The Director called Traan into his office that after near the end of his shift. The work at subtely remolding the Repair Docks crews was well under way, but there was still a bunch of speed bumps that were being encountered along the way. Traan had quickly realized through consultation with 2IC and the team leaders, that mixing specialties across all the teams to increase versatility would negate any beneficial effects due to the fact that most specialized repair taks that require a Starbase Shipyard like Bravo’s required 3 or 4 techs from a given specialty to accomplice quickly and effectively.

So instead they came up with a plan to develope 2 different types of generic but focused types of teams. The 5 different Structural and Mechanical trades would comprised 1 type of team, and the 6 Systems and Technical trades would comprised the second type. This way they could have specialization and versatility.

“Here’s, put this on. You’re gonna twin hat between as my acting Deputy Director along with your Head of Repair Docks billet.” The Director had tossed a hollow pip at train. It implied that the Director was promoting him to the rank of Lieutenant Commander.

“Sir? You just gave me the Repair Docks job 3 weeks ago and sent me a week long mission a few days later. You know I love the job but…”

“Yeah and you did a great job and it was a shame about uh Tarsin there, but you’ve handled this well, your new team system for the Repair Docks crews is working great so far.” The portly man sat behind his desk and wiped the near constant bead of sweat from his brow.

“What about Skelly, I thought you thought he was gonna work out great. We all did, he a great manager and knows this place like the back of his hand.” Traan sputtered. LCdr? He was a Chief 4 5 months ago. But Starfleets needed to replace the losses in their junior and senior officers considering the calamities of the last few years, and the cadre of Chiefs were a sizeable segment of qualified and capable veterans that could fill the vacancies. It just so happened that Traan had stumbled into a place where a rapid rise through the ranks in a department he enjoyed and had experience in had brought him to this moment.

“Things got stale here for him, accepted a reassignment as the Chief Engineer on the new Gagarin we just launched last week. You’re up bud. Check in with me tomorrow I’ll give you the brief on what I need from you. I won’t dumb the full load on you yet, but I’ll break you in with reports and how our whackadoodle fly by wire scheduling occurs to start off.” The Director nodded and picked up a padd and began tapped.

Traan recognized the dismissal when it happened and just sighed.

“Aye sir. Catch you tomorrow Tim.”

“Thanks Traan.” The Director replied without looking up from his padd.

In his quarters later, Traan popped a bottle of vintage single malt whiskey his pals back at Luna Yards had given him as a going away present.

He poured himself about an ounce and half of the amber liquid and downed it. It was his typical pattern. A voice in the back of his head predicted he would wake up with an empty bottle and a headache the next morning. As he went to pour himself another glass he stopped.

“Thing  won’t changr unless you make a change Traan…” the now LCdr hadnt’t realized that he had just uttered a prominent paraphrasing of one of the tenets of AA that Dr. Minh had reccomended a few weeks ago. Traan was walking his own path through the 12 steps of addiction recovery and not even realizing it.

He put the bottle down without pouring himself another glass.

“Computer open a channel to USS Farragut. Address the message to Lieutena…I mean Commander Aloran.” Traan recalled reading of his recent promotion and how he had been made a Task Force XO somewhere.