Change of Duties

Posted on 02 Feb 2026 @ 3:11pm by Lieutenant JG Ryan Collingway & Lieutenant Commander Adrian Sorvak

907 words; about a 5 minute read

///USS Arawyn////
///Engineering///

Ryan set himself up in a temporary room that wasn't being used, and looked at the open requests for engineering. On any given day, those requests could run anywhere from eighty-six requests to three hundred. Most of them were minor requests-problems with terminals, usually due to user errors. Problems with replicators, lights flickering. It could even be more physical gruntwork, such as a chair needing repair. They handled that too. There were a few more important requests, such as Commander Sorvak's power request. It was all things that could build up if he let it, which would have made a job for a dozen people move quickly from daunting to impossible.

He glanced up as Corin arrived. "What do you think of all this?" he asked.

Corin crashed in the available guest seat. "I think it's a lot of work. I just spent two hours chasing a mouse through the Jeffries tubes. It had chewed through the secondary EPS conduits on three decks."

He managed a grin. "You'd think that on a ship that has so many cats, this wouldn't be a problem."

"The thing is," Corin turned serious. "It didn't even trigger an alarm, and nobody would have noticed if it hadn't affected one of the primary consoles in sickbay."

"We seem to be on the receiving end of unexpected surprises. Good work," Ryan said, looking at the job roster again. "I want to deal with Commander Sorvak's power issue before I'm on the receiving end of one of his calls. I don't want to divert power somewhere else though. That's a bit like robbing Peter to pay Paul. Another department will complain." He paused. "We have emergency generators in storage. Supposed to be used for colony deployment. I think they'll work if we hook them up to the science lab. What do you think?"

"We have diverted power to the diagnostics on the Tactical systems," Corin replied. "I'm sure other departments are also being affected. We can't set up generators for everybody."

Corin glanced at Ryan with a faint smile. "I guess I shouldn't complain about chasing mice... "

"True. But you know what they say. Those who scream the loudest..." Ryan stood. "Here, want to help me with that? Those buggers are heavy."

///Outside Science Lab////

The two of them carefully removed the generator from storage onto a cart and were on the way to the science lab. "Why do you think the components weren't tested?" Ryan couldn't help but ask. "At drydock, I mean."

"Who knows? You know..." Corin waited as they managed a corner.

"If I were a conspiratorial type, I would," he lowered his voice, "assume this was done on purpose. Letting the flagship of the Fleet go out without checking the phasers? That doesn't sound like simple negligence."

"On the other hand," he shrugged, returning to his regular conversational tone. "I can also see how people just missed it. I mean, if that mouse wouldn't have chewed through the conduits serving sickbay's primary analytic station, we wouldn't have found it until we were in the middle of a crisis."

"That is a mighty big thing to miss," Ryan said. "I half-expected us to be drydocked at Starbase 369 for a couple of weeks while we figure this out. It's good the Captain trusts us to deal with this on the fly."

"It is, but once somebody signs off on it, thinking that something is done, then anybody else down the line will figure it was done too."

They entered the science lab. "Commander Sorvak," Ryan said, locating the Vulcan. "We have a temporary solution to your power drain."

Sorvak was working on one of the consoles and now looked at the two engineers. Then at the generators they were carrying. He raised an eyebrow.

"Is this Cmdr. Harlan's solution?"

"It's mine," Ryan said, quietly but firmly. "Commander Harlan delegated your problem to me. We can't divert power away from tactical for the time being. But we can make sure your experiments do not suffer any further."

Sorvak thought about this, then nodded. "Follow me."

The Science Chief stood up and led them to the affected science lab.

"How long would these Tactical diagnostics take?" he asked.

Ryan and Corin started to get set up. Two sets of hands made the work go faster. "Not sure. At least a few days, I would imagine."

Sorvak watched the engineers work for a few minutes. "This is very unusual."

Ryan said nothing for a moment. It wasn't as though what was going on was confidential-they couldn't exactly hide most of the engineering crew tearing up the ship either way-but he didn't really want to start a mass panic by gabbing to people that the ship might be defenseless right now. He shrugged. "Commander Harlan knows more than I do, and could probably give you a more accurate timeline. It's not my area at the moment."

They plugged the connections into the station, which hummed with power. "Looking good, Commander," he said. "These things were built to last months. You should have no problem with this in the meantime."

"Thank you, Lt, Ensign." Sorvak nodded to both engineers and returned to his work.

Ryan nodded. One task done...a lot more to go. He took the cart and left.

Lt Cmdr Adrian Sorvak
Chief Science Officer
USS Arawyn

Ens Corin Ardel
Engineering Officer

Lieutenant (JG) Ryan Collingway
Engineering Officer
USS Arawyn

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