Engineering Philosophy

Posted on Wed Oct 7th, 2026 @ 11:56pm by Lieutenant Zachary Addams & Ensign Syaro Kirima

1,241 words; about a 6 minute read

Mission: Kintsugi
Location: Deck 8, Damage Section edge
Timeline: Upon Arrival at Space Dock

It was the first time that Syaro had been to the heavily damaged sections of the Tokyo. She wasn't quite expecting the sheer amount of devastation that had been inflicted upon the ship. She stared out at the mangled and twisted metal where rooms, corridors and systems had once been. It was all currently exposed to space, and it looked like it had been ripped from the hull by some rabid hungry beast.

The corridor around her was still a mess, with wiring and conduit hanging loose from the ceiling and burn marks plastered up the walls. Doors down the corridor were jammed open, some of them blasted clean off and now laid in the rooms they once concealed.

Syaro stood there, with a PADD in hand. With the chief leaving soon for some shore leave, she would be one of the engineers staying behind to help with the rebuild and refit of the Tokyo. She had wanted to come down and see the damage to this area for herself. Several sections were now just... gone.

Her eyes looked down at the PADD, the list of damages and areas destroyed seemed to go on forever. No matter how long she scrolled through it, she never seemed to reach the bottom. She let out a sigh, these next eight to ten weeks were not only going to be challenging and hard on everyone. Her mind just could not determine the immense power of the Iconian beam weapon that caused this.

"This almost looks... Impossible..." she muttered to herself.

"It's not so bad. Sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast," a voice said behind her.

Syaro turned around, not expecting anyone to be there.

Zach smiled at the wide-eyed engineer and nodded to the damage and the space dock ribs behind it. "Preliminary damage survey?" he guessed. "I didn't put that on your itinerary, but I like the initiative."

"I wanted to come and see it for myself," Syaro explained. "I'm just... amazed that a single weapon could do this amount of damage in one hit."

Zach nodded in agreement. "It's impressive, if horrific." He set his tool kit down and sighed, looking at the damage. "I'm guessing this is how a doctor feels seeing a severely injured patient."

He plucked his tricorder from the holster on his belt and scanned the damage. "Pop quiz: what am I scanning for?"

"Could be anything. From residual radiation, to power fluxuations to signs of stress on the ships spaceframe..." Syaro replied. "Or you could be comparing the damaged sections to what should be there?"

"All good guesses," he said. "And 'power fluxuations' comes closest. I'm checking the integrity of the emergency forcefields. Last thing I need is for them to fail while we're here. Our skills don't do us much good if that fails."

Syaro's face dropped. The thought of being pushed out into space to slowly suffocate to death was not one she wanted on her mind right now. A visible shiver ran through her body as she stared at Zach for a moment before frantically tapping on her tricorder. One last check on the forcefields would set her mind at ease.

He gave a small smile. "Relax, Ensign. If I thought there was a serious chance of it, you wouldn't have gained access here. However, I'm a believer in triple-checking when we can." He put his tricorder away and pulled experimentally at the wiring. "They're going to have to cut out a section in every direction," he sighed. "At least when they're done it's going to be physically seamless. Hopefully the ship's personality doesn't change."

"I don't think it will," Syaro smiled. "I once took a chunk out of my knee when I was a eight years old. I was climbing a big tree in my grandparents back yard." She explained as she indicated to her right leg. "I had to have surgery on it to put it back together. But, it never changed me. A few weeks later, I climbed that tree and got right to the top." She smiled.

He grinned back. "Well, I appreciate the personal connection to the idea," he said, "but I've found ships tend to be a bit more persnickety than people when it comes to things like that. People are far more adaptable, machines are not."

"I do suppose you are right." Syaro replied. "Will you be sticking around to oversee the refit?" she asked curiously. Like the rest of the crew, she had been given the offer of temporary reassignment or shore leave. Frankly, she didn't feel right taking shore leave knowing that there was all this damage to repair. She she had opted to join the refit team that would be working on the Tokyo.

"I will," he said. "All due respect to the station crew, I want to be overseeing to the repairs of my own ship. They'll handle the structural changes, but I'll be managing integration and other repairs. Plus, I have a healthy honey-do list from the crew." He sighed and looked around once more. "Such a shame," he said, shaking his head. "Well, I hope you're ready for some busy days. I'll have assignments going out first thing tomorrow."

"A shame?" Syaro questioned curiously.

"A starship is a machine," he said, "but it's more than that. This is space; there's no draft, there's no wind resistance. We could build our ships any way we wished. We could have made them cubes like the Borg if we'd wanted. Instead, we built ships that are practically sculpted. Why? Why build works of art in space?" He looked her way but didn't wait for an answer. "We could send probes out. Automated vessels, large recorders. But we didn't. We went with our ships. Why? Because our ships don't just carry people and equipment. They carry our ideas, our beliefs, and we go out to back them up. We lost people to that breach, and the only consolation we have is that they didn't die for nothing. We protected the Federation. It's just a shame that it took the deaths of a few souls and damaging a work of art to do so." He shook his head. "Sorry, I get philosophical when I'm tired. Pay me no mind."

Syaro nodded. "Well, if we only sent out probes, whats the point of exploring space? Surely seeing something with your own eyes is better than seeing it through a viewscreen, or a sensor report?" she replied. "As for our ships..." she looked out at the gaping hole in the Tokyo's side. "It makes them unique. Makes them stand out against others. Gives us an identity."

"And I don't like someone punching holes in our identity," Zach said wryly. "Thankfully, time and replacement struts heal all wounds." He smiled at the ensign and checked his chronometer. "If you'll excuse me, Ensign, I'm running behind. I'll see you at the duty assignment meeting tomorrow morning, yes?"

Syaro nodded. "Yes sir." she gave him a small smile as she turned back towards the twisted jungle that had once been the Tokyo's hull and inner workings. Slowly she reached out and touched a single finger against the forcefield. It flickered a shimmer of blue and white. "This is going to be a big job..." she muttered to herself.

Posting by:

Ensign Syaro Kirima
Engineering Officer
USS Tokyo

Lieutenant Zachary Addams
Chief Engineer
USS Tokyo

 

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