Those Who Keep The Lights On

Posted on Thu Oct 19th, 2017 @ 1:59am by Lieutenant Commander Shadi Zatra

1,268 words; about a 6 minute read

Mission: S1: These Are The Voyages...
Location: Secondary Power Relay, Deck 10
Timeline: MD 1

The Jefferies tube was not designed for a Tellarite, and by hells blue fire Gark was sure tired of arguing that point. A Bolian could fit in there, and a human (naturally), but a noble Tellarite? Designed for multi-species access his triple clefted buttocks.

"Are you done in there Shadi?" Gark barked in the direction of the open maintenance hatch. "The Relay needs to go online before this 'Grand Experiment' can progress. Unless you like the idea of us all being turned into Andorian pate` due to the extreme stresses of Director Kasmir's toy?"

A string of hissing drifted through the hatch opening. "If I were done, Gark, then you wouldn't have to asssk." Her words were followed by a chunk of twisted metal that barely missed the Tellarite's head. "Somebody fried the regulator. Get another one on order, sssir, or this tasty ship isn't going anywhere."

Gark growled something under his breath and typed up the requisition order on his padd.

"You say somebody, but we all know it was the Chief Engineer of the project who did it!" Gark snorted loudly. "Throwing a ship over a hundred thousand lightyears in the blink of the eye, and we're using a mothballed ship to do it. This reeks of human ingenuity at its most deadly."

Shadi slithered through the hatch rather than contort herself. When she returned to full height, she towered over the other.

"Starving talk like that is beneath you," she quipped. "Where is your sense of adventure?"

"I left it on Tellar Prime with a Starfleet recruitment officer. Any sane sentient would feel the same about this whole thing," Gark snorted, as his padd let out a musical ping. His frown only deepened as he read it. "Sixteen hours! This is a priority repair and Fabrication is allocating us a time slot somewhere tomorrow morning to pick up the item! See! This is what I mean! Hurmph!"

"Plenty of time, master," Shadi said cheerfully. "Just think -- they're letting us repair it. Not a prestigious engineering team. Us."

Gark said nothing. It was the age-old song and dance that had been going on ever since some smart ape had thought of splitting the engineering team in two. One would focus on the primary systems that would cause all life and shipboard functions to cease: antimatter containment, warp drive, impulse, so on and so forth. The other half would focus on everything else that just made life bearable: life support, power flow regulation, allocation.

But no one cared about the gold shirts in Operation who kept the air flowing and the replicators working. No, no all the glory went the Engineers and their fancy space folding warp drives or 'Grand Experiments That Will Change The Way We See The Universe'.

It was enough to make a Tellarite want to throw in the towel on an argument and admit defeat, for shame.

"We are changing a light panel next," Gark said with a grumble as his thoughts grew dark. "Sickbay treatment berth 2, apparently it flickers. I'm sure we can lower ourselves to grant them a courtesy visit."

"Tasty," Shadi said. "It is a great honor to keep Sickbay in good repair." She went about sealing off the maintenance hatch. "For the time being, I think we should reroute power from the EPS tap for this entire section until the new regulator is installed. If one went out with no cause, then others could do the same under the extra load."

"That makes the most sense to you?" Gark snorted, before using his thick digits to type in such a request on the power allocation app on his PADD. For a moment the lights in the maintenance bay dimmed as they switch over to an alternate routing diagram.

"Good thing you learned from me then isn't it?" he barked a short piggy laugh. "Now come sickbay beckons. If we are lucky they have not tried to fix it. Again."

Shadi joined him with hissing laughter. "Doctors repairing panels? That is as preposterous as a technician treating patients!" Her slit pupils looked down at Gark with a spark of humour. "Do you think they'd let us try if we asked nicely?"

"You? Certainly not!" Gark snorted derisively. "But I? A Tellarite? We are known for our fantastic bedside manner. I knew a doctor on the Yeager who supposedly argued his patient back to life. Besides, it can't be that hard."

"Good point," Shadi conceded. "Medicine never advanced much on Sauria. Before the Federation came, it was mainly the art of assisted suicide." She sighed deeply. "How times have changed."

"On Tellar we used to make a ritual of dickering over the bill, haggling with extreme delight over every credit. That was before the humans came and brought their Federation. Do you ever imagine what life would be like without humans? Without," Gark gestured about his head. "All of this?"

"I suppose I would have devoured your young at birth as a sign of dominance," Shadi suggested with a thoughtful claw at her chin. "Perhaps Humans are not all bad."

"Perhaps. They did invent peanut butter, after all, have you tried it? A most exquisite human delicacy-" Gark began to explain before rudely being cut off. The turbolift hatch ahead of them sighed open and two Engineer's walked out carrying a large bulky equipment case between them. Tall, muscular, their scowling faces the exact sort of expression Gark expected from their ilk, they shoved past the two Op's officers.

"The power's off down there!" Gark shouted after them. "We had to turn it off because someone's department slagged a relay."

The two engineer's stopped, one of their faces curling into an angry retort that was silenced by his compatriot with a glare. That one turned and eyed Gark.

"We have orders," he said in a deep voice. "From the Chief Engineer."

Shadi was still gagging at the thought of the disgusting so-called delicacy of peanut butter.

"Just don't mess with the EPS system. You will be sorry if you do."

For a moment it seemed like the beefier of the two engineers was going to make an issue of it, his big hands whitening around where he held the crate. His colleague grunted at him and offered a brief shake of his head.

"We will...be careful," he grumbled.

"Good enough," Shadi shrugged. "We'll find you if you aren't."

After the two Operations techs had left, the two engineers got to work. They opened the maintenance hatch and set the crate down so it blocked the view. The smaller of the two set to work inside the crawl space, using a Federation toolkit to open an inspection hatch to reveal the missing relay. He nodded in satisfaction, and from the contents of the crate extracted what appeared to be a new relay unit.

It slotted in perfectly, and in a few moments, the junctions self-testing software had accepted it. At this, the Engineer smiled and reached up with a finger to play it under his flat teeth. Sure there were canines in there, but for a Klingon Warrior, these felt like the teeth of a docile herd animal.

He carefully closed the hatch, sealing it and smiled at his comrade in arms.

Soon their mission would be complete, and this mission would come to a halt. And whilst the bomb in the form of a false relay wasn't enough to cripple this vessel, it was but the beating of the bushes to reveal the true prey.

"Come," he told his subordinate in the human language. "We have much to do."

 

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