Meeting the Chief Engineer

Posted on Wed Feb 11th, 2009 @ 5:35pm by Lieutenant Cress Maven

627 words; about a 3 minute read

Mission: Citadel Prime
Location: Main Engineering Bay
Timeline: Current

Lieutenant Commander Rowena Arkham was not a happy person -- she was notoriously short tempered to begin with, and people who kept her waiting often left her even more irritated. As far as she had known, the Chief Engineer had reported several days ago, and had yet to grace the Executive Officer's office with her presence--an affront to the older officer, who'd issued the order to all concerned personnel.

Scowling a little as she entered the bowels of the ship, she called out, "Lieutenant Sheedy! A word!"

Skanda was sprawled underneath a console, repairing some wiring that had shorted earlier in the day. It was trivial work, but nothing else on this blasted ship was deigning to malfunction. At Arkham's hoarse shout the woman shot upright, banging her head against the console. Cursing, the chief engineer scooted backwards into a sitting position. She located the woman standing in her engineering section and started twice: once at the woman's appearance, and a second time at the pips on her collar. The XO!

"Nice to finally see you," Arkham rasped. "I'm assuming you received the order issued by the Captain and myself?"

With practiced ease Sheedy twirled her blue hair into a horse tail and tied it at the nape of her neck. "Aye, sir, I 'eard it," Skanda acknowledged sheepishly. "Jus' 'adn't got aroun' to seein' ye yet, bein' busy with gettin' the lady unde'way an' all." Skanda fondly patted the bulkhead closest to her. She had not been aboard the Archimedes long, but she already was getting to like the feel of this old/young ship.

"See to it this does not happen again," Arkham said coldly. "If there's one thing that most people have realized, I hate being kept waiting. It doesn't end so well for most people."

The tone of Arkham's voice rankled Skanda and a scathing retort about spoiled officers was on the very tip of her tongue ready to spring forth. But then her yellow cat's eyes fell on the shiny little pieces of metal at Rowena Arkham's collar. 'She is the superior, and she knows it.' Annoyed, but sufficiently humbled, the engineer inclined her head toward the commander. "Yessir."

Arkham relented a little. She didn't want to entirely break her new crew in their first week aboard--she had years to do such things, if they remained aboard the Archimedes. "All right then. Tell me, how are things looking down here--I'm not an engineer by trade. Is there anything you're going to need?"

A strand of hair floated free of it's tie and Skanda blew it away with a sigh. "I tell ya, miss, the lady is as fine a ship as ever I se'ved on. An engineer's dream. Or nightmare, if ye fancy fixin' things. Nothin' on the ruddy ship's broken! I'm gettin' 'er h'as close to maximum efficiency as I can afore we take off. So thank ye for teh offer, sir, but I'm alrigh' until somethin' goes haywire." Skanda tried a smile. Maybe this woman wasn't really as mean as she seemed.

Arkham smirked a little, and said coldly, "Good. I'll know who to blame if there's a mistake. Now, is there anything else I should be aware of? Any sort of accommodations that may need to be made for your comfort aboard the Archimedes?"

Skanda's lips twitched at that. She made a noncommital humming noise and thought about the commander's last question. "No' that I can think of, righ' at the now. Everythin' looks wonde'ful to me so fa'. But I thank ye for the askin'."

Arkham smirked, turning to leave. "All right then, Lieutenant, I'll be heading out."

She paused in the doorway, taking a moment to rasp the words, "Don't make me come find you again."

 

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