One last repair
Posted on Tue Feb 4th, 2025 @ 11:22pm by Lieutenant Commander Zosia
Edited on on Wed Feb 5th, 2025 @ 10:13pm
727 words; about a 4 minute read
Mission:
Like Sands Through The Hourglass
Location: USS Odyssey
Timeline: One week prior to MD001
Lieutenant Commander Zosia stood in Engineering, her fingers brushing against the familiar bulkheads of the warp core housing. The soft, rhythmic hum of the engines pulsed through the deck plates—her ship’s heartbeat, the sound she had lived with for six years. Tomorrow, it would no longer be hers.
Retirement. The word felt silly. She had retired several times. Sometimes it was bittersweet. Sometimes, it was a well-deserved break. This time, she would be moving on to a new position, the “retirement” was only an excuse - a word to put into her service records.
Zosia had spent decades fine-tuning plasma conduits, jury-rigging emergency repairs, and pulling all-nighters recalibrating warp field harmonics. She had crawled through more Jeffries tubes than she cared to count. This ship, the USS Odyssey, had been her home. Her family.
As if sensing her hesitation, the computer chirped.
"Commander Zosia, please report to the bridge."
She sighed. "One last time."
****
The moment she stepped onto the bridge, Captain D'Reya turned to Zosia, her antennae twitching. "Commander, we've got a problem. A plasma relay is failing in the secondary hull, and if it overloads, it could trigger a cascade failure in the EPS grid."
Zosia scowled slightly. There was no need to call her to the bridge to request a repair several decks down. Even more concerning, why had she not noticed it first? "And here I thought you were throwing me a party."
"Consider this your farewell gift," the Andorian captain said, smirking.
Without missing a beat, Zosia grabbed a toolkit and headed for the turbolift. It was a simple fix—at least, it should be. But when she pried open the access panel, sparks flew. The relay was worse than she thought.
"Zosia to bridge," she said, wedging herself into the crawl space. "This isn't just a failing relay; the entire conduit is overheating. We might need to shut down the warp core to be safe."
Silence. Then: "That'll leave us drifting…" D'Reya responded. "Not ideal."
Zosia smirked and shook her head. "Well then, let's do it the hard way."
Sweat beaded on her forehead as she bypassed the damaged section of the conduit, rerouting power through auxiliary pathways. She felt the warp drive protest her actions through the deck plating. Her hands moved with pure instinct, muscle memory guiding every step. The ship rumbled as she forced the system back online, a familiar tension in the air.
Then, the hum of the warp core evened out. The deck plating returned to its familiar feel. The air hummed a contented song.
"Bridge, that should do it," she panted. "You should be getting stable power now." Zosia wiped her sleeve across the top of her forehead, absorbing the perspiration.
"Confirmed," D'Reya said. "Nice work, Commander."
Zosia exhaled. She had done it—one last miracle repair.
****
Back in Engineering, the crew had gathered. Someone had dimmed the lights, and a holographic banner flickered overhead:
"FAIR WINDS, ZOSIA!"
She chuckled. "Who authorized this?"
"I did," said Lieutenant Jansen, her longtime assistant, and now, the Odyssey’s next Chief Engineer. "Don’t tell me you're going to file a maintenance report about it."
Zosia looked around at her team—people she had mentored, argued with, and trusted with her life. Starfleet wasn’t just about ships and technology; it was about the people who kept them running.
As the crew raised a toast, Captain D'Reya stepped forward. "Zosia, I was going to give you a plaque, but I figured you'd appreciate something more practical."
The captain handed her a worn-out hyperspanner. Her favorite one.
"You're kidding." She turned it over in her hands.
"Figured you'd want to take a piece of the ship with you."
“If you only knew,” she answered, thinking of the packing she’d already done. Then, not for the first time that day, Zosia felt it — the weight of all the goodbyes.
As she looked around at her crew, at the ship she had loved, she finally let herself smile.
"Alright," she said. "Who's ready to fix something without me?"
The laughter that followed carried her towards the next adventure — on to Kok Station, to the USS Herodotus, and beyond.
A Post By
Lieutenant Commander Zosia
Chief Engineering Officer
USS Herodotus DTI-30656
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