Part of Starbase Bravo: Home Among The Stars

“Don’t kill or maim the Cadet”

Shipyard Central Hub, Starbase Bravo
Present Day, 2401
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Before his shift had started the Deputy Director had called Traan  into his office. Apparently 4 Cadets were being sent to the shipyard today for some OJT. He was going to have one of them shadow each of the shipyard sections(ops, repair, construction, and aux vessel maintenance) shifts. Traan would have Cadet Olivia Darwin assigned to his section for the day.

He had noticed the Cadets mingling in the corner between the director and deputy directors office when he walked in.

The Deputy Director, in his office finished saying to Traan “Have ’em do whatever menial job needs doing…I know its short notice and all, just don’t kill or maim that Cadet please ok?”

Traan walked out the office door “No promises boss” he said fecetiously as he exited.

He then walked over to the Cadets standing in the corner and said “Darwin, you’re with me. Lets go.”

Traan turned and walked back over to the Shipyard ops console well in the large control room and got the hand off from the delta shift leader and made sure the 2 watchstanders knew the plan for today. It was a busy day as the power ops teams were still working on the upgrades and systems testing for the new equipment they had recieved over a week ago.

“So what year are you in Cadet?” Traan said as he vaguely recognized the young woman from somewhere.

Cadet Darwin looked at the Andorian lieutenant as they stood in front of the shipyard ops console. “I’m in my third year,” she responded. Her voice low and shallow.

“Wait a second…you were on the training cruise on the Exeter a few months ago weren’t you? You’re specializing in security right?” Traan instantly remembered the young women. She had been on the bridge during the rescue of the Fraser.

“I haven’t picked a specialization yet,” she said her voice barely above a whisper. She wasn’t even sure if she wanted to stay in Starfleet. Darwin had loved working in medical if anything it was where she was happiest but engineering was something she was significantly less passionate about. And shipyard operations was an abstract concept at best.

“Well, you’ll get a good tour of the shipyard today. Instead of giving you a bunch a busy work that would take too much time to explain, I’ll just have you shadow me all day. Follow me…” Traan looked over and nodded at the Cadet with a half smile.

Traan then made his way to the Beehive and signed out a small skiff, which would allow them to swiftly move around the large cavernous bay of the main shipyard.

“Tie your safety harness onto one of the railings there Cadet. Don’t want you falling off on your first day here.” Traan hooked his own harness onto the D-ring at the operators console at the front of the skiff.

Smiling nervously, Darwin tied her safety harness to the railing.

“Afraid of confined spaces or heights at all Cadet?” Traan said

“Yes sir,” she said truthfully as she nervously checked her harness.

“Hmmm…honesty…I like that.” Traan said as he nodded and then piloted the skiff out of the ‘Beehive’.

 

((Later, in the Jefferies Tube below the crane))

Traan was getting ready to do the final re-initialization of the cranes power. The Power Ops crews had finished swapping out the connections and EPS trunk feeding that section of the Shipyard a few days before. Olivia and Traan were just there to energize and test it.

“Can you pass me the quadspanner please Cadet?” The Andorian as as he stretched out his hand will laying on his side infront of the EPS manifold that fed power to the crane.

Looking at the various tools, Darwin looked back at the Andorian officer. “Which one is that?” she asked nervously. She never had an interest in engineering but what was the harm in not trying? This was the harm.

Traan sighed and then chuckled realizing a quadspanner wasnt’t something most non engineering cadets would even know of. Traan himself didnt even know what one was until he has been in Starfleet for atleast 5 years. “Sorry…purple handle, 4 little prongs on the top, with a little trigger on the butt of the handle…”

Just then the lights went out. Traan had forgotten that they weremgoing to run a series of tests and verification checks on the new EPS trunk today.

“For Kirk sake…there’s a flashlight in the bottom of the toolkit cadet, can you grab it…” Just then the backup power kicked on and the emergency lighting initialized. Traan saw the look on the cadets face.

‘Hmmm, yep, she’s not one for confined spaces, thats for sure’ he thought to himself.

After a few minutes of the lights going on and off as the power ops team did their scheduled checks and tests, main power was restored. Traan had the cadet return to the skiff as he could see she wasn’t handling the tight quarters well. But within 20 minutes Traan had the crane up and running and ready to start laying the keel for another Gagarin class Heavy escort.

The rest of the day was rather routine with Traan and Olivia parked in the well in Shipyard Central serving as glorified dispatchers.