Fixing things

Posted on 27 Feb 2025 @ 3:00am by Ensign S'Ers-a M'Lyr'Zor & Petty Officer 2nd Class Donald Andrews
Edited on on 27 Feb 2025 @ 10:33am

1,719 words; about a 9 minute read

Mission: Episode 21 - Helix
Location: USS Galileo-A - Deck 8
Timeline: MD02 - 0530

[ON]

Down in the bowels of Deck 8; a deck very infrequently visited by any of the ship compliment save for engineers and the occasional security officer stood one such engineer. Donald walked down one of the corridors engineering scanner in hand investigating a job placed on the board by one of the scientists; an unusual creaking and squeaking sound from somewhere deep down below.

"Come on you little bugger." He muttered to himself, he could hear the sound but it was proving hard to track down in the large open spaces of the deck.

It had been a long shift, and Sera had not seen PO2 Donald Andrews in 'some time.' She tapped on her small data padd and reviewed the completed tasks that Andrews had submitted and recognized that his current assignment was taking longer than expected. A complication, perhaps?

As she was currently in-between work orders, Sera decided she had enough time to go to his location and ask for a sitrep on the unusual noises reported that was at the heart of this task.

It did not take long to the the engineer as he stood with his head tilted, muttering to himself.

"Are you alright, Officer Andrews?" Sera said by way of greetings.

Not expecting anyone to venture down onto this deck the sudden reverberation of Sera's voice around the corridor behind Donald startled him slightly. "Jeez Sera, you shouldn't sneak up on people like that."

Sera replied with a textbook brow raise as she clasped her arms behind her body with her hands. Had she not made suitable noise coming up upon him? "It was not my intention to...sneak, Officer Andrews. You have not closed this work ticket out; is there an issue?"

"Only that I can't figure it out," Donald replied somewhat exasperated. "Every time I think I have the source of this noise it feels like it changes location."

Sera recalled what the work order was...unusual sounds. "Have you personally heard the noise that was described in the work order?" She focused her hearing to see if she could pick up anything out of the ordinary.

Donald nodded slightly. "Occasionally, it was described as a creaking squeaky sound, I'm hoping it's not metal fatigue, the Galileo is too new for that. And we checked every single weld and join on this ship before we sent her out."

Sera leaned her head slightly, listening intently for any sounds that were out-of-the-ordinary. Nothing. All of the background sounds were acceptable--wait. A light creaking noise.

"10 meters, 2 o'clock. An unusual creaking noise."

Donald swung his scanner in that direction. "Nothing the scanner can pick up."

Sera's brows furrowed slightly as she walked towards the direction of the sound. Nothing on scanners? Perhaps it was a piece of loose equipment then? A faulty vent cover? Her mind came up with a number of possibilities.

"Unusual. Have you noted any engineering deficiencies, Officer Andrews?"

"No, if it was affecting ships systems it wouldn't be this hard to find," Donald replied. Though there weren't as many critical systems down in the bowels of the ship there were still some important things. "Tractor emmitters look fine same with the warp ejection channel."

Sera made a soft sub-vocal oscillation in consideration. A strange sound, not consistent, coming from different areas on this deck with no disruptions in ships' systems.

She reached over to the side of her belt and removed her tricorder and flipped it open. "I will scan the area for life signs."

The device hummed and chirped, and a small dot lit up in one of the air supply vents. Sera stepped forward and tilted her tricorder so Donald could see the results. "It would appear we have an unauthorized traveler in the air vents currently."

"What?" Donald said and looked at the tricorder readings. "Doesn't look strong enough to be a humanoid."

"It does not." It was illogical to hypothesize what the creature might be, but Sera 'hoped' it wasn't some sort of vermin. Given that it picked up as a life-form meant that it had to weigh more than 5 kilograms. "It appears to be moving towards us through the ducting. It should pass in front of this vent outlet if it continues movement. We could attempt...containment?"

Donald thought for a moment, he'd not spent much time on the lower deck of the ship during its construction but knew enough to get around the majority of its intricate spaces. "Well this series of ducts has an outlet over by that wall, ground level." He pointed in the rough direction. "And there's another outlet in the antimatter storage tank room. I can block that one off, then unless it can climb it will have to come out here or over there."

Sera's eyes gleamed with anticipation. A hunt. "Yes. A satisfactory strategy. Flush the creature towards the ground level outlet here. I will be downwind...ambush it at the vent."

"Right, I'll need a minute or two, will chirp your combadge when I'm ready." Donald said then scurried off towards the anti matter storage tank room.

Sera silently crept towards the outlet and quietly loosened the screws that held the vent cover quietly removing it and awaited the signal. The anticipation of the 'hunt,' the uncertainty of her quarry...This was quite stimulating.

In the antimatter storage tank room Donald moved around searching for an outlet he knew was around here somewhere. It took longer than he'd expected; the large tanks making it hard to look everywhere but eventually he found it. Using a toolbox he blocked off the outlet leaving a gap so small even a tribble wouldn't be able to slip through. As he headed for the second outlet he double tapped his combadge sending a chirp through the system, generally un-noticeable in the hustle and bustle of normal goings on, unless you were listening for it.

Sera was listening for it. The small chirp was like the starting gun for a race. She bent over and peer into the venting, resting her hands lightly in the outlet--but not visible from the main shaft--and waited. There! The sound of clicking and scratching again, and a strange noise came from the creature. The tick tick tick sound of it's extremities coming in contact with the metal of the venting echoed out of the opening she waited at. It was coming closer...patience...wait...

A loud sqwack echoed along the venting as Sera pounced on the culprit once it came to the opening. It struggled and struck at her hands as she pulled it out into the light of the corridor, it's feathery coat all akimbo and fluffed in agitation. Sera's eyes dilated as she studied the creature. Good enough to eat came the inner voice that really needed to cease in its commentary.

Instead she changed her grip on the flapping animal and tucked it closer to her body and that seemed to calm the creature a little. "I have captured the animal!" She called out to Andrews.

Barely hearing the squawking and then Sera's voice calling to him Donald hurried back to where he'd left her. "So who is our.... Ok, didn't expect that." He said seeing the dark feathered chicken in the crook of the Vulcans arm.

Sera looked from Andrews down to the feathered animal and then back. "What is it? I don't recall such an animal on the common vermin found on starships lecture I took at the academy."

"It's an earth animal, called a chicken," Donald told her. "They're far from vermin, they're food. I heard Nesh Saalm somehow found some while we were on Regula and bought them onboard."

Sera looked down at the feathery clucking thing and raised a brow. "I am concerned at how the creature came to be in the depths of the ship. That speaks to a level of resourcefulness not quite apparent regarding its physical form."

"They can be surprisingly mobile when they want to be but I agree, to travel down 6 decks is quite a feat for a little chicken." Donald tried not to laugh as he spoke. "I wonder if Nesh even knows one of them is missing."

Sera reached up with her free hand and tapped her commbadge, "Sera to Nesh Saalm, I believe we have discovered one of your...chickens in the Jeffries tubes."

A tired sounded Orion woman came over the comms. "Great. Brilliant even. I hope it hasn't laid an egg anywhere. If you could bring it to the mess hall I'll, ah, return it to the others here."

"Understood. Sera out."

Sera raised a brow and looked at Andrews. "An egg?"

"Female chickens lay eggs, they're collected and used as food, when not fertilised by a male chicken." Donald explained. "They're very nice and can be cooked many different ways." He added with a chuckle.

Looking down with a growing sense of horror, Sera clutched the chicken to her a little tighter, eliciting a more perturbed squawk from the pressure. "Cooked?" She said aghast. "We cannot allow such a fate to befall this life form."

"I meant the eggs," Donald chuckled at his boss' reaction, though with Vulcan's generally being vegetarian it wasn't that unexpected. "the female chicken itself only tends to get cooked when they stop producing eggs."

"Oh." Sera looked to the chicken for a moment and the fussing bird relaxed. "Then I will return the chicken to her keeper in the mess hall. You may log this work order as closed and use the rest of your shift to complete any outstanding 'documentation.' Once that is concluded you are free to go. There is not enough time to complete another work ticket, and currently there not any outstanding multi-shift repairs or diagnostics to be performed."

"This should make for an interesting write up," Donald remarked with a chuckle. "Investigated noise reported by science department... found live chicken hiding in life support outlet system. Chicken removed."

"Indeed." Sera replied in agreement as she looked down to the feathery bird in her arms currently behaving herself. "Verbiage I never considered I would have to enter into an incident report."

[OFF]

=====

Ensign S'Ers-a M'Lyr'Zor
Chief Engineering Officer
USS Galileo-A

&

Po2 Donald Andrews
Engineer
USS Galileo-A
[Pnpc Mimi]

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