Skyler Akade

Note: This log is set in the current ISS Creek mirror universe plotline. A few days prior to sim-time... **** The Hard Six was a testament to the hardship of its engineering crew -- a ship that should have been retired a decade back but had somehow managed not only to stay afloat but to become recognized as a pretty fast freighter amongst the civilian fleet. Engineering was always replacing or upgrading circuits, relays, consoles, and major systems. Jed was taking a breather, sitting on one of the mismatched stools in the mess hall, wiping his hands on his favorite pair of leather pants. With the tip of his boot, he poked Karim in the ribs a few times until the assistant engineer slid back out from under the induction range that needed a tune up. “What?” Karim asked. Jed grinned, the scar on his left cheek making his smile crooked. “That’ll be ‘what, sir,’ to you!” Karim rolled his eyes and sat up, propping his back against the stainless appliance waiting as Tauariki went on. “Crash has put the engineering crew on standby...again. I swear the devilish woman wants to work us to death. I really think she goes to bed at night trying to figure out who she could pick up a fight with, for the only purpose of making us clean up the results of another firefight...“ Jed stopped mid-sentence, his eyes following a young new recruit hungrily. “Get me that damned stove fixed, El-Sayed...cause I’ll definitely let her cook me dinner tonight.” Karim, his eyes elsewhere, noticed the mess hall doors slide open and watched as Skyler Akade stepped through them, heading their way after scanning the room briefly. “Uhh...” He cleared his throat trying to get Jed’s attention, which was entirely focused on the blonde. ”Boss!” he added more loudly as Skyler closed in on the pair. “What? I’m busy here...” the Chief Engineer started clearly annoyed, before noticing the scientist’s approach. “Oh... “ Karim got up quickly, nodding in Skyler’s direction before grabbing a rag off the counter behind Jed. Loud enough to be heard only by the tall Maori, he muttered, “Yeah...oh. I’ll leave you and your...friend be.“ “Jed!” Skyler hissed the word out in a low, attention-demanding drawl, ignoring the other engineer pointedly and focusing in on Tauariki, the lazy hardness of her cool brown eyes tracking onto his body and up to his face. The Hard Six’s sensor expert was bored and aggravated, not a combination that boded well for most people standing in her way but one for which she generally found Tauariki to be an ideal target for various reasons -- mostly because he was the one who maintained (if you could call it that) the systems which were her primary concern, the only things that kept her on this hunk-of-junk ship, though he had other uses as well when the fit struck. “Was beginning to think you were trying to avoid me. We need to talk.” Jed gave Karim a sidelong look, clearly meaning shut up and go away...now, before turning to Skyler. “Hey, Sky,” he greeted her. “Why would you think I’d ever avoid you? You know I ask nothing more than spending more time with you actually...” He instantly regretted having brought the subject up, seeing the dark look Skyler was giving him. Quickly trying to change the subject, the tall engineer got up, putting his hands on Akade’s shoulders, massaging them lightly. “What do we need to talk about?” he asked, smiling, hoping she wouldn’t get more upset at him. Skyler couldn’t resist a grin to herself at the soft, almost plaintive touch. Tauariki hopped to her tune as per usual -- hopped a little too fast, really. There was actual business first. “That new sensor pallet you installed -- where the hell did you salvage it from?” she said, shrugging his hands from her shoulders in a dismissive manner calculated to twinge his pride down just a hair. “Maybe on the Imperial ships they put up with that kind of blind-six-ways-from-Sunday crap, but you know I demand better.” Putting his hand behind his back and trying hard not to let his disappointment show too much, Jed shifted his weight to one foot. “I know you deserve better, baby...but that was the only pallet I could get you on short notice. I made my contact promise me to put one aside for me, though.” Jed smiled, obviously proud of himself. “And I did that why? Because I knew you’d settle for nothing else than the best.” Jed scanned her face, evaluating her mood before deciding to go out on a limb. “Any plans for dinner yet?” He crossed his fingers behind his back for luck. Skyler favored him with a mild scowl, inwardly amused. Didn’t he understand where her priorities were? No matter...such things had their place, and in this case there was no reason she couldn’t use them as a catalyst for more important business. “I swear, Tauariki, sometimes I think you think about nothing else than food.” She took her time ambling towards the far end of the mess hall bar and back, then eyed him sharply. “1900 hours, my quarters...bring wine, and for the love of dhuk’tah, not that slop you brought last time.” Reaching the edge of the bar next to him, she tugged him closer by his sleeve, half-whispering in his ear. “And then after that...you get to fix that piece of junk that is passing for our scanners at the moment. Word is the Cap wants to go poking around near CS13, and I don’t mean to be blind if that’s the case.” “Sensors...“ he muttered. Not really what I had in mind... “Alright, baby, I’ll jury-rig something for you until I can install you something more...worthy.” Jed squared his shoulders abruptly, seeing his assistant stroll back in the mess hall, and, passing a hand through his hair, said more loudly, enough to be heard by Karim, “1900 it is, then. Bottle of Andorian ice wine alright with you?” he asked Skyler, before turning towards his assistant and winking while the sensors expert was looking away. “I suppose,” Skyler said a bit carelessly, then smirked in Jed’s direction. “If you have the sensors fixed before then, maybe I’ll see fit to make an evening of it...see you later.” Without a glance behind her, she turned and exited the mess, supremely confident in the effect she had left behind her. Karim joined his superior’s side and paused for a moment, both engineers watching Skyler and her rather nice backside walk out of the mess hall. El-Sayed slapped Jed’s back in a congratulatory manner, before holding his right hand up for a high five . “Lucky son of a--!”

A mischievous grin flashing in her eyes and playing across her lips, Innogen laughed. "Tell me, how does my teasing you about your obvious infatuation with our new engineer make me any more of an ass than you? Not an hour ago you were teasing me about dirty old men who like to flirt." "It's not an infatuation," Skyler said, blushing, as she leaned up against the wall of the somewhat tossed-and-tumbled Primos Minor general store, absently squeezing a bit of paint off the edge of her uniform. "And I never claimed I'm not an ass, either," she added dryly. Actually, it was kind of hard not to feel like one, standing on unfamiliar ground covered in bright pink dye and having just turned into a mumbling, clumsy idiot in front of their new CENG for the space of about twenty minutes. But she didn't really have to explain all that; Innogen of course already knew. Verdomme Kriosian empathy... "Besides...maybe I wasn't teasing you at all -- perhaps I was just impressed with his taste," she added, letting a slight smirk slide onto her face as she glanced at her friend. "Keep telling yourself that, maybe then you'll start to really believe it." Smirking as well, Innogen turned and began to sort goods into two piles, salvageable and unsalvageable. "This is an utter mess, but it did break up the monotony of being repurposed by Starfleet as a ranch hand. I hope those kids had a good time of it." "I'm sure they did...kids usually do," Skyler said absently, grinning to herself as she remembered the chaos of growing up amidst an extended Denobulan family. "Plus, if you've got a bike like that, I suppose you want to use it," she added with a laugh, starting to relax a little. "And besides, it's not so bad being a ranch hand...reminds me of my pre-vet days back at Triaxa before I realized that I was way too lazy to be birthing Atrixan goats my whole life..." Mimicking the sounds of snoring, Innogen stopped her sorting for a moment and batted a stray hunk of hair, loosened by the paint projectiles and now bright green in color, out of her eyes. "If being a ranch hand made you so happy, you don't need to bore me to death with details I already know. I am pretty sure we can find a new job for you on this planet if you want to go back to it." Skyler rolled her eyes. Innogen had heard a *lot* about the (often rather gross) details of practical xenobiology when the two of them had roomed together in college (and later at the Academy) and never lost an opportunity to remind her of it. "No fear, you're stuck with me," she said cheerfully, too accustomed to Inno's sardonic style of humor to be crisped by it much. Pushing off the wall, she moved towards the front door of the store and glanced out of it to make sure Tauariki had indeed departed before addressing herself to the straightening of a paint-splattered shelf. Unable to repin her hair back into some semblance of order, Innogen finally gave up and let out the rest of pins, shaking out the wavy masses and poking them behind her ears. "You know what? I think I like this green. Maybe I should get some permanent streaks?" Turning to solicit Skyler's opinion, she saw her friend struggling with a shelf and moved to help. "Did you ever think we would end up on the same assignment like this?" Skyler shook her head, leaning on the shelf thoughtfully. "No, not really. We got lucky with Personnel...or at least I did –-- most of the time," she added, shooting a grin sideways at Innogen and eyeing the green paint laced through her hair. "Yeah...that's definitely a good look for you. Gives you the bad-girl aspect you're always trying for...I'm sure the Kriosian royal family'll love it." Whipping her head around, Innogen stared at Skyler for a moment, eyes narrowed. "I am not in the way of being concerned for what they care about any longer." she snapped, her words taking on a sharp edge her and typically non-existent accent becoming more pronounced. Silence fell between them, lingering with an awkward air. "Let's get everything back in order before Commander Wesley beams down more supplies. We do need to get these distributed so we can move on to the next settlement,” Innogen said crisply, in an attempt to pretend nothing had happened. Skyler winced. "Sorry, 'gen," she muttered. Innogen hadn't really ever talked much about her family, though from what she *had* said, Skyler could guess they weren't the sort for streaked hairdos and spattered paint. It was always a bit of a toss-up as to how touchy her friend would be about it, but probably it had not been the right time to bring it up. Two for two for sticking my foot in my mouth... "Minus the mess in here, the supplies are more or less all stowed," she added, more businesslike, glancing in the direction of the rear door behind which a wide array of imported cattle stood milling about. The engineers -- particularly the chief, she thought with completely non-impartial reflection -- had been pretty efficient about getting everything unloaded. "I think we'll be ready by the time the Commander calls." "Well then," Innogen began, still somewhat stiff and formal in her speech, "you may as well go and help Lieutenant Tauariki catalog the livestock feed as we had planned earlier. Dismissed, Ensign." Turning on her heel, she moved to the back of the store, her eyes, which moments before had been sparkling with humor, now cloudy and troubled.

"Whoooo-ahh!" Skyler yipped, hefting herself up onto a crate and looking at the holding pen full of cattle. The nearest one swung its head around towards her in a lumbering sort of way and uttered a groaning bawl and then looked away, clearly uninterested in its visitor. Skyler grinned. Bos primigenius...the cow, quadraped mammalian ungulate... she thought absently, swinging her feet off the side of the crate. Four-part stomach, ruminant digestive system, distended subpectoral udder and mammary glands...nine-month gestation period with fully autonomous offspring at time of delivery. She rattled her lips with a puff of breath and laughed. "Verdomme...amazing how much you can remember." It had been about ten years since she'd looked at being a veterinarian with any seriousness, but more academic xenobiology still had the same sort of general appeal, and the fact was, much of the time animals were a lot more interesting than people were. These of course were garden-variety for anyone who had come from Earth or ever been on a colony world where farming was the norm (and Skyler had done both, though the former had been mostly in the city and the latter had been for a very brief period indeed), but still, there was something invigorating about seeing this much life packed into the cold metal box they all called home. "Moooo..." she offered cheerfully at the nearby cow, who again turned sleepy eyes on her and gave her a singularly disinterested snuffle. She'd been able to stay out of the way during the actual loading process, a loud, smelly affair involving more than a few animals becoming spooked by the noise and movement of the transfer and having to be calmed by an array of sweatsoaked burly cargo men (and women) until the assembled bovines reached their current state of passive, cud-masticating equilibrium. It hadn't been Skyler's scene; a bit too many people, a bit too high-energy. But it had calmed down now -- as a matter of fact the bay was pretty much empty. No Fleeter in their right mind would get their chuckles from sitting around watching the cattle in the cargo hold if they didn't have to. So call me crazy... Science would, she hoped, have some work to do on the cows, checking 'em over and all before their arrival wherever they were going. Innogen knew her background, too, so Skyler could be pretty sure she'd be up close and personal with the big animals if anyone was. She leaned back on her box, resting her head against the wall. On the move, big ship, good sensor array, tweaks to make, good department, buddy in the chief slot, dinner coming up and a whole bunch of cows tramping the cargo bay. Verdomme...life is pretty damn good!