<USS Avalon> Unauthorized Reapirs
- From: TKilyle@xxxxxxx
- To: avalon@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 16 Nov 2005 19:14:15 EST
Unauthorized Repairs
by Joshua Garrity & Li Vilya
Joshua stepped into the shuttle bay and smiled. Look at that ship! he
thought. Sprinting over to it, he climbed aboard, examining the systems and
grinning like a kid in a candy store with a pocket full of money. He started
with a
quick diagnostic of her entire system, then shook his head almost laughing.
No wonder...he breathed, still grinning as he looked at the results.
Rudimentary warp drive, no impulse to speak of, just thrusters. The constructs
were so
oddly done in parts, he wondered if perhaps it hadn't been copied from an
already wrecked cruiser or, more likely given the construct patterns, a
Dominion vessel. He shook his head as he looked at parts of it that simply
made no
sense to have been built as they were. What were they thinking? he wondered,
laughing as he began to effect repairs.
He started with the environmental controls, scanning through system logs to
determine "normal atmosphere" and correcting any flaws he found that might
cost them that. Next he moved to propulsion and navigational issues, resisting
the urge to do too much tweaking, instead limiting himself to correcting
design flaws and repairing what they had. No revamping, he had to keep
reminding
himself You're repairing what they already have, not upgrading it. It was so
tempting, though. There were so many flaws, and so much to work with. His
mind wandered to easy upgrades to her propulsion systems that would make her
easily three times faster than what she was now, sensor display changes that
would make the universe significantly clearer. Could it really hurt to tweak
it
just a little?
Slick move, Josh. Got out of the tour with the spider but your wife's going
to kill you, Vilya thought with a smirk as she watched Annabelle. Stupid
grav boots. Josh got out of those, too, just so he could go play...Vilya's
eyes widened and she clomped over to Mac as quickly as possible.
"I have to get down to the bay, Mac. You know he's down there all by
himself with a less than Fleet perfect rig," she said, shaking her head.
Mac looked at her at first quizzically, not quite comprehending, before his
friend's occasionally serious OCD issues came to mind. "Oh, shit." he laughed.
"go...go go go..."
Vilya kicked off the boots as soon as she was under the access shaft then
almost giggled as she floated up to it. She let herself slide down until
normal gravity took effect then crawled the rest of the way out to the
corridor.
She dropped to the floor, making a mental note to have somebody put the grate
back, and bolted for the nearest lift. "Shuttle Bay," she said, a bit out
of breath.
Mac watched Vilya go and roared as she took off, the superman theme coming
abruptly to mind as she sailed up to the access panel. "Go get him, Supergirl,"
he called, laughing so hard he could hardly breathe.
Vilya fairly ran to the shuttle bay but stopped short of actually bursting
in. That would startle Josh for no good reason. Instead, she forced herself
to walk in at her normal pace. "Hello!" she called out. "It's your friendly
neighborhood Bajoran."
Large blue eyes peered out of the shuttle and a hand, holding a pair of
channel locks, waved her in.
Vilya smiled as she approached. "I came to see how you were doing," she said
easily as she sat on the edge of one of the legs. "I hate tours but
Annabelle seemed to be doing very well."
Josh nodded as he returned to work. He'd been sure she would do just fine.
Placing the channel locks carefully back in their designated slot, he grabbed a
very fine -pointed pair of tweezers.
"Josh," she said with a slight warning tone, "I'm no Betazoid but you
wouldn't be thinking about ..oh, I don't know...making unnecessary improvements
would you?"
Josh looked at her guiltily before asking, "Define unnecessary?"
Vilya grinned. "Ones that would break the Prime Directive and send my son's
godfather to end up scrubbing nacelles," she said with a warm smile. "You
know we aren't supposed to make it any spiffier than it was when it got here."
"They'd have to know how it was before to determine that, wouldn't they?"
Josh asked seriously.
Vilya held one finger to her lips. "I'm not saying anything but do you
suppose the guest might notice?"
Josh shrugged, grinning sheepishly. "Maybe?" he answered at last, very
quietly.
"Now..now..." she said with a merry look in her eyes. "How's their tech
different anyway?"
He showed her the diagnostics, and all the problems which he'd already
examined and prioritized. The potentially life threatening flaws were
highlighted
in red, the marginally dangerous in yellow, and the non-life threatening
flaws were in green. He'd made numerous notes in the margins in tiny Tauriian
glyphs.
"So...you, being the studious engineer that you are, are seeing to the red
and yellow, right?"
Blushing brightly, Joshua nodded. He was seeing to them first.
"Josh!" She looked around, even though she knew they were alone. "You'll
catch way too much hell if you do anything."
"I could have it done...right...by the end of shift..." he told her quietly,
looking longingly at the PADD. Gods, but he hated leaving a job half done.
She couldn't really ask him to, could she?
If he had been anybody else, she would have poked him in the chest. As it
was, she leveled those warm brown eyes at him. "And then we'd both catch
paper because they'd ask me."
"Or not," he answered hopefully.
Vilya rolled her eyes in a gesture of sarcasm. "And since when have you
known the powers that be to not love paper pushing?"
"Well..." Josh began quietly, a slight smile on his face, a hopeful gleam in
his eyes. "I'm not technically upgrading...see...just..bringing it up to
current specs...for safety reasons..."
"Preaching to the choir, as Ming would say," she said with a sigh. "How
about bringing to top specs as if this were current tech for us? You know, if
it were, say...2005 and bring it top 2005 specs?"
Joshua shrugged, but something in the gleam in his eye told her that just
wouldn't be enough for him.
Vilya shook her head fondly. "Did you sleep through the ethics classes in
engineering?"
Josh considered a moment, then shook his head slowly, his expression
confused. He didn't think so.
"Prime Directive and all that about non-interference," she reminded him.
She tapped her lips with one finger, thinking. She understood his
frustration.
There had to be a way around it. "You know...you could make a whole list
of what can be upgraded and then present it to the itsy bitsy spider as an
educational possibility."
"can't..." Josh admitted quietly at last, avoiding her gaze. "I sort
of...already...did...stufff...."
Vilya clapped a hand over her mouth. "Josh!" she said in a strangled
whisper. "You...oh, you're terrible." She ran a hand through her auburn
hair,
making the earring she wore jingle. "Alright then....how about writing up the
list but don't say how it got done. Leave the educational possibility that
way."
Josh grinned, nodding slightly, a conspiratorial gleam in his bright blue
eyes. "So...you want to help finish?" he asked at last, almost laughing.
Vilya held out a hand, wriggling her fingers with just a touch of mischief
in her eyes. "Give me what ya got," she said brightly.
Smiling brightly, Josh quickly split the list of what was left to be done
then all but ran back in to work.
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