It had come as a major shock when Commander Anacostia-Bolling, recently appointed Captain of the USS da Vinci, had offered her the post of Chief Engineer. Hayley Green was only 25 and held the rank of Ensign, she knew very little about warp engines and a number of other things essential for keeping a starship operational. Her background was maintenance, and she’d been working at one of the Federations storage facilities for deconditioned and surplus vessels, prior to being posted aboard the da Vinci.

At no point in any part of the process did Hayley think she’d be running the department in a little over half a year; especially when there was an officer in Engineering who out ranked her. Lieutenant Marco Yolanda the ship now former Chief Engineer, may or may not have been good at his job; he was certainly good at delegating tasks to other people and claiming credit for their hard work afterwards. He would also come down on them hard, if things went wrong. Yolanda was not a people person; by any stretch of the imagination, he didn’t seem to get on with anyone, and had a habit of rubbing people up the wrong way.

Hayley on the other hand was the complete opposite; she was wonderful with people and she listened to them, something Yolanda never appeared to do. The atmosphere in Main Engineering had changed overnight. Gone was the sad plodding movement of a group of people all condemned to a dreary existence, isolated from each other and only communicating if it was essential to the task in hand. Now they moved with purpose, past on thoughts and ideas, knowing they had a Chief Engineer willing to listen and learn about the various roles each person had. Some even had smiles on their faces, which got bigger when Ensign Green told them how good a job she felt they were doing. Yolanda never smiled and he certainly never complemented.

Lieutenant Yolanda had been moved to the Gamma Shift. It greatly reduced the need for his interaction with other crewmembers, which seemed to go down well with most of them. He resented however having to give a report on the ships night time activities in Engineering to Green, when she came on duty. Those eyes of his could curdle milk and burn holes in deck plating.

He made her nervous whenever they were in the same room, and he knew it. He just wanted her to make one slip up, one mistake; that would force the Captain to put him back in charge. So far she’d made no such mistake.

That was the main reason for her being here; well not here as such. She was currently relaxing on a sun lounger a glass of fresh mango juice in one hand; wearing a lime green bikini, her combadge attached to the middle of the top half made for an interesting fashion accessory, and meant she could always be contacted and located.

No she wasn’t just at Sentinel City for the wonderful beaches; she was her for the Engineering Conference. She wanted to learn from the experts first hand. Not just the basics and the current ideas, but the future concepts to. It was a sign of how much she wanted to make this new role work; the Commander had great faith in Hayley’s abilities and she wanted to prove that faith, well founded.

The conference may not have had any of the legends like La Forge or Torres amongst it guest speakers, but there were certainly some very knowledgeable people in attendance. Ensign Green had even managed to have a chat with a member of The Corps of Engineers who’d served aboard the USS da Vinci whilst it was part of their fleet.

‘Welcome to the Honourable Order of Miracle Works.’ He’d said to her with a smile and a raised glass.

He’d been more than happy to share some of the ships pervious adventures, and she’d brought him up to date with the vessels current status. Hayley now had some additional insight into the vessel and things she could tweak to get the best out of the ships systems; things they never include in the manual.

She’d already found a couple of things on board that were beyond the normal specifications of a Saber, even though all the special or prototype equipment had been stripped out prior to the transfer to the Forth Fleet. The USS da Vinci had been paired up with her sister ship USS Grus, and with consecutive registration numbers, you couldn’t get closer. They were practical built within touching distance of each other. Yet they were two remarkably different ships. Both the Bridge and Main Engineering, which had been identical at their launch, now differed considerably. The da Vinci had a larger shuttle bay, with the additional maintenance section which had been including by reconfiguring some of the internal spaces. The da Vinci had a marginally higher Warp speed, but the Grus was apparently more maneuverable at Impulse.

How these little details would affect things, Hayley wasn’t sure, but she was being to appreciate the uniqueness of each ship and why their crew became attached to them; especially Captains and Chief Engineers.

She smiled and took another sip of the mango juice, as she watched the world go by. Most of those around her were Chief Engineers. A couple of them sat at the outdoor bar, drinking something purple in a fancy glass. Someone else was doing lengths in the pool.

Her week here was nearly over; and then Hayley would be ready to head back. This time at Sentinel City had helped give her a confidence boost. Every Chief Engineer had been like her once, even the best of them. They all remembered those moments somewhere along their careers when they had to ask themselves, ‘were they ready for this.’ All of them had found their answer in one form or another.

Hayley knew now, she was going to be ok, she could do this.