Chapter Text
“‘This isn’t a refit, Commander Scott, it’s a redesign.’ Oh, aye, it’s a redesign all right, that’s for sure.” Scotty stood in the middle of a vast open space that used to be his engineering room. “I cannae deny that. ‘First of the new Enterprise class of heavy cruisers. A tremendous number of upgrades. New, first generation systems, including the engines and the computer core. It’s going to be fastest, sharpest ship in the fleet. Mark my words.’ Och.” He looked around, visualizing where the warp core used to be. Control panels over there. Readouts over there. Coolant systems, power transfer conduits, every switch, button, and light he knew so well, all of it gone. “Oh, it’s a redesign all right. Admiral Nogura didn’t tell me what they were going to do to you, old girl, but I should have guessed before I signed on the line.”
“Talking to yourself again, Commander?”
Scotty turned around, a smile, a very deliberate one, lighting his face. “Aye, that I am.” The man standing in the doorway where there should be door to slide open reminded him very much of a certain Captain of say five years ago or so. Maybe six. Of course, this man was a Captain, and he would be the next Captain of the Enterprise, the first Captain of the new Enterprise. “You could call it a professional hazard, Sir. You’ll find a large number of career starship engineers doing it. A long tradition, I think.”
Captain Willard Decker’s smile came easily, and the younger man stepped forward into the empty engineering room. Scotty liked the lad, though at 35 years old he shouldn’t be calling him a lad even in the privacy of his own mind, but he found as he got older that anyone very much younger than he was seemed to qualify as a child, or at least young. He tried not to think too closely about that, for he hadn’t felt the difference nearly so keenly between himself and the Captain when he’d first come aboard. The gap between himself and Decker was a little wider, though, and Scotty himself a little older than he’d been.
Mentally chiding himself, he did think it might be a while yet before he could think of Decker has the captain. Better for that to happen sooner because, whatever the age difference, young Decker held the rank of captain, and he was Scott’s captain as of a few days ago. Still, he liked the lad so far, ready and willing to pitch in and do whatever was necessary to get Enterprise back up and running.
“I've known a few engineers in my career, Mr. Scott, and more than one or two of them have been known to at least mutter under their breath. I won’t hold it against you, if you won’t hold my inexperience against me.”
Genuine and sincere. Yes, Scotty liked the lad. “I’d hardly say inexperienced, Sir. It’s not your first command.”
Decker shook his head. “No, it isn’t, but it will be my first command with more than 80 crew on board, and it’s definitely my first with Captain’s braids. A scout is not a heavy cruiser, and neither is a frigate. While the Dallas and the Axanar were both good ships, neither one of them is the Enterprise.”
“No, sir, if you’ll be begging my pardon, neither is. But then, there’d be only one Enterprise. And one Dallas and one Axanar, to be fair.” Scotty straightened his back, determined that the new Enterprise would be every bit the Federation leading vessel the old Enterprise had been for her career. They were technically the same ship, even if they were tearing things out right down to the hull in some places. “Now, if you brought the updated engineering specs with you…?”