Have you tried turning it off and on again?

Posted on Sunday September 9th, 2018 @ 22:59 hours by Mayterial Droz & Damien Walker

Mission: Smugglers Need Not Apply
Location: Captain's Quarters, Deck 1, SS Fawkes
Timeline: MD03 - 1600
2189 words - 4.4 OF Standard Post Measure

Stuck in a maintenance conduit, right below the engineering, Damien was tolling on one of the antimatter relays for the last hour, trying to realign it for the engine power up. The corridor was humming with ships generators, but the sound was pierced routinely with a nasty Ferengi catch phrase reflecting the engineers joy over the state of the ships and its systems. He came aboard this ship solely to start her up, what seemed a simple task at first, soon turned out to be a Gordian knot of bad fixes, used parts and improvised solutions. “Frax it all” he yelled as the hyperspanner escaped his grip and fell through a crack in the walkway right below him. Damien lodged his right foot on to the edge of catwalk, leaned down and stretched his right arms toward the tool. As he was about to grab the tool, his communicator beeped. Stretching further Damien ignored the sound, his fingers brushing against the handle as the beeping became more and more insistent. He tired again, this time resetting his body in a better position to grab the tool he lost, but the beeping continued. His face red, collecting beads of sweat in the insistent beeping, he finally managed to grab the tool with his right hand and as he was raising it up, his artificial hand let the hyperspanner drop, this time even further. Damien turned on his back hitting the communicator forcefully “What?” he almost yelled.

Taken a bit aback by the yelling Mayterial took a second to recompose herself before speaking. "Mister Walker, can you please come to my quarters? It seems that what we did messed with my systems. I can't get my personal console to work anymore." She knew how people worked, she knew the basics in regards to how power systems worked, she was adept at computers. But there was nothing more frustrating than a console freezing up and refusing to allow you to do the things you wanted to do. She needed to check how everything was going with the personnel files and at what time Volok would be arriving. She needed to be ready in time to welcome her new First Mate and this was making it impossible to do so.

“Frax MaDoin” swore Damien in Ferengi forgetting his communication line was still active. Every time he turned one of the ships systems on, another failed, it was a never-ending cycle of despair, to top that, he knew people will start to arrive on the boat and everyone will think their problems were a priority. “Well have you tried turning it off and on again?” he felt a single console was hardly a priority now.

"Really?" Mayterial shook her head. "Yes. Yes I have tried turning it off and then on again." She really needed this access to be able to find a proper crew for the vessel. "And if you want some colleagues to help you out I really must ask you to come and help me fix this."

Damien took a little pause, clearing his head of frustration before answering “I’ll be right there.” He crawled out of the conduit he found himself in, took his tool box and went toward the turbolift. He entered the lift and helped the doors close manually, another thing on the expanding list of things to do. Ship wasn’t in a bad shape as such, but she was old, and the 6 months pause made most systems out of sync or out of alignment. Another problem was the Starfleet inspection, they tore the ship apart but weren’t as diligent or meticulous when they were putting her back together. The lift's shaky ride stopped with a screech and Damien had to force the doors to open by hand again. He found the Captain's quarters soon enough and entered finding her hunched over the console at her private desk. “Sorry, your ship has been biting my ass ever since we turned her on. What’s the problem?” he asked looking at the console.

"It freezes up whenever I go into the communication systems." Mayterial was really beyond frustrated now and had half considered just ripping it out and replacing it. If only she had that luxury. "Which is a bit of a let down since I need it to get more people on this boat."

“Yeah” said Damien and made a few attempts on the console, that in turn quickly froze. He has seen a similar problems on the ship's consoles today, so with practiced movements he opened and lifted the display panel revealing the insides. Looking at lines he quickly found a problem “Bloody Starfleet, this is the third console today I found with the same half-assed work. You see this connector?” he said pointing “It’s the OPS dataflow it should be here, and the one from communication is unplugged.” he quickly switched and reconnected the lines. Slamming shut the console he added “That should do it. Took a me a while to figure out things weren’t placed as they were supposed to be after the inspection. I thought it was limited to engineering but now I see we might have an epidemic of carelessness throughout” he sent a test query and the display gave way to captain’s communique. Damien swore under breath he would have to go through every console on the ship.

"Perhaps something the Bosun and Deck Hands can help you out with. Would give them some good practice." Mayterial looked at the console and switched off the display to avoid him being able to read her personal messages. "How go the rest of the repairs?" She asked folding her arms and giving a friendly smile.

“Yeah, I already met the feisty one, a bit young for a Bosun, but she seemed to hold her own. Also, she knows more about the systems than she leads on, a good trade skill. Nevertheless, I would need one deck hand assigned to me, with some experience in the engineering, I know one guy…” Damien trailed away at that point, it was not his place to make suggestions, so he switched to her last query “Well, you want the good news or the bad news first?”

"Whatever you see fit."

“Well, fusion power generators are already running at 72%, they seem to be in perfect condition, only minor tweaks and a few repairs are required. Cardassians sure built them to last.” Which was true in Damien's opinion, Cardassian tech was sturdier than he was used to “After I ran a full diagnostic of the ship, and checked the main systems, I'm making a list of things to fix as I go along and a list of things that absolutely need to be replaced with new or refurbished items, this is what I have so far” Damien switched his PADD and sent the data over to May’s console “So far it’s not going to cost you much, I can connect you with Mr. Tumbok, he runs a small shop down on deck 4. He is an honest tradesman, you will never get replacement parts that are sub-par.”

"I'm guessing you felt that was the good news?" Mayterial took in a deep, thoughtful breath and gave a small smile. All she heard was that she was going to need to invest in new parts, with money she didn't have, on a dream that people would actually still want to do business with her. "So what's the worse news?"

“Well” Damien made a pause at this point, he still wasn’t sure why Starfleet felt it was necessary to so forcefully take the ship apart. So far he thought they wanted to make an example. “Due to the inspection, the power drains are a real problem, the ship keeps switching power allotment from one system to the other. So basically, a 'drain' is nothing but an uncontrolled power usage. However, you can’t locate it, if it says the power is diverted to hull integrity you find it blowing up relays at the life support junction. Everything is scrambled. Until we can get that sorted out, I would strongly recommend we avoid turning the warp engine on. Unfortunately, locating the problems could take days and during that time we will still have flickering, power outages and blow outs.” Damien, knew this was not the news any Captain would like to hear, but he’d only been on the ship for a few hours, so he was happy he figured this much.

"Thanks for the heads up," Mayterial gave a solemn nod, "we need to be able to set out by the end of the week. Every day we stay in dock is another day of lost profit."

Damien simply nodded he had worse patients on his hands than the Fawkes so he was confident he could make her run by the time she needed it. He fully understood the position she was in and he didn’t want to disappoint A’Dana “Listen … May” he began using her short name “I’ll make her run even if I tie her together with chewing gum. The position you are in… its going to be hard and you really need to make the first run. Just tell me what we can afford and what we can’t, so I know what to work with. Unless you have latinum or willingness to credit yourself, it won’t be a finished job. As it is you will need a damn good engineer to make it and if you haven’t found one yet, I might stay and do the first one with you. I hate leaving things without the confidence they are have been properly taken cared of.” Damien finished his offer with a small smile, he had no place to go, but he had no special relation to May, except for the fix that she needed now. He didn’t want to leave a job half done, he could work on the other issues as they would be making their way. When he would be satisfied that he is leaving the ship in better condition that he got her, then he could go.

"Well, I've got some savings to avoid having to use chewing gum." Mayterial ran a hand through her hair and gave Damien a friendly smile. She made a mental note to thank A'Dana, she hoped that this debt with her could be settled in an amicable way. "We can go get the equipment we need together. And coming along on the first run would entitle you to a portion of the profits, of course."

“OK” Damien said simply and nodded while picking up his tools, the promise of profits didn’t hold to much appeal to him, but he was satisfied he would have a place to keep his broken soul and a ship to occupy his mind. In truth it was all he really wanted now. Damien stood up to leave, but made a small pause as he realized, it was in this moment, as the offer was made and accepted, how tired he was of switching places, living from day to day with no care. Why was he leaving and why was he leaving her, he wondered? Flashbacks of moments flushed him, her laugh, her touch, the little details that endeared her. He looked up at May a stranger to him, her stance a stark contrast of the woman he was leaving behind, sobering him to reality his life led him to. His memories switched to faces of his family, his brothers death, fathers anger and all those years he lost on the float, flying through the quadrant. Its been a long time since all those forgotten emotions surged up so strongly.

It had been a long couple of days and Mayterial didn't think she needed to shield herself from the engineer as much, he had seemed like a stable kind of guy. The rush of emotions hit her like a ton of bricks and she physically stumbled, needing to sit back down into the chair. Dizzy from the rush and winded from quickly pushing herself mentally to put up her defenses she just sat there for a moment.

He squeezed harder at the handle of his tool box, trying to keep his anger down “I will keep you in the loop about the repairs, now I must get back to the ship.” he managed and sent a nod towards May in place of goodbye. He turned not waiting for the reply, wanting nothing more than to fill his hands with work in attempt to bury everything from the past.

"You do that." There was going to be a lot there to unwrap with Damien but she didn't have the mental fortitude to address it right in that moment. Mayterial allowed him to leave and just rested her head in her hands trying to reset herself after Damien had reset the console for her.

[OFF]

Mayterial Droz
Captain
S.S. Fawkes

&

Damien Walker
Engineer
S.S. Fawkes

"Are you sure it's plugged in?"