This time the gasp was audible to everyone on the bridge.
Dev had been hearing various emotive reactions for the last ten minutes, emanating from the trainee comm officer at her station behind him. Now he saw nearly a dozen young eyes steal nervous glances at her. Some of them made half-hearted attempts to look like they were still slowly tapping at their consoles.
There was a time, thought Dev, when I would have looked, too. But then you learn what being "on duty" means. You learn discipline.
In the end, he felt only sympathy for whom he had grown accustomed to calling his "kids." They weren't ready to be out here. And they definitely shouldn't be anywhere near the front lines. He didn't need to make things harder for them; they were already dealing with facing the fear, each in his or her own way. The worst part was waiting, and not knowing what the precipitating events would throw at them. You didn't pursue a career in engineering because you wanted to deal with unknowns.
Hmm.
Dev swiveled in his chair and faced the aft comm station.
"Cadet?"
The young trainee didn't hear him at first. She had one hand nervously tapping at her earpiece and the other covering her mouth. Dev tried again and she startled, scrambling to face him with an embarrassed "yessir!"
Dev tried to offer a smile, but he knew he couldn't keep the despondency out of his voice: "Go ahead and put the channel on speakers."
"Sir, the ...?"
"Yes, the combat ops channel. Not like we're busy with anything."
As the frantic comm chatter from the 26th Fleet filled the bridge, Dev watched the trainees carefully. Some froze altogether and listened. But others, he noticed, eventually steeled their jaws and went back to work. He smiled, grim.
"Lieutenant Chen, I'll be in my ready room. You have the bridge," Dev slowly shifted up from the captain's chair, stepping closer to his conn officer so she could hear him over the noise. "And if you would, please have the odd-numbered divisions report to the repair bay. Open her up, extend the gantries, and prep the work bees. I have—"
Dev had to pause for a particularly loud stretch of chaos over the comm. Once again, he saw a host of nervous eyes glance up from their stations.
"I have a feeling we're going to have our first customer very soon."
((The Tyee is essentially a mobile shipyard (more here), so I thought if anyone's ship got beaten up in the recent combats, it'd give us a good opportunity to catch Dev up with some TFA peoples. So bring your ship in for repair, or feel free to commandeer this prompt to suit your own purpose! I'll go with it, I'm easy. ;D ))