Just One More Question

Posted on Wed Nov 27th, 2024 @ 2:42pm by Captain Malcom Llwyedd & Lieutenant JG Zub Enel
Edited on on Mon Dec 2nd, 2024 @ 9:53pm

1,218 words; about a 6 minute read

Mission: Interlude 1 Gamma Quadrant
Location: DS 18 Deck 45

[ON]

Deck 45 was darker than the scaly, 7-foot-tall Voth liked. The warm air reeked of ozone and burnt tobacco leaves. Fat power conduits hugging the walls and ceiling and heaped along the deck tinted the gloom red and green with indicator lights. A rhythmic grunting and cursing issued from ahead; male, clenched jaw.

Suddenly unsure of his safety, the Voth felt the down beneath his scales rise and prickle. He spoke loudly with a slight lisp caused by his long, forked tongue, "Chief Petty Officer Truman? Stanley Truman?"

The profane grunt-shanty halted. "Who in tarnation is that?"

“Lieutenant JG Zub Enel. Security Investigations Officer."

"You tell that damned dabo girl…"

Confused, Zub Enel interrupted, "I'm not here about that."

In that beat of surprised silence, Zub stepped toward the voice. His boot kicked something hard. A tool rang and pinged as it slid across the metal deck. It thumped against something soft.

The male voice, already deep with annoyance, bellowed, "OW! Keep kickin' my tools and you'll need one surgically extracted!"

"Sorry. Can't see."

A click. A single light sent down a bluish cone through smoky ozone-scented darkness. A middle-aged, burly engineer with an unlit cigar stub chomped in his teeth and glowered up at Enel. What could only be Chief Truman held an enormous wrench and an aimed phaser. Between him and Zub was a vertical pipe with a horizontal pipe clamped to it. The horizontal pipe had dents, clearly from the Chief's wrench.

Truman’s gaze swept from Enel's boots to his crested head. The engineer whistled as he tucked away the phaser. "How many cans of dog food did your mother feed you a day?"

A vegetarian since hatching, the Voth curled a lip. "None."

"How'd you get so tall?"

Childlike, Zub said, "Because I ate all my vegetables." He smiled at his joke.

The Chief didn’t. He used his tongue to switch his cigar stub to the other side of his mouth. A meaty hand gripped the horizontal pipe. "You're all gristle and muscle, Lieutenant. Grab this pipe. I'll bet if we throw our backs into it, we'll bust this coupling loose."

"Always happy to help," Zub said, though he hadn't come to Deck 45 for physical labor. He leaned his PADD on the deck against a nearby conduit. He gripped the battered pipe with his three-clawed hands.

Truman stared up into his golden eyes. He spoke overly simple. "Now I'm going to PUSH toward you, and you're gonna PULL away from me. Okay?"

Zub nodded his crested head.

"On 3. 3!"

Both men strained on the horizontal pipe. Zub could see the banged-up pipe was a giant wrench locked onto a black duralloy coupling.

Truman said, his voice high and squeaky, "Come on you great heap of gristle, pull! Really pull!"

Zub flexed every muscle into the pull. He leaned back to add his weight. Just as he reached the edge of exhaustion, a high, keening note sounded.

"That's got it moving," Truman exclaimed. "Pull! Throw in everything, even what's between your ears."

Straining, Zub huffed breaths through his teeth. His arms felt like they were being stretched out of their sockets and ripping his tendons. Shaking from the effort, he braced a boot on the vertical pipe and thrust his leg against it as hard as possible. Metal burrs on the battered horizontal bar sunk into his palms.

A metallic squealing sounded.

The horizontal wrench rapidly twisted, swinging into the Voth. Chief Petty Officer Truman's knuckles punched hard against Zub's ribs. Warm, oily moisture sprayed against Zub Enel's face and arms.

"Halleluiah!" The Chief exuberated. He panted. The continuing spray of whatever it was soaked into his yellow uniform. He cupped his hands to catch and sniff the moisture. He started chuckling.

Zub rubbed his ribs. "What is it?"

The Chief had caught his breath. "Coolant. Spent coolant, anhydrous xenolene, after passing through the electrics. Ain’t supposed to be in a power conduit, though." He plucked out his soggy cigar butt and slapped Zub on his soaked uniform arm with the other hand. "Not toxic. Except maybe to whatever you are."

"Voth." Zub stood fully erect. His body tingled pleasantly from the exertion. Coolant had soaked through to his underwear. He remembered his PADD.

Glancing at Enel's PADD, the Chief said, "Wait! Only idiots and admirals stand in spraying coolant. Snub this coupler shut."

Both males seized the horizontal wrench and with effort swiveled it opposite until the spray stopped. The Chief mopped his face on a coolant-drenched uniform arm. He inspected his soggy cigar stub and tossed it aside. "Okay, sir. I'd say you earned an answer or two from me. You said something about Security?"

“Security Investigations Officer.” Zub lifted his PADD. It was soaked. The screen showed crazy zigzag lines, clearly ruined. He decided to rely on his memory of the details. "I am investigating a report from Warrant Officer Arlan Harlan."

"A topflight engineer, man and boy."

"Correct. You and he are trying to catch invisible people. Meeting weekly about it, to no avail."

"Yeah, got sensors out, but these jokers are slippery devils. Big. White and scaly." His gaze lingered on Zub's scaly hands. "Cousins of yours, maybe?"

"Are they damaging anything?"

"Hard to tell. This base got smacked hard during the attack. Some damage is so damaged it doesn't stay fixed. Sometimes fixing something breaks something you just fixed." The Chief tapped the horizontal pipe with his bashing wrench, staring into the gloom behind Zub.

Zub asked, "So, they’re up to no good?"

"Do good people cloak all the time?"

"And they're not fixing things?"

The Chief gave a snort. He glared up at Enel. "Yeah, they're from the same Do-Gooder universe that makes tall, vegetable-eating lizards."

Feeling thwarted, Zub looked at his palm in the dim overhead light. Blood from tiny rents mingled with the spent coolant. He wondered if he should pop into sickbay.

The Chief rested his big wrench on a shoulder. "So, if nothing else, sir…"

Zub decided to give the Chief one last try. "They were seen around these power conduits. Interrupting power is one way to cause mischief. Power is also a means to an end. Could they be siphoning off power? For something mechanical or technical in nature?"

Chief shrugged so huge he bashed his ear with his shouldered wrench. Grimacing he said, "Me and Arlan have been over all the possibilities. Do you think a non-engineer can have any idea that we haven't? Lieutenant, we need new ideas. Workable ones."

Enel let his shoulders sag. The Chief was done helping. Invisible scaly people were still up to Zub to find.

He tucked his ruined PADD against his soggy forearm. "Thank you, Chief Truman. Uh. Carry on."

The Chief snorted and put a hand on the vertical pipe, his gaze pointed upward and far away.

Zub counted himself lucky to get the Chief's attention. The older man had been working a million years before some Junior Grade Lieutenant showed up wanting breezy answers. Enel returned through the gloom of Deck 45. His boots squished, filled with spent coolant. His torn palms hurt. He wondered again if he should check in at sickbay.

[OFF]

Lieutenant JG Zub Enel
Security Investigations Officer
USS Firebird NCC-88298

Chief Petty Officer Stanley Truman
Engineer
DS18

 

RSS Feed

Comments (2)