This one I finished on the final day of May. It's definitely ranty, but it also has me trying to pull away from action heavy things. Needless to say, I've had a rough few weeks. I've included a few jabs at what I've had to deal with, though it's all exaggerated as usual. Any resemblance to actual events is purely coincidental.

As usual, if you don't want to download the pdf, please scroll down.

In this story, the ship goes into drydock, I meet Arktak on a station and I give someone a warning.

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Snr Captain Tano’rath
Cmdr, DES Defiant
It had been a while since the ship had put in for a major overhaul and Command had been trying to slot us in, but with the constant border skirmishes, ships with actual damage got priority. We eventually made our way into the queue anyway after our streak ran out and we got caught out by a trio of frigates. Backup turned up with time to spare, but that didn’t change the fact that the Defiant got shot up pretty badly. Either way, we got placed in the queue and they added all the overhaul work on top.
Given how many holes there were in the armour plating and hull, coupled with half the primaries and secondaries burnt out, there wouldn’t be much to overhaul anyway, it was closer to the parts simply being replaced with the newest revision.
We put in at the Alkonas spaceport a few systems out from the Homeworld and handed the ship over, leaving a skeleton crew to help run the ship while the work was done. Of course, there was also security. After all, the easiest time to sabotage a ship is when it’s in pieces.
Some people took time off, others got temporarily reassigned as it would take several weeks, bordering on several months to rework the systems. We were apparently around three refits behind and the station commander grumbled to no end about it.
Since Fiora, my mate, was busy on a deep space assignment and I didn’t really have much to do, I just took a week of leave while the reassigned me. I found out later that Arktak hadn’t even bothered to take any time off and had been sent to the same place that I was supposed to go – Manufacturing-Support Station 57 “Herathus”. He was supporting their maintenance division and I was being sent over as station commander, as the previous commander had just transferred out.
A check on the stats on the station also revealed a less than excellent record. The system spat out a whole list of movements and events that showed me a spectacularly high attrition rate, with staff averaging about half a year or so before leaving and an astonishingly long list of safety issues and incidents. This isn’t a job I want. However, Command was adamant, insisting that surely, I, of all people, could solve the problem or at least start the ball rolling. I pointed out my doubts and Admiral Hector told me to at least try.
Orders are orders. I boarded the shuttle and was ferried to the station over the course of a few hours.

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Lieutenant (Probation) Arktak
Command Trainee, DES Defiant
This assignment was listed as optional and was offered to me when I decided not to take leave while the ship was in for refit. When I first set foot on the station, things seemed alright, the staff were mostly friendly and I was taken in rather quickly as one of their own. I only found out later that they all barely knew each other and were trying not to scare me off…
Either way, I settled into the Maintenance Coordinator role where I was helping to get the station back to full capacity, which was one of the most urgent tasks. After all, this station manufactures essential goods for the colony below so that the colonists can focus on building the place up rather than having to worry about having essential items made.
While mostly automated, the station also had a population of engineers, technicians and a few operators together with the usual command staff and so forth. While everything presented well upon my arrival, the cracks took next to no time to show as I started to hear the rumours, bickering and so forth. I was also given access to the internal database and systems to find the dreadful attrition rate and the numerous injuries sustained on board.
It had only been a week.
Eventually, Command, tired of the antics of the crew and the lack of improvement, reassigned the station commander and we were told that a new one was on the way, no other than Captain Tano’rath, who turned up the very next day on a shuttle.

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Snr Captain Tano’rath
Cmdr, DES Defiant
I disembarked the shuttle to find Arktak waiting with me next to the senior staff, who all greeted me and such. I was given the usual tour of the facility and had a look around. These stations are supposed to be one of the show pieces of our colony support program, little wonders of engineering built to get things done. However, in this automated monstrosity, from what I saw, it seemed like half of it was broken, idle or making the wrong noises. Half the equipment had been locked out with tags saying in what manner they were broken.
The other officers shot me sideways looks as I pulled an old-fashioned notebook out of my pocket and started taking notes. In the background, I could already see the technicians and operators whispering amongst themselves as I went past. Nonetheless, I took more notes.
It’s also no secret that Station staff aren’t the fondest of Fleet commanders.
I had my tour and the usual inductions sorted out before Arktak slinked into my room, pausing to check the corridor outside my quarters once I let him in. “Captain.”
“Ah, Arktak, fancy seeing you here, eh?” I replied, at least he wasn’t saluting me all the time now.
Arktak nodded as he walked over and I gestured to a seat for him. He sat heavily, heavier than usual anyway. “May I speak freely?”
I raised an eyeridge. He actually looked properly tired, which I didn’t know was possible, but he looked positively haggard with bags under his eyes, drooping wings and such. “Always, and yes, I noticed that there is work to be done.”
“Yes,” he replied before very visibly hesitating for a moment, his tailtip twitching a little, “I think the problem is more than just maintenance.”
“This place has become a revolving door,” I replied flatly, “It’s more than a few broken machines that causes that. Tell me what you’ve seen and heard.”
Arktak nodded, rubbing his forehead, “None of those people have been here for longer than three months, other than the safety and production chiefs. Everyone bickers, complains and there’s more politics here than in government. It also seems like Maintenance always gets blamed for everything.”
“Of course. Maintenance is the easiest target.” I replied, sighing, “I suspect there’s more to it than this. I still have to get settled here during the week, but Command expects result and I intend to deliver.”
Arktak nodded as he got up, “I’ve got your back, sir.”
“That bad, huh.” I remarked, nodding, “But I appreciate it.”
With that, Arktak gave me a wave and left.
Out of curiosity, I pulled up the Maintenance archive and found a sea of red – work orders were being closed off rather than marked as complete. While documentation and detail were sparse across the range, the one week of work orders that Arktak had taken care of had remarks tagged on where his work crews had been kicked out of the work area because Production insisted on using the space or starting the machine, the safety team was forming a roadblock by insisting that the overcomplicated work instructions be followed to the letter and spare parts were next to impossible to bring in as the requisition officer was busy working in the hangar as the logistics coordinator…
It seemed like the previous Commander had been trying to push for things to be cleaned up, but because of the sheer amount of politicking around, it became a danger to his career and reputation as any small transgression was branded as a breach of conduct or the safety manager would send complaints over his head…which resulted in a long list of transgressions on his record.
I ended up having a meeting with Admiral Hector and a long discussion about the situation. He seemed suspiciously unsurprised, but mentioned that he would support me as required. There was also apparently an I.I.S. asset on board that I could tap.
First things first, I need to get the station running again and then have a logistics chief posted here to send product to the surface…

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Lieutenant (Probation) Arktak
Command Trainee, DES Defiant
It didn’t take Tano’rath long to make his presence known, as expected. He told me to give him a list of all the high priority repairs needed and immediately overruled the Production chief’s complaints and push back about getting the work done.
I wasn’t in the actual meeting about it, but I was told that while the chief tried to block the Captain’s efforts, Tano’rath simply smiled at him and said that the order had already been sent station-wide. There was a photo circulating around the intranet of the blue-scaled Drakonian storming out of the Commander’s office all puffed up and angry, with his tail swishing side by side.
Within minutes of us starting work, though, we had the safety chief hovering over our shoulders, nit-picking everything and trying to find trouble. In fact, she wrote up one of my technicians for sneezing. Of course, all these reports were sent through with far higher risk ratings than they were worth and while all I could do was acknowledge them, Tano’rath also got them.
Of course, we don’t muck around with safety-related matters and most junior commanders baulk when slapped with such a long list of things, Tano’rath is an engineer and I know that he reads these things. Over the course of the next few days, he terminated around twenty investigations and slapped the chief with a formal reprimand.
I spent a fair bit of time out on the production floor helping my teams to get things running, noting down what had failed and such and saving everything to a spreadsheet. During my off hours, I went through the data and a rather disturbing trend started to appear. However, because we had only just gotten a handful of machines functional, I didn’t have enough data to report it.
Of course, Tano’rath would take walks around the station now and then, taking to the crew and listening to them. I even found him working on someone’s half jammed apartment door one day.
What was important, however, was that he was visible and people started to slowly realise that he was trying to help. Some walls came down, I could see that people were starting to warm up to him, with their body language and verbal cues changing, but most were still cautious.
That being said, though, as the machines came online one by one, I saw my technicians smile for the first time in goodness knows how long and got high-fives from them as we tested the equipment and everything worked. However, when Production came to take over, they were less than thankful. Instead, I heard them saying that it was about time and grumbling that we took too long.
I sent a report to the Captain, of course and he acknowledged it but not much else happened.

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Snr Captain Tano’rath
Cmdr, DES Defiant

I spent most of my time walking around the station with a toolbox in hand, talking to the crew and trying to coax actual information out of their gripes, but it seemed like something was holding them back. They seemed to think that the walls have ears and that had me thinking.
I contacted the I.I.S. agent on board who broke into the internal sensor grid and sent me photos of the safety chief, no less, spying on the inhabitants through the internal system! While I wanted to confront her about it, I decided against it. Instead, I put it in my draft report.
Apparently, she had also had the audacity to file a complaint about me with Hector. According to her, I had disregarded the safety of the entire station and put myself at risk one day because I had decided to try to fix a door. While this seemed completely ridiculous to me, I realised that my predecessor had been a civilian Captain, and the civilian service has very different standards for risk and such. That being said, though, even by those standards, that was grasping at straws. Hector struck the complaint down without a second thought.
Hector himself cautioned me over a call, telling me that he could only back me so much, but I had to produce results. I ended up having to weather even more complaints as I pushed ahead, trying to have the equipment fixed up and everything working… However, by hook or by crook, the station started to improve, with better production numbers, I had a few new designs pushed through…but then I got a safety alert pushed to my inbox which was accompanied with a video clip.
As usual, I ran the clip through the usual checks before opening it to reveal a recording of the Logistics staff making a series of very illegal modifications to a shuttle, including the removal of several pieces of guarding, stripping the reactor shields and disabling the safeties in order to load an oversized pallet in. I couldn’t help but stare as I watched the entire exercise unfold. I wanted to say something but there was nothing that I could come up with to even begin to rationalise what I was watching. All I could really do was suspend the lot of them and commence an investigation… By then, however, I was already getting ready to return to my ship. I put the documentation together and handed it over to the newly assigned Station Commander.
That being said, though, with Arktak’s help, I did manage to get the station mostly functional again, despite what seemed to be the best efforts to stop it by certain individuals. The outcome of the investigation into the illegally modified shuttle had the entire logistics staff terminated and Command had to post someone new to the post. However, data from Arktak along with a few suspicious video clips sparked a wider investigation into the management of the station which resulted in the arrests of the production and safety chiefs, pending a civil investigation. I wasn’t there to see it happen, but from what I heard, they were trying to get their friends and family assigned to the station where they’d simply reverse the sabotage carried out on the machines, thus making themselves look good…which explained a lot about what was happening.
Either way, Arktak and I returned to inspect the repairs and modifications to the ship and to help commission the new equipment. It was an unspoken agreement between us that we were both glad that the ordeal was over…