Big People in Tiny Spaces

Posted on 30 Apr 2012 @ 9:13pm by Lieutenant Lilou Zaren & Chief Warrant Officer 3 Lamar Darius

4,741 words; about a 24 minute read

Mission: Episode 01 - Project Sienna
Location: USS Galileo - Mess Hall, Various
Timeline: MD03 - 0015 hrs

[ON]

Lilou walked most of the way to the mess hall accompanied by Kestra's comforting presence, leaving her only as the security officer headed to her office. It wasn't quite relaxing, but it was a relief to know that, even alone with the marine, she wouldn't be completely on her own. As she rounded the corner and found him waiting, she hissed at her own lateness. "Sorry, sorry. I got held up," she smoothed her hair back from her face and idly straightened the sleeves of her shirt. "Off-duty, so... have to clean that uniform at some point." She cleared her throat. "You said you wanted to see the ship. Where'd you want to start?"

Lamar leaned against the wall looking over the duty shift roster on his PADD when he spotted the young Trill engineer come around the corner. "Hey there," he said with a friendly smile, "Don't worry about it." he added in reference to her tardiness. "I already finished my walkthrough of decks one and two, so do you want to start on three and we can work our way down?" he suggested.

"Mm!" she made a little mumbled sound of assent as she nodded and gestured towards the turbo lift. "There's a lot that's pretty sel-" She cut herself off. "It might help if you told me sort of what you have questions about. Otherwise, this is going to be a long tour."

The large man shrugged, not having given much thought to the question until now. "I sort of figured I'd ask as we went along..." he answered as he walked with Lilou towards the end of the corridor. There, they waited briefly for the turbolift to arrive before descending down to Deck 3. "So how was your shift?" he asked casually.

"How-?" She rolled her shoulders, thinking. "Fine? I mean... we're still flying and on course, so I guess that means my department's keeping up its end of the deal." She laughed at her own joke for a second and then stopped, unsure if that was funny to anyone else. "Ah... so... this is the lift. You found it. No problems with it so far. Nice job, computer." She shifted waiting for the doors to open and release them. "How about you? Ah... settling in?"

"For the most part." he answered, then stepped out first as the doors finally parted. "After lunch, I was busy checking in with most of the junior officers and getting adjusted to the various departments." he added as the two of them began to walk down the corridors of Deck 3. Though not the largest deck, it was spacious and housed most of the junior officers quarters aboard Galileo, as well as the security office, counselor's officer, and armory.

"Right," Lilou nodded, tapping her fingers uselessly against the sides of her thighs as she walked. "Well, so this is deck three. Counselor's down that corridor. And back that way," she pointed, "leads to the security office and the brig and... you probably know all this already..." She ducked her head, frowning, "Ah... that panel right there," she pointed to a seemingly innocuous square of the wall. "That opens up onto an access shaft that follows the lift up and down by ladders. Good way to get around if the lifts freeze up. And there's one a little further up that gets you access to the armory without-" she winced. Don't tell your superior officer you can get into the armory without security codes. That is a stupid, stupid thing to do. Not that she had any intention of doing so; she'd found the breach entirely accidentally. Maybe that was something she should mention to Kestra. Then again, who really went crawling around through the access shafts except for herself and Willis and Quinn?

"Huh?" he asked after an awkward pause. "Access to the armory without what?" he added, now wondering what little tidbits of useful information the young engineer had. Something about her demeanor told him she knew more about the ship than she was letting on to.

She cleared her throat. "I like to get to know the ship I'm serving on is all," she began, by way of explanation. "Kind of hard to fix things as they come up if you don't know how to get to everything and the datalines are run really differently through Nova-class than what I'm used to. And more specifically, different through the Galileo than the schematics I studied before I came on board, so I spent most of my free time just checking out the access panels and cross-checking them with the schematics I'd been given. So... I might have found a few ways into various secure-sealed rooms... through the walls... And if- if I did, it's information that I would never abuse."

The chief of the boat stopped in his tracks and looked at Lilou with a frown. The gold-collared woman was treading on dangerous territory with such a revelation, and Lamar needed to investigate. "Show me." he said, giving her a sideways glance.

And this, she thought wearily, is why I should never, ever open my mouth. "The only reason I said anything is... well, it is important to be able to access places when the power or the lock mechanisms break down. My notes are all in the system, available to anyone with the right clearance, which is to say my CO, the XO, the Captain, probably you..." She ran her hand through her hair. At least if she was thrown in the brig, she knew she'd get delightful lectures from an old friend... yeah. Not really a bright side. "That is, if anyone reads my notes, which they probably don't because who has time anyway and everyone has far more important things to do and it's really just small things-" she broke off, noting his look. "And you don't really care, you just want to see it, right?"

Lamar glanced down at Lilou, noticing her sudden nervousness. "Relax, I just want to see it." he answered in a light and non-threatening voice. In truth, he was more anxious to see what type of security risks these secret access hatches might pose, especially the armory. It wouldn't be very prudent to have an alternate entrance point to what was supposed to be one of the most secure rooms on the ship.

Lilou glanced down the abandoned corridor towards where the hatch was and thought suddenly of tight quarters, no escape route, no vid feeds, and a marine who could probably come up with some fairly valid excuses for having beaten her to a pulp. A cold trickle of sweat ran down her spine as her throat locked up. "I don't... don't have my tools, so..." Her voice sounded thready even to her own ears. There was a pounding right at the base of her skull, a panicking stress headache coming on. "I'd need - at least a sonic driver, if nothing else."

"Sonic driver, huh?" he commented, then shrugged. "There's a utility locker at the end of Section Two over there," he suggested as he motioned towards the end of the long corridor. "C'mon, I'll walk with you." he said with a smile, yet noticing that the engineer seemed more reserved and nervous than normal. He hoped he wasn't scaring her, but she was beginning to act more and more anxious.

Her hands were shaking, so she shoved them into her pockets and pressed them to her thighs as she walked where he told her. Breathe, she told herself. Just keep breathing. She ground her back teeth together as she reached the end of the corridor and the utility locker. Slowly, she plucked out a hyperspanner and a sonic driver, and shoved them into the waistband of her sweats, tightening the lace so much it almost hurt. At least the tools wouldn't drop and the pain was almost soothing, coming as it did from the tools of her trade. Taking one more deep breath, she turned and faced the tall Chief and nodded stiffly. "Here we go." She glanced at the vidfeed cameras as she passed them, hoping that Kestra was, in fact, keeping track of her, and knelt at an innocuous gray panel. Half a minute later, she was setting the panel to the side and looking up at Lamar. "It's through there."

Lamar raised his eyebrow, impressed at the discreteness with which the panel was removed. He took a knee and peered inside for a second before looking over at Lilou. "After you." he said with a grin, and waited for her to enter first.

She actually felt herself go pale; it was an odd sensation, the feeling of blood draining out of her face - not just her cheeks but her eyelids, forehead, nose. Everything went cold and tingly. Her lungs tightened so much that breathing hurt. She could feel herself shrinking in on herself even as she slipped into the opening and began scuttling forward in the narrow passage. The access shaft led up at a seventy degree angle and she pressed her toes to the sides of the shaft, scurrying up until she reached the familiar plateau. There was an air filtration unit here, but she'd already figured out how to bypass those fairly easily. All it took was a couple minutes with the sonic driver and the miniature panel cover was removed. Three data lines re-routed and the fan was off. Then it was a simple matter of removing the vent shield, using the hyperspanner to separate the blades of the fan and setting them to the side, and removing the second vent shield on the other side. Focusing on the work, the problem-solving, slowed her breathing and eased her temporarily. She scuttled through again, twisting around the ninety degree corner that led to nothing. At least she'd thought it led to nothing the first time she'd come through here. That hadn't made sense though. Why would you build an access shaft around a corner for no reason? So she'd tested and poked for about thirty minutes until she'd found the latch. Now, she found it in seconds, twisted, and pulled the panel in and up, snapping it to a tiny maglock on the ceiling of the shaft. Deftly, she twisted over herself and pushed out catching the edge with her fingers and slowly lowering herself down to the top of one of the lockers in the armory. "Bit of a drop," she warned him.

Climbing in after Lilou, Lamar was impressed with her savvy ability to find her way around the ship. He followed her through the access shaft but found it much less easy to navigate than the smaller engineer. While she had been able to delicately work her body through the tight confines of the service tube, he found it almost impossible to keep himself from becoming wedged. As he approached the ceiling exit, he dropped himself down but quickly found himself stuck as his shoulders and chest were unable to clear the opening. He had tried to squeeze through at the wrong angle and his legs now dangled on top of the nearby weapons locker while his head was still inside the shaft. "Umm...Peers? A little help, please..." he managed to say in a muffled voice.

She cocked her head to the side. She had sort of hoped he'd get stuck, but she hadn't actually expected it to come to pass. And he hadn't done anything - yet - to deserve it. Chewing her lip, she braced her back foot against the edge of another locker and gave it a shove. It didn't move. Good sign. "I'm going to give you a brace. You need to scootch. Twist a little to your rig- sorry, left." She gingerly wrapped her arms around his middle and pushed forward towards the wall. "Now. Wiggle back."

Lamar adjusted himself, first pulling himself back up and then dropping back down at the appropriate angle. With Lilou tugging on him, he finally dislodged his shoulders and quickly popped out of the hatch, landing on top of the locker with a loud thud. "Uhhh!" he exclaimed as he rolled over and looked at the engineer.

Lilou blinked dazedly up at him from the ground where she'd fallen. "...should have braced for impact..." she was muttering to herself, slowly sitting up and prodding at her hip. "...set off an alarm?" she asked, carefully climbing to her feet. But the alarm sounds on the ship were shrill sirens not these tolling bells. What was that? Not bells. Gongs. Definitely gongs. She rubbed her ears, stretching her jaw. "You landed hard - okay?"

"Yea.." he muttered as he lowered himself from the locker in a much more delicate fashion. "Are you okay?" he asked when he finally got to her, putting a hand on her shoulder. He could tell from the look in her eyes that she was still dazed from the jolt, and didn't want her to fall back down.

"Yeah. Hit worse," Lilou closed her eyes. She felt a little like she was floating, not completely there. The hand on her shoulder didn't register as his so much as a welcome support. "Had worse," she repeated, correcting herself. "Both. Right - ah - ta da armory..." She blinked hard. "Sitting down now," she reported as her knees buckled.

"Whoa there!" Lamar said, quickly catching hold of her as she lost her balance and cradling her before putting a strong arm around her waist. With a few helpful steps to a nearby weapons case, he leaned over and gently sat her down. He took a seat next to her and cupped her chin, turning her head towards him while he scanned her eyes for signs of a concussion. Her gaze was wobbly and her irises were having difficulty focusing on one spot. "Just have a seat here for a few moments and collect your thoughts." he said in a reassuring voice as he patted her on the leg.

"You..." she said slowly, "...should not climb through access shafts. You are too big." She pointed at him, felt a little nauseous, and shut her eyes, bending in half to hold her head between her knees.

Lamar chuckled at her observation, "Yea, well that's why I'm not an engineer." he replied with a sideways grin which slowly faded as he watched her curl forward on the chair. "You don't look too good, Lilou." he said as he rubbed her shoulder then tried to sit her back up. "Do you want me to take you to sickbay?" he asked.

"Fff- no. Be fine. Just need the ringing to stop." She squeezed her eyes shut. "Notice how none of the alarms are going off, despite the ruckus in here?"

"Hmm..." he said quietly as he stood up and moved to a nearby terminal, bringing up the latest duty logs. "You're right. Internal sensors should have picked up our intrusion the minute you exited the shaft." he said as he tapped several commands into the console, looking through the security logs. "Looks like the last person in here was....." he suddenly stopped speaking as his brow furrowed in thought. "This can't be right." he muttered as he tapped more button sequences.

"What?" she asked, lifting her head just enough to rest it on her knees instead of between them.

"Well, the security grid for this room appears to have been rerouted but I'm not sure where." he began. "According to the security logs, the last person to access this room was Crewman Rabicci." he said as he tapped some more on the screen. "But there's no Crewman Rabicci on Galileo's manifest. I know all of the enlisted personnel aboard by name and I've never seen or heard of his." he said, then paused to scratch his head in thought.

"What does that mean?" Lilou slowly sat up and made herself stand, despite the wobbliness of the room. Crossing over behind him, she wrinkled her nose at the screen. "Someone from the starbase came on board? Are we missing anything?"

"I don't know." he replied with a shrug, "It looks that way. Strange." he continued, growing more wary of the situation. "This needs to be reported to the Master-at-Arms." he said, then turned towards his Trill companion. "Is this the first time you've entered this room?" he asked her with a tilt of his head.

"Second," she said. "Last time, I stayed up on top of the lockers," she pointed to where they'd come in. "I've got certifications for phasers and phase rifles. If I really wanted a weapon, I could requisition one. Mainly, I was trying to figure out why the sensors weren't picking me or the entry point up."

"It's alright, Peers, I trust you." he said with a nod before continuing, "Well we should probably get out of here and contact security, have them take a look." he suggested. "You feeling okay to walk?" he asked.

"Better question," she said with a wince. "Am I feeling okay to climb?" She pointed up at the panel they'd come through. "I've got to put all that back together on my way out. Should be okay." She did her best to look well and hale despite the throbbing at the back of her head and the lapping waves of dizziness. She could see straight and stand up; that meant she could work. And the spirit's knew she wasn't going to go wounded gazelle in front of a marine, no matter how nice he seemed.

"Okay let's get to it then, no sense loitering around here and I don't want to be here when there's something strange going on with the security grid." he said, then walked over to the locker crate and looked back at Lilou. "Need a lift?" he asked with an outstretched hand, volunteering to lift her up.

"Yes, thanks," she agreed. A bell-like laugh rippled out of her as he lifted her up to reach the top of the lockers; when she was up, she peered down at him with a sideways grin. "I'm afraid I won't be able to pull you up."

"Yea, I figured as much." he answered with a roll of his eyes as he mounted his foot against the side of the wall and jumped up, grabbing onto the top ledge and pulling himself up onto the high storage unit. "You didn't forget any of your tools, did you?" he quickly asked, making sure they didn't have to come back later for any evidence of their adventure.

She shook her head, which brought on the urge to laugh and wince at the same time. "Never. Never, ever. Never, ever, ever," she continued her declensions as she climbed into the access hatch. And then immediately climbed back out and pointed. "You first."

"Yes, Ma'am." he said with a mock salute, then slowly began to fit himself into the small hatch. It took several moments for him to squeeze into the small opening and he was careful this time to not wedge himself as he had previously done. With his arms and shoulders finally in, he pulled himself up and into the dark exit then began to crawl back out the way they came.

She followed him out, pausing to reinstall the false access panel and the cooling fan and reintegrate the ODN network. She triple checked her work because she didn't trust the buzzing in her ears, but was eventually satisfied that all was as it should be and rolled out of the access hatch in the corridor at Lamar's feet, turning to attach the panel to the wall again. "Now you saw."

"Indeed." he answered as he helped her to her feet then gave her a look up and down. "You sure you feeling okay? That was a pretty bad fall you took back there and I wouldn't be doing my job if I didn't check on you." he continued. "If you won't go to sickbay, at least let me have a look at you. There's a medical kit at the end of the corridor in one of the lockers..." he said, wanting to make sure the young Trill woman was in fact feeling okay as she claimed.

"You're looking at me now," Lilou grinned up at him mischievously. Winging one brow, she leaned back against the wall, tilting her chin up towards him. Her pupils were massive and dark, leaving just a ring of grey around the edges, fading into white. "I feel fine. Really fine. Better than normal, look." She held up her hand and it wasn't shaking, despite the fact that she had her back to the wall and the marine was towering over her. She knew that that should have terrified her, but at the moment she couldn't care less. It was a welcome relief not to care. Not to be afraid. "You're really not so bad, are you?"

Looking into her dark eyes, the chief of the boat took notice of her self-assessment and diagnosis. "Well, you look lovely on the outside, but I have to check to make sure everything's alright inside." he said with a wink over his shoulder as he went to the end of the corridor to retrieve the medical kit. Returning several moments later, he placed the kit on the ground and took a knee while he opened it, then sorted through the various instruments and finally pulled out a medical tricorder. He took the small probe out of the front end and unfolded the device, then tapped several commands into the keypad to quickly configure it. Though Lamar wasn't a trained medical officer, he had basic emergency medical knowledge and was able to diagnose any basic problems with the help of the tricorder.

"You think I'm lovely?" she asked, genuinely confused.

"Yes, I do." Lamar answered with a friendly smile, glancing up at her as he moved the probe around her head and neck, then down to her chest and abdomen. Despite her sometimes mousey demeanor, Lamar thought Lilou was a very beautiful young Trill woman. He had never been involved in a relationship with a non-Human before, and found himself attracted to her exotic looks. Turning his attention back towards the tricorder, he began to inform her of his findings. "Well...looks like you have some bruising on the back of your head and arms..." he began as he moved the probe around her body, "And your hip looks inflamed with a pretty bad bone bruise. Sheesh, Lilou, you sure you don't want me to walk with you to sickbay? I mean, your epinephrine levels are off the charts..."

"Really?" she asked, still perplexed by the idea. If he thought that, however unlikely it seemed, that probably meant he didn't have immediate plans to smash her head against a wall. Then again, a small laugh escaped her, she'd already done that for him, hadn't she? Well, the floor not the wall, but it was basically the same difference when you came down to it. Good for me, she thought with another quiet laugh. Slowly, she sorted through the rest of what he'd said, thinking. "It's... no," she waved her unshaking hand negligently. "No need. I've had worse. Lots. I am stronger than I look," she promised him meaningfully.

Lamar look at her skeptically for several seconds then finally nodded. He had seen her condition before many times during his tours of duty as a Marine, where his fellow soldiers would sustain an injury and their bodies would react by pumping them full of adrenaline for the next few hours. It was sometimes a dangerous gamble to leave them on their feet. But Lilou was probably right, he thought, she did look like a tough woman who was able to take some bumps and bruises here and there "Okay, I won't make you go right now but I want you stop by sickbay at some point today. Promise?" he asked as he closed the medical tricorder and placed it back in the silver kit on the floor.

"Cross my heart and hope for pie," she told him with a lopsided grin.

"Alright." he said with a chuckle, then stood and moved to the end of the corridor and put away the med kit. As he walked back to Lilou, he began to consider finishing his walk-through without her. Though he would prefer to have her company, she had proven to be quite a handful in only the few minutes that he had known her. "So do you want to keep going, or do you want to call it a night and get some rest for that hip of yours?" he asked, unsure of her intentions. "I still have four decks to go..."

She snorted, "Just no more access shafts for you." She rested her hand on the wall, fighting the woozy feeling in the middle of her forehead. Sleeping right now was probably not the best idea anyway; she knew that much. "Did you want to see the impulse engines and the surge tanks? Or go on to deck three?"

"I suppose I should give them a look." he answered. He had yet to see that part of the ship and was a bit uncomfortable around the large fusion engines. "Want to take the lead?" he asked, "I'm not too familiar with that area of the ship." he added.

"Have you seen them before on other ships?" Lilou smiled, slipping past him and leading the way to a door. The only thing prettier is the Warp Core herself. But we'll get to that. For now..." She pressed his hand to the door to let him feel the hum as she entered her access identification code. As the door whirred open, red light spilled out into the corridor and she stepped inside, opening her hands to feel the power of the engine against her palms. "If anything happens to the Warp Core, this is what keeps us moving. Relatively compact and deceptively powerful."

"I've seen them from the outside, but never up close before." he said as he peered inside the service doorway to the impulse reactor. It was quite impressive, actually, being so close to the large propulsion device. Taking a look around, he quickly checked to make sure everything was in order, to the best of his knowledge. "It's a bit warm in here." he commented as he felt the warmth emanating from beyond the bulkhead.

She stepped ahead of him and tapped on the console; the gray wall faded to transparent to reveal four round impulse engines running in sync. "This is the main impulse engine; four engines working together in harmony. Heat is a natural physical reaction from the breakdown of the deuterium. That and radiation, but we're able to contain the radiation. The heat is fine at this level for the engines and for anyone who needs to work on them. Some things it's better to let them be." She glanced at him, "Does it bother you?"

"Ha, no," he replied with a sideways smile, "But I'm not an engineer so I'm probably not as used to it as you are. I try not to crawl around impulse engines in my free time." he added in jest. "So, do you want to keep moving? Everything looks fine in here and I have the feeling we have an interesting walk ahead of us." he said with friendly eyes.

"Mm," she nodded and tapped the console again. The impulse engines were once again hidden behind the opaque gray wall, the room bathed in the red glow of the overhead lamps and the heat from the engines. She led the way out and locked the door behind them. "You shouldn't," she added as they headed back toward the turbolift. "Crawl around impulse engines. Or anything. You're not built for crawling. Some people aren't." She stepped onto the lift. "Ready?"

"Yep." he replied, chuckling to himself at her quirky sense of humor. Though he got along well with most people, Lamar found himself enjoying her company and looked forward to the upcoming hour of exploration.

[OFF]

--

MCPO Lamar Darius
Chief of the Boat
USS Galileo

MWO Lilou Peers
Assistant Chief Engineering Officer
USS Galileo
NPC'd by Lirha Saalm

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