Running The Tubes
Posted on 02/25/2020 @ 11:47pm by
Edited on on 02/28/2020 @ 7:09pm
Mission:
S1E1: Out of the Barn
Location: USS Crazy Horse, Jeffries Tube, Main Engineering
Timeline: Day 3 at 0600
*CRASH-BANG*
Archer had just given out assigned work details for the day and hadn't even had a chance to review the previous shift's reports in his office over a cup of coffee.
"What the shale was that?!" The chief engineer marched from the already dispersing cluster of crewmembers toward the source of the commotion. An alert was flashing from a console.
"I'm sorry, sir," said a young petty officer. "I was loading up my toolkit when I saw a sensor go off in a nearby Jeffries tube. It... it must have distracted me." She looked down at her feet where her hydrospanner jutted halfway out of her kit.
That... was not what he expected. "I see," he said, shifting gears. "Get this cleaned up. Gors, Levan, come with me."
Internal sensors had tripped on three Jeffries tubes, or so the flashing console indicated. Something was amiss on his ship. Taking the lead, Archer climbed up the ladder to the second level catwalk and headed toward the nearest Jeffries tube access hatch.
"Tricorders out," Archer said. He was going first, but he wouldn't go blind.
Gors, a Deltan--and fresh-faced to boot--spoke a bit nervously. "I hope its a vole... At least you can shoot a vole... If its a space-going pathogen, or something plasma-based..."
"No, you don't hope its a vole." Levan was a human from Alpha Centauri. "Voles are nasty... Spacegoing pathogens don't clank like that. Anyway, the tricorder would have picked it up... Definitely a lifeform... Maybe Bajoran--not sure, Sir," he told his boss.
"Never thought I'd be hoping for a Bajoran in my Jeffries tubes," Archer heard himself say. Back home in the New Appalachia district of Terra Nova... well, it was not unusual for rodents of unusual size to rut through walls and fixtures.
Crawling carefully but nimbly into the tube, Archer called out, "Show yourself, whoever you are!"
A face peered at him from around a corner. "Lieutenant? That you?" The voice was a bit heavy--clearly, the woman had been running or something.
Archer nearly jumped out of his skin. "Crank my shank!" he shouted in the old pidgin of Terra Nova.
"Sounds like a Bajoran to me, Sir," said Levan. The tricorder beeped. "Yep, one Bajoran."
"Yes, I can see that," Archer said to Levan harsher than he intended. He fought to lower his pulse. At least his eyes felt less bulgy.
"Er, sorry, Lieutenant, Crewman." There was a faint scratch, and the face of Crazy Horse's chief of security came into view. "Was running through the Jeffries tubes... Did I break something?"
"Not sure yet," Archer replied. "You sent the internal sensors into a fizzy. Bets were that you were a vole."
"Hey," came the indignant response, "I'm a hell of a lot prettier than a vole... Even the ones that are softer and cuddlier than your average... Want me to clamber out of this coffin of a tunnel? ... And all this for a run with a bit of an extra challenge." This last was a disgruntled mutter.
Archer's cheeks reddened in silent agreement, but he quickly cleared his throat. "Well... if you don't mind, that would be great. We need to clear out the tripped internal sensor readings or it will auto-generate a potential hazard report and..." He realized how uninteresting the bureaucracy of running an Engineering department actually sounded. "So, yeah," he said, repeating, "if you don't mind."
"Right... Back out of here... We're not all as thin as a bat'leth blade."
While he wasn't jacked with muscle, Archer never thought of himself as thin either. He fought past the perceived body shame and gave the security chief plenty of room.
Tahlin squeezed out of the Jeffries tube and turned to the engineers once she'd dropped to the deck. "I forgot to let you know I was going to be running through the tubes... Its part of my routine... Do it every couple of weeks, and I've missed one or two... Sorry." She sheepishly gave the men a smile.
Seeing her discomfort, Archer turned to Gors and Levan. "You're dismissed back to your assigned crews." As they left, he looked back to Tahlin and forced himself to hold eye contact. "I try to encourage creativity and out-of-the-box thinking, but that only works with communication. Let us know when you plan to run the tubes and we'll anticipate accordingly." He wondered how else that could be taken, which made him stammer. "I-I-I mean I'm not anticipating seeing you again. I just, I mean, we'll know not to send a maintenance crew after you next time."
"Thanks... I do apologize--I got ahead of myself, Lieutenant." She walked over to a panel. "I'm decent with a toolkit--you want my help fixing anything I might have broken?"
Archer let out his nervous energy with a chuckle. "No, I don't think that's necessary. If you could break anything simply by running through the Jeffries tube, then we'd better put the ship back into drydock."
"Fair enough... You engineers ever get coresick? I heard that if you stare at the warp core for too long, it can do funny things to you. Of course, I heard that from a drunk Ensign who I'm pretty sure was hitting on me at the time... Cute, though."
"No, that's just a vicious rumor," Archer said, a little defensively. "Most people don't have the dedication it takes to be a good engineer."
"Or a good security officer, for that matter... Thanks for not making a big deal out of this, Lieutenant... Its appreciated."
"As you say," Archer said, attempting to be suave, "you was just being a dedicated security officer."
Tahlin laughed. "Yep, that's me, dedicated and diligent... Well, I'll not keep you," she continued after a moment. "There's a hot shower and cup of coffee with my name on it. See you around, Lieutenant."
Hot shower. Hot coffee. Archer gulped at the brief mental image of Tahlin partaking of each. "Uh... right, yeah. See you around..."
Tahlin laughed and headed out of Engineering. Not the morning she'd been expecting, but the guy was fun to mess with.
A Post By:
Lieutenant (J.G) Lae'Or Tahlin
Chief of Security, USS Crazy Horse
And
Lieutenant (J.G.) Archer Logan V
Chief Engineer, USS Crazy Horse
