Minor Calculations

Posted on Thu Feb 23rd, 2023 @ 2:43pm by Captain Malcom Llwyedd & Lieutenant Tor Ezzo & Petty Officer 2nd Class Fhiri
Edited on on Sat Mar 4th, 2023 @ 4:28pm

1,577 words; about a 8 minute read

Mission: Prelude to Rebirth
Location: USS Firebird Bridge, Earth, Gamma Watch
Timeline: 30 January 2396

[ON]

One of the underestimated capabilities of Ferengi was their incredible stamina. There's not much that a Ferengi wouldn't do in the endless quest for more latinum. Fhiri, thankfully, was mostly out of the latinum game. Mostly. She still did some trading from time to time but that was more habit than anything.

What drove her beyond the boundaries of duty was her quest to get the computer systems on the Firebird perfect. She could hear the minute lags when someone gave an order or requested information and it drove her crazy. She also was coming to grips with the new holographic displays and while she had completed the ones in sickbay, the bridge displays were at the top of her list. She had no idea what time it was when she stepped off the turbolift and onto the bridge and found it deserted except for a lone Bajoran officer, who she'd never seen before.

"Uh. Who are you?" she asked.

Lieutenant Tor Ezzo sat at flight controls, he had been loading his preferred macros and moving around the flight controls on his station when he heard the voice of the Petty Officer Stir him from his focus.

"Lieutenant Tor Ezzo, I'm the new Chief Flight Control. How can I help you Petty Officer 2nd Class?" Ezzo said looking up from his terminal. It was rare to see a Ferengi aboard a Starfleet vessel but more and more of them were joining the Federation.

Fhiri grunted. "Fhiri, sir. Ok, then. I guess. I'm working on the holographic displays that were just installed. Do you need any help with yours? Some of the subsystems are radically different from the old hardware and software and they have caused some problems in other parts of the ship. Since not a lot of people are back, I figured the bridge should be a priority and Chief Harlan agreed."

Ezzo sat thinking for a second, processing what was said. "I was just familiarizing myself with the CONN on the Firebird and personalizing the settings." Ezzo fought the urge to ask if he could help with the holographic displays. "You say changes were made to the ship. Is there anything I should know about the flight control systems? It would not be good if maneuvering went out or was less than optimal in an emergency."

Fhiri sauntered over toward the lieutenant and casually slipped into the captain's chair. She leaned forward and began talking. "Oh there have been so many changes! You know, I heard that Strarfleet Command wanted to just scrap the ship but Harlan fought them off and then he managed to get them to give us all kinds of upgrades. The new food replicators, the ones we had to replace when the mess hall got vented into space by those Romulans, even have Ferengi food now. Which is great because eating hu-man food is disgusting. Anyways, all the flight control hardware is different down to the matrix level. And don't even get me started on the software upgrades. Do you know that the tertiary power couplings had to be replaced with ones from a Sovereign class ship in order to handle the new power flow? And the computer mainframe, which was completely scrambled from a disruptor feedback field, is practically sentient at this point. Kinda scares me. But in a good way," Fhiri said.

Ezzo watched the young Ferengi woman take a seat in the captain's chair and a smile came across his face. "It seems we have a lot of work to do to make sure everything is working before the rest of the crew is on board. Is there any place I can get the new specs on the engines and flight control systems? I studied up on the previous specs of the Firebird when I learned of my new orders but if there are as many changes as you say." Ezzo stood up and placed his hand on his chin thinking for a second. "Perhaps I need to get with Chief Harlan. I told Commander LLywed I would help wherever was needed to get the ship ready to go. Tell me Petty Officer how long have you been on the Firebird?"

"I was assigned here in June of 2394. I came on right when we were dealing with that derelict cruise liner, the Galilei. Now that was some gross stuff," Fhiri said and stood up. "If you want I can take you down to engineering and you can talk with Chief Harlan and look over the new systems on the training console. It isn't as pretty as these ones but if you make a mistake the ship doesn't actually crash or blow up, so there is that," Fhiri said.

"I'm sure I'll make my way down there eventually," Ezzo said looking around the bridge. "Sims are great but if I could get the specifications I'll program them into the holodeck and run some sims there. Assuming the holodecks are working. I'd like to train in as realistic a situation as possible, of course, I will also program auxiliary consoles in engineering into my simulation in case I have to take over the CONN from main engineering relying only on the instrumentation to fly the ship."

Ezzo realized he was going off on tangents and stopped himself. "Petty Officer," Ezzo paused thinking of how best to word the next questions. "Are all the rumors true about what happened on this ship? I mean it's a miracle the crew is still together if the things I've heard are true and of course, even with a demotion you have your captain." Ezzo looked away for a second scanning the bridge. "I mean if half of the things I heard happened here are true then, it seems you guys really lucked out."

Fhiri considered the question. "Wellll... if you're saying did we save some Cardassians from killing each other on a random planet, crash on another completely different planet and fix their society, almost die from a plague ship, blow up part of the Badlands, uncover a super traitor guy, fight off the entire Romulan Empire, both sides.... the answer is yes," she said. "But I'm just a computer specialist. If you want the real scoop, you need to talk to Lieutenant Smith. He knows everything and has the best computers on the ship."

She took a step towards the science station and then paused. "But I will say, and I'd bet all my latinum on this, the Firebird is the luckiest ship in the fleet. Otherwise, I'd transfer out. Rule of Acquisition number one hundred twenty-five: You can't make a deal if you're dead."

Ezzo smiled and stepped over to the science station, "All right, how can I help?" Ezzo took another look at the bridge empty and quiet. There was a lot to be done before the ship would be back in full action and Ezzo wasn't scared of getting his hands dirty. He would have plenty of time to go over flight sims of the changes made to the ship, but he was starting to feel like perhaps the Petty Officer was right there was something different about the Firebird. Perhaps a little luck is exactly what Ezzo needed.

"You want to help me??" Fhiri asked, completely flummoxed by the idea. "I'm usually... always, the one helping everyone. Is there some kind of trick here?" She looked over her shoulder, remembering the story her uncle Imop told her about distraction techniques that resulted in lost profits. But nothing was behind her and she glanced back at the lieutenant, who didn't even have a knife out or anything.

"No trick," Ezzo smiled a little at the Ferengi's reaction. "There is a lot to be done and I'm to understand that we are still very short-staffed. So until we get everyone on board or the ship is running well, there is no task too small." Ezzo had joined a flight squadron out of the academy meaning he never had much lower deck work, but he never shied away from any task.

"Right, right," she said, still working to process what was happening. "Well, if you are really interested, you could help me update the console software. Once I show you, it is pretty much the same for all of them and we could get it done pretty fast. After that, Chief Harlan wants me to crawl through a mile of Jeffries tubes in order to access the MK-33 subspace coils with sonic interface links and recalibrate them. It will be dirty and dark for sure."

Rolling up his sleeves Ezzo look at the Ferengi and smiled, "Let's get to work then," Ezzo stepped behind Fhiri. "Teach me and tell me where to go and what to do. We'll get done in half the time. Then perhaps when we are done we can head down to Chief Harlan and I can get all the details on the modifications to engines and flight control."

"This is going to be great. I never had an assistant before, sir. Let's get started," Fhiri said.

[OFF]

Lieutenant Tor Ezzo
Chief Flight Control Officer
USS Firebird NCC-88298

Petty Officer 2nd Class Fhiri (NPC by Llwyedd)
Computer Systems Specialist
USS Firebird NCC-88298

 

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