[Torpedo Room]
It would be an overstatement to say that Arlan was totally lost in this cramped space aboard the Akira-Class Discovery. It was a torpedo room, after all - though they were using the new high-speed quantum microtorpedo tubes and not the reliable old full-size autoloaders like the Nebula-Class Phoenix had in her pod - and like every one of the several Nebulas he'd been assigned to. So he'd kept his hydrospanner handy from the moment he'd walked down here. But rather than actually working, it seemed people down here were button-pushers and Engineers. They'd never manually targeted a torpedo launcher in their career, instead trusting the Computer and Bridge guidance.
It seemed more like they were there out of habit rather than actually to do work. He wondered what they'd do when the ODN feed from the bridge went down, or any one of the problems he was accustomed to happened.
Why had he ever been so stupid to take this transfer? Oh, that's right, a little thing called loyalty. Both Leela and his section chief, Pardek, had been sent to this cramped warbird. So he'd followed them. From someone whose entire experience was one Galaxy-Class and a few Nebula-Classes, he always worried he'd hit his head on a bulkhead somewhere. But he was standing over a diagnostic panel, glowering at it when one of the enlisted crew who'd been here a while actually took notice.
"Ensign, is everything all right?"
"Huh? Oh, um, yes. Just feeling claustrophobic and disconnected."
"Oh, you'll get over that quickly. When things really start happening, you won't even notice."
"I hope you're right, Petty."
He glanced around the room and tapped his commbadge when he realized he was probably one of the highest ranking people to set foot down here, let alone have this be his normal duty station. This was a 'lower-decks' job, the kind people wanted to get out of, not the kind you usually made a career of. "Lieutenant Pardek, Opran here. Torpedo room is ready fore-and-aft."
