Posted by Captain Willow Taylor (Commanding Officer) in Taylor Quarters - Side sim

Posted by Ensign Mark Pierce (Chief Engineer (incoming)) in Taylor Quarters - Side sim

Posted by Captain Willow Taylor (Commanding Officer) in Taylor Quarters - Side sim
Posted by… suppressed (6) by the Post Ghost! 👻
6am, the time piece blazed in her right ear but willow only turned and stared at it. She had been awake for hours her mind unable to turn off enough for proper sleep. The dark bags under her eyes were testimony to her restless nights as of late.

Turning the alarm off she sat up her hair tousled and sticking up at odd angles and stretched using the momentum to flop back onto the bed and pull her pillow over her face.She wasn’t on duty today thank goodness. From the door way the noise of metal scraping against ceramic sounded followed by the crunch of someone eating, loudly.

“Cai..” She muttered her voice muffled by the material over her face. “…get out of my room. I didn’t sleep and I can’t be bothered arguing with you this early. Don’t you have some sort of heavy rock music to deafen the ship with somewhere.”

The crunching noise continued a few more moments. “Good morning to youto Captain while normally it serves me pretty well to totally ignore you and pretend that you don’t exist there’s an issue that needs your attention.”

Willow sat bolt upright, the pillow falling away. “Did the bridge call…what?” She took in the calm look of her younger sibling, he seemed almost amused standing in his pyjama tshirt and bottom ensemble barefoot at her door eating a bowl of neon coloured balls in milk that could only be sugar encrusted. She had time to muse that it was actually nice to see him without his hoodie and smiling slightly to boot before she became suspicious if him.

“No obviously otherwise you’d have heard it.” He responded causing her to shake her head and point.

“OUT!” She commanded and flopped back down onto her back.

He shrugged and turned away still eating. “Fair enough but I thought you’d want to know that the replicator is pouring milk into the room.” He said. A second passed as she processed his words and literally leapt to her feet dashing past him in her Starfleet Academy tshirt and stiles bottoms and socks. She skidded to a haunt in their habitat area and watched in horror as the replicator poured milk out like a waterfall into the small puddle of liquid it was forming on the floor. Her socks soaked up the mess as she hurriedly tried to turn it off, behind her the crunching continued.

“I tried that already,” cai said calmly.

“Computer disable replicator!” She yelped as with a spurt the flow became a gush.

“And that,” he said again munching as the computer responded =^= unable to comply.=^=

“Well don’t just stand there do something!” She yelled angrily st him trying to push the milk back with her hands and soaking herself in the process. His grin was wide now and his bowl almost empty. In desperation she did the only thing she could think of. Grabbing the throw from the sofa she tried to use it to stem the flow and yelled =^= Taylor to engineering! I need someone in my quarters right now.=^=

“You best tell them to bring a straw.” Cai said starting to laugh.

Willow and Cai

Down in engineering, Mark heard the Captain’s call and said “I’ll take it.” =/\=Captain, there’s an engineer on the way.=/\=

A few minutes later Mark appeared in the Captain’s quarters. He looked over and saw the replicator. He walked over to the dining table, grabbed a chair, dragged it over by the replicator. He stepped up onto it and pulled a panel off from above the replicator. He removed three isolinear chips from the computer matrix. The milk stopped flowing. He got down from off the chair. “Sorry about not knocking sir. Sounded like an emergency. But an excess of milk… well. It’s dealt with. The chips for the computer controlling your replicator burnt out. He held them up and they were indeed burnt. That will complete shoot the whole mechanism. We’ll get some more and fix it.”

-Ensign Mark Pierce, Engineer

Willow for her part stood, soaked in milk in what appeared to now be an ankle deep puddle of milk and watched Mark assess the situation and deal with it. Cai meanwhile had time to hold his bowl under the stream and refill it. He now stood drinking it and seeing the commotion was done turned and slouched away to his own room.

Milk dripping from her in pyjamas and fluffy socks with wild hair was not a look willow wanted to be seen in. She squelched as she walked away from the replicator to her desk and picking up a PaDD tried to look professional. Her cheeks burned.

“Ahem…thank you ensign…” she looked at him “…Pierce isn’t it?” She glanced at the PaDD in her hand again.

Willow Taylor
Milk maid

“Yes sir. Ensign Mark Pierce.” He noticed that the two adults were slightly uncomfortable, but the teenager seemed delighted, drinking his milk and watching the officers try to muster some dignity out of this.

-Ensign Mark Pierce, Engineer

Willow looked at her PaDD again. “ I intended to call a meeting to talk to you tomorrow when I am back on duty…” she began and looked down at herself with a slight laugh. “I wasn’t exactly expecting to have to get someone in here at 6am…your file is very impressive Ensign, I have been reviewing candidates to take over the newly vacated Chief Engineering slot. Interested?”

Willow Taylor
CO

Mark was a bit surprised. An Ensign considered for that job. “Very much so, sir. Moving into that kind of position, sort of like I had in the Marines, that’s something I’m very interested in. I have to confess a little surprise that my file would’ve crossed your desk.” And he was. Upon joining Starfleet, he had expected to be an ordinary engineer for his entire career.

-Ensign Mark Pierce, Engineer

Taking in his look of surprise she felt that the decision was the correct one. “ Your prior experience speaks wonders for your case despite your rank. We award positions on this ship to the person best suited for the job and not the person highest ranked in the department.” She looked down at her self a second and a short laugh escaped her. “Besides, anyone who can see the CO in this state and keep a straight face about it is certainly professional enough to be considered for the role of department head. Tact is a virtue I have come to find.”

With a glance around at the puddle of milk and the now half ruined carpet and furnishings she grimaced. “Perhaps we can discuss this further when your duty shift ends today and I am not in my pyjamas. Consider yourself acting CE today and report to my office at the end of your shift.” She said entering some commands on the PaDD. “Uhh do you think someone could get that heap of junk fixed for me sometime soon?”

Willow Taylor
CO

“Yes sir. It’s not a difficult fix. Depending on the duty schedule, your replicator can probably be up and running again before you return from your shift. I’ll have you notified when it’s done. I’m not sure if cleaning up spilled milk is our department, but I think we have some evaporators. Everything should be taken care of fairly quickly.”
Ensign Mark Pierce, aCE

Willow nodded. “Great that’s…that’s just well good. If you could see to that as soon as possible and I will see you at 1700 hours in my office.” She made a very short nod of her head and turned away from him. She would leave him to clean up the mess and get dressed.

Walking across her quarters she went back to the sleeping and vanity facilities as her mother would have called them. Hardly vain, for example when one was covered in milk, to need a sonic shower. Once inside said shower she allowed herself to lean back on the wall and slide down to the floor her forehead on her knees and her arms around her legs. She sighed.

Sometime later, clean and dressed in her off duty garb she by passed the lock on Cai’s door(despite some protest) and instructed him to watch out for the engineers fixing the replicator then left in search of someone to talk to at 730am.

Willow Taylor
Off duty

Around 08:00, a pair of NEs in yellow uniforms entered, operating on the assumption that if the Captain is on duty, her quarters would be empty. They quickly found what had been described to them as a “replicator issue.” And now it made sense why they had been told to bring evaporators. “I didn’t know we were janitors.” a resentful Andorian said. “Clearly, the replicator is also malfunctioning, and its repair is our primary task.” Her Vulcan counterpart said.
“Just set up the evaporators.” She hissed. And so they set about their work, the evaporators loudly whirring as they did their job, no small amount of noise from the disassembly and reassembly of the replicator.

At the appointed hour of 17:00, Mark Pierce made his way around the side of the bridge and to the Captain’s ready room. He took a breath and pressed the chime.

-Mark Pierce, aCE