Exploration Fleet (Treasure and Appletree)

Eamon would have probably been willing to talk to Kal had the other started the conversation, but since he didn't, the mechanic went on about his business as normal, completely forgetting all about the art incident. He did make certain to rib Ahara every chance he got. Her cooking, especially, although he quickly learned not to criticize her in front of the captain. Frayne spoke rather sharply to him the one time he did. From that time on, Eamon dialed it back quite a bit. With everyone avoiding everyone else, it was not difficult.

They were about an hour out from Jepison when Eamon slouched along the hallway and knocked on Ahara and Kal's doors. "Up and at 'em," he called. It was early for space-time (sometime around six in the morning) so he was expecting them to be asleep. "Up you get, boy and girl! Come on! I'm supposed to talk to you two."
 
Kal snapped to full consciousness at the first rap on his door. Generally an early riser, he had been in a sort of half doze, lulled into the inbetween state between sleep and wakefulness by watching the rush of stars flying past his window. With a quick call of “Just a moment.” He crawled out from under the covers and hurried to get dressed, before yanking open his door while still tying back his hair and almost toppling into the hallway, excited that something was actually happening.

Ahara on the other hand was still deeply asleep, this being before her scheduled time to get up and prepare anything for the crew's breakfast. Neither the knock or the voice that carried audibly even through the sealed door were enough to rouse her.
 
Eamon stepped back in time to avoid getting tackled by Kal. "Morning," he greeted. "We'll be at Jepison soon, and the captain wants everyone up and alert. Something seems to be off with the internal com system or he would have used that." He kept an innocent expression even though he knew and Frayne knew - or at least strongly suspected - that it was likely due to some tampering Eamon had been doing earlier. He turned and banged on Ahara's door again. "Cranky Pants! Let's go!"
 
“Good morning.” The reply was automatic even as he processed the rest of what had been said. “Coms are down?” He repeated worriedly. That sounded rather more dire than what the engineer was making it out to be. But then, it was his problem to fix, so perhaps it was already on its way to being restored, if the person in charge was so nonchalant about it.

Kal was about to move on towards the bride when Eamons choice of words thrown at their medics door made him halt.
“You really shouldn't call her that.” He chided mildly. “How will her attitude ever change if you keep antagonising her?”
When Eamons banging still had no effect, he tried to activate the call function in the panel by the door, then remembered that that particular service was currently unavailable, so resorted instead for the equivalent of a door bell.

Whether it was the banging or the shouting, something managed to pull Ahara to some semblance of alertness. A single hand reached out from the pile of blankets and pillows to jab at a button on the control panel that was lying on the bed side table. A groggy growl emitted from the cocoon, directed at the call function in the panel, which she of course could not know wasn’t working and thus not pitched to carry all the way through to the hall. “If someone isn’t currently dying, please come back during regular business hours.”
 
"She starts it before there's ever even a chance, and you see how she reacts to the captain who is never anything but polite to her," Eamon pointed out sourly. "She can't even be professional, let alone nice. I see no reason to be nice to her, and I certainly wouldn't trust her to actually patch me up if I was hurt. You be nice if you want, but I'm not wasting the energy."

So saying, he turned and banged on the door again. He couldn't hear anything inside. "Hey! Up! If you don't get up, I'll get the override codes and open the door whether you want me to or not!" He couldn't actually do that. Frayne did have override codes in case of emergency, but he knew better than to tell Eamon. Eamon could open the panel and use the wiring, but that would take time and tools he didn't have, so for now... it was an empty threat.
 
Kal watched Eamons expression turn darker with interest and puzzlement. “She has only ever been professional and polite to me. Short perhaps, but nothing out of the ordinary.” Not wanting to upset the humans sensibilities, unusual as they were, he chose to let the topic rest. Indeed, Eamons threat had him wondering if what he was threatening was actually within his power and what a chaotic being such as he might do with it.

The second round of shouting outside finally got Aharas full attention. She knew very well that only the captain had overrides for personal quarters, but so far wouldn’t put it past the greenling to actually give them to his pet human.
Still bundled in at least two blankets, she slurped to the door, opened it no more than a crack and peered out from behind a thick mess of curly hair. To the two men standing outside, even the sliver of face that the cracked door should have shown was completely obscured
“Talk to me like a civilised person, at civilised times, or don’t do it at all.”

Kal took the opportunity to speak before Eamon could open his mouth and utter more borderline insulting remarks. No need to further the discord apparently brewing between them. “I’m very sorry medic Ahara, but duty calls. We are arriving shortly and have been asked to be on stand by as the coms are currently not working.”
 
Eamon glared at her, mentally counting how many times she hadn't spoken to him like a civilized person. Instead, he said, "I'd think that as a medic you'd be used to getting calls at all hours. That aside... what Kal said," he jerked his head toward the other. "My next job is to try to fix the coms, but there's no garuntee I can get it done before we arrive. So... be awake."

He turned to Kal. "And the captain wants to see you on the bridge once you're dressed. If either of you need me... I'll be playing with electricity." He started walking away.

~~

Frayne stood in the bridge running diagnostics and trying to figure out what Eamon had broken this time. Eamon was a brilliant mechanic, better than any other Zebek in their class, which was one of the reason why he'd made it onto an exploration vessal. His biggest problem was, though, was his curiosity. He was as curious as a Zebek without any of the self-control when it came to figuring out how things worked or how to improve it. Unfortuneately, his quest to figure out how something worked or improvement usually resulted in it not working.
 
Ahara didn’t bother commenting that while she understood the necessity of being woken at all hours for medical reasons, she was far from used to it, certainly didn’t enjoy it and this hardly counted as a medical emergency. Their captain probably just wanted to give another cute little speech as they flew into view of their first ever mission completion. Well whoopee, why was she sacrificing sleep for this again?

In answer to Eamons command, she merely gave a noncommittal sound and shut the door, leaning her forehead against it. How she wanted to crawl back into the oasis of warmth and comfort that her bed so invitingly promised, but no, orders were orders and she was a good little sheep. Might as well get up properly then. With a sigh, she pushed away from the door and towards her dresser, shedding blankets on the way.

Kal nodded. “Of course. I wish you success.” On the short trek to the bridge he wondered idly if Eamon electrocuting himself and thus giving their medic something to do would improve the womans disposition towards being woken so early or worsen it. He really didn’t know her enough to say. She did not seem the type to like to idle about and had so far had precious little to do on their voyage.

Upon entering the bridge, he called attention to himself with a quiet “Good morning Captain.” to the man with his back to Kal, currently fiddling with several of the displays arrayed around him.
 
"Good morning, Kalukan," Frayne greeted without turning. He'd finally found the schematic he needed! He selected it with a tap and used a finger swipe to "throw" the image up on the larger display. "Somewhere just outside the engine room," he murmured, tracing along one of the hundreds of lines with a finger. He turned and nodded to Kal. "Just one moment. Oh, I hate doing this. How embarrassing." He walked past him to stand in the doorway and took a deep breath. "EAMON!" he shouted. "DID YOU CHECK GRID C 25?"

A muffled yell drifted back.

"CHECK IT! THAT IS WHERE THE SIGNAL WEAKENS!" Frayne shook his head and walked away from the door. "Please do not tell anyone at the academy that I have been reduced to shouting orders across my craft," he commented to Kal a little wryly. "Now, then, Eamon told you why I asked for you to wake so early?"
 
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Kal was quite impressed at the volume that Frayne, a usually quite soft spoken person in his personal experience, was capable of producing. Being able to almost make out what Eamon was yelling back from the bowels of the ship somehow wasn’t quite as surprising.

“I would never dream of it Captain.” Kal replied when Frayne turned back to him, perhaps just a tad too quickly, though his face showed no hint of deceit or guile, save perhaps the amusement shining in his eyes that even the professional mask couldn’t snuff out.

“He only said that we will be arriving soon, he was a little preoccupied with getting our medic to wake up without kicking in her door.” Then added in a similarly wry tone to the captains, he added, “He also mentioned that the coms are down.”
 
Frayne gave Kal a slight smile of amusement at his denial but chose not to push the issue. Instead, he moved on to the point at hand. "I do wish he wouldn't react quite so violently, but he was the closest one to hand. Yes, the coms are down, but hopefully, he will be able to fix that soon."

The captain cleared the files he had been looking at and pulled up another picture, that of the observation post, Jepison. "As you can see, the Jepison is an older model that has not been properly upgraded in a long time. From what I understand, the idea is to retire the craft once this particular mission has ended for its current crew. That said... the controls are a lot more antiquated than I believe any of us have studied. It still relies on the ARM for holding other crafts close."

ARM stood for Automatic Retrieval and Manipulator and had been phased out of use some ten to twenty Zebekian years ago. A lot of old cargo crafts or salvage units used them, but very few crafts in the Exploration Fleet still had one equipped.
 
Kals eyes widened. He hadn’t been aware that any fleet vessels still used such old-school methods, retirement incoming or not. That had not been in the files he had spent the last few days reading, but then again, they had been more about the planet itself as well as its inhabitants and solar system, not the station that monitored them.

“Are we even still equipped to interface with an ARM?” He pulled a mental picture of their ship to his mind's eye, trying to think if it had the ‘handholds’ mostly used for easier ARM access that he remembered seeing on images of older ships during history lessons. Somehow the sleek exterior he admittedly only had a rather hazy memory of didn’t seem to offer such amenities.
 
"I do not think so. I could find nothing on the schematics to indicate that we do, so I asked-"

Frayne was cut short by a sudden squawking from every intercom in the craft. He winced and put his hands over his ears as the squawking took on a loud, peculiar squeal. The squeal stopped. Frayne cautiously removed his hands and stared unhappily at the intercom on his consul. Soft, rather ominous whispers emitted from the speaker for a moment before cutting out entirely.

"Right, what was I saying?" the captain asked, rubbing an ear. "I asked Eamon to rig up a temporary interface. He has designed clasps for the ARM to latch onto that need to be affixed to the outside of the craft, and I have helped him design a chip for the electronic interface, thus giving the ARM an electronic target. When we drop out of warp, I need you and Eamon to use the pod to get the fixtures attached to the outside of our craft. I ho-"

He was cut off again by the intercom, this time making a low droning noise. Frayne waited for it to pass then looked at Kal expectantly.
 
At the first burst of sound, Kal only closed his eyes and scrunched up his nose. The squeal it tapered into however rendered all attempts at remaining composed impossible, managing to hit a frequency that made his brain feel like it was trying to squeeze its way out of his head by way of his ears. When it had passed he straightened slowly, rather glad to see that Frayne had also been shielding his hearing from the noise. At least he wasn’t the only one being driven to rather undignified behaviour.

Seeing the captain getting just as exasperated with the malfunctioning system as he felt, Kal felt emboldened enough to comment. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say the ship was haunted.” Before referring to the more pressing matter at hand.
“Yes of course I’ll help Eamon. How long until we drop out of warp exactly?”

He glanced briefly past the captain to the intercom. They would need the communication up and running if they were to have a hope of working together to get the job done. He highly doubted they could both simply sit in the pod and watch the clasps install themselves.
 
Fryne checked the time. "We drop out in thirty five minutes." He hesitated, conflicted, then slowly said, "Perhaps you should see if the engineer could use a hand. I need to stay on the bridge. If he refuses, please ensure the pod is ready and that Medic Ahara will be ready to supervise the off-loading of the medical cargo. Do you have any questions?"

He turned to fully face Kal again, ignoring the com system as it started making odd thumping noises. If Eamon did not get that thing fixed... he really did not want to think about that. He wished he could go help the human himself, but he could not justify leaving the bridge when they were so close to their destination.
 
“I’ll do that.” Kal was not as good at ignoring the pounding speakers as Frayne was. Try as he might to stay focussed on his captain, with each thrum of sound his eyes flicked back to the intercom. It was making it rather hard to actually follow what Frayne was saying.
“Uh, no. No questions.” Anything to get away from the beeping, if that was even currently possible.

It was only when he reached the galley, unfortunately still devoid of any form of breakfast, that he realised he wasn’t actually sure where eamon might be trying to fix the systems right now. Usually the engineer could be found in the engine room, but surely coms wouldn’t be accessed from there? Then again, what did he really know about the workings of a ship besides the usual user related stuff. Grabbing a piece of fruit, he set off towards the engine room, figuring it to be his best bet to start searching.
 
Eamon was in one of the storage rooms sitting on a box of freeze-dried emergency meals as he fiddled with the mass of wires spilling out from the wall. It never ceased to amuse him that no matter how advanced the Zebeks were in some ways, other ways never changed. The best way to send electricity through an amount of space was insulated wires. He had some attached to a laptop balanced on a box of bath tissue, the laptop's screen currently showed a fuzzy scene of black and white snow. He growled and grumbled in English as he fiddled with the wires. Almost.... almost!
 
Kal poked his head into the engine room, but surmised pretty quickly that Eamon wasn’t there. Even with the subtle drone of the engines, he would have been able to hear if he was. The human was so seldom silent, Kal had on occasion wondered if his race was physically incapable of such a feat.

Back in the corridor, he paused to think and take another bite of his fruit. Chewing in an almost meditating fashion, he weighed his options. Somewhere easy enough to access without being on the nose or in the way of anything else… That ruled out most of the more frequently used rooms such as the galley or even the pod hangar. What had the captain been bellowing earlier? Section C something? That had to be storage, the lower levels of the ship. With a mental shrug, he set off in that direction.

Kal tried several rooms in the bowels of the ship before noticing that one door was ajar. Approaching it, he could tell this was the right one. Unintelligible mutters were spewing from it in a constant stream. Thank goodness. He was realising once again that he didn’t much like it down here. There were no windows or open spaces, making him feel rather boxed in. He really didn’t know how engineers could spend most of their days shut in rooms like this.

With a quick preemptive knock, he peered inside to see Eamon perched between an array of boxes like a child in a selfmade fort.
“Please excuse my intrusion, Captain Frayne asked me to see how you were progressing and to offer my assistance if needed.”
 
Eamon jumped at the sudden (to him) knock and looked up as Kal stuck his head in. "Oh, it's you. Kind of thought it might be the captain. Yes, I could use a hand. Here, come stand right over here," he jerked his head to indicate a spot behind his shoulder, "and hold this wire. Don't touch the exposed end! Hold it so that it's right about here, and watch the monitor for me. Tell me if anything changes, anything at all." He held up the wire just above his shoulder where he could still easily access it, but it was out of his way.

He would have preferred Frayne, but at this point, Eamon would have even taken the medic's help! How was he supposed to know that removing the tiny magnetic coupling between the wires was going to make the intercom system go all haywire like this? It didn't make sense! And he'd needed the part to make the doo-hickey for the ARM to aim at.
 
“Of course.” Kal moved to the space Eamon directed and took the proffered wire, deciding to let the insinuation that he didn’t know that touching exposed wires was a bad idea slide. Instead he eyed the static rushing on the screen and asked, “What exactly counts as a change?” He had no idea what the engineer was aiming for here.
 
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