"When There Were Fishes"

[Marius Tr'Lorin 0]

(This log takes place before last week's sim. Certain people (*cough* Tandaris *cough*) simply didn't format it in time to send it out.

 

It was a dark and stormy night in engineering . . . or at least, it would be, if engineering rooms could be dark. Or stormy. Or if they had night. Which they didn't. So it wasn't.

 

But it could have been.

 

Tandaris and Marius sat at their consoles, the hum of the warp core a reminder in the background of their setting. Soon they'd arrive at Camelot, and then the fun would begin.

 

Tandaris looked down at his readings. They were still running constant diagnostics. Since every system was new, it was likely that several of the parts were defective, that certain systems had bugs that hadn't been revealed simply because they hadn't been subjected to enough stress. He hoped to find these kinks—and iron them out—before their lives depended on it.

 

The most recent diagnostics reported all systems green. He turned to Marius, "I'm surprised nothing has broken yet."

 

"Well," said Marius, recording the results to the engineering log, "it is a new ship, and all, with no combat experience yet." He reset the timer for the next diagnostic to begin.

 

Tandaris shrugged. "So I've told you how I spent my time away from . . . here. What trouble did you get into?"

 

"I was going to be assigned to a Nova class ship . . . the USS Bohr. Not very big, but still, it's a decent class. I was supposed to be the chief engineer." Marius smiled. He couldn't imagine being in a such a small engineering station, not after being on a Sovereign class, and now and Akira. "I get the feeling the rest of the department would've been rookies. Not much to fix when you're in a research vessel, right?"

 

"Indeed. Although you might run into your fair share of interesting anomalies and malfunctions."

 

"True," shrugged Marius. "I guess it would haven't have been too bad. Sit back and watch the scientists run in circles, while I tweak the ship every now and then."

 

"It's a big universe out there. I mean, space is huge. Hugely vastly hugely huge. So huge it boggles the mind." Tandaris stared at the warp core, his eyes glazing over somewhat. Admiran stirred; memories rose unbidden to the surface. "You never know what you'll be doing. You might be tweaking. Or setting up a research station. Going over a derelict alien vessel. The possibilities are vast."

 

Staring up at a ceiling—two floors above—Marius replied, "Hmm, I never thought about all that. Maybe I could've done some research on some warp theories I had worked on back when I was still in at the Academy."

 

"So why did you come back here?"

 

Marius smirked. "My assignment schedule asked me to report to the Antares shipyards about two days before I was going to leave for the Lunar shipyards. I honestly had no clue about being reassigned here until we had our reunion back at Antares."

 

"I had . . . a similar experience." Tandaris sighed. "I'm still ambivalent. Those last few weeks on Excalibur, and even the time afterward, really made me question if my time with Starfleet was coming to an end."

 

"Well, it was a pretty hard time, especially for engineering. I think all our difficulties with the Scorpy fighter, then just the damage from the battles, and then topping it all off with the alternate universe..." Marius attempted to count the on his fingers, then gave up."All that probably would've defeated most teams."

 

Crewman Kent, standing above Tandaris and Marius on the upper level, took this opportunity to glare down at his chief. Tandaris noticed the penetrating stare on his forehead and glanced up, then he looked at Marius. "I just want to know which twisted Admiral assigned . . . the engineering personnel."

 

Marius followed Tandaris' gaze and then quickly looked back down, half smirking, half grimacing. "Maybe we can send a petition to have him dropped off at Camelot." Kent then turned his unblinking gaze upon Marius, who tried to ignore the burning feeling on the back of his head.

 

"Oh, so you want to scrub the plasma conduits instead?" Tandaris smiled.

 

"Nah. I'll let Luthor handle that. Either that, or we can steal one of Camelot's crewmen as a replacement." Marius rubbed the back of his head pretending to think, as the burning continued.

 

"There was that fellow there who helped with Excalibur-B's last round of repairs," said Tandaris, nodding thoughtfully. "Goes by the name of Olsen. . . ."

 

"Sounds like a good idea. I'll see if I can ask about it when we get there." Marius then quickly moved to the safety of his workdesk, where he stared up at the warp core, trying to imagine it as a window looking out into a dark and stormy night.