Jim supposed that, maybe, since they were docked and he had nothing pressing to do, it would have made more sense to wander the starbase a while, get off the ship. It would’ve been a change of scenery, and maybe, if he had time in the next few days, he would leave, but for now, he needed to spend some time with his girl.
With only essential, working crew on duty in Engineering (plus Scotty, he could only assume, who never seemed to be off duty) it was a little less hectic than usual down there. Even moreso than usual, everyone had a maintenance task and was completely absorbed in it. Jim moved through the various turns and quirks of the Engineering deck with ease, not knowing all his girl’s secrets yet, but definitely getting there. When crew caught his eye, he would stop and chat, offer praise from Captain Kirk or idle commentary from Jim as he felt it necessary. All in all, it was a nice afternoon.
((ooc: random open post ftw, just because y’all deserve a chance to work out dynamics with my Kirk if you want. Feel free to find him wandering Engineering, on his way to the mess afterwards, or by paging him and being like ‘sir, wtf are you doing?’))
Donnie hadn't been in engineering for a while. He usually visited the place once a week if not once a day but lately he'd been working on other things. Today it felt like a return to school or a homecoming as he entered the place, red shirts scattering a little, some even nodding recognizing him as someone who they'd seen before but hadn't really paid much mind to. But there weren't too many to scatter, considering the under staffing and they were pretty busy, probably because of the mission.
He needed distraction from his current project. Quantum Mechanics were difficult enough when there wasn't so much emotional attachment. Not that there was emotional attachment. He was a scientist. And doing the experiments he was pulling off in the lab were very dangerous if one were to have emotional attachment. So he definitely didn't.
The small man made his way to find an even smaller man. He was the only one around here that Donnie could hold a decent conversation with. This told a lot as it was. But Keenser would also know what projects needed to be worked on. Not the important ones, but the ones no one else wanted to do. These were the pet projects Donnie liked the best. He'd gladly take any scraps of work others didn't want to keep himself busy.
Gaila was always a bit skeptical of Federation diplomacy, and something about this mission bothered her. She wanted to believe that they would do the right thing - whatever the hell the right thing was - but she was immensely glad that Scotty was committed to finding out what was going on down there... by whatever means necessary.
She arrived in engineering early, as usual, and started getting together the gear they'd need when they went down to the planet the next day. Let's see, maintenance hand-scanners, tricoders... She started humming to herself as she organized the gear.
The problem with free time was that it made her mind wander. Lately, her focii been stressors: personal issues, her social life, the way her knee started aching every time she felt tense. The latter meant dancing it out was not an option. The fact that she didn't have a specific social issue to address meant she couldn't hug it out. This left her with exactly one option: to bake the stress out.
An hour into her free time found her wandering down to Engineering, brownies frosted, already sliced, and still warm in their little tin. If she were being honest with herself -- which she wasn't -- she was hoping to gain a conversation with Scott out of it. As it stood, she was using the 'spreading some sweet-tooth cheer.' Or looking for him. One of the two.
In the quieter times when no single task was particularly urgent, it was nice to take a moment to enjoy the sounds of everything running smoothly; the blessed absence of shouted arguments and wailing sirens. They were still a little short-handed - another ten engineers would be perfect, but at a pinch he'd happily settle for four - but everything was ticking over nicely. And in good time for the next mission too.
Just coming off the end of a shift - and things were going so well he'd even been able to go from two shifts a day down to just the one - Scotty stopped off at the ready room on his way out of the department to pour himself a cup of coffee. Coffee, shower, sleep. That sounded like an excellent plan.
With a crew of over four hundred, odds were that every day there was going to be at least one minor injury or illness. Today's minor injury or illness, it seemed, was the very broken leg of one very young Engineer who fell from one very high bit of equipment.
"Aren't there harnesses you're supposed to be wearing?" Christine was kneeling beside the Engineer in question, who flushed and mumbled something in response. Taking that as a "yes, ma'am, sorry, ma'am," she let the lecture go for a change, and instead went back to splinting his leg for transport. One of the doctors would deal with actually repairing the damage. Her role in this was just triage. With a little bit of motherhenning if necessary.
Dr. David Tinny entered engineering with wide and curious eyes. He'd never been in the belly of a ship before. Hell, he'd never been in a ship before. Sure, there'd been those required simulations, but those simulations held the security that as soon as you stepped out of the room you'd be safely on Earth and not in a hallway aware that you were hurtling through space touching constellations no one has even thought to name, yet.
Not that the good doctor was an aviaphobe, the CMO had stake on that land. And David had surely shuttled places before. No, David was just painfully inexperienced with space travel at such a large scale. But the engineering room, now that was something else. He whistled as he watched red shirts darting here and there, balancing above his head, making a spray of sparks appear from a far off wall.
He wore an old jacket over a specifically non-uniform shirt. He stuck his hands in the pockets and looked above him.
"Excuse me!" he said having run into a very purposeful looking crewman. "Actually, have you seen, um...Lieutenant Commander Scott?"
"Huh? Oh, the chief. Scotty. Yeah, he's over there," the man replied and zipped away.
David traveled to where the thumb had directed him and then traveled a little more because apparently "the chief" had moved since then. It wasn't a surprise as everyone seemed to be in a constant state of movement.
David had a conversation with the captain about his head of engineering when he'd first arrived a few days ago. He seemed concerned about him. It was an off the cuff remark that David might talk to him along with some others, not that he was telling or anything and "please don't tell them I told you to do that and stuff" and David reassured Kirk that it certainly wasn't a plan to attack his crewmates with ink blots and drag them to a couch for an hour. Having appeased the captain's fears he now set forth to calm his own and meet this intriguing fellow.
And there he was, at last.
"Mr. Scott?" he called, making his way through engineering with a smile.
Of all the sounds you wanted to hear on the first day of a new mission, screaming sirens were not one of them.
Within moments of the cacophony starting Scotty was skidding into ops at a dead run, flushed and breathless. "Talk t'me," he said, heading straight for the station at the centre of the chaos; it was being manned by one of their new transfers, a lieutenant named Miller. "What's goin' on?"
"Pressure spike in the primary coolant pipeline," Miller replied, fingers flying across the screen as he attempted to get the problem under control. "The automatic safety release valves haven't kicked in and I can't work out why."
"Tried doin' it manually?"
"I have, there's nothing-" He smacked the console in frustration. "It won't let me do it from here."
"Looks like we're doin' it th'old fashioned way," Scotty said. He clapped Miller on the shoulder. "'Mon, let's go. Frost, take over his station."
They pelted through the engineering decks at top speed, dodging around groaning machinery and panicked ensigns, taking flights of stairs four steps at a time. It was running an obstacle course, and one with no prize for coming in second.
The coolant system was clearly in distress when they reached it, even without looking at the bright red flashing warnings on the local console. The pipes were creaking alarmingly, strangely oily steam hissing from popped seals. Without a word they set to work; even working as fast as possible the process of manually releasing the pressure valves was painfully slow. They were perhaps a third of the way around when the comm started beeping frantically.
"What?" Scotty snapped.
"Chief!" Frost's panicked voice filtered through, near drowned out by wailing sirens and shouted arguments; "It's gone critical, you need to-"
And then there was nothing but light.
Engineering was a big place alright. Keenser had shimmied his way up pipes and ladders to settle in a high spot with a good view of the whole room. This was a far cry from the scrapheaps he'd worked with on Delta Vega--these were shiny. The advanced machinery that kept this Galaxy-class starship running like the champ she was was nothing to be sneezed at, but the aesthetics were almost a bit over the top. A guy had to wear sunglasses to get any work around here. Where was all that glare coming from anyway?
Ah well. Soldier on and be especially careful not to spill crumbs all over the place. Getting settled in quickly after taking a personal vacation was a necessary task, and there was no better way to do it than with a sandwich in hand and a nice view while eating. Sure, Scotty would most likely be around later to chase him down and possibly steal his lunch--Keenser had slaved over a hot replicator for that, too--but it was pretty quiet for the moment.
Almost...Too quiet. Even the basic temperature control in the Starfleet base on Delta Vega had seemed noisier than the entire engine room aboard the Enterprise. Keenser had almost forgotten than engines could even be this efficient. Nice.
