Ain't that a kick in the warp core

Posted on Thu Jun 12th, 2025 @ 10:21am by Commodore Elias McEntyre & Lieutenant JG Elen Rell

2,779 words; about a 14 minute read

Mission: Prologue
Location: USS Guinevere
Timeline: 2387

Elen Rell moved through the corridors of the Guinevere like she was tasting a poem one syllable at a time, and not just any short little haiku but something meaty and epic. The ship had its own unique scent, mood...vibration. Every ship was unique to her and she touched the bulkhead for a moment and closed her eyes. As if she could somehow attune herself with it.

Yes, a good feeling. She liked it.

Nah. She loved it.

Everything about the Guinevere felt alive with potential. Untested, sure, but that was the fun part. For her this was a new crew, new routines, new places to hide her emergency chocolate stash. She didn't know anyone yet, but that was less a worry than a curiosity...like a fresh set of tools you hadn’t quite figured out how to hold. She’d make friends. She always did. One well-timed joke, a hot mug of something strong and sweet, and maybe a pair of emergency socks for someone with cold feet...people warmed up, eventually.

She rounded the final bend toward the Commodore’s ready room and caught her reflection in a decorative panel. Not out of vanity, more habit. A systems check.

Her uniform was regulation, technically. The high-collared jacket hugged her frame neatly, the way it did most people. Standard was standard. Its color-blocking crisply aligned with her department. But there were personal touches, as always. A knitted cuff on one sleeve was the only thing that stood out, but she had done it with the waves of a warp core purring at warp 6. It had its own signature and she'd managed to get it onto the cuff...small, discreet. Hers. Her hair was tied back today in a patterned scarf of gold and teal, not quite regulation but in the past she had argued that it was a safety thing.

She approached the door and paused, hands twitching slightly at her sides. Normally, she'd have a tricorder or a tool kit to fidget with, or a half-knit scrap of something to calm her fingers. But not now. Not here. This was first impressions territory, a bit of a big deal especially since she was just a Lieutenant Junior Grade. And Commodore Elias McEntyre wasn’t the kind of man, from what little she'd read, who appreciated charm-overload before his first cup of coffee.

Still, she smiled to herself...small, private. Because she wasn’t afraid. Not exactly. This was a new ship. A good ship. And whatever was waiting on the other side of that door, she could handle it. Maybe even enjoy it.

She raised her hand and tapped the chime.

One spark, she thought. Let’s see where it catches.

Elias was most definitelynot a morning person. He held his first cup of coffee in his paw, taking a deep drink of it when the shrill of the door chime pierce the air. Too early for anyone to be needing him. 0700 was even before Alpha Shift was due to start, so who was here, he wondered.

"Who's at my door?" He called out to whoever had the gall to ring the chime at 0700 hours.

"Lieutenant Rell, Engineering!" Elen announced, voice bright with far more energy than most would dare bring into a Commodore’s office before 1000 hours, let alone 3 hours before! She stepped in like she belonged, despite him not having invited her in. The doors opened though, so they weren't locked and truthfully she hadn't yet considered the possibility that she didn't.

"Come in," The Commodore called out, still sipping on his latte as the doors hissed open to let the young engineer in.

"I was told you wanted to see me? Your yeoman said...unless I completely misheard, in which case…" She gave a small, apologetic wince, her hands fluttering briefly like they were looking for a spanner to hide behind. "Uh, sorry? Please don’t toss me out an airlock. I did finish a very nice crochet flower this morning, seems a waste to let it die in vacuum."

Elias just stared at this babbling Lieutenant standing before his desk. He blinked a few times, before setting his cup down on the saucer on his desk.

"At ease, Lieutenant. Please, before you pop a blood vessel." The Commodore spoke as he gestured to one of the chairs in front of his desk for the Lieutenant to sit down. He looked on the pile of PADDs off to the side of his desk, rifling through them before picking one up.

"Lieutenant Junior Grade Elen Rall. Prior Assignment, U.S.S. Kestrel, as Engineering Officer. Before that Computer software engineer and warp drive specialist. Non Federation Systems specifically. Cited by both commands for verbal informality and irreverent humour. Was brought up on charges of Insubordination by the Diplomatic Corps and a Federation High Commissioner. Did I get that right?" Elias asked as he looked through her record, swiping a thumb on the screen as he read from the PADD.

Elen gave him a quick, crooked smile as she dropped into the chair with more enthusiasm than protocol probably allowed. Not quite a sprawl, but close. She caught herself, straightened slightly...not out of fear, but out of effort. It wasn't disrespect. Just… sitting still had never been her strong suit.

"There was also a glitter incident," she offered, almost cheerfully, "but no charges were filed. Technically." Her tone was light, but there was the smallest pause as she glanced at him...gauging, not pushing.

She tilted her head, eyes flicking over his features with open curiosity. Caitians always fascinated her: the balance of strength and poise, the deep-set wisdom in their eyes. Commodore McEntyre had that, but also something quieter underneath. She liked that. It felt… fair.

"I like tinkering with things," she said, more gently now. "That's probably why the non-Federation systems note keeps following me around. I get curious, I start fixing, adapting, building. And when I get bored… stuff happens." She shrugged, sheepish and unrepentant all at once. "Good stuff, usually. Occasionally sparkly."

Elias blinks again, with a curious tilt of his head in a sort of feline way.
“Sparkly?” He asked. He also took note of the non-regulation items with her uniform. The cuff on her sleeve, the scarf wrapping her hair in a ponytail. She was certainly…colorful.

Elen’s eyes lit up, and she leaned forward a fraction, like he’d just opened a door she’d been politely pretending wasn’t there. Rank flickered somewhere in the background of her brain — distant, like static on a subspace channel — but for a moment, she just saw someone else who might understand the joy of systems humming at perfect sync, of a ship breathing under your hands.

"Well, I find glitter’s highly underrated as a problem-solving tool," she said brightly, entirely serious for a beat before the corner of her mouth tugged up in a lopsided grin. "Morale goes up by at least 8.2% when something unexpectedly sparkles. Or explodes. In a safe, mostly-contained way. Preferably not both at once." It was a joke. Mostly. She’d run the numbers on the Kestrel, post-glitter morale spikes were real.

She gestured vaguely to her scarf and sleeve like they were afterthoughts, which they weren't. Nothing ever really was. "I know. Not regulation. But the cuff's coded with the pulse pattern of a warp six cycle…Kestrel's core. So technically it is a performance log. Wearable telemetry."

And the scarf? That got a slight tilt of her head. "Colour-coded for visibility in low-light environments, as well as keeping it from getting snagged in equipment," she added, deadpan. "Safety first." She paused there, for just a breath. Not defensive. Not anymore. It was more like… a familiar fork in the track. The place where she let people decide how they were going to see her.

And then it hit her again. Commodore. Right. This wasn't just some senior officer catching her mid-deck with unauthorized sparkle mods. This was the Boss. Capital B. Fur-and-coffee, old-vibe Starfleet, the kind who might ask for quiet competence and get suspicious when it arrived in technicolor.

Reassess. Reboot. Be honest.

She'd never been good at packaging herself, anyway.

"Look, sir…" Her voice was softer now, less show, more signal. "I know I come across a bit sideways. I’ve been called eccentric. Enthusiastic. Once, in a mission report, I was 'a walking anomaly with unrestricted access to plasma tools.'" Her hand waved the air quotes lazily, like she didn’t quite disagree. "But I do the work. I always do the work. I just… do it with style." She smiled again, but this time it was smaller, quieter. Earnest, even if still undeniably her. Her eyes darted to the ground, his gaze feeling a bit too heavy. "You'll get used to me. Most people do. Eventually." She met his gaze fully again, unflinching. And then added, just as matter-of-factly, "And if not… you can always transfer me off. No hard feelings. I knit very good goodbye presents."

Elias stared at the overly hyper Lieutenant sitting across from him. He didn’t really know how to react. Blinking again silently, staring at her while she rambled. A very…chaotic officer indeed.

“Okie dokie” Elias finally mutter out before he spoke again.

“Look, brass tax time. I’m not really in the transfer business. Especially with the difficulty in finding good engineers now a day. Frankly speaking, for now, you’re going to have to be Acting Chief Engineer until we can get someone. You think you’re ready for that?” He asked point blank with a neutral tone to his voice.

Elen blinked. Once. Twice. Once more with feeling, slightly slower, as if her internal processes had just hit an unexpected subroutine and needed a moment to run diagnostics. She opened her mouth, closed it, and then finally said: "Sorry...did you say... Chief Engineer?" she repeated with the sort of cautious awe one might use when a replicator gave you filet mignon after you asked for toast. There was a beat as she sat there, just long enough for worry to creep in around the edges of her otherwise bright expression. "I mean...I can do it, just that there's....a lot of PADD work." Her hand flapped vaguely, as though gesturing at an invisible tower of PADDs. "And not just the sort that you sign off on work, but people's...records..." her fingers twitched a little, looking for tools that weren't there, things she could busy her fingers with as her mind jumped between things. After a moment she took a visible breath, clearly forcing herself in a place where she could get words out properly. She made a call. She straightened in the chair, her tone serious. I'm not afraid of the position, I know my stuff. I can do this, but I am going to have to do it my way. I've never even been an Assistant Chief, so this is new. But I need to do it my way and it might not be...as polished or steady as what you've seen from proper senior officers before, Sir."

“As long as you don’t burn the ship down or cause a warp core breech, I doubt you’ll disappoint me. You seem to know your stuff, though maybe you lay off the sugar? Yes?” Elias gives her a toothy kitty smile at that comment before sipping his latte again, leaning back in his chair.

She blinked at him, genuine confusion flickering across her face, like he'd just suggested warp cores run better on decaf. "Cut out...wait, sugar?" Her brow furrowed, then lifted again almost immediately. "Oh. Oh, no, this isn’t sugar." She tapped her temple lightly with two fingers. "This is pure me. Factory settings. With bonus features." Her smile curled, playful, just a breath shy of dangerous, but well within the lines. "You’ll get used to it. Or not. That’s also an option. But just so you know what you’re working with." She shifted her weight slightly, hands already starting to fidget...half reaching for a phantom spanner, half-twisting an imaginary tool. "And for the record? Warp core breaches are usually caused by someone trying to tell the engine what it should be doing. We’re just the ones duct-taping reality back together before it goes kaboom."

Elias blinks in surprise once more. Dumbfounded in his expression.

"I...I've never heard Warp Drive explained quite like that before. Though it's probably right." Elias commented.

"Still, So long as you don't blow up my ship, we'll get along smashingly. If there's anything you need, or personnel, make sure you pass it up the chain of command"

Elen looked at him for a long second, then took a breath: deep, steady, but still sparkling at the edges with amusement. If he hadn't been a Commodore, she might have teased him about what he'd just said. Anything you need was a very open invitation, after all. But hey! She could be semi-professional. At least for the first week. Especially now that she was, for better or weirder, Acting Chief Engineer. Heavy duty. Even heavier title. Still hers, for now.

"No blowing up the ship, yessir," she said with a grin. "Could definitely use a craft room, though. Might be more of a First Officer-level request...morale department wishlist, not a 'bother the Commodore before his coffee' thing." She added a wink as she shifted in her seat again, energy rolling under her skin like a tuned engine just itching to be let loose. Her eyes flicked over him, not out of disrespect, just the quiet cataloging of a woman who noticed things. Red suited him. But she thought rich emeralds would suit him better. Or maybe purples. Something warm. Soothing. She could make him a blanket. It would have to be large, he was a big guy, but she had fast hands and busy evenings. She could stitch one together half-asleep while recalibrating the EPS grid. Multitasking: a lifestyle.

“I believe there is something like that on the school deck. Though I will pass it along to the XO. Thank you Lieutenant. If there is not anything else, you’re dismissed.” Elias nods, dismissing the Lieutenant as he picked up a PADD and stylus.

"Yessir..." Like a puppet on a string, Elen rose from the chair in one smooth motion. Exits were always the bit she found awkward: that half-second where the conversation ended but her body was still catching up. McEntyre was already back into whatever came next, his mind flicking to the next system to check, the next officer to brief. She didn’t take it personally. It wasn’t. It never was. Still, she’d learned to mask the flicker of something that stirred at endings with no punctuation.

She walked to the door, letting it hiss open and close behind her. And then she stopped.

The quiet of the corridor wrapped around her for a moment, letting the truth settle in her chest like gravity kicking in after a long drift. Acting Chief Engineer. No assistant post under her belt. No leadership courses finished, no time spent shadowing someone else in command of the deck. Just her. On the Guinevere. In charge of Engineering until someone more polished came along.

She could feel the heat of excitement rising just under her skin, fast and electric. She knew her systems. Knew her tools, her diagnostics, her warp tolerances and EPS flows like the pulse of her own body. But command? People? Schedules and shift rotations and departmental reports?

“Ain’t that a kick in the warp core,” she muttered under her breath, with something between dread and delight curling at the edges of her mouth. Still, she turned toward the turbolift with purpose. If she had to learn leadership by doing, then she’d do. She always did. There’d be reports to figure out, duty rosters to build, paperwork she’d never even seen before...the kind of stuff someone usually learned while watching over another officer’s shoulder. Well. She was just going to have to read faster.

It would be hard. It would be messy. But at least now, she knew exactly where she stood.

And for Elen Rell, that was the best place to begin.
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Commodore Elias McEntyre
Commanding Officer
U.S.S. Guinevere NCC-80518

Lieutenant Junior Grade Elen Rell
Acting Chief Engineer
U.S.S. Guinevere NCC-80518

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