Posted by Captain Alexander Cochrane (Commanding Officer) in Auxiliary Bridge- Late Night Tinkering

Posted by Lieutenant Faye Calloway (Mission Specialist) in Auxiliary Bridge- Late Night Tinkering

Posted by Captain Alexander Cochrane (Commanding Officer) in Auxiliary Bridge- Late Night Tinkering
Posted by… suppressed (1) by the Post Ghost! 👻

(snip)

Faye had reached into the crate and pulled out sections of fibre-optic cabling that were attached to little connectors similar to the ones he had just been working with. She grinned. “Well, your willingness is very much welcome at the moment. Because now we’re going put this altogether, so if you can just hold this, I can feed the cabling through quickly and secure the pieces. Then I seal the one end. The other side will be left open until I am ready to hook it up to the power systems. But I have a few things to take care of tomorrow before I’m ready for that stage,” Faye explained.

With him holding the piece steady, Faye gently twisted the many strands of fibres and fed the whole lot through one of the holes, screwing in the end. “I actually could have had this all done for me before I arrived, but I insisted on changing the design slightly and there wasn’t time for prebuilt parts. So… I get the fun of doing as I go,” Faye said with some amusement. “It’s a good thing I don’t mind a bunch of tedious labour.”

~Faye Calloway, Data Specialist

“You sound like a bureaucrat. Taking joy in the tedious… not my strong suit. At all.” Cochrane replied while holding the device steady. After she had screwed on the piece, he said “So when is this magic of yours coming on line? I need to know when to release the streamers and issue the noise makers with the little curling and uncurling paper thing.”

Cochrane, CO

Faye stopped what she was doing and looked at him seriously for a moment before holding up her index finger. “One, I am not a bureaucrat and I the thought of it makes deeply offended.” She went back to adding more cabling. “Two, the repetition of the activities I call tedious isn’t about joy, it’s about being meditative,” Faye said matter-of-factly. “When I do that, it calms my brain down at times and helps me get along better with everyone. And three, there won’t be a moment like you’re expecting when I flip a switch. I started this back in the lab under controlled circumstances where I could run tests and simulations to make sure it was going to work the way we think it’s supposed to. This whole putting it together on the ship for real part goes in sections. And if I’m doing my job well, you won’t even know when any one section goes live.”

Finishing with the cabling, she screwed on a cap on the end and held out her hand so he could give her the entire thing. “But if you really insist on blowing up a balloon, how about I tell you when the last section is about to go live and if that too doesn’t do something terrible to the ship, then we can celebrate?”

~Faye Calloway, Data Specialist

Cochrane chuckled and said “Fair enough, Lieutenant. But I do have to say… the last person to try and ‘shush’ me with that gesture was my step-mother. And it’s a lot more effective coming from a Vulcan than a Data Specialist elbow deep in a Comms panel.” and he smiled broadly. “But I meant no offense by the bureaucrat comment. I doubt either you or I would function at all well in the environment.” He handed her the device and watched her work installing it. He wanted to know what all of this was and what it was about, but he had been warned off looking into it even before he had left to come aboard. It was frustrating, but he wasn’t in any real position to rock the boat, as they say. So he simply trusted Calloway to do her job, do it well, and let him know if something was about to happen.

Cochrane, CO

She snorted before reaching deep into the conduit and attached the component to a section that she had prepped earlier. Faye reached out and grabbed a sealer and made the delicate motion that would fuse the part in. “Vulcan step-mom… I have had a fair bit of experience with Vulcans. We tend to get along. I think I like that I always know where I stand with them.”

~Faye Calloway, Data Specialist