Not a Good Day

[Rachel E Garrett 0]

"Not a Good Day"

 

From day’s beginning, Rachel Garrett had three strikes against her. She had slept in her quarters in a bona fide bed, she had begun her day without the usual caffeine, and her first foray into engineering had brought her face to face with a plastered Betazoid who had, quite literally, lost her marbles. Well, perhaps not literally her marbles, but she had lost her telepathy, which, in human terms, meant she had lost her marbles.

 

Had Rachel not slept in her quarters she would have snuggled her body onto the deck of a cozy J-tube with her ear to the deck plate. She would have felt the hum of engines, the reverberations from countless footfalls, and the rhythmic vibration of someone’s bass blaring at odd hours. She would probably have heard the bass and accompanying voices, have fallen asleep dreaming of the band and would have formed a picture in her mind of the person or persons playing the music. That would have made her wonder why they were playing it at that time of night, which would have led to the possibility that their species had different waking and sleeping times, which would have, in turn, led to an infinite number of other possibilities that would have eventually led her to dream in her usual multiplicity of directions.

 

Instead of these comforting sounds and vibrations, however, Rachel’s waking moments were met with peace and quiet, a semi-orderly room, and a mattress cradling her restless frame – the results of her promise to Dr. Lepage.

 

Strike one.

 

Her waking caffeine would usually have been in the form of coffee from a replicator or, in rare instances, from someone’s percolating machine that had been left unattended for a few minutes – time enough for a bleary-eyed engineer desperately in need of a shower to snag a cup. Occasionally she wandered through the midway and took advantage of a patron who, upon spotting her in her disheveled state, mistook her for an engineer who had been working all night. The unsuspecting patron would take pity and offer her a choice of caffeinated beverages, she would take her pick and sincerely thank the patron, then Rachel would go about her business.

 

But the replicators were not yet online in her quarters, she was nowhere near the midway, and she had promised herself a shower so a detour would make her late for her shift – not a good idea since their Romulan chief engineer would probably use any excuse to space her. Thinking of the newly-arrived Starbuck’s cappuccinos that had just been deposited in the dispenser in main engineering – the ones that cost at least twice their worth, but she had nothing better to spend her credits on, so what the heck – she had gone without.

 

Strike two.

 

When she arrived in main engineering, her path it to the dispenser was blocked by a boozed-up Betazoid nut-case wandering around in her nightgown. Furthermore, the odious task of depositing said Betazoid nut-case in sick bay fell to her. Without caffeine.

 

Strike three.

 

Suffice to say that Rachel’s day, within the space of a few minutes, had gone to Hades in a handbasket. It should also be noted that, in her state of mind and body, she probably should not be held accountable for any remarks made to anyone in close proximity, especially remarks about her personal sleeping habits. At least, later reflection on her remarks to Caelan Fletcher had given her a Dr. Phil moment, and she hoped she would not be held accountable.

 

But back to the situation at hand.

 

After depositing their nut-case in sick bay, Rachel and Caelan had made their way back to main engineering and were met with yet another strange event: Scott Coleridge on the verge of joining their nut-case in sick bay.

 

“… and then the deflector malfunction caused the ODN line damage that resulted in the lag time! It's brilliant!”

 

Rachel stopped. Caelan stopped. Questioning looks were exchanged.

 

“So ... we have two problems,” Scott continued, his back to both of them and obviously unaware of their presence. “Maybe three, but probably only two, so we'll say two and a half.”

 

Right.

 

Rachel’s tap on his back was met with a leap that would have made any Olympic trainer proud. “Whoa. You okay?” she said.

 

“Uh ... yeah, sorry,” said Scott with a sheepish grin. “Just got excited there. See, a malfunction in the deflector on upper Pylon B left the external hull vulnerable to micro-asteroid damage. And that, in turn, damaged the ODN lines that run from the lateral sensor array to the computer processors on Deck 15, resulting in the 12.5ms and increasing lag we are currently experiencing.”

 

Rachel frowned, a plethora of thoughts on repair times, logistical problems, and – heavens help us – telling the chief – already running rampant in her caffeine-starved brain.

 

Scott held up a finger. “Ah, and get this. The deflector malfunction was caused by an astronomically – pun intended – unlikely event. There was a solar flare several minutes prior to the first cycling of the graviton generators.” He stopped briefly to point at the logs scrolling on the screen before him. “The EM activity depolarized the graviton emitters along the unit's outer casing, resulting in a cascade failure. How cool is that?!”

 

Rachel finally lost it. “Cool? Not,” she replied with an arm-cross and a glare. “It's totally not cool. Interesting, maybe, but not cool. Does the chief know?”

 

Caffeine.

 

“No,” Scott replied, way too calmly for Rachel’s taste. “I can tell because if he did he'd have already asked one of us why we haven't fixed it.”

 

“So... we fix it before he finds out, or we tell him, or we let him find out and space us all. Which one’ll it be?”

 

“Well, we can task a repair crew on both the deflector and the array. The lag isn't a big deal yet ... the rate of increase is small enough that it won't be detrimental to station ops for several more days.” He paused a moment, his eyes sparkling with enthusiasm and, in Rachel’s mind, probably a good night’s sleep and a heckofalotta caffeine. “So uh ... what was with you guys and the somnambulist?”

 

Pressure rising.

 

 

“Next time you get to take her. I wanna know what we're going to do about the problems. I mean, this is a lot of stuff.”

 

“It's uh ... it's just a damaged ODN line and a deflector malfunction.”

 

“And a bunch of microfractures!” Beeline to the dispenser.

 

Scott continued, unabashed. “We'll need a workbee, thirteen and a half metres of ODN cable, five graviton emitters, a phase decoupler, and three cups of coffee for the repair crew we dupe into doing this during the double shifts we're pulling to fix other stuff.” He turned to Caelan. “Oh, and we'll need a partridge in a pear tree.”

 

 

Starbuck’s mocca cappuccino. Forget the cost. Twist and swig. Audible contented sigh.

 

 

The rest of Rachel’s workday seemed uneventful after the first hour, even though everyone did end up pulling double-shifts. But she spent that night and those following sleeping in a secluded J-tube, appearing in her quarters for a shower and wandering into main engineering only after her caffeine fix. The next two days brought rumors of a settlement for TKR-117 and the reconfiguration of Aegis into – of all things – a shipyard?

 

Right. So long as I get my caffeine.