Mission 0- High Drive

USS Indefatigable
Captain's Ready Room
0900 Hours
Day 1

Rena had been on the Indefatigable for months now. Overseeing the ships retrofit had been a challenge, but a fun one. She'd been given a pretty free hand, and had worked extensively with maintenance yard staff to get the ship ready as soon as possible. The decades old Excelsior had been refitted several times already, which had actually made the job harder rather than easier. Some of the refits had been extensive, but others had been smaller maybe only covering a single section of the ship. The result was that many parts of the Indefatigable mismatched, not just technologically, but also in style. Rena remembered stepping through an airlock that might have been new when the ship was first commissioned into a beige passageway straight out of the 2360's, and into a turbolift that she was pretty sure had been taken straight from an Akira. The entire ship has a been a mess, but not anymore. Where they could, they'd upgraded the computer systems with bio-neural gel packs or newer isolinear chips and many other advances. Everything from the Warp Core to the EPS system, to the torpedo launchers had been gutted and replaced with modern equivalents. The interior design had also been redone in more grey tones with blue accents and bright lighting. As much of a headache as that had been though, it was nothing compared to actually getting the ship ready for launch.

"What do you mean they aren't here yet?" She asked, frustrated. She was in her Ready Room, talking to a Lieutenant Stevens about the Indie's shuttlecraft. More specifically talking about why they weren't on board yet, when the ship was less than a week away from launch.

"I mean they're still processing center B undergoing inspection," He replied flatly.

"Wait so they're actually here? At the maintenance yards," She asked, tersely. She couldn't stand Stevens, or anyone who didn't say what the actually meant for that matter. He'd been dancing around the issue for well over half an hour now.

"Yes, but they're inspected," Stevens said, in a tone that made it sound like he was a school teacher trying to explain something to an idiot child. That only made Rena angrier.

"But they're brand new correct," Rena asked, leaning forward in her plush light blue seat.

"Yes bu-"

Rena didn't let him finish," And they were inspected and approved for service correct?"

"Well yes b-," Stevens started again, only for her to cut him off.

"And they haven't actually flown, with the exception of the test flight correct?"

"No an-"

"And the transport carrying them here didn't suffer any mishaps did it? No hijacking, no damage, nothing that could have effected the shuttles?"

"No b-"

"Then how long could it possibly take to inspect a shuttle that's brand now, only been flown once, and never suffered so much as chip in the paint," She asked as the final point in her diatribe.

"Regulation states that the shuttles undergo a fourteen hour inspection prior to being handed over to the staff of their assigned starship," Stevens replied, sounding smug as though thinking that he had just won the argument. But Rena knew that the transport had arrived four days ago, and had a feeling that this was all just because Stevens didn't like. And because he was a prick, in Rena's extraordinarily arrogant opinion.

"So they'll be here inside of an hour then? Good," Rena replied, cutting the connection. She checked her schedule to see what she needed to do next, and sighed. She still had to go over the crew manifest, find out why Starfleet was insistent on giving her a Marine XO, talk to Admiral Harrison about the Indie would be doing, kick the Maintenance Yard personnel off the ship, and probably find some time in all of that to get something to eat and few hours of sleep. And that didn't even include any potential officers who might show up to report there presence, which she expected them to do. Everyone was supposed to start coming onboard around now, and Rena hoped they would. This was going to be a long day.

OFF

USS Indefatigable
Docking Bay
0930 Hours
Day 1

Anxiety. Restlessness. Fear. These things plagued Wercheg's mind as he began to step into the Excelsior-Class Indefatigable. Even though he was deathly quiet in boarding the ship, there was noise bombarding him from all over. The station was abuzz with movement and chatter, and Wercheg sat there, in silence. He creeped into the doorway, and opened the airlock boarding his new assignment. He let the door close behind him and took another deep breath. This was Wercheg's first assignment as a chief officer. Antoine Wercheg has been in command of fellow diplomats before, and he had been a great leader and mentor, but he hadn't experienced being the head of a department first hand yet. There was an inevitable fear of the unknown that plagued the young Lieutenant, and he was aware. He took one deep breath to cool his veins. He couldn't show any signs of fear in front of the crew or to the commanding officers. He needed to display complete competence in front of his peers.

Antoine Wercheg consulted a computer console on the wall of the ship, and found his office. It was a quaint little room. Not too big, or too small. It was mostly empty except for a computer console, a desk, and a chair. He dropped his duffle full of his things onto the ground and threw himself into his chair. He could get used to having his own office. His office's barebones set up kind of had an intimidating feel to it, although Antoine liked the default desk. It had a curvacious pattern with a mettalic grey coloring and a computer console coming out of the top right corner. The rest of the room was just bare metal walls, flooring, and ceiling. The interior didn't match the rest of the ship very much at all, but Antoine didn't notice much, being so used to changing assignments. "Computer," Antoine said, leaning in his office chair. "Alert the captain that Lieutenant Junior-Grade Antoine Wercheg is on board and ready for service." Antoine Wercheg shuffled around his duffle, which contained a spare uniform, civilian clothes, and a small glass sphere. He grabbed the sphere, twisted it open, and placed a small, potted cactus on his desk. He'd recieved it as a gift for getting his first assignment as the head of a department. It'd definitely liven up the room a little.

OFF

USS Indefatigable
Deck 5 NCO Quarters
0100 Hours
Day 2


The door opened with a whoosh. A figure entered the Indefatigable’s NCO quarters and unzipped his gray uniform tunic. He sat on the bed, exhaled a mighty breath and shrugged out of his tunic. He looked at his reflection in the mirror. Chief Petty Officer Daniel Sullivan of Starfleet looked back at him. The 18 years of Starfleet were starting to take its toll on him. Too many battles, too many deployments, too many years out in space. He changed out of the remainder of his uniform and peeled the covers back from his bed. He and the new officer, Fong spent the entire evening recalibrating EPS conduits. Well, actually HE did most of the work while Fong mostly sat outside the Jeffries tube muttering to himself most of which Sullivan couldn’t make out. Sullivan felt his eyes getting heavier and slowly resigned himself to the sleep which would overtake him. He closed his eyes and fell asleep.

He woke up a few hours later soaked in sweat. He grabbed his sheets in a panic and took a few deep breaths. He sat up in his bed and swung his feet around and went to the dresser and unscrewed the cap of the bottle of Jack Daniels sitting there. He took a long pull and sat the bottle back down. The nightmares were coming back. He had thought he was rid of them but it seemed to not be the case. The USS Kennedy in the Tyria system, a volley of fire from a Cardassian cruiser, the decks filled with smoke and moans of the dying. He took another long pull from the bottle and set it back down. Not again.