"Reporting here as ordered, Sir." I stood ramrod straight, following my new body's instincts, and trying desperately to suppress that dumb hick accent I was born with. Thank God I retained this body's memories when I woke up in that shuttle, or else I would have been screwed six ways to Sunday.

"Ensign Buckley, this is Lieutenant Commander L'vor, Chief Engineer here on the Carpenter."

Ethan Buckley… Same name. Same face, if a decade and a half younger. Same parents. Same dog… Everything lined up so close, it was like some omnipotent being was playing a practical joke on him.

In my old life, I was the third son of a coal miner and a waitress out in the middle of bumfuck, West Virginia. For as long as I could remember, my daddy was missing half his left hand due to it being caught in machinery. Here and now, I was the third son of a dilithium miner and a waitress, born in the Humantown of a backwater Andorian colony. The accident this time was a mining phaser going haywire.

It was quite difficult to reconcile the two lives, especially with one of them being in a TV show I watched occasionally. But, this ship wasn't the nice, clean Enterprise... It was a lot more run-down and sketch.

"It is a pleasure to have you, Ensign." The Vulcan was on the short and skinny side, with jet-black hair and pale skin, tinged with green. Even through that impenetrable stoicism, I could tell he wasn't jumping for joy dealing with some brat fresh out of the academy. "Your new station is over there. Lieutenant Cook will inform you of your new duties." And with that, he left to do God-knows-what.

I briefly looked around, taking in my new surroundings. The warp core gently hummed, a pleasant heartbeat as it supplied power to the rest of the ship; almost pleasant enough to numb the overwhelming sense of dread washing over me since I stepped on board. It was like being in one of those Chinese factories you see on those gore sites - I'm half expecting the Liveleak logo to suddenly appear somewhere in the air.

Right, the ship! The USS Carpenter (NCC-998-B) was one of the last remaining Constellation Classes still in active service. I don't know if the line "Overworked, underpowered vessel, always on the verge of flying apart at the seams" rings a bell, but it doesn't exactly inspire much confidence.

But... well... It was the future! Surely, they wouldn't send me into a death trap…

Right?...

…Huh, those railings over there look awful short.

One Week Later…

Oh, dear God, they actually did. Apparently, humanity never ever learned. Really, I should have known better, with the shit I've seen in my old job.

In the so-called barbaric times of the 21st century, I was an inspector for this little thing called the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. They say that humanity is better now, evolved past the violent tendencies of the days of yore. They also seemed to have evolved away from the need for safety regulations, too. Arrogant jackasses.

Because holy shit! I could name fifty-something violations in this here Jeffries Tube off the top of my head!

For example, practically the entirety of 29 CFR 1915 Subpart B could just be flushed down the toilet here. They literally told me to crawl in and clean the EPS conduits. No paperwork, no permits, no nothing - Just waltz on into a confined space all by myself to dick around with a component containing literal 20-thousand-something-degree plasma. They didn't even send a guy to keep watch over my green-as-grass inexperienced ass!

Oh, yeah, and don't even bother with any protective equipment. You'll be fine with just your Starfleet pajamas and a tricorder! So what if there are no harnesses or even guard rails around the vertical sections – surely nobody would trip and fall ten decks straight down and split their heads open!

Gah! It was just too much!

"Ensign Buckley, the displays in section 10 of Deck 8 are experiencing malfunctions." L'vor's voice chirped through the badge.

Translation: the damn things exploded from yet another random power surge.

Carefully and deliberately, I place the cover back on over the EPS conduit, treating it like the horrifically dangerous piece of infrastructure it was.

"On it, Sir,"

What the hell was there to explode with a glorified touchscreen? A fucking iPad didn't have this problem despite being assembled by the hands of starving third-world children! Why did Starfleet!?

One month later…

"Sir, permission to speak freely?"

Lieutenant Commander L'vor looked away from the newly installed console to stare at me impassively. It was raised slightly, to match the new, much higher railing – No more poor sumbitches tripping and falling over into the warp core thanks to yours truly.

"Granted."

"Earlier this week, I made multiple requests to install seatbelts in the shuttlecraft, but all of them were ignored. So I am requesting it again, as I believe it is a gross safety violation that should have been rectified a long time ago."

"I was under the impression that inertial dampener systems have made such things obsolete," L'vor raised an eyebrow, "Please, explain."

"Gladly, Sir," I couldn't help the savage grin I gave as I handed over the PADD, "I have compiled of shuttlecraft incidents over the past 20 years where inertial dampeners had failed. 43% of them occurred at acceleration levels survivable had there been a seatbelt or harness installed. 1,532 fatalities due to this simple oversight – and I'm a at loss how nobody noticed this before..."

L'vor speed-read over the scathing report I so lovingly crafted. For the sake of professionalism, I refrained from the colorful metaphors I reserved for the companies that still ran things like it was the Victorian Era, but damn did I almost give in to the temptation.

Slowly, the Vulcan's eyebrow crawled all the way up to his hairline; which I assumed was his species equivalent to shitting your pants in shock.

"This report has been most… enlightening." His gaze hardened, "This should be addressed immediately – proceed with the installation, Ensign." He turned around, "Lieutenant Cook, please finish these warp field diagnostics. I must have a word with the Captain."

With fiery determination, I checked the straps of my hard hat, picked up my tools, and headed straight down to the shuttle bay. I had no doubt that L'vor was going to make a lot of admirals' lives hell with yet another "logical proposal"...

As he should. Fuck the primitive screwheads who designed these ships!

For the next six months, the USS Carpenter would be one of the few ships in Starfleet to report zero workplace accidents… Additionally, in many holodecks across the fleet, the effigies of an ensign with an anachronistic hardhat and a Vulcan lieutenant commander would be burned along with a pile of books containing new safety regulations; engineers dancing all around, hooting and hollering.