Duty Log - ENG - Ens Kieran Aquila

Posted on 241708.10 @ 4:33am by Ensign Aquila Kieran

Mission: Reconstruction and Refocus
Location: Main Engineering
Timeline: Post-Launch

=/\= Main Engineering =/\=

Aquila Kieran, or as Humans would list his name Kieran Aquila, felt the drone of his console trilling off a list of diagnostics currently in progress. They flashed before his eyes, a white scroll of words and numbers traveling vertically down his console. Once and a while one of them would turn blue and pop off, indicating the diagnostic was complete. Not once had an item on the list turned red. Red meant something was wrong, out of balance, miscalibrated, malfunctioning, or otherwise in need of his services as an engineer. Services, he thought, which were mediocre at best.

Today had been one of the first in a long time where Kieran felt trapped. Starfleet had become a dictating force for monotony in his life. The maiden voyage of the Enterprise had all but turned into a shakedown cruise that followed one of the most devastating attacks on Earth in recorded history, which also happened a week before his graduation. Since then, his career had spiraled as the Enterprise underwent a shakedown of another kind. Her return to Earth saw most of the crew replaced and cycled out, with the exception of few others and himself, who saw his post move to that of a junior engineer. Now he sat in a gold uniform, alone… save for the two other officers on duty at the end of the night. Hearing the thrum of the warp core was all he had while a pointless list of things that weren’t broken played off in front of him. Usually it soothed him, but not today.

“Prophets,” he whispered, his thick brow furrowed as he pressed his thumb and forefinger together at the bridge of his nose.

Engineering was neither his love nor his calling. The academy, before it was summarily devastated, had taught him to appreciate his post. That was when he’d been promised the boundless potential as an officer in Flight Control. A flyboy by day, and a young man at night. The new reality he found himself in suited him much less.

“You’re off,” a voice said, breaking into his cage of thoughts.

The list of diagnostics continued to reflect in Kieran’s eyes as the stared blankly into the screen for a moment before realizing the voice was addressing him, “Hmm?” the Bajoran ensign softly replied.

“Night shift starts in five. Go to bed, sir?” the voice was attached to a PO engineer, standing just to his left.

Kieran simply stood and nodded, a thinly veiled sigh of relief he masked with a polite and boyish smile.

“See you in the morning,” the man said.

It was all Aquila could do to keep from slamming his fist into the wall on the way out.

=/\= END LOG =/\=

Ensign Kieran Aquila
Engineer
USS ENTERPRISE NCC-1701-F