The Beach Can Wait
Posted on Mon Jun 30th, 2025 @ 2:13pm by Lieutenant Commander Steve Ryan
715 words; about a 4 minute read
Mission:
Maintaining the Status Quo
Location: Engineering
[Engineering Deck]
Ensign Deborah O'Donnel ducked beneath the upper catwalk, the low ceiling panels just brushing her dark hair. Her eyes flicked across the diagnostic readouts streaming down her PADD, while her free hand hovered near a junction panel. Engineering smelled faintly of ozone and stress-sweat. Business as usual.
She muttered a curse under her breath as she weaved between the plasma regulators and deuterium flow monitors.
“Inventory, my ass... this is a damned forensic audit.”
Her fingers danced across the PADD’s interface, logging the serial number of the outdated fusion calibrator she’d just inspected.
“I want a full list of devices and tools... everything,” she muttered, mimicking Steve Ryan’s voice with exaggerated authority.
“Sure, Commander. Why don’t you come down here yourself and crawl through this pitiful junkyard, reading serials off half-buried systems that were already ancient before I got into the Academy.”
She sighed dramatically and shook her head. “Romance is dead.”
Across the bay, Lieutenant Aaron Mitchell, acting Chief Engineer, was tearing into a junior technician about a blown plasma shunt. Deb kept her head down. She’d learned early that if you’re digging where you shouldn’t be, it’s best to look like you belong. Blend in. Appear dutiful. Which, in a roundabout way, she was.
The crew thought she was doing a command-track rotation, some top-down audit, probably requested by Fleet for protocol alignment. She let them think that. Better that than drawing attention to the real reason she was tracking every movement of every fusion spanner, magnetic constrictor, and portable containment field like a hawk.
She exhaled slowly as she finished logging the last cluster of equipment in her sector. Her eyelids fluttered shut for a moment. A sigh escaped her lips, deeper than before, more tired than annoyed.
“A beach. Somewhere warm. Clear skies. Maybe a drink that glows.”
Her thoughts drifted for just a second.
“That’s where I’ll ask Steve to take me when this is all over.”
She smiled faintly at the thought, then slipped out of Engineering unnoticed, the hum of warp systems fading behind her as she headed for her quarters—and some desperately needed sleep.
[Main Corridor]
The corridor outside engineering was quiet, a rare blessing on a ship that rarely slept. Deborah walked with the practiced indifference of someone who didn’t want to be stopped—PADD tucked tight against her side, posture just rigid enough to suggest purpose. No one questioned her.
[Personal Quarters]
Her quarters welcomed her with the soft chime of the door, followed by a hush. She stepped in, letting the door slide closed behind her. Silence. Finally.
She let the PADD drop onto the small bedside table and peeled off her uniform jacket, tossing it over the floor. She collapsed onto the bunk with a sigh, arms spread wide. The air was cooler here. Cleaner. Still carrying the hum of the ship’s life support, but without the acrid tang of heated conduits and overworked systems.
Her mind wandered again, to the beach. Imaginary sand warmed her feet, waves whispered against the shore. And Steve, barefoot, maybe smiling, finally relaxed. She smiled too, despite herself.
But then the magic stopped.
She sat up suddenly, heart ticking faster than it should. Something was keeping her mind busy. She reached for the PADD again, scrolling back through the entries she’d logged. Serial numbers. Status reports. Location markers. Nothing stood out, until it did.
A plasma phase regulator listed as “decommissioned” two weeks ago… but she'd seen it humming just fine down in junction D-23. Not just present, operational.
Her eyes narrowed. That regulator had been marked out of inventory just a day before the pergium smuggling mission began.
She tapped into the ship’s maintenance logs. The decommission notice had come from engineering, signed off by someone using Mitchell’s clearance. But the access timestamp was... odd. 0320 hours. Long after alpha shift. And Mitchell wasn’t on duty that night.
She stood, fully awake now. Maybe that was why Steve wanted her to investigate, he was not being paranoid afterall. She needed to dig deeper before reporting, that beach could wait.
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Ens. Deborah O'Donnel
Engineer, USS Montana
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