Okay, so technically Jay wasn't an Engineer, and he probably shouldn't have been walking around like he owned the place. He was a Navigation Officer and just an Ensign at that. He'd been in Starfleet for a good portion of his life so far and at thirty-four years old he probably should have at least made it to Lieutenant. But Jaylon Wilde had a bad habit of ticking people off. He didn't really mean to, but he rubbed most people the wrong way. This was mostly because he was almost brutally honest. As a half Betazoid, he'd been able to communicate telepathically and his father had been able to hear his thoughts. He had very rarely ever gotten away with anything as a child. So it had always been better to just be honest. The trait just got carried into his adult life and since he didn't really sugar coat things and tended to speak out of turn, he'd never been promoted.

Anyway, though Jay was technically a Navigational Officer, he had had a minor focus on Engineering when he graduated from Starfleet Academy. He knew his way around an Engineering Room and was pretty familiar with all of the gadgets around him. He made his way over to the controls that, well, controlled the Navigation portion of the ship and heaved a heavy sigh. There were power issues with their Navigation sensors and he wasn't exactly sure what was wrong. He'd just have to get into it and look. No easy fix here.

In hindsight, Ensign Wilde probably should have asked an Engineer to do this. Or permission for that matter. But what was the old saying? It's easier to seek forgiveness than to ask permission. Since Jay wasn't moving up in the ranks anytime soon, and because everyone he'd seen on the way in here looked either busy or was busy trying to look busy, he decided to just take the cover off of the console right then and there. He put the shiny cover to the side and got right into the wires. A smart man would have turned the thing off first, but since he hadn't really asked permission from the captain either, and turning it off would take the Navigation tools on the Bridge offline, Jay decided to leave them on. Bad idea. He touched what appeared to be a very safe wire and got shocked. He pulled his hand back with an “Oh my... mother fu... owww” and a few other choice expletives. Apparently he'd touched something off limits, because his hand was starting to develop blisters from the burns. Now he was in a real pickle.

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NOTES

uh-oh. jay might be in trouble