Post 229: Adventures in Starship-sitting

Stardate:70618.1945
Title: Adventures in Starship-sitting
Author: Lair Kellyn
Scene: Main Engineering
Time: Concurrent with "Proceed" by Salvek and after "Left to his own. . ." By Xhian
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"I'm sorry I can't come to tuck you in, Arie." Lair Kellyn said, as Arie's assigned care attendant Ensign Stabler brought her by engineering to say goodnight.

"You know if I could, I would. It's just that with your father down on the planet and the transporters acting up," She always felt a little guilty trying to juggle the demands of her work with motherhood. Especially at times like this, when she'd been working for days straight and seen very little of her child.

"It is all right, Oko-mekh. I know that you are doing your duty as an officer and an engineer." Lair Arie said with a maturity well beyond her years. "I shall say goodnight to you here."

She extended her hand in the traditional Vulcan symbol of parting instead of offering a hug or kiss in a moment of Vulcan-ness that made Kellyn smile.

"Peace and long life, Oko-mekh."

*Salvek would be proud.* Kellyn thought. "Live long and prosper, Lair Arie." she replied, then she swooped the child into her arms for a quick hug. Kellyn felt melancholy, very mindful as she'd seen parent-less children and childless parents transporting to and from the Independence just how lucky she was.

"Thank you." Arie replied seriously. She stifled a yawn, and Kellyn patted her on the top of the head.

"On your way now."

Arie looked at her thoughtfully. "Mother, it is very bad, what happened on Bajor, is it not?"

They had tried to shield the children who lived on the ship as much as they could from the horrors that the storm had brought, but had been unable to completely protect them. The survivors were all over the place, coming aboard, being treated, being beamed back to emergency relocation centers on Bajor far away from the destruction on the Plains. Some screamed and wouldn't stop- names of their missing loved ones- or cries of grief after identifying people they recognized all too well in the morgue.

The whole population of the ship was haunted by the sound and everywhere you went even the very halls of the Independence smelled of death.

"Yes, Arie. It's as bad as it can be." Kellyn admitted, believing that children were so smart that you couldn't get much past them, no matter how you tried. Nothing much got past her when she was nearly eight.

"I shall chant for the people," the child replied, "and meditate on my gratitude. I am fortunate to be alive."

Kellyn nodded, and then gestured for Stabler to take Arie out as she tried to keep her composure. She heard the girl's small voice ask a question of Stabler as they walked away.

"When is my father coming home?"

It was half way through second shift and Kellyn was still hard at work. She couldn't remember when she'd last slept, but she couldn't leave her post. The away teams were depending on those transporters, and with so many continuous hours of overuse, the strain on the system was reaching critical.

"Stratton, did you check the output of the matrix enhancing pattern-" Lair began, moving toward the Ensign as she spoke. As she did so, she noticed the lights dim into a brown-out before going out completely.

"Son of a-" she pounded her fist on the wall and waited for auxiliary generators to kick in. Once they did, engineering was illuminated dimly by back-up lights only.

"Three. Two. One." Kellyn counted down aloud, knowing that her com-badge was about to sound off, transmitting the voice of the sure-to-be-angry Acting Captain, Zanh Liis. "Now."

Sure enough, the next sound she heard was a hail from the bridge.

[Zanh to Lair what the hell just happened?]

"Working on it, Captain. Stand by."

[Stand by? What do you mean, stand by? It's getting very romantic up here, what with the mood lighting and all Kellyn but we kind of need the transporters, not to mention main power!]

"Working on it! Give me a second-"

[Make it snappy!]

The channel closed and Lair's fingers flew over console after console, begging, borrowing and stealing every spare watt of power she could from every dormant or secondary ship system in order to bring main power to the lights back on line.

"Restart the central engineering computer control system." She instructed Stratton, who nodded and put in the command. Everything went black for a moment again, but after a second lights came back at full power.

"Now that we can see what we're doing. . ." Kellyn began, "I want you to recall every engineer on this barge who is off duty and get them down here. I'm going to have to go spelunking in the Jeffries' tubes soon." She thought that maybe she should take the new guy with her and see what he could really do.

So Kellyn opened a channel to the Andorian/Borg engineer, Ensign Xhian. His duty shift had ended hours before, but knowing him even as little as she did so far, she knew he'd likely still be working, somewhere.

"Lair to Xhian where the hell are you?"

[I am 'the hell' on the holodeck, Commander, working on weapon design modifications. Do you require assistance?]

"You could say that. Didn't you notice that the whole electrical system just went offline? Transporter overload has short circuited wiring across the board and now they're completely off line. We need to get them back up and working yesterday so that we can get our people back from Bajor!"

Lair was of course concerned for the entire complement on the planet, but the fact that Salvek was down there did seem to fuel the fire in her even more to get things back into working order.

[But Commander, if we had fixed them yesterday, then they would not be broken now.] Xhian said seriously, without any hint of sarcasm.

Lair was heard to emit a low growl from deep in her throat and a string of Bajoran expletives over the com line.

"You are even more literal than Salvek. Just GET DOWN HERE!"

"Yes, Sir."

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Lt. Commander Lair Kellyn
Acting Chief Engineer
USS Independence NCC-90791