A Great Need for Smaller

Posted on 20 Oct 2018 @ 6:01pm by Lieutenant Commander Camila Di Pasquale & Lieutenant JG Jazmin Parks & Staff Warrant Officer William Griffin

1,181 words; about a 6 minute read

Mission: Fractured
Location: Conference Room One
Timeline: MD 2 || 1200 Hours

After her meeting with Ensign Michell and feeling that she had a weight taken off of her shoulders that the young woman had taken on the role of Assistant Chief of Security, at least until they made it back across the Zone, Camila tapped her combadge. =^=Lieutenant Parks and Warrant Officer Griffin, please me in in Conference Room One. Di Pasquale out.=^=

With the message sent, the Chief of Security secured her terminal and turned the office over to the duty officer before she grabbed two PADDs and headed to the Conference Room where she was to meet the others. On arrival, she was glad to see the others hadn't arrived yet and sat down to try to get her thoughts in order.

Griffin strode into the conference room like an angry rhino, a PaDD gripped in one hand and a frown fixed firmly on his face. Since the meeting with Harvey, his promotion and the shock of being given the Chief Engineer position, he had been pushing himself and the remaining engineering staff hard trying to get the ball rolling on the running repairs for the Black Hawk. Giving up the time to go to a meeting with the chief of security was painful and he found it hard not to resent the loss.

"What can I do for you, Lieutenant?" He asked brusquely, placing his thick arms across the top of a chair.

Jazmin entered the conference room, her face flushed with emotion. "Sorry it took me so long." She took a seat, leaning forward to rest her elbows on the table. "What's going on Chief?"

"Thank you both for coming so soon," Camila said. "And congratulations to you on your promotion, Lieutenant Parks. There's no longer a need to call me Chief." She uploaded the contents of one of her PADDs to the computer and activated a monitor.

On the screen, it showed schematics for a small portable power generator. "What we need is roughly twenty of these," she said. "They'd be perfect for charging phasers and keeping force fields operational if the main power ever goes out again. I know we have limited resources and won't be able to make all of them immediately, but whatever you can have made before we go back across the Zone would be greatly appreciated."

Jazmin grinned, it was an honor that she had not even considered, but the Captain seemed to have faith in her. She wouldn't let him down.

"Thanks, but you know that you'll always be Chief to me." She paused, looking at the schematics and considering what it would take to make them. Twenty might be a stretch but she knew they could come close.

"I don't see any reason why we can't get a good number of these made, maybe not the full twenty, but I think we can come close." She looked at Griffin, wondering how it must have looked to the Chief. The giant of an engineer and the diminutive Ops Officer next to one another. "What do you think, Griffin?"

"I get why you'd want these, ma'am," Griffin began, frowning at the design and trying to choose his words carefully, "it's a great idea, but 'far as I can see they're non-essential. We've got limited resources here and no chance for resupply 'til we get back across the Zone. All the resources we got have gotta to go to maintenance and repair before we even think about spending 'em on this kinda upgrade." He frowned at the design again, an idea forming, "what ya could do is go down to fighter maintenance and ask 'em to give you a couple of backup power generators from the fighters, I happen to know they have a few in stock an' they're power output ain't that different. That'd get ya started, at least."

"Then let me put it to you another way, Warrant Officer," the Chief of Security said as she turned her gaze towards him. "The Captain wants them put into production immediately. Does that help facilitate things?"

Griffin sighed, resisting the urge to cross his arms across his chest. He wondered where he was going to find the resources to make the damn things. "I don't know how many we'll be able to produce with the resources we have." He grumbled, "I have to balance this with the stuff we need to keep the ship running. I still think the backup generators from the fighters would be a good supplement until we can get all of 'em made."

"We can use those backup generators from the fighters, too," Camila readily agreed. "And I'm sorry about the snap about the Captain wanting it done. We really got caught with our pants down when those quantum filaments hit us. Almost none of the phasers had charges and reports say we got boarded in other timelines. I don't want that to happen again. How many of these generators do you think can realistically be made?" She looked at Parks for her input as well.

Griffin frowned in thought, "I'm still trying to inventory the supplies we have, so I can only give you a rough estimate, but I reckon we can do ten, maybe twelve." It was a conservative estimate, "I can probably up that by a couple if ops can give me a full manifest of what we've got to work with on the resources front ."

Jazmin looked back to the Chief Engineer. "I'll get that manifest to you within the hour."

She turned her attention back to Camila. "I think it's a good idea. When I was pushed forward in time I was able to rig up something to shunt power from one phaser to another. It was slow going, and we lost most of the stored power in the process, but we were able to get everyone armed with fully charged weapons. If we had access to these," she gestured to the schematics, "then things would have gone a lot better."

"I read your report," Camila said. "Which is why I came up with the idea. Your idea had a lot of merit, but we usually don't have the time to implement them. With these generators, we'll be able to shave off critical minutes."

Jazmin nodded. "The generators could make a big difference, not only here, but on all Federation Starships." She was proud. Proud that she contributed something outside of jus the limited scope of Security. She knew that she was going to enjoy her new position and the good she could do with it. She stood. "I'll get that manifest report done ASAP. Is there anything else I can do?"

"The report is all I need, for now." Griffin replied, "I might need your help later on after the damage assessment is done."

"Any other questions or comments?" Camila asked.

Jazmin shook her head. "None here, Chief."

"Negative, ma'am." Griffin responded, trying not to show his eagerness to get back to the task at hand.

"I'll look forward to updates," the Security Chief said before she turned and headed out.

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