There was a slight pop from the badge's speaker. "Engineering...this is Ensign McAffery." His voice was a little shaky. In the background, the distinct sound of Australian-accented swearing could be heard.
"Ensign," the Hispanic voice of the captain started slowly, "normally by now the emergency batteries would have kicked in and we would at least have lights. Can I assume this was a step backwards?"
Her comm badge popped again, "Captain, this is Chief Engineer Kelly," The Australian engineer's voice was fast, and unusually stressed. "This shouldn't have happened. We even tried switching back to umbilical power. That's not working, either. Something must have shorted in the main power grid. I'm trying to get a hold of a flashlight...OW!" There was an audible thud as something, or someone hit the ground. "Who left a bloody spanner on the floor?"
"Sorry, Sir," a male ensign replied sheepishly.
"Stay wherrre you arrre, Mr. Kelly," replied the voice of a sultry, Catian female. "I shall find a light forrr you. I can see in the darrrk."
"Is everything alright down there?" asked the captain.
"Yeah," replied the senior engineer. "No worries. It may be a few minutes before we can get the lights back on. Woo hoo!" The engineer sounded startled. "Watch the hands, Ensign!"
"Sorrry, Sirrr," replied the Catian engineer. There was a certain playfulness in her voice. The feline Catian race had the notorious reputation throughout the Alpha quadrant as flirts. Apparently, that reputation was well earned.
Yeah, well," Lt. Kelly stuttered, trying to regain his composure, "The cabinet you want is just to the left of the first maintenance station, and nowhere near me bum. Captain, tell everyone to just sit tight."
"Leiutenant, I can't see my hand in front of my face. There's little else we can do until the lights are back on. Oh...you might want to remind your crew of the strict no fraternization with superior officers rule we have in Starfleet. Bridge out." The captain tapped her comm badge again. Normally, such inter-species social collisions would have been downright funny to Lydia Velasquez, but now she just wants her lights back. She tried very hard not to be upset. After all, Tom Kelly had only been aboard for five days. In that five days, he had worked miracles in a lot of places. This, however, had been his third attempt to get the new ship under its own power...his third failed attempt. Her headache was coming back.
Through the corner of her eye, Captain Velasquez saw the blue glimmer of a PADD's computer screen come to life to her right. In the faint light, she could make out the face of her first officer seated next to her. He pulled out a stylus from the side of the PADD and began writing. He noticed his captain looking over at him inquisitively. "I figured I'd add the 'operate on internal power' task back on the to-do list." He smiled sardonically.
"Ah," the captain replied slowly. "What does our to-do list look like now, anyway?" The first officer looked at her with a smirk. Without even looking back at the screen, he pressed the down arrow on the PADD with his finger. The backlit list began scrolling...and scrolling...and scrolling. Captain Velasquez settled back in her command chair and rubbed her temples. "Never mind, Stephen. I'm sorry I asked."
"Captain, our list of things to install, upgrade, or fix has almost doubled since the last time you asked. Don't you think Starfleet can delay our launch considering everything we have left to do?"
Captain Velasquez continued rubbing her temples. "They won't change their minds, Commander. The only constant in this universe is bureaucracy. To hell with the facts, we have a schedule to keep. They've had some big ceremony planned for months. Whether we're ready or not, this ship makes her debut in Spacedock in 34 days." She pointed her finger for emphasis.
Captain Velasquez laid her head back. "So, this is the epitomy of Starfleet technology...a powerless lump of metal tucked away in a remote shipyard in the Vega system," she thought to herself. "And I came out of retirement for this. Oh, the idea was a good one. With everything that happened with the Borg and the Dominion, not to mention the rumors of a new Romulan warship, it was obvious that something needed to be done to strengthen Federation defenses. There were many who thought the original dreadnaught project had been prematurely abandoned almost a century ago. Captain Jean-Luc Picard's mission log exerpt from Enterprise's first encounter with the Borg was right, "Perhaps we needed a kick in our complacency." That prophetic statement had rung true not only at the Borg battle at Wolf 359, but the Dominion War as well. Now, here we are... after four years of secret meetings, developments, and research, we're just over a month from revealing the most powerful starship in the history of space flight, and I can't even turn on a light."
The sound of beeping and buzzing brought Captain Velasquez out of her daydream. In front of her, she could see that her helmsman had somehow gotten a hold of a tricorder and was playing a game on it. A couple of others on the bridge maneuvered over his shoulder to see using the tricorder's lights for vision. Lydia let out a sigh and slowly shook her head. "Thirty-four days," she thought. "Thirty-four days...and we have to somehow get from the Vega shipyard TO Spacedock, too."