Keeping a machine with millions of parts moving was surprisingly less difficult than keeping five hundred people focused.
Evan's inherent need to organize and put things in order served him well as a First Officer. It distracted him sometimes, if he didn't have something to focus on. He wasn't generally one to sit around waiting for anything to happen.
He loved launch day. Although he was usually the only one. Everyone else found it too stressful no matter how long they had to prepare. Finley liked to be hands off on launch day, since she knew it only stressed people out more to have their Captain micromanaging them on their first performance day.
That left Evan as the main oversight for day and the Loss, an amalgamation of so many other ships, was certainly a challenging launch. It seemed that along with inheriting parts from those ships, she'd also inherited all their quirks, and the crews were scrambling to learn them in time to make the schedule departure.
Thankfully there was nothing big, just a large number of small things and Evan was scrambling to make sure all of them were recorded accurately and appropriately. Two hours in and his fingers were starting to cramp. He'd be voiceless by the end of the day, and he was going to have to soak his feet.
He grinned as he added a note to the main engineering file about a switched circuit in one of the elevators. Finley was already on the Command Deck and Russo was probably lurking somewhere near the weapons bay, making sure the munitions were loaded correctly.
He'd already crossed paths with Brandi, who was tracking down dead spots in the communications system. There were always a few, the sheer amount of wiring and metal in the ship guaranteed it and by the time Brandi was finished there wouldn't be a single inch of the ship where she couldn't reach someone. Since the individual communicators everyone on board were required to wear at all times on duty, and to have within reach during off hours, doubled as trackers it was a UES regulation that they work in every corner of the ship. They couldn't launch without 100% accountability.
Which was amusing because they were allowed to launch with engines and life support at sixty percent.
Brandi was a lot like Evan in that she was obsessively organized and had incredibly high energy levels. She'd had a bad breakup once while they were stationed under Finley during the war and had stayed in bed until 0500, it had sent the entire ship into a petrified tailspin and resulted in the Chief Medical Officer personally checking on her.
Finley had almost called off the battle against the Republic they were heading into.
It was great to have her back with them. She'd promoted off a combat ship during the last couple years of the war and had been working in the front office for the former Second Federal Fleet when the war ended. Technically, this assignment was a massive demotion for her, but Brandi had loved the military life despite her early fame and had accepted immediately when Finley had realized she was on the new government's watch list.
Evan was less excited about the rest of the new command, although it was amusing to watch Finley's interest in someone getting sparked again. The blond pilot was certainly to her tastes, and everyone needed a bit of love in their life.
Or at least good sex.
There were few things more relaxing and recharging that a good round of sex.
Speaking of sex….
It had been a while for Evan too. He wasn't as bad as Russo, who had someone in his bed six out of seven nights, but he wasn't a monk either and he enjoyed casual carnal relations enough to stay busy.
Not that he wouldn't turn down a serious relationship. He'd never really had one, what with his childhood, then the academy, then the war.
Maybe Dark and Stormy was single? Evan had been resisting the urge to look him up in the crew database. That seemed a bit creepy. But the ship was huge and there were 499 other people he could run into instead of him. It could be months before they saw one another again.
Months.
But it was an abuse of power to look him up and Evan didn't want to be that kind of person.
"Sir, we found another bug in the shield command programming."
Back to work then. The notification box popped up on his tablet with the additional info he needed, and he dropped it into the main ship database attached to the shield. "Got it."
It was probably stupid to feel lonely on a ship full of people anyway.
"Sir, can we get you down in the medical clinic on level seventeen, hall six?"
"On my way."
You could walk for days on a ship this size but thankfully speed was of the essence in emergencies and there were plenty of elevators and teleporters, technology gifted (re: stolen) from the Valerii. It only took him a few minutes to make it twenty-two levels down and four halls over.
The main hospital took up a good chunk of the central part of the ship, but there were scattered, smaller clinics in the outer areas. they couldn't give the same level of care, but they alleviated some of the pressure on the main hospital when it came to more common and easy to treat ailments.
There was a group clustered around the entrance, arguing over something, and Evan pushed his way to the front to find the access panel for the door pulled apart in a way that looked vaguely concerning and Dark and Stormy yelling at Billy Wilkins, who Evan had served with during the war. Everyone else seemed to be watching them argue over something to do with the access panel.
Billy was a crack electrician who had a knack for wiring and Dark and Stormy was wearing a medical badge on his shoulder.
Evan beamed as they turned to him.
This was clearly a reward for being a good person and not being a creep.
~ tbc