Under the Mountain Cold

Posted on 07 Apr 2016 @ 9:27pm by Chief Warrant Officer 2 Anthony Duval & Ensign Lia Circe

2,232 words; about a 11 minute read

Mission: Episode 10 - Symposium
Location: Intersection 4, Jefferies tube 5 - USS Galileo
Timeline: MD92 - 1900Hrs

Warrant Officer Second Class Anthony Duval was working in the bowels of the ship, he was sitting at one of the workstations in the Jefferies tubes as he was singing a tune ever so softly. "Far over.... the misty mountains cold..."

"Level four diagnostic complete." the computer intoned.

"Well... tell me something I don't already know." Duval however did not move from where he was resting against the bulkhead wall as he opened the thermos which was sitting inside his reach but outside of where he could accidentally knock it over. "Mmm.." as he lifted it to his mouth and then drained a mouthful while he looked over the results. "Not bad... Still. the system sucks.."

Ensign Lia Circe re-secured the maintenance hatch and sighed in relief. She was able to make the necessary modifications to achieve her assignment without having to make any noticeable changes to subsystems. With her job done for now, she began crawling back to the main intersection of the jefferies tube and as she opened the hatch, she saw another officer on the other side. "Oh...hello."

Duval heard the voice, he turned as he regarded a young woman wearing intelligence grey. "Afternoon Ensign." he addressed her by rank as he did not know who she was. He did however quickly notice that her eyes were gold rather then green. "Can I help you?" he inquired.

"Actually, I'm finished with what I had to do." She smiled as she stepped out of the tube and stretched. "I'm Lia Circe, the new Intelligence Officer."

Duval regarded her before he offered her his right hand in the human term. "I'm Anthony Duval. One of the ships Engineers..."

Lia smiled and took his hand in hers, shaking it. "Pleased to meet you, Anthony. I hope I didn't startle you or interrupted anything."

"Nope." he smiled as he reassured her. "Only the small issue i;m looking into. I was asked to look into several issues the computer is having... something about a computer time lag." he explained for her benefit.

Lia nodded with understanding, "I was just doing a routine security check, making sure there were no foreign devices implanted in key systems. I read the reports related to the Galileo's last mission..." her voice trailed off.

Duval regarded her in silence before he nodded slowly. "I too read what Gally went through... what wasn't classified anyway.." he regarded her. "Were you present for that fracas?"

She shook her head, "No, but I try to avoid that conversation with those in crew who have, some are still recovering. That's why I took the initiative to check systems of any bugs or foreign devices. The intelligence reports of the Mirror Universe Terrans suggested they've adopted many Maquis techniques...making sure we didn't have an equivalent of a cascade virus in our computer systems."

Duval found himself in agreement. "A wise plan." he smiled at her. "This isn't the first encounter with that alternate universe and I doubt it'll be the last..." he sighed. "The idea that an evil copy of each one of us exists... Honestly disturbs me on a primal level."

Lia nodded in agreement, "Indeed, although for some, we may not exist at all. I'm sure that would be the case for me in that universe."

Duval regarded her, god knew he was curious but he didn't ask, what he said instead was. "I doubt there would be a version of me in that reality either... but if there is... I shudder to think what he would be like.."

Lis studied him, and then replied, "Go ahead. What did you want to ask me?"

Duval blinked. "Wait... You're telepathic?" he inquired. "Okay... I was wondering... what makes you say there would not be a version of you in that reality?" He inquired.

"Yes I am, I apologize for not mentioning it sooner." She smiled and then replied casually, "The designation i was given at birth was Lost Infant, Abandoned (LIA), it was the hardwork and dedication of the medical staff on Quazulu VIII that I survived; I doubt such compassion is found in that universe."

"You do not owe me an explanation about yourself." Duval responded with a soft smile. "Not that I don't appreciate it." he paused. "Whats in a name..?" he responded. "My name is Anthony."

"You've already shared your name, Anthony. Unless there is a story behind it." Lia smiled.

"Well.. Most call me Duval rather then Anthony, like my name is cursed or something." he shrugged. "I sometimes do not understand human behavior."

Lia blinked, "Aren't you human?"

Duval regarded her. "I am... I'm not from Earth though.." he paused. "I never saw Earth until I was an adult and then only for hours at a time." he smiled. "I'm from the colony world of Valhalla."

"I can relate. According to my genetic makeup, I'm half Halanan, however never set foot on New Halana." Lia shared with a small smile, "I lived mainly on Betazed, so I'm more associated with that lifestyle despite only being a fourth Betazoid."

Duval regarded her. "Fair enough.." he rumbled. "Well.. I should be done shortly... then I can go back to Main Engineering and get my next job.." he paused. "once I narrow down this time lag issue."

"Right, it was nice meeting you Anthony." Lia smiled.

"You as well Lia." Duval responded with a smile and a soft nod. While the two were talking the computer beeped at them. "Diagnostic complete. Error found."

Duval raised an eyebrow. "Well.. that was almost too easy.. where is it located."

The computer rattled off some mindless instructions, while Duval snatched up a PADD and began rattling down notes. "Okay... so computer core processor number four, segment two oh two, lateral grid nine. Section H32 give or take a few yards."

Duval smiled. "Excellent." he turned back to Lia. "Its in the primary computer core, upper level."

Lia nodded, "I don't think it's that far from here..."

Duval nodded. "I know exactly where that is." he paused. "You want to come along?, the walk will do me good and so will... The companionship.."

"If you would like." She replied and with a grin she extended her hand, "lead the way."

Duval reached for his rather large toolkit, before putting his tools away, moments later he had it slung over his back and was heading to his next destination, he began climbing up to the next deck before emerging in a corridor. He turned left with the Ensign following.

A few minutes later, he entered the rather large computer core, he paused near the entrance as he took a moment to look around. "Okay... over here.." before he began climbing a ladder.

"You'd think with a small ship there wouldn't be all of this climbing." Lia mused as she climbed up the ladder behind Anthony.

Duval smiled. "Yeah... Personally I prefer larger ships like the Galaxy class." he rumbled as he reached his level before he went over to the panel that he had located the error in earlier, he tapped the display before starting a diagnostic check. "Yeah.." he said quietly. "Thought so.." he then powered down the system before he yanked the cover of the display off of its housing, he then sighed as he pulled out one chip, it looked almost burnt. "Here... souvenir for you." as he offered it to her.

Duval peeled the pack off of his back as he checked the system. "This looks like simple wear and tear... But I could be wrong.." as he cracked the case open. "Lets see..." he produced an engineering tricorder, he opened it as he began a scan. "Mmm... Its just the one isolinear chip."

Lia paused for a moment, "If none of the other isolinear chips seem to be affected; perhaps this one was defective."

Duval gently produced another one before he inspected it with his tricorder. "This one looks good... I'm check all eight of them.." before he slid the one in his hand back into the housing before producing another.

Lia nodded, "Anything I can do to help?" She asks him.

Duval paused, he was not used to having anyone helping him or wishing to give him a hand. "Sure... " he paused as he was unsure of what to ask her to do.

Lia couldn't help but giggle at Duval's hesitation. "I didn't realize an offer to help could throw someone off their equilibrium."

"I almost never have someone offering to help me." Duval answered quietly as he handed her a tricorder and a chip checker. It resembled a closed tricorder from the early 2360's except it had an open slot on one end and a readout. "Help me check these eight chips. Then i'll replace the bad ones with new good ones then I'll check the system with a level three diagnostic... and see what we turn up."

Taking the eight chips, Lia proceeded as Duval instructed. She inserted the chip into the readout and began scanning it. She scanned two and only on the third one did the light status changed from green to red. "This is a bad one." She replied pulling the chip out and handing it to him.

Duval was using another toy he kept with him to process new chips when Lia commented before she handed him a chip, he gently accepted it from her, holding it up to his eyes for inspection, one side looked singed. "Mmm.." he paused. "Computer... run a level three diagnostic of the power system running behind this bulkhead, Inquiry, are there any surges?"

"Affirmative, the system is unable to compensate because the monitoring system is damaged."

Duval muttered darkly. "Yeah... So, because team three from the shipyard couldn't do their jobs right. Now I have to do my work plus their work plus everyone else's work.." he sighed "Nein, fick diese Scheiße!." he growled in a foreign language which the translation deigned not worth translating into english.

Lia glanced at him, "No, fuck this shit..." she translated out loud and nodded. "I agree, you shouldn't have to put up with that. I recommend issuing an emergency order repair request, it's not too late."

Duval regarded her with an almost amused grin. "I'll stick in the repair request. Once we finish here." he responded with a smile.

"As you should." Lia replied with a firm nod and a grin of her own.

Just then an Ensign rushed up the ladder with such speed, he slipped and fell back down to the decking below. Duval turned his head as the Ensign tried again, but it was after the forth attempt that Duval reached out and physically hauled him up to where he was standing. "Sir, sir sir... I'm... I.. I uhh..."

"Take a deep breathe and calm down." Duval rumbled in an almost disinterested tone. "What do you want?"

"I uuhh.... I came to fix... this..." he gasped, clearly out of breathe. "I broke it and I was... um... " he paused as he stopped to inhale some air again. "I umm."

"Stop talking." Duval rumbled. the Ensign stopped but then he started up again a moment later. "Please stop talking?" he looked at Lia. "Did I forget the please?..... I hate it when I do that.."

"No, you said it." Lia replied.

Duval sighed sighed. "Ensign. I name you Slayer of Stupid, Incompetent, and Disappointing Minions!. Title to last as long as it take it to sink into your brain that I am not in the mood for panicked and irrelevant chatter.... Go round up with engineering crew." he paused. "Get them back here and finish this work that you were supposed to have done six hours ago."

The Ensign went for the ladder again before he slipped and would have fallen over a half dozen meters before Duval's fist snatched the Ensign from a certain visit to sickbay. "Now Ensign.." before he turned him and pointed the second door. "go out that door... before you hurt yourself."

The Ensign departed as Duval mentally counted to twenty in his head as one could almost see the steam coming out of his ears.

Lia sensed how angry he was. Absentmindedly she reached out and grabbed his hand, squeezing it as she empathically sent wave of contentment towards him.

Duval turned his attention back to her. "Sorry.." he said quietly. "I forgot.... you could sense my feelings... I just... hate stupidity."

"It's fine, the anger was justified. I just thought you needed a bit of a cool down." She smiled.

Duval regarded her. "I had no idea that was possible.." he paused. "It was... like standing under a cold waterfall... If that makes any sense to you."

"Yes...that was the sensation I was going for... I'm tactile empathic. Through touch I can change someone's emotion. So in your case, I sensed you were very angry, so I thought I help calm you down." She explained, "catch is, has to be skin-to-skin contact. So it was either grab your hand, or place my hand on your bald head. Hand seems to be more appropriate." Lia smirked.

"Well.. someone seeing your hand on my head would ask questions." Duval responded. "They would assume things which would cause us both headaches and neither of us want those issues." he paused. "Well... We'd both best get back to it..." he sighed.

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