80306.12
After The Scientist and Conduits
--=Main Engineering; USS Serendipity=--
Strolling into Engineering at last, Zanh Liis hung back in the doorway for a moment. She leaned against the wall, nodding in acknowledgement to those who greeted her respectfully by her title as they came and went.
As busy as the bridge always was, she still found the hum of activity in Engineering to be fascinating. Always buzzing, always moving and changing.
*If it's true that the bridge is the brain of a starship,* Zanh mused, *Engineering is its heart.*
She thought about times gone by, when she would see Salvek moving back and forth in similar quarters, he and Kellyn working together efficiently and often without words. Vocal speech was not often required in order to convey what one needed from the other. They'd worked that way whether on a ship or in their research lab aboard the deep space station; the lab where the ideas that would become theories that would become Alchemy were conceived.
Now, Alchemy was a reality.
*Time marches on,* Zanh marveled at how much had changed for all of them in the past linear year, and she counted her considerable blessings.
As much as she knew Salvek missed serving as an engineer, she was grateful that times had changed, and he was available to act as North on her internal compass, full-time. She still needed, after all these years, his insight to keep her eyes forward and her purpose clear.
She hoped that knowing that Kellyn would be devoting her time to developing his work even more fully would help to bring back to the Vulcan a sense of fulfillment that he had lately seemed to be lacking, even if he would not admit it, even to her. She had no doubt that they would spend many off-duty hours working together, as they always had.
Zanh was pleased that Breaux had accepted the position of Engineering Chief, and she now sought out the young officer who would stand at his side.
Assistant Chief of Engineering was to be a weighty position aboard the Serendipity- more so than on any other ship in the fleet. This, because of their mission to develop and also safeguard the Alchemy. Zanh needed someone in the position who was capable of commanding the department on either ship when the need arose, whenever the Chief was otherwise engaged.
She knew just the man for the job. Only she wasn't sure that he would, at first, agree with her selection.
"Lieutenant Dengar," Zanh called out as she saw the Angosian's legs hanging out from a Jeffries' tube access point in the wall. "Front and center, man. I need to speak with you."
This left Rada in quite a perplexing situation. The only two conclusions he could reach were: 1) that the Captain was either talking to someone else or, 2) that the she had forgotten his rank.
So, Rada figured that if he stood up and she was talking to someone else, then she would inevitably see him as an obnoxious little upstart who figured that not only was he the only Dengar in the galaxy that anyone could even want to talk to but also that he deserved a promotion to Lieutenant which he clearly didn’t.
Alternately, if she were mistaken about his rank and he didn’t stand up then not only would she still see him as an obnoxious little upstart who doesn’t think that he has to follow his Captain’s orders but also if he did eventually have to come out from this Jeffries’ Tube, possibly to eat something sometime within the next couple of days, and she asked him why he had ignored her then there would be no way to say “I didn’t come out because you got my rank wrong” without sounding like a little smart arse as well.
Not to mention the fact that since the Captain had recently started calling him by a nickname and was now suddenly calling him by rank, and the wrong rank at that, that logically either he must have seriously fallen from grace in her opinion all of a sudden or she was having some kind of mental breakdown. In either case there was a serious possibility that she would maim him no matter what he did.
The irony was that when Rada had come in this morning he had fixed a faulty relay which had been making a rather deafening and painful screeching noise. He realized that if he hadn’t done that then he wouldn’t have been able to hear the Captain now, meaning he wouldn’t be in this predicament and his life would be so much more pleasant.
He decided that if he did come out, that he could at least pretend to have come out for some other reason and so he quickly slid out and stood in front of the Captain.
Seeing her expression, he figured that he must have made the right decision. He quickly stood in the best front and centre position he could find which he figured wasn’t close enough to seem creepy, but wasn’t far enough away to have the Captain ask if there was something wrong with her breath.
If the use of the rank had been intentional then Rada would have to ask why in order to avoid seeming deaf and if it was accidental then he would have to ask why the Captain was here or else seem disinterested. He quickly decided on the dual purpose question of, “Captain?”
“That’s right Danger, you’re now officially one pip short of the correct rank insignia.”
*A pip short of the correct insignia must be the Bajoran equivalent of a few sandwiches short of a…* Rada thought before quickly realising *She’s serious, that’s insane!*
“Captain?” Rada asked again, genuinely wondering if the Captain had been replaced with some kind of android with a faulty promotion subroutine.
“You deserve it, Danger.” The Captain replied fondly. “I have seen you take great strides forward since I first saw you onboard the flagship. Congratulations.”
“Thank you, Sir,” Rada replied stunned. “I promise I won’t let you down.”
“But wait, there’s more,” the Captain added, “There are some big changes taking place in the Engineering department, Commander Lair is returning to a research and development role and Lieutenant Commander Breaux is taking over as Chief Engineer. This means that I’ll be needing a new Assistant Chief.”
“I’ll look forward to serving under whomever you choose, Captain.” Rada replied innocently, mentally reminding himself to congratulate Avery on his promotion later on.
Zanh smiled at Rada’s unpresumptuous manner.
“Very well then, Danger. I choose you,” she said with her trademark grin. "Good luck serving under yourself. I hear you're a nice guy, so you should do okay."
“Me, Sir? Thank you, Sir?” replied Rada in shock. Finally, he added, “Are you sure, Sir?”
“Yes, Danger. I’m absolutely, a thousand percent sure.” She replied. His face could barely move as she presented him with his shiny new pip.
Lt. (jg) Rada Dengar
Assistant Chief Engineer
USS Serendipity NCC-2012
and
-=/\=- Captain Zanh Liis
Commanding Officer
USS Serendipity NCC-2012
Assistant Chief Engineer
USS Serendipity NCC-2012
and
-=/\=- Captain Zanh Liis
Commanding Officer
USS Serendipity NCC-2012