Coffee? What Coffee?

Posted on 29 Mar 2012 @ 10:13pm by Lieutenant Commander Chauncey Remington III (KIA) & Lieutenant Lilou Zaren

1,009 words; about a 5 minute read

Mission: Episode 01 - Project Sienna
Location: Deck 6, 7 Various
Timeline: MD01 - 1200 hrs

[ON]

In the two hours since her... mind-bending morning, Lilou had gone seeking out normalcy. Well. She'd gone seeking normalcy after she'd banged on Willis' door, waking him from a sound slumber to send him to the mess hall to fix what he'd procrastinated and had turned into a rather unfortunate mess. Following that, she'd hurried back to the relative safety of Main Engineering and hunkered down at the MSD to finish out her shift in relative peace.

Suddenly Remington's voice sounded over her comm. =/\=Remington to Peers,=/\= he said, his voice calm and showing no hints of what had transpired earlier, =/\=Please report to my office.=/\=

Lilou winced as his voice came through her combadge, but stood, signaling one of the other engineering officers to take over for her. What did he want? Probably to tell her in no uncertain terms not to go talking about what he'd been like while drugged out of his mind. She wouldn't have done that anyway. She hadn't even told Willis that he'd been drugged at all; just that the malfunction with the replicators was not something to be taken lightly and he needed to do a full spec run on all the listed ingredients in foods provided by the replicator cross-checking for known behavior-changing toxins. When she arrived outside Remington's office, she touched the pad beside the door and then locked her hands behind her back.

Will looked up when the door chimed. That would be Peers. "Enter," he called out, turning from an operations station by the wall to face the door.

Lilou cleared her throat as she stepped through the door. "You... asked to speak with me, sir?"

"Ah, yes," he said with a nod. "Ms. Peers, the events of this morning did not occur." He thought about offering her a drink from the replicator, but a moment later thought better of it and sat down at his desk. "Be that as it may, I appreciate your help in... fixing the replicators." His tone hinted that he was not merely thanking her for that, however.

"Yes, sir. I know, sir." Lilou focused on the edge of his desk. "I've got one of my crew reviewing the replicator's chemical database for any other landmines." She shifted, gaze flicking to the side a little awkwardly. "You're... in good condition, sir?"

"I'd like to know why such an error occurred," he replied, passing over her question. "It's dangerous to the ship and all."

"Yes, sir. So would I. Given the integrity of the compound change, I'm suspicious that it may have been an intentional alteration on the part of whoever programmed that item. It's a basic addition to the replicator manifest, so it was probably added to the replicator core before any of our crew had contact with it. The manufacturer maybe. And if that's the case, we need to report it to base command so they can do a recall of all replicators from that assembly." Lilou looked at him. "I thought I would leave that to you, sir. As you... may have a... particular way you'd like to describe the events."

"You may make the report, tell them about the error and leave the surmising to them. Probably a practical joke with a culprit we will never catch." He shrugged, "Nothing to worry about."

Lilou frowned a little. "It could have been very serious under different circumstances, sir." The horrors of which had been playing through her mind for the last two hours. The commander swigging a cup of caffeine before they go into red alert... Quinn taking a sip before routine maintenance on the warp core... She shuddered to think of the potential disasters. They'd been lucky to have caught it when they did. And she'd been whining about a boring assignment. Shame on her. "We were very fortunate. If it's at all possible to trace the signature of the programming error, I will."

"All's well that ends well," he replied with a smile, "but by all means, if you can find out who is responsible, do so. But you probably won't get far; I'd say it's unlikely that anyone aboard the ship was involved."

Of course she didn't think anyone on the ship was responsible. She'd said she thought it was a manufacturing issue, hadn't she? Wait, had she? She couldn't remember. She fought the urge to rub her forehead. "Yes, sir. You're right, sir." When would this end? She felt like she was on trial and she hadn't even done anything wrong. At least, she didn't think she had. There was always the possibility that something had slipped through the cracks. Had it? "Was there... anything else? Sir?"

Will raised an eyebrow at her. "No, I suppose not." he said, nodding to her, "Dismissed."

"Thank you, sir," Lilou said gratefully and turned.

"Oh, Miss Peers," he called as she was walking out the door. "What are your plans for the evening? I've got a stash of Vulcan wine in my quarters, 2347 vintage..." he gave her a secretive smile.

She tripped slightly, catching herself in the next step, and turned to look at him over her shoulder with a wide blink. "Have you?" she asked with a small sideways smile. "I hadn't heard."

"Yes, well, I usually save it for special occasions."

"And you consider a replicator malfunction a special occasion?" she asked dryly. "You must lead a very... stimulating life."

Will laughed, "No, I don't. But I rather owe you, don't I? I did offer after all. Of course if you aren't interested..."

"No, I'm..." She smiled, tugging her braid over her shoulder. "My shift doesn't end until o-hundred hours, but if you're up for..." She laughed quietly. "I've never had Vulcan wine."

"Ah, beta shift," he said, "stop by for a quick glass if you feel up to it then."

"I...will. Thank you." She smirked slightly as the doors opened to let her through. "Will."

[OFF]

Warrant Officer Lilou Peers
Engineering Officer
USS Galileo

Lt. Cmdr. Chauncey William Remington III
Chief Operations Officer
USS Galileo

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