Up the Ladder

Who: Chief Engineer Mark McJohn (God help us all)
Where: Chief Engineer's Office
When: Happy Hour
---------------
Mark McJohn sat in his new office, mulling over the maintenence
reports one of the technicians had given him. He squinted at the
stapled pages unhappily. It was his job as Chief Engineer to keep
Blue Dwarf functioning properly--or, more realistically, at all--and
he had the entire Engineering Department to help him. The problem
was that he hadn't the foggiest notion of how to do it. On top of
that, he was still rather stunned by his rapid ascent through the
ranks.
Earlier
-------
McJohn was crouched down in the corridor outside Cerebrum's office.
After the A/R training simulation had ended, Cerebrum had declared
that all crewmembers would have to undergo compulsory psychiatric
counciling, or lose their rights to the ship's oxygen supply. McJohn
had quickly decided to take some positive action regarding this
crisis, and was now almost finished with his ingenious solution to
the problem. A few more adjustments and some soldering and it would
be finished, McJohn thought. In a few minutes, if all went well, he
would have succeeded in locking Cerebrum inside his office by
rewiring the circuits connected to the office's door.
He carefully moved the last of the wires into position and turned to
pick up the soldering gear. He saw a boot beside the gear. He
looked up and saw the boot's owner.
"There you are," said Eric Lustbader, "the Captain wants to see you."
"I'll be right there," McJohn said, abandoning his work. Then the
office door opened and Cerebrum looked out.
"Here for your counciling session, are you?" he asked. Instead of
answering him, McJohn ran away.
After putting sufficient distance between himself and Cerebrum,
McJohn walked up to the Drive Room and saw Alota.
"You wanted to see me, ma'am?" he asked.
"Yes," Alota replied. "You're being promoted."
"Huh?" the words didn't register with McJohn.
"You're being promoted." Alota repeated, slightly slower than the
first time.
"Oh. Wow. I guess that makes me the Second Systems Electrician,
right?" asked McJohn. Until that moment, he'd been the Third Systems
Electrician. Despite the long title, it was a fairly low-level
position.
"Not quite, you've been promoted to Chief Engineer."
"Well, that's... wow. I mean, I... wow. Are you sure?"
Alota gave McJohn a file full of computer printouts. One of them was
his official notice regarding his promotion.
"Well I... Holy smeg," was all he could think of to say.
Now. Or, rather, now-ish.
-------------------------
McJohn looked at the maintenance report again. Unsuprisingly, there
were numerous things which had broken down or weren't working right.
About 400 things, actually. He'd been through the list once already,
and had taken the only action he could think of: he'd underlined his
favorite reported malfunctions. Now, all he could think to do was to
go through that list again. A few of the underlined reports caught
his eye again.
17) Tannoy speaker in promenade plays "Coronation Scot" in a
continuous loop.
58) Shower nozzle on Deck 11 only works for crewmembers weighing in
excess of 240 pounds.
129) Large plush giraffe has become adhered to exterior solar panel D-
40.
176) Parrot's freezer malfunctioning causing spoilage of meat stored
within. (How would the customers tell the difference, McJohn thought
to himself.)
214) Vending machine in security office caught fire when Security
Guard MacPherson hit the coin return button too hard.
402) Deck in Corridor 232 coated in eight millimeter thick layer of
yellow dessert gelatin.
McJohn let out a short chuckle at the last item, then dropped the
papers back onto his desk. At this moment the Chief Technician
walked in.
"Thank goodness you're here," said McJohn, scooping up the
maintenance report from his desk. "I need your men to take care of
the problems in this report."
The Chief Technician looked at him, the spoke. "Landing Control says
there's a blown out fusebox in the shuttle bay," he said.
McJohn sighed with relief. "I'll fix it myself. Can you handle this
while I'm gone?" he asked as he thrust the report into the
technician's hands.
"Yeah, sure." said the Chief Technician.
McJohn hurried out of his office, and arrivied in the shuttle bay
just in time to nearly get his head taken off by a bazookoid round
fired by one of the evil crewmen who'd arrived with Evil Jay. Keats
pulled him to the deck.
"What the smeg's happening here?" he asked. Keats more or less filled
him in, but McJohn didn't understand a word of it, and asked him
again.
"Never mind," snorted Keats. "Just be glad your head didn't end up
like that fusebox back there."
McJohn looked behind him. The fusebox he'd come to repair had been
blown into fragments.
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