Batteries Not Included; Some Assembly Required

[Tachyon 0]

"Batteries Not Included; Some Assembly Required"

 

Crewman Alonso Packard, Fighter Mechanic 1st Class

(Featuring Lts. Scott Coleridge and Caelan Fletcher)

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"All right, stand by for my signal," Coleridge said to Fletcher, "and activate the capacitors. If we're lucky, we'll get a stable power flow and nothing will explode. Just let me check the status of the emitters." He left Fletcher over by the access hatch to the EPS conduit and stalked in the direction of the deckhands.

 

Crewman Alonso Packard, Fighter Mechanic 1st Class, was not an engineer. He was a mechanic. He didn't sit in a gilded office and push buttons all day; he was out in the field, making a difference. But did anyone ever thank him? Anyone ever clap him on the back and say, "Good job, Alonso!"? No. Well, his crewmates did, but they were a different story. They were mechanics too, part of the brotherhood, the trust. Engineers were a different story.

 

Oh, the enlisted men weren't so bad. Like the mechanics, they understood what it meant to get one's hands dirty, day in and day out. But engineering officers were a contradiction of terms, a betrayal of the word "engineer" and the glorious service it promised. When it came to arrogant engineers, Scott Coleridge and Caelan Fletcher were among the worst. One minor power fluctuation, and here they were, PADD-happy and his Action Boy, acting like they owned this flight deck. Packard would like to see them try to field-strip a Galahad-class fighter in fifty-three seconds or less.

 

Coleridge barely acknowledged Packard as he walked past the deckhand and stopped at the reassembled tractor emitters. Long, flexible cables connected the emitter assembly to the power supply in the bulkhead; the emitters would be reinstalled in their wall-mounts after they were working again. Of course, that would be Packard's job. Just as Packard and his team had been the one to actually reassemble the emitters after Coleridge had taken apart every last self-sealing stembolt. Packard now had a very ugly idea of exactly how long it took 321 self-sealing stembolts to self-seal. Try three hours.

 

Now this pretty-boy officer was inspecting his work, like he had something to prove. Fine, two could play at that game. Packard stalked off in the opposite direction, toward Fletcher and the EPS taps. The other engineer didn't notice Packard's approach; he was busy typing at his PADD again. That was another problem with officers: they took too many breaks. Packard cleared his throat in a very practised, very disruptive manner.

 

"Did you need something?" Fletcher didn't look up from his PADD at the sound of the man's arrival, keeping his attention instead on his handheld device. He was wearing a lopsided grin on his face, though nothing in the bay warranted that sort of amused expression. Probably talking to some girl, trying to impress her with his his four-year education and an ego to compensate for his lack of...field experience.

 

Packard kept his eyes forward, attempting to ignore the other man's attempt to ignore. "We've finished the reassembly, sir." Silence. "All three hundred twenty-one stembolts have been resealed and are in place." More silence. "You asked me to let you know when we were finished, so that you could make sure our work was...sufficient."

 

Caelan glanced up for the first time in a quarter hour. "...Sorry, what? Did you seal those stembolts yet?" That annoying grin hadn't faded from his face. What a total douc...

 

Stupid kid. "Oh, I'm sorry, sir, was I interrupting something?" Packard's eyes narrowed as he took a half-step closer to the young engineer. One could only tolerate the indifference and ignorance of their superiors for so long, and today had been a particularly bad day. Eyes in the room began to shift in the direction of the two men, following the telltale tone of trouble that their ears had picked up on.

 

For a desk-man, Fletcher was a fairly solid guy, but he had nothing on the boys down in the flight bay. Despite this overtly obvious detail, the code of masculinity forced Caelan to assume a similar posture. Fletcher furrowed his brow, attempting to look intimidating as the Chief so often did while folding his arms, the PADD still in hand. "There a problem, crewman?"

 

Crewman Alonso Packard, Fighter Mechanic 1st Class, plucked the PADD from Fletcher's all-too-clean hands and threw it to the ground. In a single, deliberate motion, Packard brought his foot down on the PADD with a crunch. He replied, "Not anymore, sir."

 

Half in shock, half in anger, Caelan let out an audible teenage girl huff. Oh no he didn't. "Lemme guess...." Fletcher gave Packard a quick up-down, scrutinizing his appearance with his stare. His PADD was now gone, but he kept his arms folded tightly, using his hands to make his biceps look bulgier. "You're peeved 'cause you think you did all the work today." That stupid lopsided grin made its reappearance. "Does ickle Alonso want a pat on the back?" He snickered. Oh snap.

 

"Yeah. Something like that," Packard sneered. By this time, a small group of deckhands had quietly put down their tools and surrounded Packard and Fletcher. The former looked away from Fletcher, surveying the crowd, and nodded. Then he abruptly pulled his arm back and swung at the engineer, landing a punch squarely on Caelan's jaw. "Sixteen years I've been repairing fighters and shuttlecraft, pouring my sweat and blood into the job. Then, one power fluctuation, and you lot come down here and start acting like you know better than me."

 

Fletcher turned to the side, spitting blood to the floor. "Oh, I wasn't acting like a know better..." He looked to the audience, eying the unfriendly faces, "I do know bet..."

 

That train of thought was interrupted by another knuckle supper, leaving Caelan with a crimson grin and the wind knocked out of him. Gritting his teeth, he forced his focus on his attacker, launching forward with his own set of punches. One. Two. Three. He couldn't tell how many of his punches actually landed, but he wasn't going down without the appearance of a fight.

 

A pair of arms hooked around Fletcher's elbows, restraining him from any further aggression. "That's enough!" said Coleridge, forcing Caelan away from Packard. A counterpart from the group of deckhands similarly restrained Packard. "Just what the hell do you two think this is, a fight bay?"

 

Packard just looked away. He made a show of trying to escape his coworker's grip, but truthfully he was glad Coleridge had stepped in--engineers fought tougher than they worked. His ire now subsumed by post-fistfight lucidity, he realized the first punch had been a mistake. The punches after that--well, those were a bonus. Judging from his own sudden headache and Fletcher's condition, however, maybe they'd been worth it.

 

"Look, it's been a long day. Lots of mistakes, lots of pressure. No reason to get violent."

 

With a grunt, Packard shrugged off the hands of his fellow deckhand and said, "I disagree, sir. I've known a lot of engineers in my life. Didn't like most of them. But you two are by far the worst."

 

Reasonably certain that the situation was back under control, Coleridge released Caelan. "Why? Because we're cleaning up your mess? Look, crewman, I don't care what you think of us. All I want to do is get that tractor beam working, then hit the sonic showers and get a good six hours of rest. I'm sure you want the same." He looked from Fletcher to Packard and added, "Now, can we test the tractor beam and get this done, or does security have to learn about this ... extracurricular event?"

 

Packard hated to say it, but Coleridge was right. He had already crossed the line by starting the fight; continuing it would serve no purpose except to land him a stay in the brig. The sooner he sucked up his pride and cooperated, the sooner these two would leave. He could do that. After all, he, Crewman Alonso Packard, Fighter Mechanic 1st Class, was the better man.

 

"All right," Packard said, turning to his crew, "everyone back to work. Marsters, Hannigan, finish aligning the phase coils. T'Val, double check the sensor inputs." As his crew dispersed under his supervision, he overheard Coleridge and Fletcher's conversation.

 

As the deckhands began to disperse, Caelan wiped his mouth with his sleeve. He turned to Scott, forcing a grin, "You see me take him? Didn't stand a chance 'gainst me..." It was sarcasm, of course. Fletcher was well aware the he was lucky to be walking right now, and more lucky not to be in the brig...yet, but it simply wouldn't do to walk away without some snarky comment to his fellow engineer.

 

Coleridge shook his head, but he couldn't hide the grin on his face. "Next time ... wait until I'm around to get your back. Seriously though, we've got a job to do here. If you want to pick a fight, go do it in Drankum's or some other establishment on the Midway, and spend a night with security." He glanced back in Packard's direction, and the deckhand chief made a show of looking busy. Coleridge added, "Besides, we're outnumbered. Tactically inadvisable."

 

"Yeah...well, anywho...I'll go..." He jerked his thumb toward an EPS conduit hatch, indicating that he'd be returning to work.

 

"Right. Remember, my signal," Coleridge repeated, jogging back toward the emitter assembly. Again, he barely acknowledged Packard, but this time the deckhand didn't take offense.

 

Fifteen minutes later, the repairs were complete, and the tractor beam was humming happily. So far, the power to the flight bay remained nominal--the Klingon, Ferengi, and Federation technology seemed happy to work together this time. Packard watched the backs of the two engineers as they left the flight bay and scowled. "Here's hoping we don't see those two around here any time soon," he muttered to no one in particular.

 

The rest of the deckhands were busy collecting spare parts and equipment strewn about the flight bay. Packard stood there for a moment, surveying the newly-operational tractor beam, attempting to reassert his dominion. This was his flight bay, his crew. He was Crewman Alonso Packard, Fighter Mechanic 1st Class. He and his team did all the dirty work those fancyboy engineers were too good to do themselves, and he and his team did it better. They were the Sky Harbor Aegis fighter mechanics. This day was over, but tomorrow they'd begin anew: stripping burnt out gyros and realigning fuel initiator sockets, doing their jobs. Saving the world.