Dropping In

Posted on 18 Jan 2013 @ 8:31am by Lieutenant Lilou Zaren & Chief Warrant Officer 2 Sergei Petrov

2,609 words; about a 13 minute read

Mission: Episode 03 - Frontier
Location: USS Galileo: Deck 4, Arboretum
Timeline: MD -01: 1800 hrs

[ON]

After leaving Ni Dhuinn's office, Lilou had made her way to the main shuttlebay to spend some time with Rothgra. The apprentice engineer was eager to learn as much about the shuttles as he could manage, and she'd been trying to take as much time as she could to educate him on the major systems. She'd even been helping him construct miniature working models of the shuttles to mimic the systems on board, so he would have a more hands on, working knowledge of the ships' schematics. Which was how the whole fiasco began.

She grunted, wedging herself through a particularly tight crawlspace, after the runaway model. It was an air duct, not an access hatch, but she was small and light and she had no plans on following it too far. She just needed to grab the little hovering mini-shuttle she and Rothgra had built and return it to the shuttlebay where it could be used as a learning device instead of rattling around the ship as a nuisance.

There, just ahead, she could see it bumping into the panel just in front of an even smaller air duct hatch. If it slipped away through there, she'd have to chase it all the way up to the upper decks. Scurrying faster, she made a grab for the tiny shuttle, gripped its active, autopilot body in her hand and tugged it close... just before the duct gave out a sharp whine and catapulted to the ground.

-- --

"As you can see, lieutenant, the experiments have proved successful. We may begin dismantling the crops at once and returning this area back to its natural condition," Petrov explained after handing over his PADD to Lieutenant Panne.

Taking the PADD in her hand, Maenad skimmed over the results. "Surprise," she said with a sarcastic sigh. She looked not at Petrov but at the pond, which had confirmed everyone's suspicions. The colonists on Sestus III were decidedly idiots. Who thought it was a good idea to just start growing volatile crops on a climatically unstable world, crops that required fertiliser damaging to human health when irrigated next to the colony's only water source? Had they thought to consult anybody before people starting wrenching their guts? "Well done, Mister Petrov. I'll forward the results immediately,"

"Yes, lieutenant," Petrov said with something between a bow and a nod. "I will begi--" His visual acuity flagged a sudden disturbance above Miss Panne's head, up high in the holographic sky. The was a simultaneous beginning of snapping metal, like a sharp thunderclap, but he knew the weather had been programmed to remain clear this evening. Instinctively, Petrov's arm grabbed Panne by the arm above her elbow, tugging her toward and then behind him as a long section of overhead duct came crashing down. She stumbled against his strength, shocked at first, but then shielded her head with her free arm and PADD. The duct slammed into the grass, carving out the turf and earth along with it with a crunching noise.

Petrov looked over his shoulder, making sure that Panne was safe and secure. "Are you all right?" he asked.

Maenad didn't say anything. Her bruised elbow was throbbing, but her wide eyes were locked on to where she had just been standing. If it hadn't been for Petrov, she might have been dead right now. She saw him looking at her, and she glanced back at him all pale-faced and dazed-looking, clutching the PADD between both hands in front of her chest, as if she were trying to hide behind it.

She was fine, Petrov told himself. He looked up into the sky, shielding his eyes from the setting sun. There was a flickering hole where the section of duct had been, sparking with dangling wires and hoses. Except from where the piece of duct had fallen, the rest of the sky looked perfectly dusky as it should have. Out of danger, nerves calm, Petrov thought that seeing a 'hole in the sky' was something he ought to appreciate for a moment. But then a woman climbed out of the fallen duct before him, whom he recognised as Ensign Peers. He steadied up, about two or three metres in front of the still stunned Miss Panne. "Sir," he saluted Peers. "Are you all right?"

"What? Yes. Maybe." Lilou stretched her jaw, popping her ears to try to get the ringing out. She blinked several times, climbing the rest of the way out of the duct and to her feet. She rolled her neck, stretched her arms... "Yes. I appear to be fine." She rubbed the back of her head, "I'll probably bruise, but that's nothing new." She looked between them, then up at the ceiling. Well, she thought, blinking again. This one she couldn't really blame on Operations or the builders. This one was definitely her. Not as light as I thought. She tugged her goggles down over her eyes and flicked past a couple lenses, magnifying the point of disconnection. Now she could see why it had fallen. The air duct in here wasn't supported by anything more than a few tender wires. It was just... hanging there, right out in the open. I should make a note of that on the schematics... she thought. It wasn't a problem, necessarily, but she wouldn't have gone climbing into it if she'd known it had no support structure. So my fault and the builders. I'm learning to share. She turned back to the pair of officers and balked at their sudden closeness before she remembered the magnification goggles and pushed them back on top of her head. People. Right. "Are you all right?"

"Yes, sir," Petrov said, smiling at her. She was covered in a sufficient amount of work-related grime to win his approval. She was probably injured, but she knew how to hold her own. He liked Ensign Peers.

Maenad stepped forward, sidling the burly Mister Petrov. She was still a little pale, but she had lost her jitters at the prospect of being so close to massive injury or death. Hawkishly, Maenad quickly scanned the fallen piece of duct, checked over the much shorter woman for serious injury, and then looked up at the hole in the sky. Squinting in the falling sunlight, she shielded her eyes with the PADD. "Nobody informed me of any maintenance in this section," she thought aloud. "Is there something wrong with the ventilation system?" With the goggles on the woman's head, Maenad didn't realise she was speaking at the chief engineer. But, she hadn't really looked the woman in the eyes just yet, either; she was too busy looking at all the damage. If there was something wrong with the arboretum's air circulation, somebody should have told her about it.

"There is now," Lilou muttered, following Maenad's gaze. She peeled her uniform shirt up and the little shuttle fell, like a dead bird, to the ground. She didn't seem to notice the scratches on her side from where she'd crushed the machine between her bare skin and the ground. She did notice the little door sticking like shrapnel out of her stomach; she tugged the little piece out and stuck it in her pocket, dropping her shirt back down. "I'll get to it. Just don't throw too much condensation around in here until we get it patched." She pushed the goggles back down. "Need to reinforced that whole duct line..." she muttered to herself.

=^="Chief?=^= Rothra's youthful, nervous voice filtered through Lilou's commbadge. =^="Did you get it yet?"=^=

Lilou looked at the crushed ship next to her foot. "Yeah, I got it," she said wistfully. "Run down and pull Hunter. There's something wrong with the ventilation system for the arboretum."

=^="Can I tell him what it is, sir?"=^=

Lilou sighed. "I broke it."

"What were you doing in there?" Maenad asked more shortly than she had probably intended. Her eyes fell on the miniature shuttle-thing that was now broken in the grass by their feet. "And what is this?" she squatted down to study it with her eyes, careful not to touch it.

Petrov, meanwhile, stood motionless as he watched for more falling debris. He didn't want to have to pull his eccentric chief out of danger because she was more intrigued with a broken robot. "Would you like some first aid, sir?" he asked over Panne's ramblings. "We have a medical kit in the office."

"Runaway experiment," Lilou admitted, nudging the little shuttle with her boot. "I was teaching - building a miniature shuttle craft for skills... the autopilot was wired wrong. It's his first build. It happens." She turned to Petrov and shook her head with a slight smile, "What if I go up there to fix it and fall down again? So usually-" she continued, "usually when I crawl in a duct it doesn't just... fall out of the ceiling. But these- they're relying on the strength of the duct connection to hold them aloft, without any support structure, you see?" She pointed, wedging her goggles off her head to offer them to the woman, then tossed a grin at Petrov. "Thank you."

It took a second for Maenad to realise that she was being offered the goggles as she was still enthralled with the model shuttlecraft. She thought that it was really cool. When she finally noticed them beside her head, she stood straight and took them from her, putting them on. It was a whole new world through these things. She wasn't an engineer, and she had never worn goggles like these before, so she couldn't understand all that she was seeing. Maenad did understand, however, that what the woman was telling her was true.

She pulled the goggles off and returned them to the engineer, she had to be an engineer, and gave her an appreciative smile. "You are lucky that you were not hurt." Maenad's neglect prevented her from noticing the same scrapes that Petrov had, including the nasty cut from the shuttle's little door. "Or," she went on, "That this isn't a real sky you've fallen from." Maenad's humour was embarrassingly awful.

Petrov just stood there quietly, appreciating the Peers' patience for Lieutenant Panne. She didn't mean to be this way, he knew, and he felt an ounce of pity for the woman. But only an ounce; her problems were her own, not his, and she was after all an effective and capable chief. But, he was beginning to wonder whether who she knew it was Ensign Peers, chief engineer, that she was talking to.

Lilou snorted on a laugh, taking her goggles back and settling them back on her head. "Good thing Chicken Little wasn't around to see it happen, anyway." Lilou's humor was embarrassingly awful, as well. She nudged the little mangled shuttle again with a wrinkle of her nose. Rothgra had been so proud of it. Well. They'd start from scratch and this time he'd get the autopilot right. Easy come, easy go. It was a lesson in not getting possessive about his ships. A lesson he would promptly forget if he was any good, which she suspected he was.

Maenad frowned, not knowing who or what Chicken Little was, but she didn't want to admit it. "Yes," she thought she agreed. She looked down at the shuttle again and then at the duct in the grass. "Well," her eyes returned to the young woman's, "I should not keep you from..." she paused, "From your work, ensign." She smiled again, a little embarrassed, "I am sorry, I do not believe we have met."

Lilou glanced up and it was only then that she noted the pips on the woman's collar. "Right, no. I mean, no, sir. I'm Peers. And you?"

Through a rising blush, Maenad pursed her lips. The name hit her like a sack of bricks. "I apologise, Miss Peers," she looked genuinely sympathetic, but she was more angry with herself for being ignorant than seeming it. "Maenad Panne," she introduced herself.

Petrov still didn't move or flinch, but he found the whole exchange downright hilarious. It was the first time he had seen his chief embarrass herself, and he thought that she was unquestionably adorable despite her lack of professionalism. At least she tried, he thought. She could have been worse, like most officers.

Lilou tugged her ears. 'Miss' again. Bother. Then her brain caught up and she blinked twice. "You're... oh. Oh!" She hissed, "I almost crushed the Chief of Science." She winced, "I am so- so- bloody hell. Hi. So much for good impressions at the senior staff table. Usually I don't fall out of ceilings. Or almost crush people. I don't. We hold to all the normal safety regulations-" She was going to have to go look up what those were and then figure out how to get Willis and Ameen to go along with them... Maybe they already did. How would she know? She knew what was safe, not what was regulation. "Are you sure you're okay, maybe you should-" she looked at Petrov, "maybe she should get that medkit, you think?"

Before Petrov could get a word in, Maenad held up one sharp hand. "No, I am fine," she insisted. It was true; Petrov had practically thrown her aside just in time. She had a bruise above her elbow from his grip, but that was it. Maenad looked down at her feet, and straightened her skirt a bit with the hand not holding the PADD. "Thank you," she smiled at Peers. "Do we have to be concerned about more falling ducts in here?" Maenad looked up at the sky.

Lilou swallowed hard and looked back up as well. In her head, behind her eyes, numbers streamed, quantifying the mass of the unsupported duct, the shift in balance from the missing portion, the relative weight of the wires. "No, of- no. It'll hold, but we should get it repaired and supported before you activate any precipitation, but I don't see any immediate problems aside from that. Can tie it up in about forty minutes."

Maenad gave her a smile that said she was glad to hear that. "Thank you, Miss Peers," she glanced at the fallen piece of duct once again. "I am sorry that we had to meet so," she thought of what word to use, "abruptly." She turned to face Petrov, "You can handle this?"

"Yes, sir," he replied with a courteous nod.

She raised her PADD. "I need to get these results to Sestus III right away," Maenad said to Peers, refocusing her attention." She nodded to her once and then to Petrov, whose hands remained behind his back. With nothing more said from the science chief and hardly without delay, she hurried off the grass, onto the dirt path, and toward the exit at a brisk pace, her skirt swishing at her side.

"Can I be of assistance, sir?" Petrov asked Peers.

"How much trouble am I in, Petrov?" Lilou asked, still tugging her ear nervously.

Petrov frowned. "Sir?"

Lilou shook her head, and looked back at the ceiling instead of watching Maenad walk away. "Nothing. I'm just going to..." she pointed up. "Get to that." She smiled quickly, adjusted her tool belt, and went to the wall. "Rothgra," she said to her commbadge.

=^="Coming, Chief!"=^=


[OFF]

ENS Lilou Peers
Chief Engineering Officer
USS Galileo

SWO Sergei Petrov
Science Officer/Geologist
USS Galileo

Lieutenant (JG) Maenad Panne
Chief Science Officer
USS Galileo

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