Second Chances: Chapter 24

A/N: I'm almost done watching DS9, and it never grew on me. I would have given up a long time ago if it weren't for doing research for this story. One of my pet peeves about the show - and most shows in general, really - is that it makes everyone out to be the best [fill in the blank] there is. Dr. Bashir is the best, smartest doctor (but this was his first assignment after medical school and he didn't have any post-graduate training). Chief O'Brien is the best engineer out there (but he's a non-commissioned officer; an enlisted mechanic with no college education). Etc. Etc. So I'm watching the show, and they have this arc involving a Jem'Hadar ship that Captain Sisko had captured on a planet in the Gamma quadrant. We see it once in season 5, then not again until the beginning of season 6, where Admiral Ross tells Sisko that "they" were able to fix it up. And then after a group of unknown "they" spends almost a year fixing the ship, "they" just hand it over to the DS9 crew without explaining how anything works, and O'Brien and Nog figure everything out within 2 weeks.

Right.

I figured if there was one DS9 story that should involve a Repair Company commander on Utopia Planitia, it would probably be this one.

Stardate 50260
March 2373
Mars Station, Mars

*Winters to Torres.* Lt. B'Elanna Torres sighed at the interruption and tapped on her combadge.

"Torres here," she replied.

*Please report to my office.* Her eyebrows raised at his uncharacteristic brusqueness; he usually tried not to interfere with company operations, and scheduled meetings with the officers under him instead of summoning them to his office. Concerned with what could be going on, she put down her hyperspanner.

"On my way, sir," she replied. She crawled out from under the Constellation's warp core and glanced around. "Chief," she called out to Chief Kiyashko. "Finish this up for me."

"Yes, sir," Kiyashko replied, moving to take Torres' position.

Torres entered Commander Winters' outer office and raised her eyebrows in greeting to Petty Officer Yung. "He said to go right in, sir," Yung said in reply to Torres' unasked question.

To her surprise, Commander Winters was sitting at his conference table with two officers she didn't recognize. They both wore uniforms with gold turtlenecks, but that didn't tell Torres much; almost everyone on Mars Station wore gold. "Ah, Lt. Torres, thanks for coming," Winters said as she approached. "Please, have a seat. This is Captain Mehti and Lt. Glass from Starfleet Intelligence." She blinked in surprise; not at the fact that they were from Starfleet Intelligence—it was surprisingly ordinary to have intelligence officers hanging around the station, either with specifications of what a ship needed to be able to do or conducting one of their countless background checks on somebody—but at the fact that once he was introduced, Torres recognized Glass. He had been one of the cadet training officers her plebe year.

"It's been awhile," Glass greeted with a smile. She just nodded in reply, not in the mood to reminisce about plebe summer.

"We need you to sign this non-disclosure agreement before we continue," Captain Mehti said, sliding a PADD over to Torres. She took it and glanced at it before pressing her thumb where indicated. It was standard boiler-plate language; it was easier to just sign it than explain that any of the countless other, identical non-disclosure agreements she had signed in the few years of her career would undoubtedly cover what they were about to tell her.

Satisfied, Mehti placed the PADD in a case and stood. "It would be easier to show you this than explain it to you," he said. Her interest piqued, Torres rose and followed the others out of the office. Considering who they were with and the secrecy thus far, Torres wasn't surprised in the least that Winters had specified the classified dry dock when they got to the transporter room. He pressed his thumb to the authenticator, and Mehti, Glass, and Torres followed suit. The transporter chief gave a nod, and a few seconds later, they were on the viewing platform over the dry dock.

"SoS," Torres muttered in surprise. She had known this would be classified, but hadn't realized how classified. "That's a—"

"Jem'Hadar ship," Mehti finished for her, seeming pleased that he caught her by surprise. "Captain Sisko and his crew salvaged it from where it wrecked in the Gamma quadrant."

Her eyes were wide as she turned to face him. "Wrecked?" she echoed, having an idea of where she fit in this.

"We need you to fix it up and get it flying again," Mehti said with a nod. Her eyes still wide, Torres turned to Winters.

"I've told you that you're the best repair company commander in the Fleet," he said, smirking at having his claims proven right. "And you only have a few more weeks of command, and then this is your project. Full-time."

"But you have project officers," she said, unable to think of anything else.

"And in a few weeks, you'll be another one," he said. He nodded toward the Jem'Hadar ship on the other side of that space lock. "I'm sure you can fine a master's thesis in there somewhere."

"Master's..." her voice trailed off, trying to process all of this. Project officers were graduate students; they took classes, had thesis projects, and taught courses at the Technical Academy, and she hadn't realized she was on a path for any of that. "I thought..." She trailed off again, not sure what she had thought her next assignment would be. She had been so focused on all of the repairs her company had lined up that she hadn't given herself the luxury of figuring out her next assignment, which she now realized was foolish. She should have sat down with Winters to begin figuring that out months ago.

"You really are the best repair company commander in the Fleet," Mehti said. "There are twenty of you right now, and we vetted each. That's why we brought the ship here."

"But why do you even want a company commander?" Torres asked. "There are captains with more than 20 years of engineering experience."

"You mean 20 years of experience doing the same thing in the same way we've always done it," Winters said. "We're old and stuck in our ways. This project needs someone innovative, someone who thinks so far out of the box that we're not completely sure she believes there is a box. That's you, Torres."

"You have research experience, leadership experience, and your repairs are complex, complete, and fast," Mehti said, making her frown. She had never met the guy; who was he to say what her engineering was like? "We need complex, complete, and fast," he continued. "And we're only going to get that from someone young and innovative. You need to select a crew. Here's a list from your company who are cleared to this level of project." He handed her a PADD, which she took, still dumb from surprise.

She frowned as she studied the list, immediately categorizing everyone to their strengths and weaknesses, and shook her head. She assumed she would need a platoon-sized element, but it would be a generalized platoon; the current platoons were organized based on specialization: propulsion, defenses, electrical, and systems. "I need a weapons chief and an electrical chief," she said. The mechanics themselves, she could be more flexible with, but the chiefs and the junior officers had to have expertise.

"This is who's been cleared," Mehti countered. "The others have issues in their past or connections that prevented this level of clearance."

She raised her eyebrows, almost amused. "I'm half-Klingon," she reminded him.

"Fortunately, the Khitomer Accords are back in effect," he said dryly. "You've been thoroughly vetted because of your relationship to Admiral Paris."

"Of course," she muttered. She looked up at Winters.

"Give me a list of what you need," he said. "I'll shuffle battalion assets as necessary. This is our top priority."

"The sooner you can make this ship operational again, the sooner we can use it," Mehti pointed out, unnecessarily. Torres nodded.

"How is your progress in closing out your command duties?" Winters asked.

"I finished the evals for the chiefs," she said. "I still have to close them out for the officers. We have three disciplinary issues pending—"

"I'll move those to the attention of the battalion adjuvant," Winters interrupted. "Finish your evaluations of your officers as soon as you can. I'll shield you from other administrative tasks as much as possible until the change of command." She nodded; he really was taking this seriously as a top priority. "It's not unusual for project officers to delay teaching at the Technical Academy until their second term. If needed, I hope this will be done well before January when that requirement starts. You will have to enroll in at least one online course toward your Master's by four weeks after you officially start as a project officer. By then, you should know which classes will be most helpful in this project and can enroll in those. That's when your first draft of a thesis project proposal is due as well. We'll sit down and discuss all of this in more detail after your change of command."

She nodded, still trying to process all of this. "I think I got it, sir," she said. He smiled at her.

"I know you do, Torres."

She nodded slightly, her attention already focused on the ship below her and making a list of what she needed to do to get started. "Lt. Glass will go over the mission specifics with you," Captain Mehti said, already nodding toward Winters to go off and discuss whatever it was that senior officers discussed when no junior officers were around, but Torres frowned.

"Fix up the ship and make it able to fly again," she said. "I got it." She was itching to get to the ship and assess the damage. And to figure out what Jem'Hadar systems looked like. Everyone in the Alpha quadrant had taken influence from everyone else's technology; it wouldn't take her long to figure out the systems on a Klingon, Romulan, or Bajoran ship, but she had no idea what Gamma quadrant technology would look like.

"It's lunch time anyway," Glass said with a shrug. "I won't hold you up too long, I promise." She frowned again and looked longingly at the ship. An hour wouldn't make any difference, but it was still hard to nod her assent.

It was early enough that the mess at UP was still only sparsely populated. Glass and Torres replicated their meals and headed for a table against the windows in the corner. "I thought you were an engineering major," Torres said as they sat down. Glass snorted.

"I was," he confirmed. "I was a pretty mediocre engineer, though. Intelligence has been a good fit. Most intelligence officers are too focused on the big picture and don't know enough about the science to figure out how to make it happen, and most engineers are too focused on the details to pick up on the big picture. Ninety percent of my job is translating engineering reports into language intelligence officers can understand. Another nine percent is reigning in the imaginations of the intelligence officers when it comes to their ideas of what is and is not covered by the laws of physics."

"And the last one percent?"

He smirked. "Stoking egos," he replied. "I'm your liaison officer for this project."

"And they think my ego needs stoking?" she asked, her eyebrows raised. He snorted.

"Nobody thinks that," he assured her. "Most of that talent will be focused on calming the feathers you're undoubtedly going to be ruffling. Command wants this thing flying yesterday. You're going to tell them that they're being idiots every time they give you a ridiculous deadline, I'm going to have to assure them that they are not, in fact, idiots, and that they shouldn't reassign you in favor of the first uninspired lieutenant commander willing to tell them whatever they want to hear in favor of a promotion."

"That would make my life easier," Torres pointed out.

"Since when did you do anything the easy way?" he asked. "You almost struck your company commander on your first day at the Academy."

Despite herself, Torres couldn't help but smile. "He started it," she pointed out. "He accused me of being late on purpose." She could still remember that morning: checking in at the gate, crossing campus to where her company was standing in formation, a younger Glass crossing formation to intercept and pointing her in the direction of her company commander. Tom. Who had challenged her and grabbed her arm to make her stay when she called him on his bluff and moved to leave.

You've made it this far. Might as well give it a few days before deciding it's not worth your time.

Glass' smile faded. "I'm sorry about Paris," he said. "It was a nice ceremony a few weeks ago."

"Starfleet loves a good show," Torres replied mildly. "When do they need the ship by?"

He shrugged. "As soon as possible. They have plans for it, but we don't know yet how extensive the damage is or how long it's going to take to figure out how to work Jem'Hadar systems. Those estimates are your first assignment. They're going to start bugging me for timelines in about a week."

She nodded. A week would be more than enough time for a repair estimate—if it was a Starfleet ship. She had never even seen a Jem'Hadar ship before, and there were no manuals for their repair in any Federation database. She rose from her seat. "Then I guess we better get started."