Retribution (The Federation Reborn Book 3) (61 page)

“Tell me something I don't know. Any faults?”

“No red lights, sir,” the tech replied.

“Any yellow lights? Anything hinky?” he demanded.

“Well, now that you mention it …”

The chief engineer wanted to slap his forehead, but he couldn't since he was in a suit. Instead he tapped his boot until he started to drift. “Well, it seems we've got some sticky servos on the port Lidar Array. We're not sure how to fix it, and unfortunately we, had to trade the spare to
Potemkin
for that grav emitter for the bow.”

The chief sighed heavily. “Okay. I'm guessing a complete tear down, thorough cleaning, and then rebuild is in order?”

“Looks that way, sir, sorry.”

“Not your fault, get it done.”

“There is another team on that. I've got a problem here with the bow sensors. Something keeps causing an intermittent short here in the bus, and we've got some impedance we shouldn't here,” the tech said pointing to two problems on his tablet. “And the ODN cable is frayed; I think it rubbed somewhere.”

“But it's not broken?” the chief engineer pressed.

“No, sir.”

“Tape it, log the repair, and then move on. We're soaking up the rads and we're not getting paid nearly enough as it is,” he growled.

“Aye aye, sir.” The tech said, turning back to his work in the open panel.

“Right,” the chief growled. He turned and then slowly moved along the safety line hand over hand until he got to his anchor point, then he turned his mag boots on. He was safely outside the sensitive electronics range so the boots shouldn't throw their calibration off. But he heard a soft curse over the radio net so he unhooked himself and then moved out of the area to visit the next work party.

:::{)(}:::

Catherine shook her head as she scanned the daily reports. Admiral De Gaulte might have CIC chasing its tail over the crap they'd fallen for, but she knew who was really paying for it just from the litany of repair logs. Engineers across the fleet were already tired and overworked; they were now out in the black or tearing into the code to find nonexistent or minor problems. Problems that weren't at the root of the snafu.

It wasn't anyone's fault; they'd been played—over, done with, move on. But even the admiral was human. He like other people needed someone to blame, needed people to feel the pain, and needed them to learn to pay more attention in the future.

Hopefully, they'd learn the right lessons from what they were going through. Heaven forbid they actually see a ghost and fail to report it in the future! That might bite them soundly in the ass if it was deliberately ignored.

:::{)(}:::

Prince Adam ground his teeth as he settled himself into the captain's chair. His people had been on constant alert. There had been something of a competition in the various ships' CIC departments on who could get the notice of a hit off into the tactical net before anyone else, but until they started to realize something was hinky, accuracy hadn't been something they'd been shooting for.

Refining that mess had been a pain in the ass. He knew the sensor techs were jumpy and having their chiefs, and hell, the skipper snarling didn't help their mindsets.

His own snarling probably didn't squeeze any efficiency out of them either. Quite the contrary he thought. He'd learned a lot about things in the past few days. Things he hadn't thought he'd needed to know. Lessons on being out of control of the situation. He didn't like the feeling, didn't like it at all.

Unfortunately, he had to resign himself to continue feeling that way, at least as long as he was in the navy. Even as a ship's captain, he'd still have someone above him in the chain of the command to answer to.

But eventually, some day, he'd skip over them all, he reminded himself. Someday, he'd look back on the frustration and put it all behind him.

“Commander, we're still working on recalibrating the sensors. Engineering reported they got a few more bugs out of the repairs done last watch,” Lieutenant Chico Ravirez, the JATO, said as he came on the bridge.

“Sleeping in, Lieutenant?” the XO asked mildly.

Chico flushed. “Sorry, sir. I was covering another shift. Commander Lobenski cleared it.”

“Buzz didn't tell me anything about that,” the XO said, rising from the chair. “I'll let it slide though.”

“Thank you, sir,” the lieutenant said, wide eyed in earnest appeal to get on his boss's good side. “I passed through the radio room on my way here. There are some eyes-only packets there.” He held up a tablet.

“I'll take a look. Most likely more crap about getting the logistics sorted out,” the prince said, taking the tablet as he passed the man. “Your watch,” he growled.

“Aye aye, sir. I have the bridge,” the lieutenant said formally. He waited until the XO had departed the bridge before he took a seat and logged it however.

:::{)(}:::

Lieutenant Flora Tabernaky noted the lack of PT scores again and tut tutted. She'd tried sending memos, she'd tried calling the chief, now she had to resort to sterner measures to get his attention it seemed. He had a bad habit of slacking off on PT and his diet, and that set a bad example for his department and eventually the ship. She couldn't and wouldn't have that.

The doctor put a call in to the chief. “Yes, Doc?” the chief responded, surprising her.

“Chief,” she said looking at the vid feed. There wasn't one, just a screen saver. “I'm not seeing your feed,” she said.

“That's because I'm out and about. What is it?” he asked.

“Have you been checking your mail?”

“I'm a bit behind on paperwork and my email, Doc. I've been running around like a chicken with its head cut off,” he said.

She looked up as she heard steps. The captain stepped in followed by the XO.

“Well, I noted you and your department have fallen well behind on their PT quotas. You've also been eating well above your allotted calorie intake. That's not healthy. You need to report to the gym for a minimum two-hour workout. That's an order,” she said.

“Doctor …,” the chief said in an exasperated tone of voice.

“I am the chief medical officer of this ship,” she reminded him with a smile. “Do as you are told, Chief,” she said.

“Now wait a damn minute,” Commander Riker snarled. “Before you get your prissy ass all happy about scoring one over on me, why don't you step back and take a look at the
real
picture. You know the one beyond your nose that you've been ignoring as unimportant. Have you noted when the last time any of us had some
sleep
? You're so good at monitoring our food and PT …,” he snarled.

“Don't take that tone with me,” the doctor said, voice cooling as the captain and XO paused in the entryway to her office at the tableau unfolding in front of them. She'd planned it so Captain Knoll and Commander Ramses would be witnesses and cut off any protest, but she hadn't expected the chief to lose his temper this fast. “I don't care who you sleep with …”

“I never said I'm sleeping with someone, Doc. I have been on my feet for sixty-one hours straight. I'm tired, I'm stressed, and I'm fucking frustrated because some jackass dumped a shitload of work on me when my plate was already full,” he snarled. “Now you come along with your anal retentive, I know better than you because I'm sitting in a sterile office not latched to the fracking hull bullshit, while I'm
trying
to calibrate the fracking sensors for the
second
time because someone wasn't
happy
with the first round we did!”

The XO pursed his lips in annoyance. He'd passed that order down when CIC had said they hadn't been happy with the results. They hadn't gotten more than a half a percentage more in efficiency and resolution after engineering supposedly did their job. He'd expected better and wanted to see better results. He hadn't known it would have so much drama involved though.

“They dump this bullshit on us knowing it's their own damn fault
not
ours! Not that anyone's willing to admit a fracking thing! Sensor miscalibration my hairy ass and scrotum!” The doctor's face took on a decidedly sour expression at the coarse language. Captain Knoll's face took on a blank set expression. “
They
screwed up, but we get it in the gods-be-damned neck to
fix
it!
Again
! So, on top of every
fracking
thing else I'm supposed to do, plus manage fixing the damn cracks, I'm stuck with this crap! And some asshole tells me to do it again???”

Commander Ramses scowled blackly. He was definitely going to have a nice long chat with the chief. That was,
after
the captain got through with him he thought. The idea of the chief getting a double reaming wasn't too amusing though.

“Now you dump this shit on me. You're fracking lucky I'm on the gods-be-damned
hull
in this fracking stinky ass suit and not in that fracking
office
right now, Lieutenant, or I'd shove your gods-be-damned orders up your anal retentive
ass
!” the chief roared.

The doctor flushed angrily.

“Do you have any idea the level of concentration it takes to get this damn job done? Do you? Well? Trace thousands of wires? Check
every
connection? Check every voltage line, every data line?? How the more we work, the more careful we have to be not to screw something up? How we have to choreograph every move in tight spaces so we don't rip something, and how hard that is when you're tired?” he hissed. “The calories we burn moving gear, moving equipment, moving parts, holding up beams, soaking up radiation in this fracking suit, rewiring shit, pounding pins in, or crawling through Jeffery tubes? And who the hell named them that anyway?” the chief continued to rant, voice rising in octaves as he was close to completely losing it. “The stress …what the
frack's
wrong with you, get back to work!” he snarled to someone else.

“Chief, you need to check yourself. You are beginning to hyperventilate and that's not good in a suit,” someone cut in.

“You know this is an omni broadcast, right?” someone else interjected. “The entire fleet is probably hearing this.”

“And I don't give a flying frack! I'm tired of this shit! I'm tired of … of not getting more than two hours sleep in a couple days, then anal retentive twits who sit on their ass pass on orders from on high and think it's okay! I'm tired of working nonstop seven days a week for the past six gods-be-damned months without a break! There is a limit you know!” he snarled just as the captain stepped up to the doctor's desk.

“Yes, Chief, there is,” he rumbled, leaning over the microphone to be sure he was heard.

All was silent in the room and on the channel.

After a moment the XO cleared his throat. The captain hit the mute button and turned to the XO. “Should we relieve him, sir? He's over the line.”

The captain pursed his lips and looked from the XO to the doctor. “And replace him with who? He's the best we've got, and we both know it. I didn't know he was that overworked. Obviously that wasn't why you called us in here, Doctor,” he said, turning on the doctor.

The doctor flinched. She shook her head silently.

“No, I thought not. You wanted witnesses to this. You've got it unfortunately,” the captain said with a heavy sigh. He hit the mute button again. “Chief, I want a check on all of your personnel. If they are past the max time in the black, pull them in. I want a mandatory health check on everyone, including you, Chief,” he said.

“Aye aye, Captain,” the engineer said in a sober voice. Apparently the captain's intervention had been the bucket of ice water he'd needed to cool off.

“And Chief, try to keep your head. Space is dangerous enough as it is,” the captain said mildly.

“Yes, sir,” the engineer replied in a chastened tone of voice.

:::{)(}:::

A comm rating flinched when he heard the conversation and then elbowed her partner nearby. The partner looked over and the rating pointed to her earphones and then patched the signal in. The rating went bug eyed, then covered her mouth and then stage whispered to someone further away to tune in.

Catherine frowned, seeing it, but for the moment it didn't seem important. That was up until Admiral De Gaulte snapped his fingers. “Why don't you share that with the rest of us, Spacer Brown?” he demanded.

“Sir um …”

“Now,” the admiral growled.

“Aye aye, sir,” the rating said gulping. After a moment they heard a voice snarling over the radio. The admiral looked up with a frown.

“Now wait a damn minute,” an unfamiliar voice snarled, making everyone in the compartment look up in surprise, and then around to see where it was coming from. A sensor rating pointed to the overhead. They all looked up to the speakers. “Before you get your prissy ass all happy about scoring one over on me, why don't you step back and take a look at the
real
picture. You know, the one beyond your nose that you've been ignoring as unimportant. Have you noted when the last time any of us had some
sleep
? You're so good at monitoring our food and PT …,” he snarled.