[centre][h2]Sumiye King – Acting Chief Engineer[/h2][/centre]

As always, news travelled quickly on a military vessel. There was no method of communication faster than a well-developed grapevine of people with too much spare time on their hands and before she even had time to adjust to the announcement of her new responsibilities herself, anyone and everyone was looking to her for answers.

Answers that she currently did not have.

Sumiye had only just finished a conference call with the other senior engineers, each person calling in from different parts of the ship to relay status updates, inform each other of problems, devise solutions and begin the long and arduous process of putting the Thucydides back together, when the next headache knocked on the door of her quarters/office. She looked up from the screen in her hand, turning away from a typed out message to the EVA team requesting someone who didn’t mind swimming through coolant two hundred degrees below zero to fix a few pipes as she gave the person on the other side of the door permission to enter. The door slid to the side to reveal a woman in military dress, the unfamiliar crewmember snapping off an unnecessary salute before taking exactly one step across the threshold and stopping again. “Chief Engineer.”

[color=fff200]“No.”[/color]

Confusion flashed across a young face before they were able to school themselves. “Ma’am? E-excuse me?”

[color=fff200]“I’m not the chief engineer; that’s still Chief Gottfried. I’m a senior engineer, or [i]acting[/i] chief engineer if you prefer.”[/color] Looking back to the screen Sumiye pressed send on the EVA request before moving on to the next item of import on her long, long list of things to do today. It wasn’t until a minute or two later that she looked up and realised that the crew member was still standing there. Sighing, she placed the screen down on her desk and turned in her chair to face them fully. Maybe she had been a little too harsh there, but over the past few hours she found more and more people referring to her by a title that wasn’t hers, that she hadn’t earned; some did it jokingly, some more seriously, but either way she had to nip it in the bud before it became a thing.

Sumiye wasn’t the chief; [i]he[/i] was still laid out in the infirmary. Alive. Even if he wasn’t that still wouldn’t make her chief; that whole ‘field promotion because your superior officer died’ didn’t apply to civilians and was morbid as hell even it is did. She wanted no part in it, as a joke or otherwise.

No reason to take that out on some random enlisted who didn’t mean any harm though. [color=fff200]“What did you need?”[/color]

“The captain has requested your presence in her quarters ma’am. She wants your report on the current situation.”

She shouldn’t have asked. Leaning back in her chair Sumiye suppressed a groan, hiding it under the guise of turning away to retrieve her portable screen. [color=fff200]“She’s requesting I go there now?”[/color] A nod from the crew member had the acting-chief engineer stomping down on another groan as she stood from her chair, tucked her screen into her overalls and moved towards the door.

[color=fff200]“Alright, tell her I’m on my way.”[/color]