it!" Jera snapped angrily. "Just what in the blazes do they teach you kids at the academy these days? How to cowardly serve the Federation?"

"Frak off, Jera," Kev growled. "It's not like it's an easy bed of roses for me too."

"No, it's just not as hard as the people who you should be worrying about!" Jera snapped before she started crawling down the Jefferies tube.

"Where are you going?" Kev asked.

"To do an officers job and l talk to someone who might listen about how part of this crew is being treated by their department head," Jera snarled as she continued on her way.

Ens Kev Walker
Engineering officer

PO1 Jera'turak Ros
Engineering Specialist

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