Checking in

Posted on Mon Apr 27th, 2015 @ 8:50pm by Ensign Zachary Chandler & Commander Cor Cordale

Zack quickly unpacked. His quarters were pretty standard for a junior officer. He had pictures of his family, and a couple of old books. Not a lot of personal items, but then Zack had never been much of a pack rat. He wasn't due to check in until tomorrow morning, but he couldn't wait that long.
He was still in uniform anyway, so he made his way down to engineering. He knew the engineering area of the Sovereign Class by heart, but that didn't mean there might not be surprises. CEO's had been known to make modifications after all.

His wanderings led him to the Main EPS manifold, and he opened the access hatch to look inside. "Well hello lovely lady." He watched the flow of plasma. When he was little his father had told him it was magic, and to this day it still felt like it was.

A smirk, attached to the face of the Chief Engineer, walked up by the dreamgazing Ensign. "Her name is Victoria." he said with a chuckle. "Well, not just that part. That part's name is 'Vital'." a pause, "Though, if you came all the way down here to open the EPS hatch and stare, then you probably already knew that."

Cordale, at this point in most of a proper uniform, stood near the Ensign. 'Most' of a uniform meant that the entire left sleeve had been removed to not inconvenience his left arm, which was fully prosthetic. Ancient wouldn't even begin to describe the unit. Durasteel construction, industrial servo joints, three manipulators (Two, plus the thumb), and more scratches then the table hockey championship arena. The cold steel limb looked very out of place when attached to the Thux that bore her, though perhaps more than anyone else, each of these beings knew exactly how cold and painful those sorts of replacements could be.

"Oh, and please don't be a saboteur. We haven't even left port yet, there's a two day grace period. Heard it with my own ears."

Zack chuckled, then pulled his gaze away. He startled a bit. It wasn't everyday you met a, well whatever the man was. "No, no saboteur here. I was just meeting Victoria and her Vital part here. Ensign Zachary Chandler, new engineering officer, sir." Zack added, spotting the double pips.

"Oh well that's good. I'd have had to deck you, and that's a lot of paperwork." Cordale chuckled. He noticed the start, but chalked it up to being snuck up on by the master of stealth... in bright gold...

"Cor Cordale, as mentioned, lieutenant and chief. Though, you're under my umbrella so to say, so just call me Chief. I don't want my minions feeling threatened by the rank. As long as the Captain isn't doing a spot inspection, hell call me Cordale or just Cor." the Thux waved away years of protocol like it were a buzzing fly. "Good to meet you. You prefer Zachary or Chandler?" he asked, as he extended his living hand to the new face.

"Zack is fine." He stuck out his hand and shook the offered one heartily. "Advanced Hologram and Replicator Theory, right?" His grin spread across his face, looking very much like it belonged there.

"Oh, heard that from your folks?" Sure, it was a hunch. Chandler was the name of two of the instructors at the Academy. "And yeah, I was pretty amazing in that. They let me go early." a pause, "In that I was asked to leave. There's a funny story there." and what better way to prove he was mortal than to tell that story.

"So, a bunch of the gang and I went out for some synth booze one night, and by a bunch I mean myself and my three friends. So we were chatting about that damn class, and someone threw me a question. I answered that a sufficiently fueled replicator array, with a slaved transporter unit, could build itself ten percent bigger with little difficulty. And so on, and so on, until you have a replicator array large enough to replicate starships. Like, as a whole single unit." he explained, "So, basic engineering, a single piece is stronger then two pieces welded together. So a starship with a frame that's one solid piece would be structurally stronger then any assembled starship."

"And of everything I had on hand, I doodled the design on a bar napkin. Funny story, the instructor had a nephew that worked at the Jovian shipyards. My bar napkin pretty much would put him on his ass in six years. Eight tops." though, Cordale actually chuckled. "And that's one of my more embarrassing stories from Academy."

Zack listened and chuckled. "That nephew is probably still pushing pencils, and I think your theory is fundamentally sound, but the application... Especially with so many ships using science or fighter modules, a homogeneous design would be a repair nightmare."

and Cordale just gave a nod, "Oh, it was conceived in the mindset of a war, and the very first repair job would kinda invalidate the entire deal but it'd be nice to assemble a starship in weeks instead of years."

"Okay, so time for those awkward questions a boss asks their personnel." a long pause to build up artificial tension, "Do you drink?"

Zack chuckled. "Only to excess. A good micro brew will cure about anything."

Cor gave a chuckle, "That sounds like the right answer. I usually set up a root beer still, and I have an honest to goodness percolator which I'll be setting up in my office." the Thux explained. "So, any questions for the boss?"

Zack had to grin. Rootbeer, well that would be fitting for duty times. "No, not at the moment. But how about a tour?" It wasn't that Zack didn't know his way around an engineering bay, but he wanted to get a better feel for his new boss, and he couldn't think of a better way than asking the man to show him around.

"Sure thing. Well, here we have the EPS access hatch." he started with a chuckle, before moving on to the tour proper. Despite his casual, almost jester-like approach to most things, he definitely knew his shit. He never once stopped to ask about Zack's leg. Probably because that'd open him up to the perfect counter about his own arm. "And finally... the reactor core itself. She's idle, and we're plugged in to the station umbilicus. That should put us at just below intermix twenty eight to one. Fun fact, the Sovereign class reactors can actually go up to one oh three without issue, and one oh seven for twelve minutes, but that's something we only unveil in case of extreme emergency."

"I tried to get her to 110 in simulation once. I blew up Neptune, but man it was pretty." Zack patted the core, well not the actual core, the outer transparent casing. "Have you made any modifications I should know about?"

Cordale shook his head, "Nothing yet. Just checked in about twenty minutes ago and started a simple diagnostic to check for engine readiness. Some of the other ships I've been posted on have issues with their thruster controller boards when the ship is in the hands of a hot-shot pilot, so I may put reinforcing those boards on the to-do list if necessary. At the moment we're factory issue, though I've had good results with moving up the degaussing of the antimatter injectors from once a month to once every three weeks. Any more then that is just silly, I've found." a pause, "Neptune, eh? Not bad." he chuckled, "I think you'll do well here. Just... don't aim for Neptune."

Zack nodded his agreement, both about the degaussing and about aiming for Neptune. "No Neptune, got it. I'd love to take a look at the thruster control board, see if there might be a bio-neural gelpak link. A standard isolinear grid might not be as long lasting, but I'd take it grind for grind in that application."

Cordale smirked, "You'd love to? Well, far be it from me to keep a man from his passion." a chuckle, and the Thux gave a nearby console a few taps, "Consider yourself checked in and assigned an Engineering codeset, courtesy of the Chief. Let me know what you find, and don't check them all, just get a good sample size. I doubt they ran out of one set of boards while installing the set and switched half way."

Zack chuckled. "Great. I'll get right on it. Good to be working with you sir."

and Cor gave Zach a smirk, "Likewise."

Lieutenant Cor Cordale
Chief Engineer

Ensign Zachary Chandler
Engineer