Izak had been working 16 hour days since he checked onboard.

He’d been assigned to Gamma shift when he first checked in… working in the middle of the night. They did a lot of equipment overhauls and intrusive maintenance that took down or reduced the capabilities if key systems. That gave him a lot of hands on engineering experience that tied directly into what hed been taught at the academy.

The pace was generally slow however, and Izak felt like held been missing something. That’s why he started staying up and volunteering to support Alpha Shift as well.

Alpha shift was always on the go. Planned maintenance was much less intrusive, but there was a constant demand for troubleshooting and repairs to support the other departments and the ships overall mission. It has hectic… and it taught him to think differently. He needed to be quick on his feet when making decisions, and be efficient in his tasks to he could move onto the next.

To expand his horizons further… after a few months of being onboard… he started training with Operations Department during Alpha shift as well. Being on the bridge made Izak realize that Operations was the glue that kept the Departments in synch by balancing priorities and resource requirements. At the same time, Engineering was what enabled all the other departments to do their jobs.

Since being promoted to Chief Engineer, Izak still worked 16 hour days… sometimes longer… but his attention turned inward to his department.

Lt Waryn appointed Ensign Boras to replace him as Gamma Shift Leader. He was a little conflicted about this, since he and Boras were friends and he was concerned it would look like favoritism.

However, Boras was on the short list Warrant Officer Kotok recommended for the position… based on the previous Chief Engineer’s performance reviews and evaluations from senior NCO’s. Izak studied all that data available and felt like he made a good decision.

That was the first departmental decision he made, and he felt it weighing in him every day. If something went wrong… if Boras messed up and got himself or somebody else hurt… Izak knew it would be his fault. All of his subsequent decisions only added to that weight.

His days were now spread out between all three shifts. He slept the second half of Beta shift and the first half of Gamma. That let him be awake for half of each so he could observe the shift leaders and gauge their performance himself.

While he was present for all of Alpha shift, a good chunk of it was spent in command meetings, working with Kotok, and catching up on… or learning about… all his departmental duties.

Not matter how many tasks he completed, on most days his to-do list stayed the same length. On bad days it grew.

The stress was starting to add up and he was sleeping less and less. Izak tried the gym and the holodeck, but it was hard to take his mind off of work and relax. Lt Waryn knew that something needed to change but he wasn’t sure how to make that happen.

Lt J.G. Izak Waryn - Chief Engineer - U.S.S. Ark Angel