Minor Frustrations

Posted on Tue Aug 15th, 2023 @ 4:02pm by Lieutenant Commander Darrod Hanous & Chief Petty Officer Meredith Corden
Edited on on Tue Aug 15th, 2023 @ 4:10pm

0 words; about a 1 minute read

Mission: Mission 4: Through a Glass, Darkly
Location: Meredith's Quarters
Timeline: M4 MD02 (2268.07.11) 2300

Meredith tied off her long, fuzzy grey bathrobe as she walked over to the com to hail damage control or engineering or whoever was taking petty complaints at this hour. She was glad she'd decided to take a shower tonight instead of tomorrow morning. Otherwise, there'd be no time to get it fixed.

"This is Yeoman Corden," she said. "My sonic shower is not working."

Darrod had been working today, and he'd noticed that the other engineers didn't expect that - apparently his predecessor was more of a tinkerer than a workman. A full shift with the damage control team, poring over every damaged critical system, had led to drinking far too much coffee, Darrod was sitting in his new office, yet another long espresso in hand and trying to decide if he was wide awake due to the excitement of being on a new ship, or because of a massive amount of caffeine. He'd sent most of the others to sleep during dog watch, and resolved that he'd get some sleep during the morning shift. So he was leading the skeleton crew in Engineering currently on the shorter night shift.

When the call came in from the Yeoman, Dar waved off one of the Ensigns and picked it up himself. It would give him an excuse to walk and work out some of the nervous energy - and a sonic shower wasn't the most complex of devices. Plus, he hadn't met her yet; and he'd found a general rule of starship life - always befriend the Captain's yeoman. She was among the most valuable people on the ship. Didn't hurt that she had a nice voice, either. "Engineering here, Yeoman. I'll be there in just a moment to get it taken care of."

He walked over to the equipment rack and booked out a tool belt and a tricorder, noting the time and putting his rank and initials down. It was a small thing, but following the rules he was enforcing was something he believed in. "Ensign Reilly, hold down the fort 'til I get back. Anything happens, I'll be helping the yeoman. And, wipe that smirk off your face, at least until I'm not here. It isn't a social call."

Checking the registry quickly, he headed up to her quarters. He pressed the buzzer on the door as soon as he arrived. "Yeoman Corden? Lieutenant Hanous, Engineering. I'm here to repair the shower head."

The door slid open and she smiled at Darrod. It was her first time meeting the Orion engineer. "I didn't expect you'd come yourself, sir," she said as she walked back towards the shower as if he needed to be shown where it was. Her quarters were on the smaller side, though not shared. There was a dresser, a neatly made bed, a bookshelf, a guitar leaning against one wall, and a small table with the couple of chairs. As quarters went, they were nice enough.

"I'd have put on a proper uniform," she added. Strictly speaking, the bathrobe was rather more modest than the skirt variant uniforms that had doubtless been designed by a man. That was decide the point. It was still more of a private thing. It was not for senior officers.

"I hope you're setting in all right," she said politely as she walked him to the small restroom and shower. "It's a friendly crew for the most part."

Darrod smiled at the woman when she opened the door, walking in after he was invited. Her quarters were a little smaller than his own, but a good size to be 'cozy'. A guitar and some books, and enough space to have guests. He chuckled when she said she was surprised at his presence - and that she'd have gotten into uniform; not that he minded the sight of her in a bathrobe. He shook his head. "I'm the only one on damage control duty right now, actually - no job is 'too small'. We've been working all day on the battle damage and everything else. I ordered the team to get some sleep. Besides, you're off-duty and I'm betting you were about to get a shower when you found the problem. There's no reason for you to be dressed formally."

He walked into the bathroom, pulling up the tricorder from his waist. If he could figure out what was wrong with it before having to take things apart, that would be good. He let the scan run, and looked over at her. "Sorry for not catching this sooner, we just haven't had time to do a full maintenance rundown yet."

At the question of him settling in, he nodded with a smile. "Just between you and I, miss, this is probably the easiest time I've had joining a ship in my career. The crew is a great group of people. The Engineering staff are skilled, and they're genuinely concerned for the ship. That does mean a lot."

"I was about to take a shower," Meredith confirmed. "I'm lucky I didn't decide to wait until morning."

She smiled as he spoke of the ship. "Do you normally..." but she thought better of whatever question she was about to ask. "It's a good crew. We're glad to have you with us, I'm sure."

He nodded at her comment about being lucky about not waiting. He'd figured out what the problem was; it was simple enough, but he'd need to take the shower head off to fix it. He reached up with a spanner off his belt, taking the unit apart. He gave her a smile. "It was definitely lucky - this way, I got to meet you, right?"

He heard her stop from asking a question, which piqued his curiosity. He looked up at her from his repair with a curious expression. "Do I normally... what?"

"I'm not that hard to meet," she said, looking away with a small blush.

"You said it was the easiest crew to join in your career," she noted. "Have other crews been difficult?"

He looked at her blushing and his smile came back. He looked down before she finally asked the question she'd held back. "More in terms of feeling a sense of belonging to the ship than anything else, yes. Up until this assignment, I've been assigned as part of the closer crew - I've been on three other starship-class vessels; the Hood, the New Jersey, and the Joyeuse. Don't have ribbons from any of 'em, because I joined either mid-cruise or in the final mission year before they went to dock, and I wasn't eligible for retention. The Midway isn't like that - even though I'm taking over for someone else, we're all still in first year, which means everybody's kind of trying to figure everyone else out." He shrugged and pulled out a screwdriver, opening the actual shower head, looking at the sonic field oscillator. "And, yes, there were some anti-alien sentiments. Specifically anti-Orion as well. Problem is, I understand their sentiment. I hate the Cartel, the Syndicate, and the Compact too."

That last remark, he dropped without any real ceremony. But the fact that he referenced specific entities within what was widely called the Orion Pirates would tell anyone with even passing familiarity that he'd probably seen it from the inside; and his hatred was probably as well-founded as their own.

"You're a Starfleet officer," Meredith said. "They should look at your record, not criminal groups from your homeworld. There are certainly more than enough human criminals in the galaxy.

"We did have a recent run-in with slavers," Meredith told him, though he'd likely already heard. "It is..." She trailed off again. "I understand why you would hate those groups."

Darrod had heard a rough account of the encounter, but hadn't taken a deep dive into it. He was afraid he might hear names that he knew - and he didn't need to have that kind of anger and frustration in his life. His brother, he knew, was a smuggler of goods rather than a slaver. Hell, the whole Wildfyre group were too free-spirited to believe in slavery; but they turned a blind eye to others doing it, because that made money. He nodded grimly as he continued working. "Yeah. That's the worst of the whole lot - and the others are none too good either. I'm glad that most everyone I've met on this ship agrees with you, look at the record and the person, not their background. This is a good crew, and a good ship. I'm glad to be here."

"It's a Federation ship," she said piously. "The Federation has many worlds." That was certainly the aspiration, but she had heard Starfleet vessels casually referred to as Earth ships before, often with no harm intended.

She laughed. "This conversation took a serious turn from my shower being broken."

He chuckled as he continued to work on repairing the oscillator and its control circuit, looking down at it while working in close detail. "It has, yeah. But then again, simple repairs like this can be kind of boring, if I'm perfectly honest - the oscillator got knocked off-axis and seized, so it shook the housing and knocked other things out. Very simple to realign, but takes a not-insignificant period of time." He looked up with a smile. "I'm sorry if I lost you there - it's very normal, and it's a known failure state. I know a lot of people who worry when something breaks, that they might have done something 'wrong' - you absolutely didn't."

"No, no, I understood," she said. "Well enough, anyway. It wasn't positioned right so it made things shake and other things fell out of position." She looked at him a little nervously, as if afraid she might have gotten it wrong after all. Every Starfleet officer had at least some engineering at the Academy, but she was not an officer. This hadn't been in basic training and her more advanced training was almost all about record keeping methods and protocols.

Dar nodded at her with a wide smile, while he continued to fix the part. It was a mindless repair, which is how he got to talking. "Basically, yes." Her understanding was good enough, and her acceptance that he wasn't assigning any blame meant just as much. "Is there anything else you haven't reported to Engineering?"

"No, sir," she told him. "It's just this."

Darrod nodded at her as he finished up with repairing the showerhead. "Thank you. A lot of people, on ships I was on before, would 'forget' to call Engineering over something they considered just to be an 'annoyance', instead of just calling it a component failure, which is what it usually really is." He took a few steps back into the bathroom and reached up, connecting the thing back up and then screwing it back on. He pushed the button, firing the shower and double-checking that his repair had held and there wasn't another issue that he hadn't seen.

He walked over to her and extended a hand to shake. "As I said, it's been a pleasure to meet you, miss Corden. I hope you have an enjoyable shower."

She took his hand and smiled warmly. A playful comment came to mind but she held it back. "Please, just Meredith, lieutenant."

Darrod smiled at Meredith as he held her hand just a moment longer than expected, thankful for his green skin hiding what would have been a slight blush on anyone else's cheeks. "You can call me Darrod, Meredith."

"It's nice to meet you, Darrod," she said, perhaps blushing a little herself.

 

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