Nivor was nervous. The last time he’d been to main engineering on a ship his uniform bore gold shoulders and he was the chief engineer. Now… he wasn’t, and his uniform was red. It was a strange feeling to know he was entering someone else’s domain as he stepped off the turbo lift on deck 41.

But some things were always the same, and that familiar thrum of a warp core matter/antimatter reaction settled him. Around him various crew members in gold monitored the ship systems, performed maintenance, and ran diagnostics - engineering was many things but dull was not one of them.

He slowly approached the core, his first look at a type X core. The speeds this engine could push the ship to required phenomenal amounts of power, and all of it came from this three story piece of beautiful architecture, this pinnacle of engineering. He was again struck by how Federations scientists could make something that could be so fearsome appear so… wondrous.

And again he felt that longing, that sense of not-being he’d felt on the lift. Little he could do about, so he just watched the soothing lights for a while.

Someone, he thought, would notice him eventually, but he was in no hurry.

XO Rhansi