Establishing a Romulan Neutral Zone aboard ship

Posted on Tuesday April 28th, 2020 @ 17:48 hours by Mercy & T'maekh Hwaerianh

Mission: Safe Passage
Location: Engineering, S.S. Fawkes
Timeline: MD002 - 1200 hrs
1633 words - 3.3 OF Standard Post Measure

T'maekh opened the hatch to engineering and passed through, ducking a little. His nose wrinkled involuntarily as the smells of various industrial fluids and the tang of ionized ozone hit him. This was definitely a working ship. He remembered the clinical cleanliness of other ships he'd served aboard, and he also remembered the horrendous cost-saving situation he'd endured. It could have been worse.

He didn't announce or declare himself, just wandered slowly around the chamber, taking it all in. He made sure not to get in any engineer's way, but he did start to snoop. He opened the panel on plasma relay and peered at the content, before closing it and moving on. His expression was steadfastly neutral as he poked and prodded at what he found.

"I would rather you don't do that." Mercy's voice, warm and thick, was as imposing as her behemoth form, with ears brushing against the ceiling. Oversized oil stained overalls barely contained the lupine Sirran self. "Who are you and what are you doing poking around in my engineering bay," she spoke matter of factly, folding massive arms over each other. It was not a question per se, more a demand for immediate answering.

T’maekh turned his head, his expression warm, a smile on his wide features. His gaze went up and up, Mercy’s head not being the height he expected.

“I like how you keep this compartment,” he said, wiping his hands on his shirt, “I once worked for a Ferengi who thought replacing contaminant filters was an extravagant luxury. The warp core smelled like the armpit of a gormengander. Still: I watched him face down a Nausicaan and say: “no refunds”, he had a real pair of lobes on him, for such a little guy.” T’maekh gestured round the chamber, “This is good, you should be proud. You are the engineer, yes?”

"I am." she spoke, leaning against a bulkhead and just watching him carefully. "Name's Mercy. I'm a Sirran. And you still haven't said who you are and what you're doing in my engineering bay," which was par for the course for Romulans, she had expected as much. They always liked to play games, give vague answers when giving any at all and string along other people with mindgames. It always annoyed Mercy who, as typical for Sirran, was quite no-nonsense and straight forward.

"I'm T'maekh, new Boatswain of the ship," he placed both hands together, then held them out, open, "Jolan Tru, Mercy, it's good to meet you." He circled the chamber a little, still carrying an air of inspection. He ran a finger along the edge of a console, glanced at it, then dusted it off as he spoke again, "I'm aware that I have duties on-deck as it were and I wanted to make sure that we don't have any overlap issues. There's a lot of the engineering running through the ship, but part of my job is ensuring maintenance of equipment and essential gear on all decks and in all compartments." He paused, smiled, "save the engine room of course. How do you see our two roles working together?"

"Part of your job is to ensure maintenance, part of my job is to do maintenance. Means that anything bigger 'n, say, changing a lightbulb, I'd rather you come to me." Mercy spoke, her voice calm. "Likely I'll give you the go-ahead on doing it, or I'll come down to do it myself, but that way I can be sure I know about all the work done." she explained. "That work for you?"

T'maekh frowned, "not really," he replied matter-of-factly, "continually asking permission to carry out routine work is going to slow my deckhands down. How about instead I carry out ratings assessments on them, you mark for me the ones you think are capable and we'll assign them a level of task they can do without pestering either one of us?" T'maekh used his newly created access to bring up a roster of Able and Ordinary deckhands. It hung suspended in a holographic green triangle of data above his left wrist. With his other hand, T'maekh moved a couple of names around, then balled the data up into a fist and flung it at a nearby wall terminal. There was a momentary blip, then the crew roster appeared on the display. "I understand that there's nobody can maintain this ship to the standard you can, but what if you get Cirellian 'flu? You need the crew to at least be capable of the basics, Mercy."

"And what do you think I mean with 'anything bigger 'n changing a lightbulb'," Mercy asked, flatly. "Frankly, I barely trust someone who just wanders into someone else's engineering bay and starts pulling open plasma panels to even do that and do it well. Shows you have a very low amount of respect for shirt you have no business poking around in."

T'maekh's nodded, begrudgingly, "yes, you're right, Mercy of course. I made the ridiculous assumption that an access panel wouldn't actually explode if I opened it. I assumed maintenance was already of a standard that opening anything more technical than a ration pack may actually be safe," he shrugged.

"This is going to get territorial I can see, so I'll just put your name on everything above a lightbulb." He paused and checked the list on his display, "wow, there are a LOT of things that are not light fittings," he flicked a finger and scrolled through a long, long list, "so very, very many things. You sure you want all these, or can my deckhands take some of this off your paws? Grav plating, tool replicators, magnetic cargo grapples, anti-grav cargo sleds, the very few EVA suits in lockers, cargo tethering cables," He flicked the list up again, for emphasis, then hovered a hand over a holographic control, "your decision, of course..."

Her expression fell from guarded through pissed off into full on enraged as he spoke, though she patiently waited for him to finish. "You come in here, put your filthy forking Romulan disease ridden mitts on my stuff, insult my work and get all pissy when I don't bow down to your flea bitten Romulan sense of self importance? I have zero tolerance for insufferable pointy-eared assholes. One more word out of you and you'll find out why they call me Mercy. Now get the flying fuck out of my engineering bay, five seconds ago." she snarled, ears laid back, dagger-like fangs and claws bared.

T'maekh tilted his head and adjusted something on the holographic display above his wrist, "Mercy, you need to calm down immediately, as good as your engineering skills are, and I'm certain their excellent, you cannot rip off the Boatswain's head because he asked you for a compatible duty roster. That was the old Boats, this is me. I'm the sneaky, conniving disgusting, green-skinned, pointy-eared, weak, goblin the First Mate thought might be useful. Racism aside and you are going to have to put that aside, we have to at least work together." Was he trembling? Possibly, who wouldn't be? "So this goes two ways, you attack me in a fit of pique, granted I probably die. Shame for me. For you, it goes much, much worse, there are far worse things than dying. Or you take a step back and look at this duty roster with me like the intelligent sentient being I know you to be." His voice flat, the fear there, for sure, but not letting it control him. "You're better than this, certainly better than they say you are," he added gently.

"Which part of 'get the fuck out of my engineering bay' are you too stupid to understand?" Mercy snarled. "Get. The. Fuck. Out," she reiterated.

This time T'maekh took a step forward, "look at. The stupid. Duty roster. So I can go away. And tell my deckhands. To do their job," he said through gritted teeth.

As he took a step forward Mercy's massive arms reached to grab him by the throat, to pick him up off the ground. It was so tempting just to squeeeeeeze a little bit too hard, but she didn't. Instead she simply tossed him out the door - not too hard - but enough to let him know she was beyond pissed off right now, and not in the mood for anything other than him, gone.

Two arms snapped out and gripped the door-frame, catching his fall. His elbow banged hard on the metal bulkhead and as he straightened he waved the hand around to get the feeling back. He was sure it could have been worse.

"Mercy, you don't like me," he stepped back from the threshold and into the corridor, "I get it. I'm sure you're used to terrifying every little person who comes through here and honestly I am petrified of you, but I have a job to do. And so do you." He turned away, showing her his back, but looked over his shoulder, "I was only looking at the plasma relay. I absolutely didn't have time to mess with anything. At all." He said as he started to walk away, trying hard not to shake.

"DON'T FUCKING TOUCH MY STUFF AND DON'T FUCKING INSULT MY WORK!" Mercy bellowed after him, stalking back to her work.

"Your engine room is excellent and your work is top notch," he called back over his shoulder. He lifted his device again and brought up the list. He singled out "Light Fittings" and moved it to a fresh file, then he marked the rest as "Responsible: Engineer" and began a very slow, very thorough inspection of the rest of the ship.