Lt. Daniel Bastin
USS Dauntless, Chief Engineer
BAS0703

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As Daniel stepped into the spacious Main Engineering area through a
set of Starfleet-insignia double doors, his first thought was that it
was suprisingly similar to an Intrepid-class Engineering area. It was,
of course, much larger, with a pulsing blue warp core in the middle
instead of the smooth-sided, fluid-antimatter one he'd come to expect.
There were several tables scattered throughout the main area before
the warp core as well, in the classic pool-table style, but other then
that it was almost identical.

Walking towards the warp core, he noticed the Assitant Engineer from
earlier; the same plucky little Ensign. Hoping they would mutually
ignore one another, he headed to a diagnostics table and keyed in his
command codes, which the computer recognized. He keyed several
commands into the console, and a low whistle sounded in the room,
snapping the officers to attention.

Trying to hide his nervousness (this was the first time he'd had to
address an entire group under his command, after all), Daniel began,
"If I could have your attention please..?" several officers who had
still been talking looked at him as if he'd just told them they should
pull trumpets out of their ears. To Daniel, who'd spent his past few
years on a ship where discipline meant everything, they seemed lazy
and unbearable. Swallowing once, he motioned to the eight or so people
in the room to gather around the sensor output table, nearest the door.

Six of the eight hurried over, looking almost as nervous as Daniel
felt - he was a senior officer now, he wasn't supposed to let his
nerves show! Right? In any case, he took a quick look around the room,
bringing up the names of the engineers in his mind - he had gone over
the duty roaster in his head more times then he could count. The
Assitant Chief, the one he'd run into in the turbolift, was Lt. JG
Sonya Gomez. Apparently, she had served on the Enterprise-D.
Impressive. Then again, he was sure that she'd been just as annoying
there...

Forcing a quick smile, and ignoring the two chattering crewmembers for
the moment, he started, "Good morning, all. I'm Lt. Daniel Bastin, and
I'm the new Chief Engineer here. I apologize for being a bit late, but
I was held up at a briefing with the Captain." two of the crewmembers
nodded, as though they'd expected that. Lt. Gomez just watched him,
with the appearance of someone who's dying to start talking. "I'm sure
we will work well together, and though I'm sure I'm not the first, I'd
like to welcome you all to the Dauntless. I'm sure it will be a
pleasure serving with you," he finished the speech he'd planned since
he first transferred, wiping nervous sweat off his face.

From behind him, he heard loud chatter - something about a girl on
deck 8. He drilled his eyes into the back of the two chatting -
Ensigns Yarnet and Rotts, both Bolians. Deciding he shouldn't allow
them to set a precedent, he strode over, and with a carefully crafted
calm look on his face, handed them both tricorders from the table next
to them - apparently they had been realigning its' processing matrix.
"Since you two obviously have something better to do then listen to me
explain our mission, I'd like you to do it while you clean the plasma
manifolds. Starting now."

The two stared at him incredulously - as if he didn't have the right
to be giving them orders. "Well?" Daniel asked, almost enjoying the
experience. It was good to be in control - and to get back at the
slackers who had made his job so hard. "Move!" The two did, scurrying
off towards the Jefferies tubes. Of course, there was nothing wrong
with the manifolds - they were new. But he'd have a real chat with the
two later; for now it was best to get them out of the way.

Turning back to the others, who had pasted strict 'I-did-nothing'
looks on their faces (Daniel used that one a lot), he said quickly,
"As you can see, I will not tolerate slacking. I don't mean to be rude
or distant, but we have a ship to run - and we're the only ones who
can run it. Now, the Captain wants this ship ready two hours ago, so
we'll need to work as fast as we can. You three," he pointed at three
crewmen, "will assist me in getting the impulse engines online. The
rest of you will assist Ms. Gomez in getting the core to peak
efifciency - we'll need Warp 8 as soon as we clear the docking ring.
Understood?"

There was a collective nod, and Daniel stepped towards the warp core,
looking up at it for the first time. Amazing. There was always
something about technology of this complexity that put him in awe. The
core was thin and blue, with pulsing antimatter moving down to the
central reactor. Grinning, he turned to the other three he'd asked to
follow him.

"Crewman, I want you to regulate the ion particle stream, Ensigns,
you'll monitor the engine efficiency and tell me if anything goes
wrong. Understood?" though he maintained his strict speaking manner,
Daniel seemed looser somehow. He was in his element.

The other two nodded, and headed over to a group of panels to the left
of the core. Daniel followed, but stopped a few feet away at the
impulse control panel. The procedure went farily smoothly, with the
only setback being that the computer spontaneously decided it didn't
like Daniel's command codes; a quick isolinear reset fixed that.
Within about 20 minutes, the impulse engines were online, and a loud
humming noise had been added to the throbbing pulse of the warp core,
competing the chorus of starship sounds.

=^=Bastin to bridge; We've got impulse engines now.=^= Daniel said,
tapping his combadge. He hoped the next response wouldn't be "What, no
warp drive?"

<tag Largent/bridge officers>

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