I'm Only Doing My Job

Posted on Wed Sep 1st, 2021 @ 10:22pm by Captain Benjamin Ingram Dr & Lieutenant Commander Mara Ricci

Mission: S2:3: Snow Drift
Location: Ingram's Office
Timeline: MD 3 1830

Once they had beamed back onto Canopus station, Mara headed for Ingram's office. She knew he was going to blame her for what happened, but honestly, how else was she to know what needed repairing on that fighter?

The Yeoman was not on duty- odd, but whatever- so Mara simply crossed the outer office and pressed the door chime.

"You know, I occasionally leave the office," Ingram said as he walked up behind her, opening the door and gesturing her to go inside.

Mara was torn between a cheeky 'you mean you don't live here?' and a completely honest, 'I know that' for a good three seconds. She finally decided on neither response and instead said, "I only leave mine when I come here," as she entered his office. "And to fix fighter jets."

"And here I thought there was an entire hanger bay staffed with technicians," Ingram said dryly. He walked around the desk and placed his person comm pad on it, aligning it with the edge of the desk before regarding Mara. "Much in the same way that a test flight is a little below your grade as well?"

"There are some things hanger bay technicians can't handle," replied Mara. "And as the chief of Engineering, I have to be willing to do the unsavory jobs now and again, don't I?"

"Unsavory, perhaps, but unsafe I trust you to use common sense. Something that seemed lacking in running off on joyride out of the system in a two-person fighter craft with a known mechanical fault," Ingram said reproachfully. "The people on this station rely on you to be here, to continue doing your superb work. Hard to do if you drop into a sink hole on a R-class planet."

“True,” replied Mara slowly, “but if I hadn’t been there, the ship and whoever was in it would have gone down. Which means you’d have had to ask Starfleet for a new starfighter commander and I can’t imagine they’d be happy about that.”

Ingram didn't know about that, given the CAG was an assigned officer from Grissom's side of the talent pool. Perhaps a sinkhole on an R-class planet would be his cup of tea.

"That's why we employ a Search & Rescue team, so that when things like this happen they can be searched for and rescued. You're not invincible, nor," Ingram said nodding to her arm "Indestructible."

Mara was torn between annoyed and amused. Part of her wanted to remind him yet again that she had a job to do and that as a Starfleet officer, her life had to come second. But the other part wanted to grin. She ended up siding with the second half. "I never knew you cared so much, Captain," she said, slight grin tugging at her lips.

"I care a great deal about useful skills being used usefully," Ingram said with a smile. "Regardless of how many ships the Federation sends out there, we're still just barely hanging on. Until resource extraction becomes viable, and we can begin high-end manufacturing of parts for the orbital agri farms and dry docks, we're still a frontier outpost. Our hold here is tenuous, at best."

"Yes, sir," said Mara. "I am aware of that. But, I'm still convinced that the best use of my skills is to repair significantly faulty craft."

"Of which this Station is one such craft. In fact, you could say this Station is a very mission-critical craft. So much so that the loss of even a single soul would be a mortal blow," Ingram said. He tapped his desk for emphasis. "No more joy rides without my authorisation. And if you go Carpathia you'll be taking a security team escort."

"Yes, sir," Mara finally relented, lips still upturned in a slight grin. "No more joy rides. Promise," she added, making an X over her heart with her left hand. The fake one. Did that make it a fake promise? The thought made her grin widen slightly.

"Leave, before something else happens to fill me with existential dread regarding our survival out there," Ingram said and gestured to the door.

With only a grin and a wink, Mara turned to leave the office. That had gone much better than she had expected.