Aoife hobbled into engineering, having just escaped the clutches of Doctor Haigh. Her chest hurt like hell and she felt queasy, but with the Denver down a Chief Engineer since Berkeley moved on to greener pastures, there was no luxury for the assistant chief to heal, bullet wound or not.

“Leave it to me to get shot in the 24th century,” she muttered to herself as she paused at the “pool table,” leaning on it to catch her breath, her features bathed in the blue glow of the warp core.

She flagged down a Trill crewmember as she rushed by. “Uh… Chief,” Aoife started, noting the Trill’s rank on her collar. “Report.”

Kitsuragi Sanae liked to think she wasn’t usually a nervous wreck- that she was pretty good at keeping herself collected and level-headed. Granted, she also didn’t tend to make a habit of stowing away on Nebula-class cruisers, either. 

The last week or so (was it a week? She’d post track by now) was one of the most nerve-wracking of her life, which was saying something considering she’s twice been in combat aboard a Miranda-class tin can. Sanae had been running around the ship like a chicken with its head cut off, trying to blend in with the normal engineering crew while trying to decide whether it’d be a better idea to turn herself in or just wait out Denver‘s deployment and scoot back to the shipyard before anyone was the wiser. To say she wasn’t used to the hustle and bustle of a ship this big, this new, a frontline cruiser, was an understatement. Diamantina was never this busy, or chaotic. It felt like a whole different Starfleet.

Getting stopped by someone who she could only assume was a senior engineering officer definitely did not help her nerves. Sanae froze for a second, momentarily paralyzed with indecision, before turning on her heel to face Aoife. Just pretend you belong here, everything will be fine, the little voice inside her head muttered. 

Her mismatched eyes- one paler, out of focus, and a little too dilated to be normal- almost certainly betrayed her nervousness. Sanae was not good at hiding things. “U-uh, it’s, uh… petty officer third class, ma’am,” Sanae stuttered, mentally regretting almost immediately correcting the more senior engineer. “But, u-uhm, well… the plasma leak for the starboard impulse engine’s been fixed up, so i-if we had any, y’know, problems with it, that should be… that should be fixed. And, uh, there’s a power surge on Deck Nine I was going to go check out, not sure what it- what it is yet. That’s all I know, sir.” An uncertain pause. “… ma’am.” Aiofe’s com badge cut in.

“Haigh to McKenzie.” Lavender sounded annoyed.

Aoife frowned and let out a low groan, “Yes Doctor?”

“It is my duty as Chief Medical Officer to advise you that you have left sickbay against my explicit advice. Any resulting complications are therefore entirely on you.”

Lavender closed the com without waiting for further response. Perhaps ‘annoyed’ wasn’t a strong enough word.

“Well that went better than expected,” Aoife observed.  “I half expected her to send security after me to drag me back to sickbay.”  She took a breath and winced in pain. “We really need a Chief Engineer.   Until then it’s on me, and since I recently died you’re going to be my hands and back Crewman.”

… well, the medical officer certainly didn’t sound pleased. At least it didn’t sound like she was coming down here- Sanae didn’t need to have medical throwing a fit about her eye on top of everything else. The way Aoife winced brought the Trill-Human to a cringe, tempted to ask if she was okay- or how she could’ve been “recently dead” and yet still here. The words died on her lips before they could escape, and her mouth shut just as quickly. Stupid question to ask.

“… u-uh, yessir. Ma’am. Uhm. Got it.” Mismatched eyes jumped between Aoife and the floor, awkward, caught off-guard. Sanae didn’t even belong here, for fuck’s sake! What was she getting herself into? Should she say something? Come clean at the worst possible moment, rid herself of this unwilling duty to a ship that wasn’t even hers?

The hesitation lasted just a few moments longer, before she looked back up. The answer was never in doubt. Sanae always had trouble saying no.

“What’s first on the list?”

Aoife shifted and entered commands into the nearby console. “Operations reports our main deflector is out of alignment. Science reports failure of the dorsal sensor array,  and tactical reports a malfunction in the Number Three phaser array. The main impulse engines require standard periodic mantinance.  Dealer’s choice,” Aoife replied with a shrug. 

Options, options, options. Sanae could work with that. The deflector array sounded most pressing- they kinda needed that to navigate with any real accuracy, and she didn’t need to be a helmsman to know that accidentally driving Denver into a rock was a sub-optimal outcome. 

“I’ll take the deflector array first,” she declared, pulling a wrench out of her toolbelt and giving it a flashy, and hopefully reassuring, spin in her hand. “It’ll be back up in a flash, promise.”

Perhaps she’d be a stowaway for just a little longer. Just long enough to help. 

“In a flash?” Aoife blinked and sighed.  Ever since receiving the battlefield commission she had to remind herself that she wasn’t just one of the crew anymore.  As acting chief engineer she had double the responsibilities and doing the hands on work wasn’t her job anymore.  “Very well Petty Officer the job’s all yours.”