"A Convincin'"

[Shane 0]

"Maintenance!"boomed Shane's deep voice throughout the two stories of main engineering as hetowered over a cowering Steve, the Verbistulengineer. The big cyborg had the small man cornered against the mainconsole with back to the double doors entrance."That's all you areauthorized to do! If I find that you adjusted one jykin' EPS buffer, I'll ripyer jykin' head off and use it to scrub the latrines! Got that?" Heemphasized his threat with a clamping snap of his massive metal claws.

 

Joewas already through the double doors by the time Shane had gotten around toripping heads off. Unnoticed by both men, he stopped and waited for his chiefengineer to complete his point. "Nice to see you're makin' our guests feelwelcome, Shane," he said, drawing Shane's attention and allowing the cowedVerbistul operative to slip away inshame. "Though I hasten to point out that if any heads go flyin', I'm theone that's got to explain to Captain Maxwell why one of his people is missing.To say nothing of the mess."

 

Thecold gray eyes under the thick brown narrowed as Shane replied, lowering hisvoice to a more respectable level, "Cap'n, I've spent nearly amonth getting this jykin' ship to the condition she's in and to be honest withya, if these white suits mess with anything, Maxwell can go suck on a disruptorcannon fer all I care!"

 

With a loud hiss and groan from hisarm, Shane turned from Joe and stepped over to the equipment locker to grab hisEngineer's Kit which was a slightly larger kit than standard."Besides," he continued, "I still ain't understandin' why yersending me on this Awa...er..fixin' trip when yer gonna need me in case theraiders or other mercs start gettin' ugly. I know these engines," he saidwaving at the long green-glowing warp engines behind him with his whirringbionic, a very slight touch of affection entering his gruff voice, "know'em better than anyone you got."

 

"Maybeso," Joe replied, looking around the engine room. William, he noticed, wasoff to one side and did not appear to have heard Shane's last comment."But then if things turn ugly, I plan to make sure they don't reach thepoint that Qob is taking hits. I'vegot a few cards up my sleeve for that. If it comes to it, you can do a lot moregood helpin' Byblos and the others protect the team.

 

"Now that reminds me,"Joe crossed his arms and looked back at Shane. "How're we doin' for spareantimatter pods?"

 

Thecyborg looked at Manning suspiciously, "We have two extra pods...figurin'on needin' 'em soon?"

 

"Not'needing' as such. I'm hopin' we won't need 'em at all," Joe answered. Hereached inside his vest jacket and pulled out his bourbon flask. "But,just to make sure we've got ... let's say, every contingency covered ... I wantyou to load one of them pods on board the shuttle you'll be taking over to the Capricorn. Just in case the need for itarises." He took a sip from the flask.

 

Shanepondered the idea for a moment, then nodded his head. "I'll get the'appropriate' equipment for it as well," he said turning away from thecaptain and headed for the Engineering equipment closet, suddenly on board withthe idea of going to the Capricorn,"I know what we'll need."<br style="mso-special-character:line-break"><br style="mso-special-character:line-break">