Assembling a Girls' Trip Part 1

Posted on Sun Jul 19th, 2026 @ 7:44pm by Lieutenant Darla Kennings & Lieutenant Alice Durant & Lieutenant JG Zaire Byrne-Solwick

613 words; about a 3 minute read

Mission: Episode 2: Mine of Taurus
Location: Main Engineering
Timeline: Shortly after the Senior Staff Meeting

Darla stepped out of the turbolift and into Main Engineering, looking around politely. It wasn't a section of the ship she was overly familiar with, but she had been in an Engineering bay or two in her time and knew her way around. She spotted her objective standing at the Master Situation Monitor and made her way over quickly, threading her way through the engineers going about their business.

She walked up to the Chief Engineer, putting a smile on her face. "Hello, Lieutenant," she said. "I need your help. I'm anticipating our needing to assemble an away team and I am possibly going to need an engineer."

"I can leave my assistant chief in charge." Zaire offered. "I can be ready when you are."

Darla gave him an appreciative smile. "I would love to have you join, but there's an issue with radiation on the planet, and females are more resistant to it. Therefore, I'm attempting to pull together an all-female away team. What engineer can you spare?"

Zaire frowned. This did not make sense to him better to just be honest. "Who did you have in mind?"

Darla shrugged. "I honestly have no preference. I regret to say I don't know many of your staff well yet. If there's someone who isn't assigned a priority task...perhaps a petty officer?" she looked over at the young blonde woman nearby. "Would you care to volunteer?"

Bianca had been working on a computer systems diagnostic when the rainbow-haired woman had walked in the doors and she kept an eye on her out of her peripheral vision until she couldn't follow her anymore, utilizing the reflection off the console to watch as best she could without being obvious about it. As soon as she heard the question, she knew she was in probably the worst spot, then her name was spoken and she froze. No, this was a bad idea. "Sir?" She asked, turning around sharply, eyes at chest level, "Ma'am? Are... You sure you want me?"

"Is there something wrong with you?" Darla said. "We're short on time, and I need an away team ready to deploy for reconnaissance on the planet if we get the opportunity. Unless you're allergic to a transporter, why else wouldn't I?"

'How about because you want a real engineer?' Bianca thought to herself as she shook her head, "No ma'am, there's nothing wrong with me, I'm just... Not an officer, ma'am. I can handle whatever you need me to do, ma'am."

"I have other things to worry about than your commission, I promise," Darla said, looking back at Zaire. "Can you spare her?"

"Yes." Zaire replied after a moment. He looked to Bianca. "Gather your gear it looks like you are on the away team."

"Yes, sir." Bianca didn't move. This was bad, the whole mission was going to go to hell and it was going to be her fault for not knowing what to do.

"Thank you, Lieutenant. I promise I'll have her back in one piece," Darla said, then looked at Bianca. "Report to my office in Sickbay in an hour for a briefing," she said.

Zaire nodded to Darla and looked over to Bianca. "You better get moving."

"Yes, sir." The Petty Officer said again, this time finally breaking into motion to grab one of the standard issue go-kits, pausing briefly to hit her locker and grab a series of PADDs to stuff into the satchel as well. She may have to learn on the fly, best to have as many resources as possible.

Darla smiled and nodded to the Chief Engineer and hurried out of Engineering and off to her next task.

 

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