Personal log, Nara

The personal log of Nara, a female Bolian Starfleet engineering officer who served aboard the USS *Galar*.

## Entries

### 2371

#### Mission at the North Alaskan Wildlife Reserve

Stardate 48451.16, Lieutenant Nara personal log.
I feel terrible! A few days ago Ranger Rudy from the NAWR contacted me about a computer systems issue they were having and I asked Zann to help them out. He was on reduced duty due to some injuries he got during the baryon sweep and I thought this would be an easy job. I thought.
I cashed in a favor Guin owed me and got Jitezo to take Zann down to Earth. Apparently our Saurian pilot has been breaking in a new type of shuttlecraft over the past few months, and it really got a workout on the way down! He described the technical details to me when they got back, but I admit that I kind of got fixated on the "rapid descent" and "four meters above the tree line" parts of his story and missed the rest of it. I would have been so scared! Things like that are why I prefer transporters. You can’t crash a beam of energy and matter into the ground.
Anyway, despite that unlucky start, Zann was able to locate the source of the problem once he arrived. Fernando, Rudy’s assistant, says he figured out that the duotronics had gotten overloaded by a power surge just from a quick glance at the circuits. Both he and Rudy were very impressed with Zann’s thoroughness in identifying the problem that had plagued their station. Apparently their own techs had been wrestling with it for nearly a week. Chalk one up for the *Galar*’s engineering department and my favorite Andorian!
Rudy also mentioned that Dr. Morganth (who apparently was able to convince Zann to take him along for the ride) convinced him to allow some scans of a dog? Or maybe it was a bear. One of the animals down at the NAWR at any rate. I admit I’m kind of impressed the doctor was able to pull that off; the NAWR is pretty protective of the land and its inhabitants. I’ve known Rudy for years and he wouldn’t give me permission to take my parents to see the glaciers! Not that I’m jealous or anything. I’m sure Dr. Morganth had a good reason, and I’m also sure that Rudy made him work for it.
According to Zann’s report, they traced the source of the surge back to an offsite data relay; and when I say "offsite" I really mean "way offsite"! They had to travel over 50 kilometers just to reach the place on foot through terrain that would give a Vulcan second thoughts.
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Well, probably. I could imagine Tval taking it in stride. I actually can’t imagine what would rattle him in the first place. Maybe nothing. That would be so boring though. He probably wouldn’t say a thing the entire trip unless I forced the issue. And even then it would just be those monosyllabic, efficient responses. I will have a full conversation with him some day. One that doesn’t have anything to do with work. And then I will celebrate the anniversary of that conversation every year thereafter because it will probably be the only one I’ll get in my lifetime!
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I guess the repairs themselves were fairly uncomplicated once they arrived. Of course, the lack of complication there was made up for by the universe in other ways. In this case it seems that Earth’s Weather Control Net was experiencing some malfunctions. I don’t know the full story but apparently the weather on Earth has been very volatile since a major war in their history so the WCN is more important there to maintain habitable, stable conditions than on other worlds. I think Zann downplayed it in his report, but all three of them ran into some seriously bad storms while they were working. I know he’s Andorian, but if he saw fit to mention it then I can only imagine how bad it must have been for Dr. Morganth and Jitezo!
It wasn’t all bad though. They were able to spend the night in Utqiagvik, the town where Siana is from. Oh, she must have been so excited to have visitors! I got to spend a few days with her there a few years ago on shore leave. Her house is so lovely; and so old! I think it actually predates the Federation. She keeps it in good condition, considering its age and the primitive tools she has to work with down there. I don’t think they use technology, or allow technology, or something. It makes things...quiet. But once you get used to it, it really isn’t so bad. Knowing Siana, she probably tried to feed them. She made this wonderful dish while I was there using the milk of an animal and fibers from a plant native to Earth served with a combination of monosaccharides. We ate it while we sat on a driftwood bench at the beach, watching the sun rise over the water. It was so cold, but seeing those colors bleed into the sea and sky made it all worth it!
I hope Zann took some time to enjoy it. He can be so focused on the details of whatever he’s doing that he seems to miss the world around him. I can’t help but worry about him. He’s always so serious; just straight to the problems and finding solutions. Though that’s probably why Tval likes him so much. Well, as much as our chief engineer can express his fondness for anyone. Zann has been through so much in such a short amount of time that I wonder if he has been able to decompress at all. I know he meditates with some of the Vulcans on the ship, but, to be honest, I can’t tell how much that helps him. In truth, I had hoped this little assignment would give him some space to breathe and separate from his normal work environment and routine.
Of course I say all that, but I’m part of the problem. Zann didn’t write anything about Utqiagvik other than the times they arrived and left in his report, but he did detail the terrible weather they encountered on their way to investigate the WCN disruptor site. It seems as though the disruptor station wasn’t firing after receiving the satellite's signal, which was allowing Earth’s normal weather patterns to generate. Zann wasn’t able to fix the issue with the tools he had on hand, which I hope he doesn’t blame himself for. I’ve worked on those things before, and they’re very tempermental. They’re very reliable, if old, technology right up to the point where something actually does go wrong with them. And when it does, it goes really wrong.
That setback aside, it sounds like Dr. Morganth had a stroke of luck with the project he was working on. Zann only mentions the incident briefly in his report, but I got the full story from the doctor. Oh my goodness! The way he told it was absolutely hilarious! Apparently once they found the creature, they surrounded it in order to tranquilize it with some drug that Dr. Morganth brought. Jitezo had to literally wrestle the thing to the ground so they could administer it! The doctor described how each time he plucked a sample from the thing, it would wake up just as angry as can be and Jitezo had to tranq it back to sleep. He had to do it three times! It was like something out of a comedy holonovel! That’s a story they’ll all get a lot of mileage out of in Nine-Forward, I’m sure.
During their return to the NAWR station, they got caught out in the open by a storm far worse than any they had encountered on the way in. They all downplayed it, particularly Zann in his report, but I looked up the climatology data after they came back. It was...bad. Jitezo and Dr. Morganth could have died. I don’t know if it would have been lethal to an Andorian, but Dr. Stras was insistent on checking him for nerve and tissue damage. I want to say that "all's well that ends well", but this could have easily had a very different ending. Zann, Dr. Morganth, Jitezo; none of them would have been out there if I hadn’t asked Zann to go. I tried to apologize to him, but he brushed it off in that stoic fashion of his. I’m not sure what I can do to make this right, but I’m going to try whatever it takes.
End log.
## Appendices

### Connections

**Departmental:** First officer's log • Second officer's log • Chief medical officer's log • Chief of security's log

**Personal:** Zanntos ch'Aroom • Jaro Eden • **Nara** • Shrive • Tharan • Romel Vinaa