The Setup
Posted on Tue Nov 11th, 2025 @ 5:07am by Master Chief Petty Officer Vashti Rao & Crewman Emiliano Echevarria & Ensign Luciana Aguila
2,093 words; about a 10 minute read
Mission:
Peril at the Unification Accords
Location: Main Engineering, Deck 36
Timeline: MD 09, 1015 Hours
Emiliano Echevarria stepped inside Engineering with a data PADD tucked under one arm and the smell of burnt metal on his sleeves. He always enjoyed coming down here because it always felt different--denser somehow, like it had purpose. The warp core pulsed lazily in its chamber like a heartbeat.
A pair of engineers hustled past with a diagnostic cradle, and one muttered something about thermal variance. Emiliano sidestepped a loose coil of fiber conduit, found a patch of deck plating that wasn't already claimed by tools or boots, and waited for a moment for the nearby engineer to notice him.
She did--eventually--looking up from an open panel with an expression of mild frustration, but she seemed to almost enjoy the interruption. A stray hair curled around her cheek, and Emiliano noticed a streak of graphite residue running across her knuckle.
"Echevarria," Chief Petty Officer Vashti Rao said, levering herself up onto her feet. "Are you down here for that axionic plasma reading again, I swear--"
"No," he said, holding up a PADD and raising both eyebrows. "Different fire today, Chief. The deflector array's blown out two subcell capacitors in the last twelve hours."
Vashti winced. "Two?"
"Second one gave out about an hour ago. We can keep patching, but Barisa Prime keeps pushing incredible amounts data in massive bursts. Add in the streams to 773, plus the chatter from Command and Vulcan?" He shook his head. "Astrea's just not built for that kind of volume."
Vashti wiped her hands on a rag, studying him with a horse eye. She wondered if this was just a puzzle disguised as bad news.
"So what are you asking for?" she wondered aloud. "Besides sympathy, which--just so we're clear--you're not getting."
"I need a temporary power re-route," he said. Something to buffer the data-path and keep it from jumping capacity. Otherwise the whole thing's going to trip again and leave us deaf and blind."
"That does sound like a you problem," she said lightly.
"It was. Now it's an us problem."
Her grin was crooked but accommodating. "Fine. Show me."
He handed her the PADD. Their shoulders almost brushed--two people who had only known each other for less than week since Emiliano had transferred aboard--but fast friends nonetheless.
She scanned the readout, her brow furrowing at the rising graph. "Damn. These numbers are not pretty."
"I just need them to be lower."
She sighed and handed the PADD back. "All right. We can reroute auxiliary through the tertiary EPS taps and run a stabilizer across the data-path. How does that strike you?"
Emiliano glanced around. "Don't you need an officer to sign-off on this kind of thing?"
Vashti grinned. "We're shorthanded thanks to the reception down on the planet. You're stuck with me, Echevarria. You owe me."
"I already owe you," he protested playfully.
"Then I guess you'll just owe me more," Vashti teased, feigning a serious expression.
"That's usually how debt works, yes."
"How many times do we need to fix something before it bloody works?!" Luciana muttered loud enough in fluent Spanish more to herself than anyone else as a set of doors opened to the right and she stormed out into the corridor. "I swear I work with idiots"
Even though she was relatively new to the ship, Luciana had already gained a bit of a reputation for being a hot head when things didn't go right when they were supposed to, and she wasn't mad about it either, her father was exactly the same. She was sure the team she worked with barely tolerated her and her moods, but at the end of the day she was there to do her job as a structural and environmental engineer and make the friends at a later stage.
"S'Val," She switched back to her accented Fed Standard as she addressed one of the other engineers with her, "I'm going on a break, I'll be back in a bit." He nodded in acknowledgement and continued working.
Luciana walked past two NCOs in gold and recognized Rao but not the other one with her. He looked like he belonged with them but was definitely not Security material, maybe Operations? She wiped some grime off her hand with a piece of cloth, "Ah, Rao! How's repairs coming along your end?"
Vashti looked up from the console, one eyebrow lifting slowly. "Ensign Aguila," she greeted, her voice easy and smooth. "We're surviving." She gestured to Emiliano with an isodine coupler. "The deflector array's acting up again."
"Twice in twelve hours," Emiliano added, keeping his tone polite. "At this point, I need Engineering's help."
"Well, you've come to the right person and place then, haven't you?" Luciana replied with a smile. Remembering her manners, "Sorry, I'm Luciana or Luci. I'm one of the structural and environmental engineers here. It's... been a day." A huff of a breath came out. "And you?"
Emiliano tilted his head slightly, catching the rhythm of Luci's speech and the sharp cadence of the words she muttered under her breath. The Spanish had a familiar lilt--quick, clipped, just enough softness at the ends of the syllables to mark it as Central American. And then it came to him.
"Ay, mi madre!" ("Oh my goodness!") He flashed a big smile at Luci.
"¿Eres de Costa Rica?" ("Are you from Costa Rica?") She replied with a raised brow and a slow smile , still not knowing who he was. It would be an incredible coincidence if they were both from the same tiny country, but one she would welcome gladly.
Emiliano's grin widened.
"De San Isidro de El General," he said, the words rolling out like something warm remembered. "Hace años que no conozco a otro tico en una nave estelar." ("It's been years since I met a Costa Rican on a starship.")
He laughed softly, then tilted his head toward her, his eyes bright. "¿Y vos? ¿De dónde sos?" ("And you? Where are you from?")
"Aproximadamente a tres horas al noreste en Santa Ana" ("About three hours northeast in Santa Ana"). Luci's bad mood had all but been forgotten when she got talking about her home country. She hadn't been to San Isidro de El General for a number of years and wondered if it was still the same. "¡Esto es asombroso!"
Having been caught up in her own little conversation with her fellow countryman, Luci had forgotten that Vashti was still standing there, seemingly not knowing what was going on. With a wide grin she spoke, "So it turns out we both come from a country called Costa Rica... about three hours away from each other too." She looked between Vashti and the Mystery Man, "I didn't know there was anyone else from there in Starfleet, let alone on the same ship! This is honestly amazing."
Vashti leaned one hip against the console, arms crossed, amusement written all over her face. She didn't understand a single word of Spanish, but the tone itself could tell her plenty. The engineer who had stormed out cursing was now all sunshine and teeth, and Echevarria--who usually wore his calm like a uniform--was grinning ear-to-ear like a fool.
"Well," Vashti said, dry as ever, "I'd say that's the happiest I've seen anyone talk about capacitors."
Emiliano chuckled, glancing over at her, his cheeks still warm. "You'd be surprised how often they come up in conversations between Ticans," he said. "We like to keep things--charged."
Vashti groaned. "That's it. You're banned from Engineering."
Luci couldn't help but laugh at the exchange and leaned against the bulkhead for a moment, "Come on, we all have bad jokes at some point or another. I quite like them, I must say." She turned her attention back to the jokester, "You know, I still didn't catch your name either."
Vashti caught something in their words. She caught everything--the way Emiliano's posture softened, the way Luci's voice lost its edge. It was the sort of spark that could reroute a day, if not a whole system. And in Vashti's book, that was cute.
She smirked. "Since yout wo seem to be on the same frequency, allow me to make this official before someone melts a relay." She gestured between them. "Crewman Emiliano Echevarria, meet Ensing Luciana Aguila. Luci, Emiliano."
"Finally, a name to the face." Luci said with the smile still on her face. She liked him already, mainly because of their shared home country, but it didn't help he was good looking too. Looking towards Vashti, she added, "Wait, did you plan this meeting?!"
Vashti lifted both palm, mock-offended. "Me? No! I would never sabotage Starfleet property for the sake of matchmaking. That would be deeply irresponsible."
Her eyes glinted like she'd already gotten away with something.
Emiliano laughed under his breath. "Deeply irresponsible," he repeated, straight-faced. "Also... oddly specific."
"Muy específico" ("Very specific") Luci said wryly with a raised brow and a grin before she looked towards Emiliano, "No es que me queje ni nada por el estilo." ("I mean, I'm not complaining about it or anything.")
She felt drawn to him in a way that there could potentially be something there, but it was way too early to tell if they were even compatible at all if they took the time to get to know each other. "Find me at Rhythm Kitchen tonight on Deck Nine then, around 1900 for a drink or two?"
Emiliano hesitated just long enough to seem uncertain, but there was no mistaking the smile that had begun to break across his face. "Nineteen hundred." He nodded once, hoping his cheeks weren't flushed. "Por supuesto." ("Of course.")
Seeing his smile made her own cheeks flush slightly under the light makeup she was wearing, "Well, I guess I'll be seeing you then." Luci took a glance at the smirk held in place by Vashti and quickly added, "I, um, have a bit more work to do, and I'm pretty sure there's a couple of issues on deck twelve with one of the medical transporters that need to be seen to so I don't lose my mierda with everyone here."
As she looked to the ground and back up, she started to back away, "See you tonight?" It was a question in general so Vashti didn't feel left out. Then she gave them both a smile and turned to walk away, PADD in hand.
Emiliano watched Luci retreated near the set of doors leading to the power distribution nodes, her boots echoing against the deck. He wanted to call out something clever, something that might make her laugh, but instead all he could manage was a small, awkward smile that felt a little too large for his own face.
Vashti, now leaning against the console with arms crossed, whistled. "Well, I'll be damned," she said. "Look at you, Echevarria. Staring after her like she's a replicator dessert you can't have."
He jerked his head toward her, cheeks flushed and hot. "It's not like that--well, maybe a little."
She rolled her eyes, the corners of her mouth twitching in amusement. "Right. Sure. Well, I wish you the best. Really. You're going on a date."
He swallowed, feeling both exhilarated and mortified. "Wait--what? You're not coming?"
"Why would I?" Vashti said, as if the idea were absurd.
He raised a brow. "What else are you doing tonight?"
Her gaze jumped to the ceiling, her eyes darting this way and that, as though she were mentally scanning an invisible calendar. Then her shoulder relaxed in defeat. "... Well, technically, nothing. But that doesn't mean I'm babysitting your nervous self."
He laughed nervously, running a hand through his dark hair. "Nervous? Me? Not at all. I am totally in control." He took a deep breath, straightening a little. "It's just--you know..."
"Breathe, Echevarria," Vashti said, cutting him off, shaking her head. "You're making it worse."
Ensign Luciana Aguila
Structural/Environmental Specialist
USS Astrea
Master Chief Petty Officer Vashti Rao
Engineering Technician
USS Astrea
Crewman Emiliano Echevarria
Operations Technician
USS Astrea
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