It had seemed like ages since he had last seen her. Her beautiful shape and seemingly glowing skin. He had dreamt about her on those eerie nights on Xenon III, and wondered if he would ever get back to her. Now, the one lady of Lieutenant Commander Garek Loran's life sat in front of him.
"I've missed you," Garek said, as he ran his fingers over the glistening finish of the Lambda Flier. The paint was spotless, even the scratch that she had gotten during a small tangle with an alien ship was gone. The Borial gods knew how to clean up. Many would call Garek a lonely guy for the way he spent times with his machines. Garek thought of himself not as a lonely person, but a dedicated one, spending multiple nights taking apart different pieces of equipment, and then repairing them, making them run better then ever. It was his job, and he thought he was pretty darn good at it.
As he rounded the port nacelle, he looked for any imperfections that he could spot with the naked eye. None were to be seen. Finally, he came to the entrance hatch. He entered his command code, and sure enough, the door opened to reveal the inner personnel/cargo area. "Ah, that new shuttle smell." Garek grinned, and stepped into the shuttle. He opened the overhead matter/anti-matter reactor assembly to check the dilithium crystals. Even the crystals were shaped perfectly. He closed the assembly and made his way forward into the cockpit area.
The door whooshed open to reveal the cockpit area. Everything was just as he left it except for one thing. The pilot and co-pilot's chairs, instead of being normal Federation standard upholstery, were covered in a nice, polished off leather. "Thank you, Kalmar," Garek said quietly to himself. He smiled, and looked out the viewports of the shuttle bay. Not a soul in sight. Might as well see if the Borial gods have done anything to the propulsion system as well. Garek entered the startup sequence to be greeted with the sound of a clean
M/ARA warp core powerup. The panels flickered on, and all instrumentation turned out to be perfect. "Sweet. First the Virgo, then the shuttlecrafts, and even the Lambda Flier. Is there anything they can't fix?"
After the crew was brought back onboard the Virgo, Captain Maruu had asked Garek and his teams to sweep the ship, and make sure that everything was back in fine, and working order. Over the next few days, Garek, and the rest of his engineering teams, had turned the Virgo inside out checking for any imperfections in every system, both in the Virgo herself, and in the shuttlecraft carried onboard. Everything was up to par. However, Garek left the Lambda Flier alone for his own expertise, and as he had noticed, everything was working perfectly.
With a smile of satisfaction, he powered down the Lambda Flier and turned all of the systems off. He then made his way to the back of the shuttle, and exited. As he exited the Lambda Flier, he heard the door leading into the shuttle bay open.
"...and this is Shuttle Bay One," the person said. "Some of the shuttles are kept in here. Look over there, there's a Type 12 Cochrane shuttle. And over there, there's another one. And over there... is our Chief Engineer." Commander K'Lara Lataro looked up from T'Lan and over to Garek. "Hello, Garek."
Garek closed up the Lambda Flier's entry ramp, and walked over. "Good afternoon, Commander. It looks like you brought a little visitor with you." Garek smiled, and looked down at T'Lan. "How are you today little guy?"
K'Lara smiled. "I was just giving the Virgo's newest passenger a little tour on my day off. I figured the shuttle bay would be a pretty good spot to start with since it's usually nice and quiet here."
"A good choice," Garek commented. He looked around. "Not a soul here besides the ones in the shuttles. I just finished making my inspection of the Lambda Flier and everything seems to check out nicely."
K'Lara nodded looking down at T'Lan.
"Well, I guess I'll be on my way. I might as well let you and the little one enjoy the serenity in here." Garek smiled, and made his way past the two.
"Thanks Garek," K'Lara called over her shoulder. Garek exited the shuttlebay.
Arriving in Engineering, the normal hustle and bustle needed to maintain the ship was going on. With all of the extra supplies the Borial gods had stocked into the cargo bays onboard, the Virgo would have enough dilithium and tridanium to be able to keep transwarp drive onboard as a permanent option as opposed to normal warp.
Ensign Antilles and the rest of the Alpha Team stood on the right side of the newly installed Main Engineering Master Situation Display Table in the middle of the main "corridor" in Engineering. Beta Team was on the left side. The Engineering staff had renamed the engineering display table the "craps table" in reference to it's shape. It was roughly a square table about six feet long, three feet wide, and about four feet off the ground.
"Alright, let's see," Jennifer Antilles started. She began reading from the PADD she had in her hand to Ensign Jacob Celchu who was directly across from her on the other side of the "craps table". Warp core efficiency is at 96.3 percent. EPS manifolds have been flushed out and are at peak efficiency. No anomalies to report, and everything seems in good condition." She handed the PADD over to Jacob. "Be sure you and the boys have a good shift." She shook hands with Jacob, and the two crews exchanged handshakes. It was a type of "changing of the guard" ceremony that had caught on in Engineering. Garek didn't say anything to stop or change it. He just let it be, seeing as though it seemed to make the teams work well together, and keep them in high spirits.
As the last of Alpha Team made their way out of Engineering, Beta team took over. It was now 1200, and they were fresh as a daisy, ready to conquer any tasks assigned to them. Celchu handed out the assignments for the shift, and the team split up going to work. Garek made his way over to Jacob who was standing at the "craps table".
"Good afternoon, sir," Jacob said, not looking up from the table. He was monitoring the power distribution system, making sure that there weren't any "brownouts" through the ship.
"Good afternoon, Jacob. I hope you're enjoying the table." Garek grinned. It was more or less a rhetorical question, since Jacob, and a few other engineers had been asking for a Master Situations Display Table for a long time. Mostly, these displays were only found on Galaxy-class starships, but Garek thought they needed one as well. Besides the fact, it was a gathering place in Engineering, and it could access all of the information needed for a system and such, and put it in one spot. Essentially, all the work in Engineering could be done in one spot instead of drifting from panel to panel to gather information.
Jacob looked up and gave a grin. "I certainly hope that's a rhetorical question, sir." He tapped in some more info, and then went over to another terminal. "How did the Lambda Flier check out?"
"She's looking good," Garek replied. He punched up some information on a small display screen on the "craps table" and then cleared the screen. "Just came in to check on how things were doing. Do you have Antilles's status report?"
"Oh, sure." Jacob looked over, and handed Garek the PADD that Jennifer had handed him.
Garek scanned it quickly, and then handed it back. "Very nice. As an added assignment, I want you to make sure to get warp core efficiency up to 98 percent, and to get the rest of the hull laced with that tridanium already. Depending on how much is left, we'll see if we can equip this ship with ablative armor."
Jacob looked up from his panel. "Are you serious?"
"If there's enough, I don't see why not. I still have to do some calculations and such, but it's always a possibility. I'll be in my office. Oh, and short of a warp core breach, all hell breaking loose, or the ship being eaten by a giant space creature, I'd like to be alone for the next ten minutes please."
"I'll be sure you're not disturbed at all."
"Thanks, Jacob." Garek entered his office, and began looking over the tridanium inventory and how much surplus was projected. If he plays his cards right, he might just have enough to put 18 inches of ablative armor on this ship yet. He plopped his feet up on his small desk, and began looking over the PADDs of the cargo inventory onboard the ship.