Chapter Text
Main Engineering is enormous. Chester pauses in the entry to just look at the warp cores, humming in their early-startup sequence. It’s a sound just off enough from other starships that it’s a little unsettling, but it still sounds and smells like Engineering, and there’s still something in the back of her mind that thinks of it as home. There are a couple of pictures out there of her as a child with her grandmother and a crowd of bemused cadets in the background–Grandmama never saw teaching and babysitting as necessarily separate occupations. Not once Chester was past the age of slipping away and wedging herself into something dangerous–something she never actually got the opportunity to do, because Grandmama learned her lesson with Chester’s mother.
No, her bad behavior had been limited to whispering the right answers to confused students when Grandmama called on them.
Fortunately, Engineering is fully staffed, and there’s a lot of scurrying activity. A lot of clumps of people at two or three stations, though; Chester’s heart sinks, because that means trouble. “Still ?” someone is saying, their voice a little shrill. “How many tubas can one replicator make? Look, can we cut power to that deck? ”
Yeah. That’s bad. She looks around for her Chief Engineer, and finds him by the port warp core. Hanging upside down. By his clawed mechanical bat feet.
“Lt. Commander Hawthorne?” she says, once she gets close enough. A frisbee-sized drone - one she recognizes from her chief engineer’s file - has buzzed up to her, and then zipped, beeping, back to Lt. Commander Hawthorne. A light flashes on his cybernetics, and he glances her way. “I’m Captain Chester. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but there’s a high-priority mission, and the Admiral says we’re closest to being departure-ready. We’ll be staffed-up by 0800 tomorrow morning; what do you need to get us to be ready to go by then?”
“This is a joke, right?” The drone buzzes back towards her, looping around her in circles. “Who am I kidding, of course it’s not. Two minutes forty and I’ll be at a breaking point to talk about exactly how stupid that is.”
That is… not promising at all. Chester glances back at the rest of Engineering, and her scrambling crew, and guilt pricks at the back of her mind. She doesn’t want to push too hard, but…
She looks over the padd in her hand again; she skimmed it on the way down in the turbolift, and she hates to say it, but she agrees with Ross about this one. They need to be there, and it needs to be the Interpreter, with all her firepower. And Interpreter can get there in time.
But…there’s also a reason that her grandmother often invokes the hell that awaits captains who rush their chief engineers.
At about two minutes, another voice calls out from the gantry, “Pip? How’s it - oh.” The tiny choblik looks down from above, and his voice goes very cold for a moment. “It’s you . Eh. Your captain.” The choblik hops over the rail, swinging down on his tail to hang next to Lt. Commander Hawthorne, facing away from her.
“I know.” Hawthorne says flatly. “Thirty-five.”
Chester reaches back in her memory of her chief engineer’s files. This is probably Lt. Marbog Bu-Fsen-Faa, who has done some work with Lt. Commander Hawthorne’s new cybernetics.
At exactly two minutes and forty seconds, a small cable slides back from the open ship’s panel directly into the cybernetics around the back of Hawthorne’s head, and he closes the panel with a brief pat. “Good work, ‘Pret.” Hawthorne uses his prosthetic feet to clamber around, rotating to face her, still upside down. He clears his throat and waves at the choblik. “Captain Chester, this is a colleague who felt the need to do some checks in the last few days before we depart - which are going to turn into the last day , singular, if command has their mad way, I take it.”
Hawthorne and the choblik - presumably Bu-Fsen-Faa - are exchanging some kind of look that’s difficult to parse. The choblik continues hanging next to him in silence.
“I don’t intend to make this a habit,” says Chester, “but we’re the ship best equipped to respond, and both other Armistice -class vessels are not going to be ready to go for another seventy-two hours. By all reports, that will be too late.” She looks around, wry. “I take it things here are a little rockier than we’d hope before our first deployment, too.”
"A little rockier - " he snorts. "You could say that. Obviously, the problems start well before the retrofit. The ‘Armistice class'" - he does, in fact, make air quotes, "seems to have been a concept devised by a maniac who took the idea of wars being won by the person with 'the biggest stick' and decided it would be a great idea to try and make a space station go to warp and shoot things. Their design and assembly was all rushed because of course it was, it was the damn war and everything gets rushed until it blows up -" he gestures emphatically at his cybernetics, " - and it would be insanity to try and put crews on them as they were, without extensive testing and redesign, unless there was truly no better alternative. Only then do we get to the added insanity of the massive retrofits that have somehow been slapdash added. But our problems don't end there, no. Because instead of sending these Frankensteined ships to do some low risk milk run, they’re supposed to go missions into an entirely different volatile quadrant through a wormhole. And now this ship is supposed to go earlier on a mission so urgent it can’t wait. What is ‘Pret going to be expected to do? Throw them right into combat? Test out their new medical bays with a new crisis? Pack hundreds of hungry refugees into their bay? Industrial replicators that only make tubas will be a lot less of a funny story when we’re short food and medberths in another quadrant with intermittent Starfleet communications . 'Pret will do their best, and I'm going to fight tooth and nail to keep anyone else from getting blown up, but that doesn't mean I don't recognize it's insanity.”
She lets him rant. He’s not wrong. Her grandmother had said some of the same things, and cutting him off now, dismissing him, will be the very worst thing she could do. “I understand and I agree with you about the need for caution. We can requisition station resources, including technicians, to get us underway. Tell me what you need to get us functional; if we’re lucky, this will be a short diplomatic mission.”
There’s a tiny bit of relief when she says ‘short diplomatic mission’. “Well, let’s hope we’re very lucky. Short diplomatic missions don’t always stay that way. And even if it stays a short diplomatic mission, we should not be deploying for months if not years, much less tomorrow. None of these ships are actually going to be ‘ready’ in any proper sense of the word in seventy-two hours, no matter what command says. And you can tell command I’m not asking my engineers to pull all nighters no matter their schedule, that’s bad for my people and it’s the sort of thing that leads to mistakes. I already had a list of things we need, and if they want to up the timeline we’re going to need two temporary crew rotations worth of crew in engineering before departure."
“I’ll call Ops and get that for you,” she says. “We do not want mistakes, and I don’t want us arriving exhausted. Believe me, I’m well aware we shouldn’t be pushing it like this, but it’s us or no one and… well, the world we’re heading for just got free of the Dominion. Time isn’t something they’ve got a lot of.”
Watching his face—yeah, she’s going to the special hell for Captains who rush their engineers. In their first conversation, no less. Lieutenant Bu-Fsen-Faa is also looking at her in a way that assures her she’s made no friends here today.
Hawthorne snorts. “Time’s never something anyone has a lot of. There’s never enough time to get things done properly and safely, is there? Do things right by Starfleet. You’d think at some point they’d learn how much more time you need to fix things when they’re done wrong.”
He waves a hand before she can say anything else. “You’ve got orders, you’re giving me orders, if I don’t follow them they’ll find someone who will. So I’ll keep trying to keep this from blowing up, huh?”
Bu-Fsen-Fa grumbles, clearly not thinking very much of this argument.
Chester thinks carefully about her response. The last thing she wants is an engineer who’s going to simply say yes to things for fear of being booted. He’s also clearly very angry. She’s not sure why–his file did discuss combativeness and paranoia, but there’s almost something personal here, and she wonders for a moment if it’s about the Bedivere . “There isn’t someone else, and I’m not in the habit of getting rid of officers who tell me things I don’t want to hear.”
He frowns, almost an edge of confusion with the anger. Like he’s bracing for her to yank the rug out.
She continues. “If we can’t do it, I need you to tell me that, and give me a timeline, so I can tell Admiral Ross, and so we see what can be done about the message that came through. It’s important, but we won’t do them any good if we drop out of warp in pieces.”
He continues frowning. Bu-Fsen-Fa looks at him as he pulls himself up to the gantry.
He’s still frowning when he makes his way down the gantry stairs and stands upright facing her, arms crossed, tapping his fingers against his arms. “I’ll assume that the actual, sensible approach of taking a couple of years to test and go through the appropriate processes on the design, much less the retrofits, is out of the question. Starting from the original - still insane, mind you - schedule for deployment, I prioritized the risks and added several steps around our original deployment plan that would get the greatest risk reduction per hour. If I knew what systems were likely to be stressed by what we were facing, I would add more and adjust the priority list and risk flowchart. I can update my lists of the requirements to get us to a minimum standard based on trying to get us deployed as soon as possible tomorrow, and more information about the mission parameters, but command won’t like what’s on them. I’ll need some time to look into it, I may update the time parameters. It’ll still be like sending a toddler with a tricorder built in 20 minutes by a first year student onto an unknown alien planet, but if there’s no reasonable chance that an actually functioning ship can be sent out…”
“Tell me what you need,” she says. “I don’t care what Command says, I will make sure you get what you need to get us there. Even if I have to poach every engineer off the station.”
He continues to frown, but it’s got a more quizzical edge now. “Gull, can you upload a copy of my list to a free OA PADD?”
The drone buzzes and then opens a slot on the side.
“That’s my original list for the old schedule. Add the two shifts of engineers. Get me some sort of mission parameters and time to get updated progress reports from all of my teams, and then I’ll know what to add to that list and what the timeline looks like.” He snorts. “I thought I might have to give the ‘this is what happens when people don’t listen to me about safety’ speech,” he says, gesturing at - well, all of himself, “but clearly they gave you my file.”
They did, but that’s not top of mind here. “That, and I don’t believe in being stupid on a maiden voyage of a mostly untested new ship,” she says. “And whatever you read in my file, I’ve got no intention of making a habit out of losing ships.”
Hawthorne’s face goes very blank. The drone beeps. Hawthorne, face still unnaturally still, pats the bulkhead. “Well, I’m sure ‘Pret appreciates that. Not their fault their design was driven by absolute maniacs.”
Dammit, this is like juggling knives. Which she expected from the Romulans, but not her own chief engineer. And now she’s dropped one, and she’s not even sure how . She looks down at the padd in her hand and presses a few keys instead, sending the briefing to his device. “Specifics for our mission,” she says. “I’ll go over it in the senior staff briefing in the morning, but this should be the information you need. Unfortunately, it’s not much to work with.”
He takes it. “Well, it’s better than nothing,” he shrugs, with a raised eyebrow as if to say, Command, right?
He pauses, looks at her like he’s weighing something. Bu-Fsen-Faa mutters something that he apparently ignores.
“Look, I don’t mean to -” he starts finally, “I’m not going to claim I understand what you went through when your ship died under you. All I can tell you is I know what it felt like for me, to know that people I was responsible for died and I didn’t save them. And if there’s something I do understand… it’s wanting to do everything you can to make sure that never happens again. And … if - when -” he shakes his head slightly “in the end, choices are going to hit us all eventually, where we think we have to move one way to make sure of that. Maybe that’s already come up for you.” He looks at her, and the drone hovers a little closer, like he’s waiting for her to crack on - something. Bu-Fsen-Faa is just glaring at the wall.
This is about the Bedivere , then, and it’s also an olive branch, but Chester has to concentrate to keep from frowning herself. There’s something else in this. She doesn’t understand it, and she really doesn’t like that, because he seems to be expecting… something.
She does what she can. “I think we both understand no-win scenarios a little better than anyone should have to, Mr. Hawthorne,” she says, and gives him a tight, pained smile. “Personally, I’ve got no desire to repeat the experience. Let me know what you need, and I will make sure you get it.” She hesitates, then tries for levity. “Besides, there’s enough engineers in the family that if I start playing stupid games here, I’ll never hear the end of it next time I’m home.”
He tilts his head at that, in apparent surprise. “Well,” he says slowly, sounding like he’s picking his way through words carefully, “if you know Starfleet engineers in your family, you know we don’t take the Kobayashi Maru… but you can’t escape it at the Academy.” His tone might be attempting levity, but he’s not doing a very good job of it. “So what I know of no-win scenarios … is that someone had to make them that way.”
She can practically feel Bu-Fsen-Faa glaring daggers in her back. The Choblik coughs, pointedly.
“Guess the Dominion” he says, with a bitter twist of his mouth, “got pretty good at making those. Let’s hope,” he adds, “their remnants are less …practiced.”
“Would be nice, wouldn’t it,” says Chester, dryly.
Hawthorne snorts. “If I’m going to get you an updated list before end of shift, I’ll need to start compiling up-to-date status reports.” He taps his commbadge. “Hawthorne to all Engineering Section heads, I’ll be making rotations and I’ll need status reports when I do. There are new timeline parameters, but we are not going to be skimping on keeping the crew and the ship in order.” He closes the line. There’s some muffled profanity from one of the engineering groups nearest; Hawthorne doesn’t seem surprised.
“If we’re going to be working together,” he says, as he starts to walk, “you might as well know how I work, aside from what’s in my file.”
Bu-Fsen-Faa mutters something that might be, “Here we go,” as he hops down from the gantry to follow them. Hawthorne shoots him a glare.
“First of all, I don’t break the laws of physics. Anyone who tells you they are is either relying on you having an imperfect understanding of the laws of physics, has come up with a very clever work around, or has managed to prove that all of us had an imperfect understanding of the laws of physics in the first place. I am very good at my job,” Bu-Fsen-Faa snorts. “but I am not enough of a genius for that last one; if you wanted that, you should have asked them to get you Lt Commander LaForge. As for the first one, I’ll tell you this: when it comes to this ship and the lives of its crew, I will not bullshit you. I do not do bullshit in my engineering section and I do not pretend to be a miracle worker. If I say something will take two hours that means it will take two hours, it's not something that will take half an hour that I'm exaggerating so I look good when I turn it around ahead of time. If I tell you we are at capacity we are at capacity, and if I tell you something is a serious risk to blow up or fail and kill crewmembers I mean it is a serious risk above and beyond the baseline insanity of,” he waves a hand as if to encompass the entire history of the ship, “everyone who thought this was a good idea. Sorry, ‘Pret. Not your fault,” he adds, patting a bulkhead again in passing.
“I’ll keep that in mind,” she says, with a pang. The chief engineer of the Bedivere had given her a far more politic but similar spiel.
And then he had died delivering a miracle anyway. Perhaps it’s better if Hawthorne point-blank refuses those kinds of heroism. If Mr. Bena had, he’d still be alive.
Chester, and everyone else still trapped aboard with most of the escape pods destroyed and no way to get to the few that remained, would have probably died. All of them, instead of most of them.
“I don’t intend to play stupid games with my ship or my crew,” she says. “I understand your reluctance on that count, and I know the accelerated timeline was the worst possible way I could have introduced myself. I saw the report from the investigation into what happened at Forward Research Three, and it’s a large part of why I wanted you as my chief engineer; you didn’t give up on your people, regardless of the personal consequences, and you didn’t stop warning them. That’s exactly who I want keeping this ship running. That’s exactly who I want at my back if everything goes to hell.”
Hawthorne’s face is very blank again, frozen and pale. The drone beeps.
Bu-Fsen-Faa lets out an exaggerated sigh. “See, obviously this is why my expertise was needed on board. Starship engineers, getting so preoccupied with their ships they don’t keep up with checks on their own parts.”
“Of course,” says Chester, but lets her concern show. That looks…bad. Not cybernetics bad, trauma bad.
Hawthorne, face unfrozen, snorts and rolls his eyes.
“Those cybernetics will need a fresh calibration cycle before you set off. Apologies, Captain,” Bu-Fsen-Faa says, not sounding sorry at all, and, if anything, glaring at her more intently, “we’ll need to step out for a moment,” he says, jabbing Hawthorne with his tail.
“Ah. Yes.” Hawthorne says. “Apologies. That. Was what that was. Brief cybernetics glitch. I’d say it won’t happen again, but, the replicators are still making tubas, so,” he adds, like that’s not a complete non-sequitur. He looks at her and squares his jaw, speaking with that same careful cadence again. “That means a great deal to hear, Captain. Thank you for telling me.”
She nods. “One other thing, Mr. Hawthorne. We’ll be hosting a liaison officer from the Romulan Empire for the foreseeable future; they’re taking a dim view of our activities in the Gamma Quadrant, and want someone to keep an eye on us in case we suddenly come over all imperialistic. His name’s Subcommander Tanek. I expect you’ll meet him in the staff meeting tomorrow. We’re authorized to give him courtesy computer access, pending review by Intelligence.” She makes a bit of a face, showing what she thinks about that complication. “So if he shows up down here, he can have the tourist experience, but no more. I hope we’ll keep him busy enough and out of your hair, however.”
Bu-Fsen-Faa just starts laughing.
“Shit Triscuits.” Hawthorne says. “Well, I’ll give the team a heads up and I’ll do some extra checks on computer security. Did they admit he’s Tal Shiar, or are we supposed to pretend he’s not?”
“Oh they admitted it.” She wrinkles her nose briefly. “Theoretically, we’re all being honest and above-board with each other. It’s a bold new era.” She lets the sarcasm slip out, just a little.
He snorts, and he and Bu Fsen Fa exchange a look. “Well, at least that’s something.”
“I’m glad to have you aboard, Mr. Hawthorne,” she says, but she’s pretty sure he won’t believe her.