Sticks and Cubes

Posted on 12 Jan 2017 @ 2:56am by General ('aj) Ko'raH House of G'Iogh & Ensign Miraj Derani & Senior Chief Petty Officer Martin Caine (KIA) & Chief Petty Officer Crispin Snow
Edited on on 12 Jan 2017 @ 2:56am

2,276 words; about a 11 minute read

Mission: Episode 13 - Rogue
Location: Kreanus Colony - Deck 0, Ice/Water Processing Facility
Timeline: MD 03 - 0800 hrs

[ON]

Above the uppermost habitable levels of Kreanus' underground facilities was the colony's ice processing and water reclamation facility. As with any subterranean base, subsurface water stores were often difficult to come by and required ingenuity, engineering expertise, and manpower to efficiently run. Although Kreanus Colony was short in the labor and technological departments, it was fortunately located just below a massive ice pocket located on the surface. Over the years, the colony's subsonic drilling equipment had penetrated upwards through the ocean floor and into large glaciated reserves of fresh water. Once the ice was harvested by small fleets of remote drones and makeshift workbees, the ice clusters were transferred to the nearby purification facilities for cleansing and microbial removal. The entire process was efficient but tedious, and often plagued by equipment failures, shoddy maintenance, and lack of proper safety procedures. Necessity often required shortcuts to be taken sometimes to the detriment of the rewards.

Spanning over 500 meters in length -- slightly smaller than a Nebula-class starship -- the massive water processing facility was illuminated by wall-mounted spotlights and revealed a giant cave-like enclave. Suspended maintenance decks and narrow walkways littered the entire bottom half of the area. Cargo drones and small support craft buzzed high overhead and carried out a series of ballet-like manoeuvres to transfer ice to transports. The air was cold, thick and humid from the moisture present, creating a haze which obscured the far ends of the facility. Workers of all species manned their stations and shuffled along in grimy clothing towards their next destination while the occasional shout of orders echoed across the cavernous walls. The deep, throbbing hum of the sonic drills created an ever-present background noise which drummed out all but the loudest of voices.

The morning foreman made his rounds per usual, directing others and occasionally stepping in to observe a repair or jot down notes on his data pad. His name was Kanom, a large Nausicaan with typical colorful flesh features on his face and dark wavy hair which fell past his shoulders. When he turned towards the entrance bay and noticed the new Federation arrivals, he stared slightly bewildered before remembering Medara's note that several new personnel would be available to assist him. He wasn't quite sure if they would do more harm than good, and certainly he would be preoccupied supervising their work until they understood the routine and equipment. He could only hope they were fast learners so he could move on to his other important tasks.

The tall and bulky Nausicaan walked quickly towards them with long strides until he came face to face with the assembled Galileans. "You're Medara's new Federation crew?" He didn't bother waiting for a reply. "You're late. The shift begins at 0700," he admonished.

Senior Chief Petty Officer Caine had been part of the group. He had been battered by the Klingons the night before cause Stephanie's work wasn't moving as quickly as their Klingon hosts wanted. "My apologies Sir, but we got lost the bruising has affected my sight slightly so reading the map was difficult Sir."

Next to him, Crispin Snow crossed his arms. "There's no need for the sir, Chief. This isn't Starfleet, and we're all here to help. If Mr. Attitude here wants to help, he can be civil, and we can all get along." Snow's tone was mild. He gave the Nausicaan a smile. "Can't we?"

Kanom gave a simple grunt of acknowledgement before looking past the two of them towards the entrance. "Is this all of you? Only two?" he asked, ignoring Snow's question. When Medara had informed him of the Nova-class' crew compliment, he'd expected at least a dozen or so people to be volunteered for labor. Water was the lifeblood of the colony, after all.

"If I wasn't stronger than the bashing those bastards gave me you would only have one. Apparently not many of us made it through physically as well as was expected." Martin replied.

Miraj stumbled through the doors yawning, dark rings around her eyes, fumbling with the zip on a pair of borrowed overalls. "Someone said there was mind-numbing work here? Is there room for one more?"

Mumbling something unintelligible under his breath in his native tongue, the Nausicaan finally threw a hand up and did a weird gesture. "Yes. apparently," he grumbled. "This way," he then continued, "follow me."

The foreman led the small group down one of the suspended corridors, across several T-junctions, and up a flight of grated stairs before beginning a long walk towards the far end of the facility. "I've assigned you all to the ice-loading stations. I doubt you can cause trouble there or screw anything up," he called out over his shoulder while he walked at a brisk pace.

He came to a halt in front of a massive industrial container which was, as mentioned, full of large chunks of glacial ice from the planet's surface. Above them, cargo drones whirred down from the cave's ceiling before hovering briefly above the middle of the receptacle and releasing their payloads. Huge boulder-sized clusters of ice fell almost 30 meters before they impacted the other already-present ice blocks with a loud crack and split open. With each impact, razor-sharp shards of frozen debris exploded across the well, most of them landing harmlessly in different parts of the container.

Kanom allowed the Galileo crew to observe the process for a few moments before walking over to a nearby locker and retrieving several protective goggles and hardhats. "Put these on," he instructed. "They won't help with any debris to your body but at least we can take you to sickbay for that. We can't cure an icicle to the brain," he explained.

Chief Caine looked at the equipment that they were being given to become safe to do this task. What there was of it was fine but if a drone went rogue and dropped the boulder of ice on a group of workers there was no chance of survival. "How often do you have accident and have to replace multiple workers on account of a drone dropping that ice in the wrong spot?" He asked as he put on a small reinforced fibreglass helmet, at least the smaller ones would bounce off.

Miraj found a hard hat to fit, adjusted her zip again, and then followed the group to where they were supposed to work

The Nausicaan tilted his head back and let out an annoyed laugh. "The drones don't drop their payload in the wrong place. They're drones," he explained as if it obvious. "It's the people like you who get careless and wander too close to the container. The young ones are usually the most affected. They have short attention spans."

"Even drones breakdown occasionally." Was all Martin said with a straight face. The only advantage he saw was the drones were smaller than work bees.

Motioning the group over towards one of the primary conveyor belts attached to the ice receptacle, Kanom began to explain their new jobs. "We call this a pathway. All the ice gets dumped there and then filtered through conveyors like this down one of these shafts and into processing. That means you have to monitor the belt and break down the ice with these," he turned around and looked for a sonic stick. Luckily one was laying against a nearby wall which he promptly retrieved. "Any block bigger than five cubic meters needs to be broken down. Use these and make sure you get all the blocks as soon as they enter the conveyor."

"Find a giant ice cube, whack it with a stick. Sounds easy enough." Miraj said.

Kanom threw another of his hands up in dismay. "No! It is a sonic pressurizer, you fools. You must charge the emitter after each use with this control panel here," he pointed to the series of tiny buttons on the slim device's handle, "and then you must press the tip hard into the cube. Like this." He demonstrated with an invisible prod and held it high over his head before bringing it down with full force into an invisible ice block and holding it in place for several seconds.

"Righto power up the stick," Martin picked one up and charged it, then pressed it a block, "and hey presto as the Human's used to say." As he said this he discharged it. The unfortunate thing is it was not a block of ice it was resting against but the Nausicaan's thigh. "Oh sorry must have been my lack of attention span."

Kanom had seen the man's attempt to attack him with the device, but not until the last moment. He managed to move his leg slightly to the side so the impact wasn't direct, but the damage was done. The sonic pressurizers contained enough discharge in every use to shatter dense blocks of ice, and against flesh and bone, they did much more damage. He grunted when he felt his femur break, then went down on one knee while simultaneously snatching the other man's wrist and putting him an arm bar. "What have you done?!" he yelled in between pained breaths, then looked towards Derani and Snow. "This is why you came here? Under the pretense of help so you could assault me?!"

Snow didn't like where this was going. The man who was supposed to be his superior had just attacked the Nausicaan without any real provocation, but now the Nausicaan had Caine in an arm lock, and even with a broken leg was strong enough to rip Caine's head off his shoulders, and was probably pissed off enough to do it.

"We came to help." Snow reiterated. "That's what we all want isn't? You want us to choose to help you against Kronos." remind him of what was at stake, of consequences to actions, keep his focus on something other than the chief of The Boat. He held his hands out in a placating gesture, "Now, I admit, my CoB is an SoB, but the rest of us came in good faith. Don't be rash. Don't make things worse."

"Make things worse?!" The Nausicaan began to yell. "Like you have? Only a coward would strike another who is unprepared." He looked towards Caine and tightened his grip before looking back up. The pain in his leg was now throbbing terribly. "I see now what the Klingons say about your kind is true. You try to cover up your spineless actions with hollow words." He spit on the ground in disgust.

"The other Galileo crew knew nothing of this. Until I saw those droids flying over our heads with thirty tonnes blocks, I knew nothing of doing this to get my people to safety. You want to have someone to stomp the crap out of, do it to me, you won't be the first, probably not the last either. Move Chief Snow and Ensign Derani out then kick the crap out of me." Martin said, he had and active block on, the pain from the armbar, because he knew Steph would feel it and he expected it would get worse.

"Not helping Boss," Snow said mildly. No point encouraging the Nausicaan, even if the CoB had just assaulted him. Two wrongs do not make a right. "Why don't you just let go of his arm. I'll make sure he behaves until a master at arms or a bosun comes for him. We'll do this properly, like civilized people."

The disturbance alarmed nearby workers who all began to watch what was happening. Several of them activated their comms to call for security, and it was only a few short moments before several Nausicaans and Remans came sprinting down the catwalk with their weapons drawn. "Release him, Kanom," one of them said. "He will be punished, on my word."

The foreman contemplated breaking the chief's arm in half right then and there, but instead gave him a push and let his arm go. "Remove them all, they have no business being here" he said. There was no telling if the others would do something similar -- clearly this group of Federation was a hazard and a danger to the colony. They would be best served either in isolation or constantly under guard, but certainly not working in an area as important as water reclamation.

The three Remans trained their weapons on the rest of the Galileans. "Move, now," one said with a menacing voice full of deep bass.

Martin was glad, in a way to have the Galileans out of what he saw as a very dangerous place to work. He knew, he could have worked there and started a proper internal fight, but that would mean going to work in probably the most dangerous places on Kreanus. Many good men and women had died, from what he had heard, to get them to this point. He saw it as his duty to get Starfleet crewmembers to safety as soon as he saw a foreseeable danger, which he had done, despite the consequences which were also now unfortunately also foreseeable.

"Go," Snow gave Miraj a push towards the door, "No point in making this worse." Miraj looked at him uncertainly, but his firm tone and certain posture made her concede, and she hurried out, meaning to ask to come back once the CoB incident was dealt with.

[OFF]

--

Kanom
Foreman, Water Reclamation
Kreanus Colony
[PNPC Ko'raH]

SCPO Martin Caine
Chief of the Boat (CoB)
USS Galileo

CPO2 Crispin Snow
Operations Officer
USS Galileo
[PNPC Derani]

Ensign Miraj Derani
Chief Flight Control
USS Galileo

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