Contest of Will

Posted on 19 Aug 2014 @ 12:16am by Chief Warrant Officer 2 Vasily Sokolov Ph.D. & Lieutenant JG Grayson Jones
Edited on on 19 Aug 2014 @ 1:00am

1,682 words; about a 8 minute read

Mission: Episode 06 - Legend of Souls
Location: USS Galileo - Deck 6, Main Engineering
Timeline: MD07, 1400 hrs

[ ON ]

Dr. Vasily Mikhailovich Sokolov stalked across Main Engineering looking even more sour and pissed off than usual. The secondary power grid on Deck 3 was experiencing intermittent flow regulator issues, and he knew the tribbles were to blame. They were all in the conduits, likely shoving ODN junctions out of sync with all their wiggling and cooing and disgusting cuteness. Those stupid things had been causing enough trouble on the ship, but now they were interfering with engineering matters and that was one step too far.

It was time someone did something about it.

"Where is Jones!?" Vasily barked at a passing crewman. The Chief Engineer - Pretty Boy Kita - was off somewhere doing something useless like paperwork, he imagined, so he had to deal with Assistant Pretty Boy, Grayson Jones. Thus far he'd managed to avoid the department's second-in-command as someone with his experience and expertise had absolutely no use for a mere child, especially one with messy hair, but the computer was being most uncooperative so Vasily, sadly, needed him.

The crewman hadn't seen Vasily coming and jumped at the sound of the question/demand. Silently he was cursing his bad luck - everyone in engineering tried to avoid the surly Russian - but he forced a smile and upbeat response anyway. "Uh, I think he's over there, sir."

"Okay, thank you," Vasily said, mocking both the crewman's look and tone. What was he so happy about? Must not be a real engineer, maybe some kind of low-level technician. They were always happy because all they did was the engineering equivalent of scrubbing the floors. Vasily rolled his eyes at the young man and stalked off in the direction indicated. "Jones! Jones! Jones!"

Grayson had yet to meet all of the Engineering department, outside some brief meetings that was. From the depths of the warp core, he heard his name being screamed out, and, because of the nature of his task...continued working. He was not in the best position to suddenly stop work on checking the magnetic constrictors and deal with whoever was making that noise from above. Grayson simply called out, "Under the warp core, if you need me, come talk to me. Some of us are working and require a bit more silence to concentrate, thank you." The 'thank you' sounded more like a demand for silence than a pleasantry. Today was not a day to mess with Grayson Jones.

Vasily's jaw set. His eyes darted to one of the technicians who happened to look up at his approach; the man pointed toward the warp core and quickly busied himself at a nearby panel. The Russian hopped down next to the warp core and stuck his head into the opened maintenance hatch, where he discovered the Assistant Pretty Boy really was another pretty boy. One side of his lips curled up in disgust. Why did all the engineers look like Orion slave boys? He hardly looked old enough to be messing with the magnetic constrictors, much less qualified. Somewhere in the back of mind - unacknowledged - was no small amount of resentment over the loss of his own youthful appearance, drowned in the bottom of uncountable numbers of vodka bottles.

"Jones," he growled, making the name sound more like an accusation than anything. "You need to deactivate Deck 3 security protocols. Now."

"Care to tell me why before you go barking commands to senior officer?" Grayson back was well and truly up. If it would not destabilise the warp core, he would stop what he was doing, get up, and read this man the riot act. Figuring it might eventually come to that, he quicken his pace while still maintaining a safe, steady hand.

Vasily took one step back and appraised Grayson's back, looking more than a little indignant. If he'd earned anything during his long and illustrious career with Starfleet it was the right to 'bark' commands at the kids 'running' the ship. "Tribbles are interfering with energy grid. Vasily would like to use phaser, bipolar torch, and hyper spanner to kill off infestation in Jeffries tubes on Deck 3. Time for humanitarian shit is over, kid."

Finishing his task, Grayson pulled himself out of the hole he was trapped in meer moments ago, rising to the man who came bothering him. "Let us get a few things straight before we continue. You may not know me, but as a point to do my best in this job, I know you. I know you are more experienced and there are times I will call upon that and be thankful of it." He noticed his ranking on his collar. "But that being said, I am in command of this department right now and whatever personal issues you have with that, leave them outside the door when you enter. You will respect the chain of command and the procedures that go with it. You will address me as Sir at the end of your sentences. Call me kid again and that is the last mistake you will make in this department"

Grady gave no room for pause. " And, to come up to me during highly detailed, technical maintenance, which if you check the schedule I post in the Chief's room, you would see where I am, you better have a damned good better reason than that." He knew this man was going to hate him after this and frankly Grayson didn't care, he was too tired, too stressed and not giving away his position in the running of this department to a man he may or may not have found slightly intimidating. "Check the logs, that area is next. All you had to do was isolate the section from the grid to prevent further damage. I trust you have sufficient access to do so?

"Good." Again, no pause. "Also, when did you decide to countermand orders from the senior staff, hell, the ideal the Federation live up to, to respect all life. I should put you on report for that alone. Follow procedure. Isolate, clear, clean. Take any people you need for it.

"Check the schedules. Follow protocol. I will not have you being a danger to this department or this ship. Taking a phaser out, or any sort of misguided violence leads to one miss placed blow away from blowing up a deck or worse. Do I make myself clear?" Grayson now waited long enough for a reply.

Vasily's smile started at one edge of his mouth, pulling upward, but it didn't get much beyond an amused smirk. Of course he didn't care for the content of the message, but at least he could relate to the manner in which it was conveyed. He'd always preferred outright aggressive over passive-aggressive; the latter tended to overshadow the work environment and make things difficult for everyone. But if you were open about the way you felt and not so committed to the "everybody loves everybody" mentality that was fashionable among Federation citizens then you could establish boundaries and communicate more effectively. Half the communication might be yelling, but at least you knew where one another stood and worked around it.

"Okay, okay, I see you are having bad day. But good job establishing authority," Vasily said, smirk still on his face. He pointed a thumb casually over his shoulder toward the technician who'd shown him where Grayson was. "This one is biggest gossip in whole department. Later, he goes to tell all other engineers how Ensign Jones yells at Dr. Sokolov and Dr. Sokolov says, 'Yes, sir,' 'No, sir,' and bows and scrapes. Then, not only are you big engineering hero because everyone hates Dr. Sokolov, but also they are a little afraid to step out of line." Vasily gave him an appraising look, finally breaking into a full grin. "Maybe you should be Chief Pretty Boy. Sir."

Immediately the Russian engineer began nodding in apology, holding up a hand to ward off what was sure to be another dressing down.

"There are greater injustices in universe to be upset about than Dr. Sokolov's big mouth. I will round up local village idiots and go and isolate and clear and clean, no problem. Still, is probably better to just kill them. Maybe respecting life can stop at things damaging ship's systems, hm?" Seeing his hopes dashed in the eyes of his superior officer, he held up his hands - palms forward - in surrender. "Okay, okay. Isolate, clear, clean." After a long pause he started in place and snapped a finger. "Sir. Sorry. That one will take time."

Ask him about this later and Grayson would never admit to be shaking inside. It took what little energy he had left not not allow it to show physically. He couldn't help but feel a little proud of himself though and had come to respect the man before him a little bit more for taking his knocks in good grace. It cause Grayson to soften slightly (only slightly) towards him. "Don't make it too long though." As he went to turn and clear up after himself, he added, "Only the next time you use pretty boy towards me, it better come with a drink from the bar." Knowing how unlikely it was for that to happen, Grayson was quite interested in Vasily's response now that he had tempered his guard.

"Okay, Assistant Chief Pretty Boy, sir," Vasily said, giving a mock salute. He laughed, something sharp and raspy that sounded like a malfunctioning phase wave inducer or maybe just the end result of a long, bitter life. "I owe you two drinks now, which looks like your limit. You will find that I will drink you under table; then drink you under deck plating. Then I come in for early shift."

"I'd surprise you there as well, part Scottish on my mother's side." Grayson replied simply, accepting the challenge.

[ OFF ]

WO Vasily Sokolov, Ph.D.
Engineering Officer
USS Galileo
[PNPC Mott]

&

Ensign Grayson Jones
ACEO
USS Galileo

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