Walkabout

Posted on Sat Sep 26th, 2026 @ 4:38am by Lieutenant JG Jenna Jade & Lieutenant Edward Barnes

1,551 words; about a 8 minute read

Mission: Interim 3: Subspace Drift
Location: USS Chimera, Main Engineering
Timeline: Tbd

As Edward continued his stroll through the ship, he continued to think about the people he had met so far. The Captain, Executive Officer and the Chief Medical Officer, all seemed to be extremely overly sexual. Then he had met the ship's counselor, and the Captain's Yeoman. They both seemed much closer to normal for his comfort.

It wasn't that Edward was a prude. Far from it. Edward liked to think that he had a healthy idea on sex. Of course, it had been a long time since he had had the opportunity to partake in the pleasureful activity. Ever since his fiancé had broken his heart, years prior, he had not trusted any woman enough to get close enough. More years than he chose to think about.

As he was deep in thought, he turned a corner and stopped, when he found himself looking at the heart of the ship, the warp core. At the moment, the warp core was shut down, while the ship was attached to the starbases' power supply.

Jenna glanced up briefly as the doors slid open in front of a new officer, a Lieutenant that she didn’t recognize, which naturally… Translated to new to the ship. After a year and a half aboard, she knew all of the officers on sight, plus many of the enlisted. She lowered her PADD to the console quietly, smiling gently at the screen because she recognized that look. It was the same one she’d had when she had finally made it onto Chimera. She leaned on the console as she turned to face the newcomer, “She’s more beautiful when we have her revved up, suh.” She said softly, but audibly.

Hearing the thick southern accent, Edward turned his head to the source and found himself looking at another attractive woman. Inwardly, he pulled back slightly, cautious that she would be like a few other offers aboard.

Outwardly, he gave her a polite grin, as he stepped closer, dipping his head respectfully. "Edward Barnes. I'm the new Strategic Operations Officer. And you are?"

“Jenna Jade, just another engineer, now..” Jenna gave him a soft smile in return, “Most of the department is off gallivantin’ around, but Ah decided to stay behind and keep an eye on the Starbase crew while they’re fiddlin’ with the girl.” She rubbed the corner of the console affectionately, “Ah have been with her since she launched, suh, back when Ah was just outta the Academy. She and Ah have had some good times to go with the bad.”

Nodding as he listened, he noticed the woman's rank of lieutenant, junior grade. He then did some quick mental math as to the possible duration of her time aboard the Chimera. "Well then, I'm sure you know this ship like the back of your hand then?"

“Yes, suh, more so than anyone else aboard her, Ah reckon. After Ah took over for Lieutenant Donahue, Ah threw myself into learnin’ every bit of the ship and what made her tick.” Jenna gave a larger smile, “Anythin’ you’re lookin’ for inparticular?”

Arching his right eyebrow slightly, Edward suddenly got the impression that yet another officer was about to throw herself at him. Keeping his tone as polite as possible, he spoke his head, then replied. "Not really, just walking. Ive got a few more decks to go, down below, then I was going to head to my office, get things set up as I want them."

“If you’re goin’ to go more than one deck lower, you’re goin’ to want to put on a suit.” Jenna shook her head, “And deck 17 only has some of the tertiary equipment, storage areas and waste reclamation equipment on it. Ah try not to go down there unless I have to, but if that strikes your fancy, be my guest. However, “ Jenna gave a slight wave, “Just be careful down there, because since it’s usually just us engineers that are goin’ down that direction, we also stash a lot of the broken gear it’s too difficult to reprocess aboard ship down there as well, so if a door won’t open, please don’t force it to. Also, comms can get spotty in the west corridor, we don’t know why and we’ve even tried a signal booster to try to fix it.” Her face screwed up slightly, “Ah’d recommend against it, suh. Especially since Ah’d have to stay here and monitor things until Ah was sure you’d gotten out all right and Ah’m supposed to meet Quinn for a tennis lesson in about an hour.”

Edward considered Jenna's words for a few bits, then he responded. "I suppose there wouldn't be any reason for me to go down to those decks then, if its mainly support equipment and repair bays." He paused another beat, then gave her a gentle grin. "Thank you for the heads up. Had you not been here when I stopped by, I might've gone down there and become trapped with no one being the wiser." He gave her another grin as he continued.

"Perhaps, when you have some spare time, you could send me a schematic of the various areas that are typically no-entry for non engineering personnel?"

“Ah can do that, however if you wait just a couple weeks, or maybe upwards of a month, we should be able to clear all that up.” Jenna reached back to her console and changed the screen to a projected timetable that the station’s survey team had sent over, supplemented with purple lines that indicated some other party (Jenna herself) had added notes into the shared document, “Jay Jay, Lieutenant Jeffries that is, and Ah are coordination’ with the refit team to try to schedule what parts of the ship are bein’ worked on at any given time and we’ll share progress reports with the rest of the crew as plans changed.”

He gave her a polite nod. "Thank you. That is much appreciated." He then paused a beat then asked, "Should I wait to set up my shop the way I like until after the refit team goes through? In case any of the equipment is being swapped out or the compartments are being reorganized?"

“Gimme one second.” Jenna spun away and went back to the console she’d been at when he’d come in, “As far as Ah know, Strategic Operations wasn’t used for much of anythin’, unless some of our more ummm…” She glanced at him, looked back forward and then shook her head as her cheeks reddened, “Nevermind. It looks like it’s goin’ to be pretty far down the priority list at this point, since they’re just goin’ to take things out and replace ‘em with upgrades. Ah can see if they can expedite that, if you’d like?”

Edward considered her offer for a few beats, then shook his head. "No, thank you. I'll do what I can with what I have now, wait my turn while the higher priority systems are seen to first."

"We're gonna be hooked up inside a shipyard for at least two months, suh, it'll all get done one way or t'other." Jenna gave a shrug, "Once they pull the warp core framework out in a week, we'll be immobile until they install the new assembly, which will take about five weeks, so Ah think if we switch around the Flight Control upgrades with the Strategic Operations upgrades, it'll get you back up and goin' while Raven couldn't even take us anywhere if we'd wanted."

Hearing the update option, Edward gave Jenna a gentle grin then nodded. "In that case, then I accept." He pulled out a small PADD as he asked a follow-up question. "When should I be ready for the yard workers to come through?" He would need to ensure all classified information was properly secured before anyone without clearance entered his work suite.

"Their new arrival time is goin' to be on Thursday, suh, at oh-seven-hundred hours." Jenna looked up and beamed at him, "Estimated time for your upgrades is approximately eight days, then they'll spin up your new computers and hand it all over to you."

Thursday. Three days from where they were at that moment. "Well," he said with a soft chuckle. "Guess I should leave well enough alone. Better to wait till the updates are done before I go look at my office. Better than learning the old systems for a couple days and then relearning the new systems."

He put the PADD away and nodded to Jenna. "Thanks for the info. I'll get out of your hair now, so you can focus on what you have to do." He started to turn away, then paused, looking back at her. "Nice meeting you." He gave her a polite, handsome grin, then turned and left engineering.

"Good meetin' you too, suh." Jenna said as he walked out and she sighed. She wasn't looking forward to the refit, but for tonight? Quinn had promised her a massage and she wasn't going to miss out on that for the world.

Post by

Lieutenant Edward Barnes
Chief Strategic Operations Officer

and

Lieutenant (jg) Jenna Jade
Engineer

 

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