Posted by Ensign Elemirre Serinde (Engineering Officer) in Chief Engineer Office - Machine Shop

Posted by Lieutenant Logan Kelleher (Chief Engineer) in Chief Engineer Office - Machine Shop

Posted by Ensign Elemirre Serinde (Engineering Officer) in Chief Engineer Office - Machine Shop
Posted by… suppressed (7) by the Post Ghost! 👻
Snip and bump
Logan nodded his agreement. “It’s not something that any Engineer wants to miss, no matter what condition we’re in. Tired or not, she’s crew and part of it. She can sleep later.”

Looking back to the work the pair were doing, he tilted his head at it. “How’s that coming along, it going to pose any issues on launch? If we need to we can dial back the power being run through the main conduit for the medical systems, re-route to other lines. Fawkes managing to track it down?”

Kelleher, CE

OOC: I think we got that in the Engineering Group thread? May have doubled up there … but answered it there .. Gene

OOC: Yeah this one I assume is a few hours after that, so I was just ‘checking in’ kind of as an acknowledgement of that earlier happening. Unless I have my timelines totally up the whap lol

IC: “I’m going to go and check in on Serinde, maybe a small visit from the Chief will encourage her to be a little more aware of things next time. When we launch though I want her out here with everyone.” Nodding as he walked past Reggie, Logan made a direct line for the machine shop.

Kelleher, CE

The door was half open and the lights were on. The first thing that he would note was an odd sound echoing, or seemingly echoing, coming from the machine shop. As he drew near the source would be more clear - there was playing a recording of Gregorian Chants. The shop itself was a glorious mess of materials and crates and machinery - the tools of the trade. El was over at a lathe unit removing packing material. She was singing along to the chant - and Kelleher could tell that if El was to try to apply to a choir herself that she would not make it by a long shot. That being said, whether she knew Latin or not, she did know the words and did not notice Kelleher peeking in.
El, Eng

Letting the door slide shut behind him Kelleher watched the woman for a short moment, then walked forward trying to be as inconspicuous as possible. It wasn’t hard really, the music was loud enough to hide his footsteps if he tried not to make any and he quietly found a crate to lean against, and fold his arms across his chest. She seemed absorbed in her work, and for just a moment Logan found an opportunity to take a good look at the Engineer who had been late to the ship and whom Green had penned the report on.

El worked steadily. Her motions were fluid and unrushed. She didn’t have the ‘hustle’ that some of the other younger recruits seemed to have but her work was logical and efficient. By the look of the way she shifted some of the crates El displayed an effort that showed her tiredness but still belied just how tired she may feel. It was slow amongst the mess but she was noticeably rendering order out of the chaos. By the look of it, this task would take some time, but then they had a month before any change in status. Whether she was simply focused or what, her working alone did not appear to bother her, or her being in the shop while the others were out doing business with the engines and ‘real’ engineering, she didn’t show it. It did probably look comical for her to be voicing along with a distinctly male choir.

“You know,” Kelleher finally spoke up, “I haven’t heard music like that for a long, long time. “I’m pretty sure the last time I heard it was during one of the Queens Jubilee Celebrations when I was way younger. It was never quite my thing.” While he spoke, he was smiling and his body language affected a relaxed attitude.

Lt Kelleher, CE

El did not start in any surprise, though there was a barely noticeable stiffening for a heartbeat before she finished shifting a crate atop another. “You must have been quite young. King Edward IV has been on the throne for almost twenty years,” El said, not yet turning. She pushed at the crate to bring it into line with the one under it before turning. Her brow furrowed just a little and her head tipped to one side, evidently not recognizing Kelleher. She had her long hair tied back in a pony tail that angled with her head. It could not be the shifting of new crates and things that did all of it but she looked a mess. Her uniform was smudged, dusty and stained quite contrasting with the pristine - if messy - surroundings. She looked like she was trying to place him which was not easy beyond a rank; the fleet uniforms were rather .. uniform between disciplines. Whether El may have guessed that Kelleher was the new chief, she was evidently hesitant to make that estimation. “I find it relaxing to work to or listen. Quiet is better for meditation. How the monks who composed this did so while singing, I don’t know. But it is dreamy, sir.” As fleeting smile crossed her features. Her body had taken on a formal stance. Only her eyes spoke of her being tired.
- El, Eng

“I’m not sure dreamy is the word I’d use, like I said, not my thing.” Pushing himself to his feet from his place on one of the crates, he took a couple of steps towards her as he spoke. “If I’m looking for something more than relaxing, my go to is Cello or Piano instrumentals. I know, I’m weird.” Throwing out a grin and a shrug, he came to a stop and made it clear he was looking at the work she had been doing. Aside from a slight, almost imperceptible nod his face held no expression other than what had been there when talking about the music.

El’s eyes moved to Logan’s fingers. He seemed ‘big’ to her to command a piano, that his fingers would be stumpy on it, and a cello? Her head tipped as though trying to see him behind one of those large ungainly instruments. Sure it would be more his size. Her experience with any kind of ‘cultured’ instruments was very limited and pictures of a person with a cello was always female and in a long evening dress. She didn’t think Logan would look good in an evening dress, for that or the piano. She had learned how to play a flute, but a small one and hardly anything that an orchestra would play. “Diverse, rather, sir,” she said. “One does not know what gifts one has, which can be very varied, until one tries.” Evidently Logan had tried many to find these uncommon instruments, however she never thought of a cello as relaxing. It appeared to her as though one were wrestling with the beast, or copulating with it.

“I’m Lieutenant Kelleher, Logan Kelleher.” He introduced himself as he looked back to her. He was fairly tall, easily over six foot and broad shouldered with short, medium to dark blond hair that was cut tidy and low maintenance. While the man was clearly fit, he was no bodybuilder. A light tidy stubble either betrayed an unwillingness to shave clean or an attempt to distract from his bulk when meeting people. Or both. “You’re Ensign Serinde, I believe.” His voice didn’t hold the tone of a question, more a statement that made it clear he knew who she was, but he held out his hand in greeting and broke into a smile. “You look like you had a hard night?” That time, his tone definitely held a question.

Kelleher, CE

A tinge of recognition came to her. Lt Green had mentioned his name in the briefing. So this is him. He and Lt Green would not fit well in an escape pod together; both were quite large. She couldn’t make out whether his stubble was intentional, or, if like others of their group, that simply he had not had time to shave in the race to come aboard and get things ship shape. If she was to guess, it was that it was intentional. It had the same ‘feel’ as his hair which was well in place. She wondered what he would like like bald. At her name, she nodded slowly in affirmation. After a heart beat she took his hand; hers was small in his but Kelleher would feel a strength in it. El didn’t know enough to be able to even guess whether Lt Kelleher was a stickler like Lt Green was or not. She had to have faith that the latter’s reports were intended for her good, though it was discouraging. Lt Green’s actions earlier were opposite from what she expected that El had been so surprised she couldn’t speak well, though that could have been her fatigue and rush to get aboard.

A long night. Two nights really, counting her all night vigil in Manticore looking at the dead husk of her old home, then the ‘late’ message received because she had turned off her commlink while she was there. It was unwise to be so trackable there; there were many watchful eyes who were not friendly in that decrepit flotilla. There she had found her sister and they’d talked. El had meditated through the night and watched before leaving. Then the race to a shuttle to the station and the briefing that she was late to and then to the Bonnie to decommission her. Then, finally here. Late again and on security report, and Green report. It was enough to make a girl want to hide away for a good cry - at least according to her weakness for romance novels. But she had been taught to not let hardship go to waste, to never turn one’s back on hardship. There were lessons in everything and one was to have eyes to seek the wisdom from those lessons. “I learned much,” El said in reply. “Even if it was long,” she continued, following that with a slow smile.

“By the sounds of things, yes it was.” Logan nodded, “but, it sounds like you got the job done. That means something.” Logans’ own opinion of duty and responsibility vs doing what was right was, admittedly, very likely somewhat more on the interpretive scale than Lt Greens own but once, Logan had been the same. . Where Green was focused on career and regulations, and those regulations being in place for the good of the ship and people on it, Logan now had a different opinion although he agreed completely with his fellow Lieutenants reasoning. The difference, was that Logan had been willing to do what he called ‘the right thing’ when it mattered at the cost of his career, and he knew it was the ‘right thing’, because he would do it again in a heartbeat. It was a hard thing to deal with in the aftermath and it was very likely Green had never been in the position to make the choice, and Logan hoped he never would be. The man had a strong, promising career ahead of him and Starfleet needed men like him. Punching a superior Officer and an Admirals son in a crowded bar for ‘harassment’ wasn’t the best career move Logan had ever made in a small organization where everyone of rank new everyone else, and had cost him years stuck in R&D instead of in space, but it was the right thing to do politics and claims he overreacted be damned.

El returned the chief a small nod. Inside she felt a relief but at the same time an uncertainty. What was ‘right’ seemed to be subjective. Taking Lt Green’s ‘right’ that meant following process and that to be a marker of one’s standing. They were in place for a reason, even if El felt there were way too many to keep track of. Did she know them? Yes, but knowing was not remembering at all times. As she slowly ‘did’ things during the military academy and on the Bonaventure she had come to experience many and that was a most helpful marriage of regulations and action. She learned them better that way. While El had learned much in her growing up and at the Academy regarding discipline, she ever had a ‘wild’ inner nature that wanted to rebel. It was ever a struggle with rules with right and where they mated and where they didn’t seem to.

She asked a question in reply. “Lieutenant, what are we doing that there was such a rush to be ready and depart?”
- El, Eng

“We’re Engineers, there is always a rush to depart.” Logan grinned but shrugged slightly. “I don’t exactly know, and I won’t until the Senior Staff briefing gets underway in a few hours but, activity like this means we have a mission, not just a launch. I guarantee it.”

The military ‘hurry up and wait’ mantra she had learned at the academy. And this was an extension of it. Inwardly she shrugged. She would find out in time but something that carried her outside of the solar system. That was good. The farther away the better. Patient up to now she felt an impatience welling up in her to be gone. “Always something to do,” she said, parroting one of her engineering instructors. ‘You are an engineer, or will be,’ he had said. ‘That means that even if other departments have that fabled time off, you as engineers will not. We keep things running. They’ and here he had waved his hand implying she understood to mean everyone else ‘use the ship. They wear it. They break it. Our job is ever to keep it working, fixing it - AND making it better. There is always something to do.’ Professor Khumalu had said that straightfaced in his South African accent that ever had the class straining to catch all the words. El thought he did that on purpose so the class would listen. Either way, it had worked.

“When we do launch, make sure you are out in main Engineering with the rest of the team,” Logan said with a more serious tone to his voice. “I don’t want anyone to miss our launch, we only get it once. After that, well, how are you holding up? You need sleep.”

Lt Kelleher, CE

El nodded again, this time a small smile curling her Asian features. “I’d like that, sir,” she said, whether that was being with the rest or the sleep part, or both. The other question was a mix. On the one side she was tired and honesty demanded she say it, but her inner pride was not willing to say just how much. “I’m feeling it, sir, but the activity ..” She gestured to the crates and unpacking .. “.. keeps me going.” Her training through the years had given her a sense of perseverance through trial and testing. Her beliefs added to that, saying that there was always reason behind it, a purpose, something good that would emerge, within or without. Kelleher dwarfed her, almost like Lt Green did. She wondered what his experience was and what made him who he was. “Do you have a specific layout for this shop that you would like, sir?” El was going to just do it to what she wanted as she’d be in here the most, but best not second guess.
- El, Eng

OOC: Bump :)