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“You never showed any interest in ship design back at the Academy. In fact, as I recall, you always hated the engineering classes,” he teased.

“I always thought they were for grease monkeys and plasma plumbers, and I never wanted to be one of those.”

“Like me.” He held up his thumb and forefinger, just slightly parted. “I came this close to going into engineering before I realized I had a knack for piloting.”

She laughed, and had the good grace to look slightly embarrassed. “I didn’t mean to call you a grease monkey. Plasma plumber, maybe, but not a grease monkey. Anyway, I’m the new chief of security, but you can’t defend a thing unless you know a thing, and nothing is more fundamental in knowing a thing than its shape and form. I’m trying to familiarize myself with the E in every way possible.” She grinned. “Even if it means getting a little greasy.”

He laughed. This is more like the Linda I remember. “So now I pilot the flagship of the fleet, but sometimes- ” he tapped the screen, “- I still get to keep my feet in engineering. In this case, I’m working on modifying the main deflector to better allow the Enterprise to enter warp, even when surrounded by gas and dust clouds.”

She continued to page through the schematics. “You think you can do that?”

“We can make improvements, for sure. There are still going to be environments where warp travel isn’t going to work. The problem I’m having is that those schematics are inaccurate.”

She looked up, a sharp question in her eyes. “Inaccurate?”

“Those are the U.S.S. Sovereign blueprints, and yeah, the E is a Sovereign-class starship, but in practice, thousands of changes were made between the Sovereign prototype and the Enterprise. When the Sovereign was built, the Borg and the Cardassians were the primary threats. Now we’re just as worried about the Dominion. So running changes are made in the weaponry, defense systems, even propulsion and navigation. And even more changes are being made every day as we go through shakedown. The next Sovereign-class ship out of drydock will be even more different as they apply everything we’ve learned out here with the Enterprise.”

“So, what? Nobody knows how the ship really works?”

“Well, yes. And no.” He chuckled. “Every engineer knows that the real book on a starship’s operation and capabilities isn’t written at Utopia Planitia. It’s written by the shakedown crew. The shakedown logs record every design change, operational procedure, and performance evaluation.”

Hawk felt an odd surge of pride as he talked about the shakedown cruise, about the development of the ship. Picard might be the captain, but the Enterprise belonged to him, in a way he was only beginning to understand. He pulled the padd back across the table, idly paging through the schematics as he spoke.

“What I’m finding here is that there are a number of important differences between the Sovereign deflector and the one on the Enterprise. Which means that after all is said and done, I need to go down to main engineering and convince Geordi to let me have a look at the master log.”

“You can’t just call it up from here?”

He shook his head. “Security is tight on the ‘book.’ It can only be accessed from main engineering and command terminals on the bridge. Geordi watches over it like a mother hen.”

“I suppose I should find that commendable, but there’s a new mother hen in town. I’d like to see it. As security chief I should. Why don’t I go with you after the orientation?”

He hesitated. His day was already full, and he hadn’t been planning to check the master log until the next day’s watch.

She reached out, and to his surprise, gently stroked the back of his hand. “Come on. It would be good to spend a little time together after all these years.”

He stared at her hand, then couldn’t help but laugh as he pulled it away. “Funny, Linda. You know my sexual orientation better than anyone. You’re the one who once said we had the same taste in men!”

She grinned slightly.