Initial impressions

Posted on 12 Mar 2026 @ 2:02pm by Lieutenant JG Ryan Collingway & Lieutenant Commander Elias Harlan

1,859 words; about a 9 minute read

Mission: Silent Inheritance
Location: Lathira IV

///Lathira IV////

Ryan and the two damage control teams beamed down to the surface. Immediately the smell of the clean internal ship was replaced with an underground dampness as they descended Access Tunnel Gamma-12. They had brought down plenty of equipment-four hundred small portable transport enhancers, tools, gloves, oxygen masks for potential hazards-whatever they thought they would need. Of course they could always transport more in whenever they needed, but this was a good enough starting point.

Ryan was all business as he arrived. "Commander, Lieutenant," he greeted. "Where do you need us?"
Elias turned as Ryan and the two damage-control teams materialized in the dim access tunnel, the transporter shimmer fading into the damp, metallic scent of underground infrastructure. He gave a small nod—tired, but focused.

“Lieutenant Collingway. Good. Here’s the situation.”

He tapped his PADD, sending the specs across to Ryan’s tricorder and the team’s devices.

“Every single power conduit made with that specific insulation type needs to be replaced. I’m transmitting the full specs now. Each segment gets tagged with one of the micro pattern enhancers—exact placement matters.”

He stepped closer so Ryan could see the schematic on his screen: a 3D overlay of the tunnel network, red-highlighted conduits snaking through the grid like veins.

“The plan is simple but heavy on the transporters. Cargo Bay 3’s main unit, the one you reconfigured into an industrial matter reclamator, does the work. We tag, dematerialize the old conduit into the pattern buffer, the replicator matrix swaps the insulation to the new non-resonant polymer spec, and the transporter beams the replacement right back into the same coordinates. No cutting. No welding. No downtime beyond the transport cycle itself.”

Elias straightened, rubbing the back of his neck once.

“I’m waking the other three engineering shifts. All of them beam down except for a skeleton crew on the ship to keep life support and core stability. We’ll have around two hundred engineers involved in the tagging phase. As soon as that’s done, the majority beam back up to monitor the transporter and replicator systems. We’ve already had practice with this on the resort grid—same principle, bigger scale.”

He nodded toward Nathan Caldwell, who stepped forward.

Nathan cleared his throat. “This is going to push both the replicators and transporters hard. The only personnel transporter available will be Room Two. Replicators are restricted to crew lounges and mess halls on the forward saucer, Decks 2 through 5. Except the captain’s ready-room unit, of course.”

“Better safe than sorry,” Elias huffed, a muted grin tugging at the corner of his mouth. “We’ve got enough problems without accidentally turning the captain’s drink order into conduit insulation.”

He looked back at Ryan.

“You’ll coordinate the tagging teams in this sector. Caldwell’s got the program ready—automated sequence for tagging, dematerialization, and replacement. It’s tight, but it’s doable. Questions?”

Ryan studied the map carefully. "Even with the portable transporters, we need to make sure underground interference doesn't interfere with the coordinates of the replacement conduits. Even a few microns off could be an issue."

"Any issues with structural integrity?" he asked. "Can we assume nothing is going to collapse on us while we work?"

"Thankfully, the tunnels are not effected. A structural sweep showed no major changes or shifts in the ground since they where dug fifty years ago. " Elias replied as he glanced at his padd. "If there is nothing else I'll leave you to it. Caldwell come find me when you're done here."

"Understood Commander." Nathan said with a curt nod. Elias rounded up another small team and left the area with them in tow.

"We haven't had the chance to meet yet. I'm Nathan Caldwell, the systems analyst." Nathan greeted calmly. "I transferred over with Commander Harlan, and Ensign Torres."

Ryan nodded. "Lieutenant Collingway. Your reputation proceeds you, Lieutenant. We have you to thank for finding what could have been a significant problem." He thought of something, than abruptly changed his mind. "I have a question about something that happened during those repairs, but now isn't the best time. If you have a free moment though, I would appreciate if we could chat about it later."

Nathan nodded once, acknowledging the thanks with a quick, professional “Just doing my job” but his eyes lingered on Ryan for a half-second longer than necessary—curious, assessing, the way a systems analyst looks at code that’s almost right but hiding one stubborn bug.

“Very well,” Nathan said, voice calm and measured. “If you look at the current dataset. Commander Harlan’s updated the target conduits. The transporter tags need to sit exactly here—” he zoomed in on the schematic, highlighting a small red dot on each conduit run, “—dead center of the exposed section. Deviation of more than 2 centimeters and the rematerialization will offset. We’re talking millimeters of tolerance on some of these.”

Nathan paused, glancing at the exposed conduit beside them—pitted, translucent, powder clinging like fine ash.

"I need to finish the automation program the ship's computer will be using so, if you want to get everyone started in tagging this tunnel, I'll be over there if you need me."

Nathan’s tone stayed even, professional, but there was a subtle undercurrent—patient, observant, the kind of quiet that invited Ryan to fill it if he wanted.

Ryan simply nodded. "Sounds good. We'll get it done."

////Three hours later////

The work wasn't hard, but it was long. Finding and tagging the correct space on the conduit. Transport out, then transport in for initial testing before they attempt to do this on a massive scale. A scan to confirm it was correctly in place, which it was most of time. Fixing it manually if it wasn't. Rinse and repeat. The engineers worked slowly but steadily through the tunnels.

Ryan took a pause to get a drink from his water-bottled, of course-he wasn't going to sample Lathira IV's current supply-and noticed Nathan and himself were currently alone. "So, about my question," Ryan began. "I was finishing up some damage control reports before I was called in. And I was just working on the diagnostic terminal that was damaged on deck ten. How did you say that was damaged again? Because there was no tricorder that caused that. At least, none that were logged in."

Nathan tilted his head, brow furrowing by the smallest measurable degree—enough to register, not enough to betray anything more than mild curiosity.

“The diagnostic terminal was destroyed as a byproduct of an unshielded EPS coupling overloading,” he said evenly, voice calm and measured. “The coupling arced due to EM emissions from my tricorder. That’s one of the many reasons they all had to be replaced.”

He let the PADD in his hand drift slowly to his side, fingers loosening around it as if the device had suddenly become less interesting.

“And if I remember the report I filed—which I do, because I wrote it—I flagged both the EPS coupling and the adjacent diagnostic terminal for replacement. ”

He met Ryan’s eyes directly—steady, unblinking, the look of someone who’d already run the diagnostic on this conversation and wasn’t surprised by the results.

“Now my question to you is: why were you working on that diagnostic terminal beyond replacing it? Isn’t it standard procedure for class-four hardware damaged beyond repair to be recycled via matter reclamator.”

A beat of silence followed—long enough to feel deliberate, short enough not to become awkward.

“Unless,” Nathan added, tone still perfectly level, “there was something on it worth salvaging. Something not in the official logs.”

He didn’t smile. He didn’t accuse. Just waited.

"I did find it odd that you had caused an EPS coupling to overload so soon after doing the exact same thing which led to you visiting sickbay. You don't seem careless," Ryan said. His tone was mild, and his posture was easy. He didn't accuse either.

"So I attempted to restore the hard drive from the expected state of crispiness. Just in case there waa something else that happened to the computer. And there seemed to be a message that I was able to retrieve. A very odd one. If I had to guess, it was directed at someone who wouldn't normally be working in Engineering. So, likely the tactical crew."

"Would you care to enlighten me further on this, sir?" Ryan asked.

Nathan didn’t flinch. The only thing that shifted was the temperature behind his eyes—youthful curiosity replaced by something colder, sharper, the kind of look that said he’d already calculated every possible outcome of this conversation and didn’t like most of them.

He set his PADD down slowly, deliberately, the soft clack against the conduit housing the only sound for a long second.

“Reading other people’s private correspondence is a breach of protocol, Lieutenant,” he said, voice calm, almost conversational—except for the steel running underneath. “Especially when one goes out of one’s way to recover it from a terminal that was, by all rights, scrap.”

He stepped half a pace closer—nothing aggressive, just enough to make the already-tight situation feel smaller.

“May I suggest you follow protocol and have that diagnostic terminal recycled before it gets you into trouble?” His tone stayed even, polite, but the words carried weight. “My message was part of an A-B conversation. You should quickly C yourself out of it.”

He held Ryan’s gaze—unblinking, unhurried, the kind of stare that didn’t need volume to be intimidating.

“Or,” he added, softer now, almost gentle, “you can keep digging. But I promise you, Lieutenant—whatever you think you found… it’s not worth what happens when you keep looking.”

Nathan straightened, expression smoothing back to neutral as if the moment had never happened.

“Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have tags to place. We’re on a schedule.”

He turned back to the conduit without another word, tricorder already in hand, posture relaxed again.

But the air in the tunnel felt colder.

Ryan said nothing for a moment. He wasn't intimidated by what Caldwell said. On his second away mission he had been held up by gunpoint. Intimidation kind of loses its edge after everything else. But what surprised him was how much of what Caldwell said felt...familiar.

It was the same amount of arrogance he once had.

"A piece of advice, Lieutenant," he said quietly, and calmly. "I spent a good amount of time on the Arawyn thinking I was clever enough to hide things from the crew too. Eventually I had to face both the Commander and the Captain for that choice. I hope whatever you're hiding is worth facing that conversation. Because you're not as clever as you think."

Without waiting for a reply, Ryan turned and left back down the tunnel.

--
Lieutenant Commander Elias Harlan
Chief Engineering Officer
USS Arawyn

Lieutenant (JG) Ryan Collingway
Engineering Officer
USS Arawyn

Lieutenant Nathan Caldwell - (apb Jeff)
Engineering Officer - Systems Analyst
USS Arawyn

 

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