I'd rather be flying

Posted on Fri Dec 3rd, 2021 @ 12:59am by Ensign Kateyo Fenn & Lieutenant JG FalenvralLi Zh’kyhrihr

Mission: Character Development
Location: USS Athena - Between Iuvat and SB 47
Timeline: Before "With Gleaming Eyes"
2474 words - 4.9 OF Standard Post Measure

The excitement of Iuvat behind them and her own little stay in Medical finished, Li was happy to spend an uneventful shift sitting at the helm while Athena cruised through well-mapped subspace routes toward Starbase 47. It gave her plenty of time to go over logs of shifts she'd missed, double-check the laid-in course for potential inefficiencies, and review just about everything else under the purview of Flight Ops.

One thing did catch her eye in the shuttle logs. It wasn't urgent by any means. The pilots hadn't even noticed it but, looking at maintenance trends, it was probably something Engineering should look into. No need to add to the pile of requests that were no doubt in Lt. Keating's queue though. She could just drop a note off at the end of her shift.

When her relief came, Li made her way to the turbolift and straightened her uniform. She ran a hand through her naturally upright hair and felt a grin tugging at her lips as she exited the lift into Engineering and headed for the Chief's office - only to find it empty. She glanced around, sure she hadn't just walked past her. "Ensign, is Fi- Leuitenant Keating around?"

Kateyo had just finished working through the long list of shit that Lieutenant Keating had him working on. Actually, she described it as work but he liked to think of it more as torture, slave labour, unfair punishment, abuse of power ... whichever term she liked, he didn't care, it all amounted to the same thing. The truth was, she was pissed at him, super-pissed in fact and she wasn't even hiding this fact. Yes, he crashed her dinner plans, yes he had accused Mason of being a bit of a creepy stalker, but did that mean he deserved getting all the worst jobs in engineering? Absolutely not. From his point of view, he saved the evening, before he showed up, the three of them were all drooling over each other like a bunch of thirsty chrepies. In reality he deserved a promotion, and when he dared mentioned that to Finn, she hit the bulkhead. Some people, he thought to himself.

He should file an official complaint. After all, this wasn't a work thing but Keating was making it a work thing. But he knew that she wanted him to do that, she wanted the excuse to make his life more miserable, so he stuck it out. He did the jobs that no one wanted to do and he did so with minimal complaining, he didn't want to give her anything she could use against him. Besides, he was still sweet on the blonde Chief and if he stood any chance with her, he would have to mend some bridges, or conduits as the case might be.

Teyo was so lost in thought he didn't notice the Andorian walk in. "Who? What? Oh her, I mean no sorry, she's done for the day," he stopped himself from adding anything sarcastic or passive agressive. "Anything I can help you with?"

"Ah," she said, her features and antennae dropping in obvious disappointment. "Yeah, I guess I knew her shift would be over but she seems to get caught up a lot. I thought I'd run into her before she left." With a sigh, she started to explain, "just something I noticed about Shuttle 4. It's barely out of spec but power consumption every time it comes in is higher - not significantly, but statistically significantly - than the other type 9s."

"But I should just submit a report about it. It's nothing urgent." She shook her head and realized she was babbling on, effectively saying "No" with an awful lot of words. "Sorry. I guess you're just starting your shift. I don't think we've met. I'm Lt. Li in Flight Ops. You must be one of Lt. Keating's engineers."

Teyo noticed the obvious disappointment that Li showed when she realised that Keating wasn't around. Was the Andorian the reason that Finn wasn't interested in him? "Yes I am," he said, a little more bluntly than he had intended. "Ensign Kateyo Fenn. I wouldn't mind taking a look at the shuttle for you, small crafts are kind of a hobby of mine and I'm dying for something more exciting to do around here."

As he spoke, Li shook off her distraction and disappointment at not finding Keating here and took another look at the man. He certainly did fill out a uniform well. "Are you sure? I mean, if there isn't anything else you're working on here we could. I've never had the impression of Engineers sitting around bored waiting for something to do though." Something about the way he'd phrased that hobby remark made her think this probably went beyond his duties maintaining regulation shuttlecraft. "Small craft, huh? Worked on much more interesting than a type 9?"

Teyo rolled his eyes. "Come on, of course I have. The type-9 is an okay model, but to be honest in my free time I prefer to stay away from Starfleet crafts. They're beautiful to look at and extremely functional, but they are so boring, don't you think?" He suddenly caught himself and realised what he said, "not that I'm not happy to help you now," he quickly added. "It's just in my free time, there's much faster ships to play with."

Li laughed at the engineer's candor. "Yeah, boring and functional is about a perfect description of most Starfleet shuttles at least. Oh, they're fairly rugged and they put up with half-assed maintenece a lot better than we like to tell each other. I can't knock how nimble some of the newest Perigrines are when you look at fighters though. Of course - have you ever had a chance to fly a Romulan fighter? One of those Scorpians? Might not beat some bigger boats on pure speed, but in terms of maneuverability and a great view they're a thrill."

Teyo was just collecting his toolkit and making sure he had his modified tricorder when he stopped. "A Scorpian? Really?" He asked with a mixture of jealousy and admiration. "I tried to configure the design on the holodeck, but without the official specs, it just felt clunky and nothing like the real thing, or how I imagine the real thing would feel like." He made his way towards the corridor, back the way Li had come from, towards the nearest turbolift. "Have you flown a real one?"

"I can neither confirm nor deny that Starfleet Intelligence has a Scorpian mothballed for research at Beta Antares Shipyard," Li said with a grin that showed too many teeth. "Nor can I comment on rumors that the test pilots there regularly take it out under the guise of inspection as part of initiation for new team members. But I can promise you that flying that thing at a solid cruise, allowing it to slowly yaw 135 degrees before hitting full thrust is a kick in the ass you won't forget. "

Teyo's jaw nearly hit the floor, just as the turbolift arrived and the two stepped inside. "Main shuttlebay," he managed to spurt out between gasps of betrayal and hurt. If they secretly had one at B.A.S. and the test pilots knew about it and had flown it, that meant that Ari knew about this too, which absolutely meant that Xav knew. Neither of them had happened to mention this, and this infuriated the engineer, beyond words. "I'm honestly speechless," Teyo finally managed to say. "The deceit, the betrayal, just when you think you know people..." he said, more to himself than the pilot.

She watched him, bemused, as he sputtered his indignation. "Well, if it makes you feel any better, I doubt it was personal. Starfleet Intel keeps their secrets close. We only knew about it because we were flying all sorts of other classified stuff - prototypes, refit tests, experimental systems Frankensteined onto old frames. So we incidentally had clearance and were working in the slips next door anyway."

"Still though," Tey mumbled sulkily. The turbolift doors opened and the pair exited and made their way to the shuttlebay. As they entered the huge room lined with multiple auxiliary crafts, Teyo let the previous frustrations ebb away. This was the first time in days he had done anything remotely interesting and he wasn't going to waste it by being frustrated at Xavier's ex. "Lead the way Lieutenant," he said sounding more joyous than a moment before. "Let's see what we can do."

Li had to look around for a moment herself to get her bearings since her observations had come from records, not being in the shuttle. Once she saw it, she led the way over and triggered the hatch. After bringing up systems power on the main console, she flung herself into the pilot's seat and put her feet up, making no move to be of any help. "So, what's the most interesting thing you have flown then?"

Teyo followed Li into the shuttle and watched as she made herself comfortable; he admired her style. If he was a full Lieutenant and a bridge officer there was no way in hell he would be doing the grunt work either. Maybe striving for a promotion wouldn't be the worst thing in the world, he thought to himself, as he pulled out his tricorder and diagnostic kit. He connected everything to the shuttle's operations terminal as he pondered her question. "The most interesting?" He repeated after a moment or two. "I did get to fly a Dominion fighter a few years ago. A lot of people don't find them that interesting, but I love historic ships, especially ones that nearly ruled the entire quadrant."

"Oh, yeah? I guess people who had to fight against them aren't interested in seeing them again. I flew against a couple - " she waved dismissively, "racing, not combat or anything - but never got to stick my head inside. Quick ships. A little bigger than most fighters, but capable." She swiveled the chair from side to side restlessly, happy to talk small ships but showing no interest in what he was doing despite having asked for the help. "How'd you get your hands on that stick?"

"We were on an exploration mission somewhere near Ferengi space, we found one abandoned on the moon of a planet, probably left over from the war," Teyo said as he pushed some buttons on the diagnostic console. "It was pretty beat up, but yours truly managed to get it back online and back in the air. You ever flown a ship with no viewscreen or forward porthole? It's pretty intense."

"Usually that's when I start yelling at the engineer on board," Li laughed. "That'd be crazy though, in a patched-together ship you've never flown before especially. Hopefully you at least had sensors? Indicators? There was one time I was racing my old Yravas-class fighter through one of the obstacle segments in the Genton Cup - that was one wild course they set up. They threw everything in as obstacles - asteroids, old mines, scrapped spaceframes - well I was closing in on the ship in front of me, positioning to pass just at a waypoint and it made a move to block me, clipping a mine. It detonated like 300 meters off my port bow, breaking off part of their outer hull and peppering us with debris. Deflectors soaked most of the physical damage, but some kind of energy feedback thing blew out everything. Viewscreen, sensors, primary controls. I had manual controls but no way to see where I was going and I couldn't just stop or I'd get rammed from behind."

She was getting excited just retelling the story but realized she'd been rambling on for a bit. Glancing back at Fenn, she said, "You finding anything there?"

Teyo was so engrossed in Li's story he had completely forgotten he was there to do a job. "What? Oh, yeah the ship," he said realising what she had meant. "There seems to be a slight issue with the secondary pulse transducer, I'm just working out if I can fix it here or if it needs to be replaced. I'm sure we have some in cargo bay 2, but I'll need to check with the quartermaster. I'm sure you could have figured this out yourself, you know?" He added jokingly.

Affecting a deeper, dopey voice, Li replied, "Oh baby, I only ride 'em, I don't know what makes 'em work." She spun the seat to face him, grinning. "But now that you have that figured out, maybe we should just file a report and let the regular Ops maintenance team handle it. Doesn't sound like anything more than a little simple rocket surgery and I'm sure you had other things to do back in Engineering. Besides, I should be off shift."

"Agreed," Teyo said as he pulled out a PADD and logged the job number with a detailed breakdown of the repairs needed. He didn't relish the thought of going back to engineering and cleaning the impulse manifolds, but he had dodged it for as long as he possibly could. As he was packing his things away he turned back to the woman. "What happened in the end? The race?"

She winced. "We finished. placed fifth or sixth I think. The ship that was coming up on us right then won. Dead reckoning on the fly didn't give us anything like an optimal course, but I had a map and a pretty good idea which way we were pointed when everything went out so I just flew based on where the obstacles should have been and how far we should have gone until my partner got everything back. When flying blind is the best you can do, you fly blind. Better to have at least some view of a situation though."

"That's pretty impressive," Teyo said with a nod of approval. "Maybe one day we should hit the holodeck? You fly, I fix, I think it could be a lot of fun."

"Maybe. Seems like a bit of a busman's holiday for us both but with the right setup I'm sure we could find a way to enjoy ourselves."

The Trill was not familiar with the phrase, but didn't question it further. "Right, I'm all done here. It's been great chatting to you Lieutenant, hopefully catch you soon?"

"I'd like that. And thank you, Ensign. You've been a lot of help. I'll be sure to mention that to Lt. Keating if I manage to catch up with her. I think I owe you that much for pulling you away from whatever she had you scheduled to be working on."

"I'll take any good words you can spare," Teyo said with a smile before he left.