allmhadadh (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
allmhadadh) wrote2009-08-13 02:32 pm
allmhadadh) wrote2009-08-13 02:32 pm
Entry tags:
Threads - [Original Enterprise]
The walls of the office were the usual gray, and the rest was all shades of red and black. The typical Starfleet color scheme, and after a jaunt into a universe where it wasn't, he appreciated it more than ever.
Chief Engineer Montgomery Scott stood straight-backed at attention in front of Commodore Wolfe's desk She was a tough woman; shrewd and smart and not exactly all that fond of James Kirk or the Enterprise. Starfleet higher-ups always did seem to be of two minds about the captain and crew; on one side, those who considered Kirk the golden boy and the Enterprise the golden ship, and those who most emphatically did not.
Montana Wolfe did not.
They had gone over the somewhat sterilized events that had lead to the hopefully temporary loss of Kirk, Spock and McCoy about ten times, and Scotty hadn't broken attention in that entire time. He'd learned this bearing under the more military Pike, and while it had loosened up a little under Kirk's command, it tended to snap right back into place when it was clearly needed. Montana cut him no slack. She grilled him, and he answered evenly each time the same careful answers. Never lies. Just many omissions and many honest "I don't knows" and many meticulously worded answers.
It was, in a sort of amusing way, a Wolfe against a wolf.
"Wonderful," she muttered, standing back up straight from where she'd been on her knuckles, leaning on the desk. "I'm going to file this report, Lieutenant Commander. I wouldn't be too surprised, however, if you find yourself and the Enterprise being hauled back to Earth for hearings at Command. In the meantime, I've cleared her for drydock. We'll have to call in for replacement parts."
Scotty wasn't in love with the sheer amount of time it was going to take to repair a mostly blind starship. And given how badly blown their external sensors were, it was going to take a good bit of it. He'd already compiled a list en route of all of the parts they would need to replace, and the raw materials they'd need to restock their own fabrication labs, and his estimate of about two months held, given the size of Starbase 4's drydock, personnel, transfer times and everything else. Like every engineer since the dawn of time, he built in plenty of 'worst case scenario' time; extra time meant to compensate if things went wrong, but he wouldn't have been too shocked if they did.
"My crew, ma'am?" he asked, "They're fairly ground down."
"Go ahead and clear them for shore-leave, pending a reply from Starfleet Command."
"Aye aye, ma'am."
"Dismissed, Mister Scott."
He tipped his head down in a brief nod, then turned and walked out, headed back to his ship and crew and the large number of things he had to deal with.
Limping the Enterprise back here had been a harrowing experience. The navigators were probably the most exhausted; young Chekov lived with a permanent cup of coffee in hand, and dark rings under his eyes. Even his dry Russian wit had taken on a listless air. Working out the calculations to fly a starship at warp speed by hand, no sensors, would have put a great deal of weight on even far older men. But Chekov had managed it, and the calculations passed through three navigators before they were used to make sure they didn't fly through any planets.
Everyone had fallen into the routine, though. It was a very brutal routine, but the ship survived the gale and made it to a safe harbor.
Captaining a starship was not, indeed, Scotty's first and best destiny. One, because he didn't believe in destiny, and two, because he was so deeply devoted to engineering that he couldn't do anything else if he tried. Luckily, he did have a very broad definition of engineering, but even then, making things work -- finding answers -- was his main drive.
Regardless, he was very capable in the command chair. His command style was somewhat more cautious than would normally be considered ideal for a starship on the edge of exploration, but it was effective especially in times like this when survival was the biggest concern. His year-long stint in Command School wasn't what made him this, but it had opened the door to it -- Chris Pike had decided to hone those skills further, and when Scotty was thirty-one, Pike had started putting him on the bridge fairly regularly. Starting with very light command duties -- orbiting safe planets, commanding in safe space -- and then building him up over the course of years until he was left in command even when Hell was breaking loose.
Therefore, Lieutenant Commander Scott was both an engineer, and a true command-rated officer as well, who was considered good enough to captain a Constitution-class starship regularly by all and sundry. And he was the only engineer currently in Starfleet to hold that dual capacity.
That didn't mean it was his favorite place.
"We're cleared for dock an' shore leave," Scotty said, as he walked onto the bridge. And had to smile a little to himself at the sigh of relief that passed through every person on deck at the time. "Lieutenant Uhura, if ye'll coordinate crew leave assignments? Mister Sulu, Mister Chekov -- transfer control to station docking."
The replies of 'aye sir' were still entirely relieved. Scotty couldn't begin to blame them.
Everyone still missed their command crew and doctor. And they all felt uncertain about the future. But they had earned this rest, and before things went mad -- he was sure they would when Command got word -- they should at least have some downtime.
Even him.
After his Enterprise was tucked snugly into the drydock, and repair crews began coming aboard, he made sure to stay on the bridge to coordinate until it was very clear that he had done his duty and then some. And then, leaving the mostly empty bridge, he headed back down -- not to his quarters, but to his office above the main deck in Engineering.
The quiet hum of an idled warp drive thrummed around him, from the soles of his boots to the tips of his hair. Station techs moved around, snapping to attention as he walked by and earning an amused glance and 'at ease'. He climbed the ladder to his office, stepped in, listened to the door swish close and breathed his own sigh of relief.
His antique map cabinet sat in one corner, and after a few moments, he went and opened a bottom drawer. There were about eight notebooks in there, with the different contents scrawled on the cover in summary. Most of them were filled, and the pages didn't lay flush. He grabbed two out of there, then sat at his desk, setting his chronometer to tell him when it would be about 7AM, Eastern Standard Time on Earth so he could call home.
He'd go and see about shore leave himself when he heard back from Command. But for now, he wanted to just sit in his office and enjoy the quiet. He set his homemade coffee maker to make him a few cups, breathing in the smell when it started and thoroughly enjoying both it and the more 'nutmeg-ish' scent of slightly aged paper, and the sounds of his ship around him.
The notebooks were a few years old; the first was filled, and the second halfway so. The theory he was toying with was was centered around transwarp beaming -- total bunk, but entirely fun to play with -- and he'd been picking at it for a few years now. He'd even shared his initial work with Spock, and was surprised that the Vulcan believed it had any merit. But for Scotty, it was just something to play with when he was in a math-and-concepts mood. He was only rarely burned out on mechanics, but when he was, he could slow his body down and stretch his brain a bit and this was a good way to do it.
He figured that it would probably take him his lifetime, if he bothered to even finish it, for it to be a testable theory. There were too many potential dangers, so he honestly didn't consider it to be a viable application in anything but extremely dire circumstances (if anything), but the thought of some young buck or lass testing it and proving him right or wrong made him smile.
Near three decades ago, Alejandro Perera had put out a brilliant theory on disabling Klingon linked shields as they ran in squadrons. And a sixteen year old Scotty had tested it, disproving it. Maybe, in three decades from now, Montgomery Scott would put out a brilliant theory on transwarp transportation, and some sixteen year old would give it a test to prove it or disprove it. Either way, he would be happy.
He grinned into his coffee mug for a moment at the thought, then picked up his pencil and got back to work.
Chief Engineer Montgomery Scott stood straight-backed at attention in front of Commodore Wolfe's desk She was a tough woman; shrewd and smart and not exactly all that fond of James Kirk or the Enterprise. Starfleet higher-ups always did seem to be of two minds about the captain and crew; on one side, those who considered Kirk the golden boy and the Enterprise the golden ship, and those who most emphatically did not.
Montana Wolfe did not.
They had gone over the somewhat sterilized events that had lead to the hopefully temporary loss of Kirk, Spock and McCoy about ten times, and Scotty hadn't broken attention in that entire time. He'd learned this bearing under the more military Pike, and while it had loosened up a little under Kirk's command, it tended to snap right back into place when it was clearly needed. Montana cut him no slack. She grilled him, and he answered evenly each time the same careful answers. Never lies. Just many omissions and many honest "I don't knows" and many meticulously worded answers.
It was, in a sort of amusing way, a Wolfe against a wolf.
"Wonderful," she muttered, standing back up straight from where she'd been on her knuckles, leaning on the desk. "I'm going to file this report, Lieutenant Commander. I wouldn't be too surprised, however, if you find yourself and the Enterprise being hauled back to Earth for hearings at Command. In the meantime, I've cleared her for drydock. We'll have to call in for replacement parts."
Scotty wasn't in love with the sheer amount of time it was going to take to repair a mostly blind starship. And given how badly blown their external sensors were, it was going to take a good bit of it. He'd already compiled a list en route of all of the parts they would need to replace, and the raw materials they'd need to restock their own fabrication labs, and his estimate of about two months held, given the size of Starbase 4's drydock, personnel, transfer times and everything else. Like every engineer since the dawn of time, he built in plenty of 'worst case scenario' time; extra time meant to compensate if things went wrong, but he wouldn't have been too shocked if they did.
"My crew, ma'am?" he asked, "They're fairly ground down."
"Go ahead and clear them for shore-leave, pending a reply from Starfleet Command."
"Aye aye, ma'am."
"Dismissed, Mister Scott."
He tipped his head down in a brief nod, then turned and walked out, headed back to his ship and crew and the large number of things he had to deal with.
Limping the Enterprise back here had been a harrowing experience. The navigators were probably the most exhausted; young Chekov lived with a permanent cup of coffee in hand, and dark rings under his eyes. Even his dry Russian wit had taken on a listless air. Working out the calculations to fly a starship at warp speed by hand, no sensors, would have put a great deal of weight on even far older men. But Chekov had managed it, and the calculations passed through three navigators before they were used to make sure they didn't fly through any planets.
Everyone had fallen into the routine, though. It was a very brutal routine, but the ship survived the gale and made it to a safe harbor.
Captaining a starship was not, indeed, Scotty's first and best destiny. One, because he didn't believe in destiny, and two, because he was so deeply devoted to engineering that he couldn't do anything else if he tried. Luckily, he did have a very broad definition of engineering, but even then, making things work -- finding answers -- was his main drive.
Regardless, he was very capable in the command chair. His command style was somewhat more cautious than would normally be considered ideal for a starship on the edge of exploration, but it was effective especially in times like this when survival was the biggest concern. His year-long stint in Command School wasn't what made him this, but it had opened the door to it -- Chris Pike had decided to hone those skills further, and when Scotty was thirty-one, Pike had started putting him on the bridge fairly regularly. Starting with very light command duties -- orbiting safe planets, commanding in safe space -- and then building him up over the course of years until he was left in command even when Hell was breaking loose.
Therefore, Lieutenant Commander Scott was both an engineer, and a true command-rated officer as well, who was considered good enough to captain a Constitution-class starship regularly by all and sundry. And he was the only engineer currently in Starfleet to hold that dual capacity.
That didn't mean it was his favorite place.
"We're cleared for dock an' shore leave," Scotty said, as he walked onto the bridge. And had to smile a little to himself at the sigh of relief that passed through every person on deck at the time. "Lieutenant Uhura, if ye'll coordinate crew leave assignments? Mister Sulu, Mister Chekov -- transfer control to station docking."
The replies of 'aye sir' were still entirely relieved. Scotty couldn't begin to blame them.
Everyone still missed their command crew and doctor. And they all felt uncertain about the future. But they had earned this rest, and before things went mad -- he was sure they would when Command got word -- they should at least have some downtime.
Even him.
After his Enterprise was tucked snugly into the drydock, and repair crews began coming aboard, he made sure to stay on the bridge to coordinate until it was very clear that he had done his duty and then some. And then, leaving the mostly empty bridge, he headed back down -- not to his quarters, but to his office above the main deck in Engineering.
The quiet hum of an idled warp drive thrummed around him, from the soles of his boots to the tips of his hair. Station techs moved around, snapping to attention as he walked by and earning an amused glance and 'at ease'. He climbed the ladder to his office, stepped in, listened to the door swish close and breathed his own sigh of relief.
His antique map cabinet sat in one corner, and after a few moments, he went and opened a bottom drawer. There were about eight notebooks in there, with the different contents scrawled on the cover in summary. Most of them were filled, and the pages didn't lay flush. He grabbed two out of there, then sat at his desk, setting his chronometer to tell him when it would be about 7AM, Eastern Standard Time on Earth so he could call home.
He'd go and see about shore leave himself when he heard back from Command. But for now, he wanted to just sit in his office and enjoy the quiet. He set his homemade coffee maker to make him a few cups, breathing in the smell when it started and thoroughly enjoying both it and the more 'nutmeg-ish' scent of slightly aged paper, and the sounds of his ship around him.
The notebooks were a few years old; the first was filled, and the second halfway so. The theory he was toying with was was centered around transwarp beaming -- total bunk, but entirely fun to play with -- and he'd been picking at it for a few years now. He'd even shared his initial work with Spock, and was surprised that the Vulcan believed it had any merit. But for Scotty, it was just something to play with when he was in a math-and-concepts mood. He was only rarely burned out on mechanics, but when he was, he could slow his body down and stretch his brain a bit and this was a good way to do it.
He figured that it would probably take him his lifetime, if he bothered to even finish it, for it to be a testable theory. There were too many potential dangers, so he honestly didn't consider it to be a viable application in anything but extremely dire circumstances (if anything), but the thought of some young buck or lass testing it and proving him right or wrong made him smile.
Near three decades ago, Alejandro Perera had put out a brilliant theory on disabling Klingon linked shields as they ran in squadrons. And a sixteen year old Scotty had tested it, disproving it. Maybe, in three decades from now, Montgomery Scott would put out a brilliant theory on transwarp transportation, and some sixteen year old would give it a test to prove it or disprove it. Either way, he would be happy.
He grinned into his coffee mug for a moment at the thought, then picked up his pencil and got back to work.