Mundane Conversations, Mundane Repairs

Posted on 04 Oct 2015 @ 5:13pm by Lieutenant JG Nizan Rydit & Petty Officer 1st Class Taliesin Cynwrig

1,411 words; about a 7 minute read

Mission: Episode 09 - Empires
Location: USS Galileo, Deck 3, Outside Security Office
Timeline: MD02, 1500 Hours

[ON]

"Almost got it, sir," Taliesin said, sounding strained. He stood on a collapsible ladder in the middle of the corridor as they worked on repairs, his hands overhead as he held up a mass of conduits. The ceiling had collapsed during their trip through the vortex, one of many parts of the ship that had been damaged. With a final heave and grunt, Taliesin shoved the conduits back where they belonged just before Lieutenant Nizan put the ceiling panel in place. The human slid his arms free, they latched the panel, and they were done with this one small part.

A glance up and down the corridor showed that there was plenty of more work to do though. Galileo had suffered critical damage and though the Security officers were not engineers everyone was having to help out even if it was only minor efforts. Taliesin climbed down off the ladder, swiped his forehead with a sleeve.

"So what's next, Lieutenant?" Taliesin asked, sounding a little grim but ready to go.

"Couple more of these on this deck then we head to another deck and do it again." Nizan said, before asking a question himself. "You know anything about the investigation that's supposed to be going on?"

"Hmm?" Taliesin picked up the ladder and started walk down the corridor to do this all over again. "Oh, you mean about Doctor Qellar? Well, let's see. Since she's come on board, Qellar has been found in some unauthorized areas and such. Lieutenant Gyce thinks she might have some special interest in the Chief Research Officer, Lieutenant Idris. Then again maybe there's just some sort of secret lover's quarrel between the two of them, I don't avaretin know." Taliesin paused to look at the officer. His language was often colourful and even though the Universal Translator failed to give an appropriate word it was plain to tell when he was cursing.

"Language." Nizan said, smirking a little.

The petty officer muttered something under his breath that couldn't be made out; asking him to watch his language was like asking a black hole not to suck in everything around it. He'd grown up hearing the languages - and curses - of dozens of different species, some of which were not formally known to the Federation as the station he'd lived on wasn't even in Federation space. Taliesin would try though, to watch his language, as much as it pained him and as unlikely as it was to last. "Anyways, we're supposed to keep an eye on the both of them in the meantime. Lieutenant Idris hasn't been behaving himself either when it comes to her."

"I dunno if anyone can control themselves around here." Nizan smirked as he spoke.

Taliesin gave a small grin, but didn't respond to that as he set up the ladder once more. He climbed up again, dragging fallen conduits over his strong shoulder and glanced down, "If you could get the panel, sir?" It wasn't that bad of work to do, and things could certainly have been worse that they'd turned out. Taliesin rather enjoyed staying busy and his armoury was locked up tight for the time being.

"Right." Nizan climbed up, pulling the panel down.

The human shoved and got the tumbled mass a little higher, "Fuc- argh, get back in there." This not cursing thing made it difficult to concentrate on other tasks. For a moment he wobbled on the ladder but finally succeeded in getting the jumbled group of wires and conduits back where it belonged. More or less. "Okay, read to seal it back up. So why'd you come to the Galileo, sir?"

"More adventure. Life on a Starbase can get pretty boring. I did have one time of excitement. What about you, Petty Officer? Why'd you join?" Nizan managed to replace the panel without too much difficulty.

The question provoked a snort, "I just go where they tell me, Lieutenant." As the panel slid into place, Taliesin once again pulled his arms free. "Phew." He climbed back down from the ladder, folded it up, and tucked it under an arm once more to move on to the next one. "Never expected that a couple days after coming on board I'd get to find out what it's like to get sucked in and spit out of a morelekkin vortex!" The curse word slipped out without Taliesin even noticing that time.

Nizan started laughing as he followed Taliesin to the next one. "I don't think I thought I'd find out either."

The process of the repairs was repeated, this time with a structural support beam. It took the two of them a few minutes and quite a lot of strength and straining to get it to move just a few inches back into position, then weld it to hold. By then both men were sweating and muscles aching.

"Fucking hell, almost threw out my back on that one," Taliesin said, rubbing the small of his back. His language continued to be atrocious, as if he didn't even realise what was coming out of his mouth. At least he'd lasted about five minutes, likely one of his personal best records when not dealing with officers very high on the chain of command. There was something about three or four pips that washed Taliesin's mouth right out. "What do you think about all this, sir? Any clue what happened? They didn't teach any of the fancy stuff you officers know in enlisted training."

"Think about what? The investigation? I think that its too soon to tell anything. If we jump to conclusions, then our impartial judgement can get clouded. If that happens, then we might arrest or charge an innocent person." Nizan pulled on the 8 years he spent in the academy.

With a wry and sidelong look at the officer, Taliesin said, "I was a cop for a long time, sir, before joining Starfleet. Before you'd even joined the Academy." He could see the obvious age gap, and found it roughly amusing that this young man was his superior. "I was the only law enforcement agent on a deep space tradestation full of smugglers, thieves, and worse. I know how to run an investigation." Sort of. Of course, Taliesin's idea of an investigation was either staking out a target, threatening contacts and accomplices with jail time, or beating the information out of people. "I was asking you about the vortex, Lieutenant, since that was what we'd moved on to talking about. What do you think about the vortex?"

"It was indeed weird. And I sense something off with the Prophets here...wherever here is." Nizan replied with a sigh.

Taliesin didn't pause but moved on down the hallway, only stopping to stack some ruined sections of bulkheads that would have to be replaced against the wall and out of the way. He'd never seen such extensive damage to a starship before, but at the same time Taliesin was impressed. When he'd first gotten orders for his transfer to the Galileo, he had a good laugh over how tiny the ship was. For all its small size though, the Nova Class had held up rather well all things considered. Wasn't a singularity like a black hole or something? The cop never would have expected they would have survived if asked beforehand. Of course all the repairs was just a day in the life of some lowly NCO such as himself, and probably not so unexpected for someone as young as this security officer too.

"Well, unless the Prophets are gonna come down and help with repairs, I say we get on with it, sir," Taliesin wasn't afraid to make a recommendation to an officer, especially when there was so much work to do. "Got a story to pass the time too," he said, wondering if he'd do half as well with his embellishments as Ezra Koenig could. He really need to pin the man down at some point and - "So, a few years back, the Lissepian trader came through my station, thinking we wouldn't notice a shielded shipping container. We did though, and we thought it was some kind of contraband though. You'll never believe what we found when we forced open the crate and..."

[OFF]

PO1 Taliesin Cynwrig
Master-At-Arms
USS Galileo
[PNPC Cyin Xanth]

Lieutenant JG Nizan Rydit
Security Officer
USS Galileo

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