allmhadadh

After hanging around the galley, and helping Harold with the yeoman bit, Scotty had very little else to do with himself.  He didn't want to go back to his quarters, and he didn't really want to just hang around idle anymore.  So, finally, he got ahold of some buckets, and some soap, and some rags and headed back to the Riviera.  He might not get to sleep with her tonight, but he could make up for that with some TLC.

He eyed the black Riviera for a long moment, a sort of half-sad look, half-still-in-awe, and then pulled his shirts off, setting them aside.  There was little point in getting them soaked.  And then, knowing that it probably wouldn't make up for his absence (at least in his own mind), he turned his attention to washing the car.

At least whenever Len came back, she'd look her very finest.

Scotty managed to get together the requested cat food fairly easily (and early); that was a matter of using scraps and turning it into a stew of its own gravy, then individually sealing each container.  Then, still early, he got the note from Mister Nimoy; luckily, he was still in the galley.  Given that it was his day off, though, he didn't mind it -- the busy work allowed him to actually do something, instead of sit idle with his own thoughts.  So, he put in a work request...

To: Chief Engineer Scott (amplenacelles)
CC: Assistant Chief Riley
From: Montgomery Scott (allmhadadh)
On Behalf of: Leonard Nimoy (len_not_spock)
Repair Request #: 10967-B
For: The replicator in Mister Nimoy's suite appears to only be able to produce variants of cat food.  The galley is currently covering the meal requirements for him and those sharing the suite, but a request has been put in to have the replicator repaired.  Thank you.

Once he sent that, he put together a breakfast tray for the suite, with a thermos of coffee and hot water (with tea bags), and three plates (the listed number of occupants) of basic eggs, bacon, toast and hashbrowns.  The problem was, he couldn't seem to find anyone to actually deliver it; the galley was busy today.  That just left him.

Wincing a little internally, though, Scotty made sure he had everything in hand (and it was quite a lot), the tray of food and drink on top of the flat crate of cat food, and made the somewhat long and carefully balanced journey to Nimoy's suite.

After a brief noncommittal message from the other Scott, and Scotty's equally noncommittal reply, he went back to work.  He was just finishing up inputting the last of his concepts into the PADD, keeping the papers for himself.  He wouldn't have paper for all that much longer; he was running out.  But he kept every sheet aside those he gave away.

The final concept for the intuitive shielding system was based strongly on what Scotty understood of the Constitution-class in his own universe.  Kirk had been right; this new Enterprise relied on far fewer shield emitters that ran a great deal more power, whereas the Constitution of his own universe had a far higher number of emitters, which output less power each, but that offered somewhat more flexibility and redundancy.  Scotty's proposal, therefore, was to add between one hundred and two hundred new emitters to this Enterprise, all which were somewhat weaker than her native ones, but that would increase flexibility of her shielding system and allow for up to thirty percent of them to be taken out before her shields would drop below 100%, even if the loss occurred in one spot.  One hundred was the minimum, but two hundred was the optimum.

He also included his equations on power curves and expenditures for all possible predicted numbers -- minimum and optimum and all in between -- and then finally proposals on where the new ones could be fitted to her hull and where and how they would link back to her main shield arrays, that distributed the properly modulated power.  Mostly, he relied more on mechanics than computers for that part; simple stopgaps to avoid feedbacks and such.

His proposal for the intuitive shield system was therefore two-fold -- one to increase power and flexibility to the Enterprise's current system, and two, to make it more intuitive.  That proposal was somewhat more simple; he proposed a set of ten processor units (four more than absolutely required, allowing for safety engineering and redundancy), which bridged external sensors to the shielding systems.  Those would nearly instantly pick up trajectory readings from incoming fire and then send on that information to the shield arrays in order to boost power to areas that would be hit.  Even at it's fastest, it was not a perfect solution, but it wasn't a bad one.

He also made certain that if the intuitive system blew, or even if external sensors blew, there were mechanical failsafes that would catch the power surge and automatically flip shields back to their default, non-flex coverage of the ship.  And finally, he designed a push-button proposed interface that could be used manually by someone to redirect shields as fast as human hands could do it, in a last-man-standing scenario.

He did all of these on very little sleep, but he'd checked his work probably twenty times before he picked up his PADD and sent it all off to Commander Spock with a note:

Mister Spock:

Attached here are my initial concept proposals, including schematics, drafts, equations for curves and expenditures and projected differences between the current system and the proposed.  If you could please make certain to check for any errors before I send everything to the captain, I would be very much in your debt.

-Scott

He pressed send with a little flip in his stomach, and then practically trembling with exhaustion, he crawled into the back seat of his Riviera, curled his blanket around himself, managed to whisper, "Night, lassie," to the car, and then tumbled hard into oblivion.

The Enterprise was in top form, which pretty much meant there wasn't really anything for a low-rated technician to do, not even for four hours.  Scotty reported, and Riley (the native) told him that he could just use the time to familiarize himself with the systems and work on updating his body of knowledge to keep up when they did need a quick repair tech.  He hadn't seen his counterpart, though he knew the older Scott was around, but Scotty didn't seek him out.  Just did his job, and since Riley never specified where, Scotty studied whilst sitting in the front seat of the Riviera.

He'd occasionally read out and comment on different things he studied, though the Riviera couldn't really answer.  Just aimlessly speaking, for no reason other than to break the silence.

( Read more... )

The night watches on the Enterprise were surprisingly quiet, and that had left Scotty to mostly work unaccosted and uninterrupted. It was a bit more tricky without some kind of repair list, but he'd kept himself busy. All the minor, silly things that weren't critical. Well, and shower sabotage, but that was more for the sake of principle than anything else. He had a lot of issues with doctors, but he had even more of an issue with Harold's acceptance that what McCoy threatened was remotely acceptable. If someone would have threatened him like that, he probably would have tried to tear their throat out.

And likewise would not have realized that he did until it was too late.

( Read more... )

After a couple hours of being passed out on a desk, he woke up with a jerk, then winced at the ache in his neck. By now, he was too hungry to go and ignore it, and after a genuinely baleful look at the replicator, he figured that he had to find some source of food that wouldn't feel like a betrayal.

He rolled down the sleeves of the long t-shirt he'd borrowed off of the other Scott to cover up the bruises, did the best he could to finger-comb his hair into some semblance of neatness (not quite succeeding) and tried not to feel too messed up to move. He went to check for another list of repairs he could do, and found access blocked; letting out a quiet, disheartened sigh, he just decided to go with plan A.

The galley wasn't too hard to find. And it was busy. Really busy. He almost balked and left, but after a moment, someone came by and literally shoved a bowl of dough into his hands.

Scotty was a mean cook. Not nearly to his mother's level, mind, but he certainly wasn't a kitchen idiot. He'd been her sous chef enough times in a professional kitchen, those times when it wasn't too much of a hassle to take him along, that he knew his way around there about like he did machines. Cooking was just another form of engineering; put things together, make them work, try not to create any disasters, and he was a natural at it.

So, being conscripted briefly into the galley staff, working to prepare meals for an overcrowded starship, was not too bad a fate. He lost track of time there, too, though he sure didn't lose track of his stomach, which was probably trying to eat itself by now. And after he'd worked long enough that he felt he had earned his meal and two others besides, he stashed some aside to make dinner for himself. There was a broken stove in the back of the galley; he repaired it easily, washed up, then got to preparing food.

It wasn't a masterpiece or anything. Meat, potatoes, noodles and vegetables, all together in one casserole. A hearty meal, meant to fill the belly, and maybe provide some level of comfort, and it didn't take all that much of any one thing to make it. A good bit of the juices from the meat left in with a base. An appropriate amount of herbs and a little spice, just enough to throw a tiny bit of bite into it. Poor man's food, basically, but almost on the same level as comfort food.

He sized out a couple of plates and managed to use a third to bribe another of the staff of the galley to deliver them. One to Harold, one to the other Scott, each with a note that read the same thing: "Thanks for the help yesterday."

Then, with a fourth plate of the casserole set aside, he washed the dishes and put them away, then found one of the few quiet spots in the kitchen to sit down against the wall and eat.

The work wasn't hard work, but Scotty was almost painfully grateful for it.  It so turned out that his little jury-rigged project had exploited a weakness in the connection points of the lighting system, where each element joined to the next.  He scrambled the ones overhead in the little homemade botany lab, with its special modified lights, and it cascaded to blow out the main junctures.  If it'd destroyed every one, it'd be days of work.  This, only hours.

He was still glad of it.  Not of causing the damage, but of having something to do.

Once the older man, somehow a Scott, had showed him and Harold how to make the right repairs, he'd grasped it quickly and then stayed alongside Harold for another twenty minutes or so, helping Harold until he was as smooth as a technician would be; tips on how to hold the tools, how to move aside the fiber-lines, how to wire in new connections. The only show of gratitude he could think to give for now.

Then Scotty moved off to his own work, and found the steady, easy rhythm; that internal quiet he found when he worked with his hands.  He loved working with his hands, and things that were concrete and that he could fix.  His first real job had been in a salvage yard, taking what was broken and doing all he could to save it.  Sometimes he failed.  Sometimes he succeeded.

Always, he tried.

Now he worked again, something to keep his troubled thoughts at bay; worked the tangible, what appealed to his senses.  Narrow sight, the hum of the energy through reactivated lines in his ears, the cool materials in his fingers.  Forgot long since the bruises on his arms, or the fact he was still hungry and now thirsty.

Forgot that he was lost, and worse than he could even begin to understand.

In the work, he was there; he was good, and reached for perfect.  Sometimes he failed, and mostly he succeeded, but always he tried.

In the work, he was there; no before, no after, no name or life or past or future.  No questions, no answers.  Only this.

Fixing what was broken.

Ensign Jessep was not exactly in love with his assignment.  He didn't mind being a security officer, even knowing the dangers of the profession -- it meant that he got to play with really cool guns, for one, stuff the regular personnel didn't get to play with.  He also got to see the most off-ship time.  And, on top of those things, he got hazard duty pay.

None of that made this particular assignment enjoyable.

He'd been trading off watching over some comatose kid in sickbay with two other guards, and there were very few things more boring.  First, because the kid hadn't moved.  Second, because if he did move, Jessep was pretty sure that he wouldn't stand much of a chance of putting up a fight anyway.  He wasn't a very big kid, and he sure wasn't very old.

So, basically, Jessep was bored.  Not to say sickbay was boring; the past couple of days had been downright exciting.  He just didn't get to participate.

Things were getting hectic again, and the security officer watched in fascination, glad for a something more interesting to occupy his attention.  He probably should have noted the time, but he didn't.  Regardless, when he turned back...

Both the kid and a medical tricorder that was nearby were gone.  Vanished.  The only evidence of his existence a bright red shirt left laying on the bed.

Jessep swallowed hard and went and looked under the bed.  He looked around the room.  He tried to imagine how he'd explain to his superior officers that he lost the guy he was supposed to be guarding.  He wondered if he was going to be assigned to one of the bad landing parties.  He winced.  A lot.

After about fifty thousand different horrible scenarios as to his eventual fate ran through his head, he finally swallowed and went to call Mister Scott, who had ordered the guard.  He wasn't looking forward to what was going to happen to him.