Posted by Lieutenant Junior Grade Dael Stadi (Chief Engineer) in Engineering Compartment: DH – Cadet Katherine Hobbes Reporting

Posted by Cadet Katherine (Katie) Hobbes (Engineer) in Engineering Compartment: DH – Cadet Katherine Hobbes Reporting

Posted by Lieutenant Junior Grade Dael Stadi (Chief Engineer) in Engineering Compartment: DH – Cadet Katherine Hobbes Reporting
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Katie smiled at the idea of a “fun plasma conduit pull.”

“I had to do one of those in the engineering lab at the Academy. They aren’t too bad if you remember to do a decent system purge first. And evacuate the air from the system before you put it back online. Fail to do either of those correctly, and then, yes, you’re in for about as much fun as you can have without trying to remove a stuffed toy animal from a sanitary waste treatment unit,” Katie said. She ran the engineering tricorder quickly over each of the conduits. One stood out. “This one has an obstruction … just about … here. See the pressure drop in the plasma between this point and that? That is what’s causing the flow disruption. Now the real question is how we got an obstruction at that location.”

She showed the tricorder to the Chief Engineer.

• Cadet Katherine Hobbes, Engineer

Dael leaned over and glanced at the tricorder, nodding his head. “I agree, looks like somethings inhibiting our flow here. Rings of Betazed I hope it’s not another tribble.” He sighed and put that thought out of his head. “Sorry, that was during our last mission before your arrival cadet. While the rest of the staff dealt with some ruins and diplomatic relations, we had a tribble outbreak it seemed onboard. Never did find out where they came from.” He shook his head and stood up straighter. “More likely though, it could be one of our EPS filters is going bad, letting some things slide that it shouldn’t, or an overabundance of nitrogen in the plasma line causing some hardening. I’m glad to see that the Academy’s not lowered it’s troubleshooting standards. Good job, cadet.”

“A tribble in an EPS conduit?” Katie said with a frown. She shook her head. “That’s a new one on me. You do know how to show a girl a good time. To be perfectly honest, I haven’t encountered nitrogen hardening outside of a textbook either so, assuming we have EPS filters on each line, a clogged or perhaps a broken filter would be my best guess.”

He looked into the tool kit and grabbed an iso-modulator. “This should do the trick, with a few adjustments we can use it for some plasma ablation and clear that blockage.” He handed her the tool and stepped back. “So, as I was saying, any plans for your Starfleet career? Chief Engineer on a starship? Maybe a nice design assignment at the Utopia Planitia Fleet Yards? Captain’s chair?”

-Lt. jg Dael Stadi, CE

“Plans for a Starfleet career? You’re running well ahead of me here,” Katie said as she packed up the remaining items from the toolkit. “My sister always told me that if you look too far down the road, you’ll trip on the cracks right in front of you. Fleet yards would be nice. Chief Engineer… that’s a possibility. Probably not Chief Engineer on a Starbase… that seems like a terrifically mundane assignment. No. At the moment my focus is on the next few years. Promotion to LtJg seems like an appropriate event horizon to me.”

• Cadet Katherine Hobbes

Dael picked up the toolkit after Katie was done packing it up with a small smile at her remarks. “I agree, look too far ahead and you’ll miss the warpcore breach right in front of you, but it pays for us engineers to think ahead. Both in terms of repairs and prevention, and also in careers. Especially when you’re just starting out in the Fleet as a cadet.” He began walking back to the main area of Engineering. “A troubleshooting job goes a lot easier if you have a blueprint to fall back on, same principle can be applied to anything. Just something to think about.” He paused and thought about what next to say, even as a Betazoid he’d always been more reserved and focused on tasks at hand. But he had come into his own some more since taking on this larger role. “If what you showed me just now is any proof, I think you’ll be good addition to the team. Any team, really, and I want you to remember that when thinking ahead. Oh and Starbases aren’t all that dull sometimes. That depends on the same three key factors as any Ferengi business, I was once told. Location, location, location.”

Katie stifled a laugh. Laughing at your immediate supervisor when he wasn’t trying to be funny was seldom the optimal move. In her view, “location” had to take a lower tier than the “people” in determining whether a Starbase was dull. Her tour with the jerk who assigned her continuous sanitary waste systems duty would have been dull even if it had been in orbit around Risa. Or perhaps Dael was right. Perhaps awful people tended to get assigned to dull locations. She would have to think about that one later.

He leaned slightly on the readout table console in the middle of the Engineering deck and crossed his arms. His continuous work at trying to be appear casual to his crewmates. “So, I’ve asked quite a few questions of you. Have any for me, Cadet?”

-Lt. jg Dael Stadi, Chief Engineer

“Just one really. Well… perhaps that is over-simplifying,” Katie said. “Where do I start? Yeah. That will do for a start. We can add my other questions about shift rotations and such later.”

=/\= Cadet Katherine Hobbes, Engineer