Technologically Needy

Posted on Fri Aug 7th, 2020 @ 8:55pm by Lieutenant Commander Finnley Keating VII & Lieutenant Commander Savin

Mission: Character Development
Location: Engineering
Timeline: MD1
1289 words - 2.6 OF Standard Post Measure

The chief engineer had not been anwering hails, which was concerning, but Savin needed someone now. His PADD was acting up and for some reason it wasn't transferring speech to text properly anymore. Tucking his PADD under his arm, he headed towards engineering in the hope of finding the chief there.

Instead, when he approached the office, he found a young woman sat at the desk. She looked engrossed into something so he knocked on the doorframe in the hope he wouldn't startle her. "Ma'am?" he queried, not having seen her rank yet as it was obscured by the desk's computer screen.

Typically, Finnley had excellent senses and would’ve noticed someone standing in the doorway, but exhaustion had set in. She recently managed to finish the plasma injector upgrade in three hours instead of the assigned four, which required a lot of mental focus and physical labor. Finnley came from a long line of Starfleet engineers and had to live up the family legacy, so naturally she constantly pushed herself to beat deadlines. With her extra hour, Finnley decided to review the latest specs from the USS Midway. They recently made some adjustments to their warp field generator and the data was fascinating.

She looked up inquisitively when she heard the knock on the office door. “Lieutenant JG Keating at your service sir, how can I help?” she asked, noticing the stranger’s superior rank. Finnley didn’t really want to have to deal with anyone since she was tired and thoroughly enjoying the warp field generator data in her hands, but she always wanted to make a good impression on higher ranking officers.

Approaching the desk, Savin held out his PADD. "Can you have a look at my PADD please?" he asked pleasantly, though he took note of her fatigue. "It is supposed to render speech to text in cases where line of sight is impossible, but it stopped working. I fear I am incapable of correcting or even identifying the issue." He smiled. "And please... relax. " He gave a slight bow. "Counselor Savin," he introduced himself, "I do not stand on rank and ceremony. Savin or Counselor will do."

Counselor or Savin? She thought to herself. Having been raised by a Marine, she was used to standing on rank and ceremony and deviating from such was almost difficult for her when on duty. Also, why does he need this to convert speech to text when there’s no line of sight? Perhaps he has a hearing issue? She wondered, but chose not to ask. Counselors were not the type of people Finnley liked to spend any amount of time with since she hated showing any kind of weakness or vulnerability, and in her opinion a counselor’s job is basically to get you to do just that.

“Sure thing….counselor”, she said as she reached out and grabbed the PADD. She smirked and jokingly asked, “did you try turning it off and back on again?” as she opened the diagnostics menu. Humor was her favorite form of deflection and she hoped that, combined with a quick diagnostic would get him out of the office and allow her to get back to the data she was so avidly studying.

"Obviously," the Romulan counselor answered dryly. Despite the visible intent to humour, Savin did detect a hint of apprehension. However, since he was here to have his device repaired and not to engage in a counseling session, he too chose not to ask. "Can you repair it?"

Huh, no sense of humor. I guess I shouldn't be terribly surprised, she mentally catalogued. "Sure," she piped back as she shrugged, not allowing the failed attempt at humor to bring down the room as it were. "It looks like the speech receiver parameters just got a bit scrambled, it should…be easy to fix". She said as she furrowed her brow, bit her bottom lip in concentration and leaned in closer to the PADD, busily making adjustments to the settings. A moment later, it was fixed.

"There you go sir." She smiled and enthusiastically handed the PADD back. "Do you mind if I ask how often this tends to happen to your PADD?" PADDs were notoriously glitchy with turning speech into text (a technology you’d think would’ve been perfected by now) and she had an inkling that this wasn't the first time the lieutenant had come to engineering for help with it.

"I think I can whip up an algorithm to reset the speech parameters for you tonight. If you bring your PADD back tomorrow, I can upload the software patch and then you'd be able to run the fix yourself with the click of a button if it gives you trouble again!" She said, proud of herself for coming up with a solution that would both hopefully impress her newfound colleague and also make it less likely that he would return in the future. Killing two birds with one stone was worth a little extra work after hours.

He cast her an appreciative smile. "Thank you, if an update would help then I am all for it. It has not failed often before and I only use it if my aide cannot assist and line of sight is problematic." He shook his head at fixing it himself. "I am no engineer and I would not turn you out of a job ma'am," he added, "I would sooner break it than fix it."

Finnley loved a good prank and she especially enjoyed pranking those with little to no sense of humor. Her brain immediately started clicking with ideas for additional settings that could be “adjusted” within the algorithm that she was going to concoct. She would do a quality job so that he wouldn’t have any more issues with transferring speech to text, but she could think of plenty of ways to add a tiny bug to the software that would make things quite amusing without interfering with his actual work.

She quickly dismissed the thought, not wanting to let on to any mischief she might be planning, nodded and waved her hand dismissively, “No problem. I’ll have the algorithm ready tomorrow morning. My shift starts at 0800 so feel free to stop by anytime after that and I’ll get it installed. If you need anything else in the meantime, let me know.” She said as she put on the best smile she could muster hoping that it would push him out of the door faster so that she could relax and return to her more interesting research.

He did have the feeling her attention wasn't with their conversation as she kept eyeing something that had been in front of her when he'd come in. "What are you working on?" he asked, "it seems to me it is important because your attention keeps reverting to it."

What does it take to get this guy to leave? She thought before answering his question. “Its data from the USS Midway. They recently made some adjustments to their warp field generator and I’m reviewing the results. Sorry I’ve been side eyeing it since you’ve been here. It’s just that the data looks promising and I think that I could make some similar adjustments here and we’d see improved efficiency out of the system….I’d be happy to go over the data with you if you’re interested,” she stated. Maybe the threat of engineering jargon and warp field generator technicalities would be enough to scare him off.

Savin inclined his head ever so slightly. "I will leave you to it then," he smiled as he retrieved his PADD. "Thank you for your time."