If Writing Doesn’t Work, Punch Your Problems Away

Posted on Sun Dec 31st, 2023 @ 4:44pm by Lieutenant JG Jane Sinclair

1,647 words; about a 8 minute read

Mission: Operation Tokyo Return
Timeline: After “One Ship, One Problematic Captain”, but before “Okay, Here’s the Deal”

Jane Sinclair was beyond annoyed.

Captain Takahashi was being nothing short of unreasonable, and well on her way to being a total bitch.

Nobody in the universe had total control over everything. Nobody could predict exactly when things might fail. This is why all departments on Starfleet ships devoted time to maintenance. Jane’s Flight Control department had a shuttle maintenance program that was beyond rigorous. To have a key component of a Shuttlecraft or Starfighter fail while on mission because of lax maintenance was unacceptable to any pilot, deck manager, or command officer. So you find faults early. You detect them while the vessel is still landed. You repair and get it flightworthy as soon as possible.

To suggest that detecting a fault and working to repair it indicated a failure on Jane’s part was…well, beyond being utterly foolish, was an attack on Jane’s worth ethic.

So after being chewed out, Jane reached three conclusions:

1- Something was going on with the Captain (also demonstrated by the reports of her crewmates);
2- Miyahara ram a tight ship but was a complete tool (also demonstrated by his fascist assault against democracy); and
3- She was not at fault, and would prove it beyond a shadow of a doubt, if only out of spite.

Jane went straight to her office and pulled every maintenance report ever written going back to the day she arrived and overhauled the department. No, strike that. She went back years. She identified every instance in which maintenance technicians found faults in the shuttlecraft, how long the shuttle was out of commission for, the cause of the problem, and what was done not only to fix it, but also what was done to prevent it from happening again.

She also found out some interesting things.

First, there had never been a shuttle failure aboard Myogi that had been attributed to negligence by the maintenance crew. Not in the 24 years since Myogi’s relaunch had a component of a shuttle fail while on mission where the subsequent investigation concluded that there was something shuttle maintenance should have caught but didn’t. Jane believed this was likely correct; often the investigations were done by more senior officers, including the chief engineer and/or the XO, or if severe enough maybe an external auditor. No reason to believe anyone ever “covered” for anyone else.

Second, the amount of faults identified during maintenance cycles remained steady. Maintenance was catching problems and addressing them. The problem of occasionally defective equipment was consistent fleetwide and across eras. Improvements in manufacturing were offset by increasingly complex systems. The failure rate was low, on the order of one piece breaking per 60,000 operation hours at worst. This was actually better than the fleet average, likely because they had a rigorous equipment testing program as components came aboard, so items likeliest to fail early were caught and replaced. Those that failed midway through their lifespan were the hard ones to catch, and could only be caught in the regular maintenance that Jane’s department excelled at.

Finally, she found proof that this sort of occasional problem was not unknown to command. Countless reports, prepared by former Chief Flight Control Officer Karibuchi and accepted by former First Officer Maho Nishizumi (now Takahashi).

Takami Karibuchi had been trained in the Miyahara style and seemed to have been a competent pilot and department manager. Her reports were in order, and went back years. They were easy to find and read, and their contents proved her point about the technical reality of starship operations. The reports suddenly ended when she left the ship a few weeks before Jane arrived on board. Her department had been gutted when lots of crew, many of whom loyalists to Miyahara, followed his horrifying, cult-like movement.

Was Ms. Karibuchi like that? Did she leave to follow Miyahara?

Had she been responsible for the shuttlebay sabotage that Jane had inherited? Or had she just permitted Miyahara’s influence to reach her crew, fester, and manifest as an act of sabotage?

No, probably not. Evidence suggested that it was someone deeply troubled by the mass transfer of crew out of the Myogi. But there really was no way to know now. A conversation with her department, both those few who managed to stay on from the Miyahara era and those who were new, might be warranted. They lived in strange times, and taking measures to prevent future problems among the crew members under her direct command were warranted.

It took almost three hours, but eventually there was a report in Captain Takahashi’s inbox, with copies sent to Commander Misono, Lieutenant Rori, and Ensign Kurosawa. With annexes (of which there were many) it was over 11,000 words. It showed the exact cause of the problem that caused the Reopon to be taken out of commission for repair, how the problem was identified, how it was repaired, and how it was entirely consistent with the normal operations of the Myogi, whether the Captain was Miyahara or Takahashi, the XO Nishizumi or Misono, the pilot Karibuchi or Sinclair.

The report also reiterated the version of the muster plan which included the use of the shuttlecraft, and how it was objectively and demonstrably better than ignoring the shuttles’ existence, and would be even if all but one shuttle were completely out of commission. There were enough lifeboats to save everyone on the ship, but using only them put an unnecessary strain on resources. In truth, if the shuttlecraft still had life support but their engines were down, Jane could in a pinch order them launched via tractor beam, the extra air, food, water, and medical supplies all reducing overall burden on evacuation resources even if the craft just drifted. Ultimately her point (made passive aggressively; she avoided being direct) was that the suggestion to not use the shuttles just because the smallest one had inoperable engines due to unlucky timing was at best misinformed and at worst negligent.

Message sent, she took a deep breath. It didn’t help. She was still riled up.

She wouldn’t be able to sleep, so she went to the gym.

When Alisha left, she lost her morning workout partner. She had to get back into the rhythm of self disciplined exercise, lest she lose what little precious muscle tone Proximans had in standard G. It seemed like frustration-based energy mixed with a very late night / very early morning made for a good workout opportunity.

Evening Shift security was there, on call in case of emergency, so she wasn’t alone. Miyazawa and Kabuto were spotting each other as they used the bench press and other heavier exercises, and were happy to have Jane join them. Jane had joined in the ribbing the boys had gotten in the mess hall for their reaction to the Jane Sinclair / Alexis Silverstar celebrity gossip article, and then after a number of intra-system jokes (the boys were from the old Japanese colony on Alpha Centauri VII, and like anywhere there were jokes to be made by Proximans about people from VII and vice versa), now she was accepted as ‘one of the guys’. Someone to work out with, to joke with, to make increasingly lewd comments about Tristana with. So they were happy to see her and helped spot her on the bench.

She didn’t open up to them about her various work frustrations — it seemed inappropriate, but they could tell that she was going through something, so Kiyohira suggested boxing.

First, it was the punching bag. The catharsis one gets by punching a weighted bag hanging from the ceiling with taped fists was always surprising. Anyone who thought humanity had conquered its base violent instincts had never felt the adrenaline rush that came from repeatedly punching something.

Then it was Jane Sinclair vs. Shingen Miyazawa in the middle of a ring, wearing big boxing gloves and face protectors, duking it out. The security man was strong and wiry. Jane was weaker but taller and had reach. Her left jab could keep him at bay, but if he got close he could mess her up. Any chance she could go for head shots she took.

That she began imagining the face of her Captain when she punched at Shingen (or that it seemed like her punches landed harder when she did) might merit a conversation with Bree later. But not today.

The bell sounded, signaling an end of the round. They touched gloves, and a moment later another chime came over the comm system.

“Alert for Lieutenant junior grade Sinclair, Jane,” said the tinny computer voice. “Staff meeting at 0700.”

It was 0645. Not enough time for anything but the essentials. She went to the gym’s changing area. Shoes, shorts, sports bra off, she was in the sonic shower. Kabuto and Miyazawa were too; they were due to check in soon. Jane didn’t care. They were Starfleet crewmembers, used to barracks style living. Plus they’d already seen her naked in the magazine. At best it was nothing because they were all mature adults, and at worst she would inspire a fantasy or three. Given their explicit Tristana jokes it wouldn’t surprise her if that was already true.

A new freshly replicated uniform and boots were ready for her. She got into it and got on her way to the briefing room with a couple of minutes to spare. No food, no coffee, no rest, but at least a bit of catharsis. A technically accurate but a passive-aggressively long and precise report and a couple of hours of weightlifting and punching with The Boys.

There were worse ways to spend a night.

**

Lieutenant jg Jane Sinclair
Chief Flight Control Officer

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