Posted by Lieutenant Commander Roman Alden (First Officer & Chief Science Officer) in Side Sim: The Officers in the Lift

Posted by Ensign Kovan ch’Sirhc (Engineering & Communications Officer) in Side Sim: The Officers in the Lift

Posted by Lieutenant Commander Roman Alden (First Officer & Chief Science Officer) in Side Sim: The Officers in the Lift
Posted by… suppressed (20) by the Post Ghost! 👻
Roman had been down in the Computer Sciences lab on Deck 12, helping with a problem. Passing Engineering, he was headed back up to Deck 9, to his office. Despite being the First Officer, he did most of his work in the Chief Science Officer’s office. He preferred it there. Mostly because it was next door to his own lab, the Biology lab. He pressed the button for the lift and stepped in.

~ Lt Cmdr Alden, XO/CSO

The console beside Kovan cheerfully chirped to announce the arrival of a maintenance request on Deck 9. That chirp, like the trill of some small avian bird species was starting to grate on Kovan’s nerves. Whoever picked that sound to begin with? Chirp, chrip, chirp did the inventor even think of the engineers that would hear that high-pitched and shrill sound all shift? No doubt the sound was selected by a committee who patted themselves on the back for their good work in selecting a bright sound that they didn’t have to listen too.

Kovan answered the request and grabbed a diagnostic PaDD and a basic hyperspanner. He rushed to catch the lift before it closed, stepping in behind the commander. Kovan nodded to his superior officer, but didn’t try to fill the space with idle chat as the lift doors closed and began to move. Except he did speak, “That doesn’t. . .” He said that because he felt the faintest tremor run through the lift. Then that slightest tremor became a noticeable tremor chased by a metallic scream that put those annoying message chirps to shame. Kovan braced himself against the walls of the lift as it rocked back and forth to a slow and shuddering stop.

”. . . sound good.” Kovan finished his sentence. The lights of the lift flickered, but thankfully remained on.

Ensign ch’Sirhc (COMMO, ENGR)

Roman was glad that Kovan didn’t try to fill the space with idle chat. He wasn’t much a fan of idle chat. He gave a respectful nod back. He needed to get back up to the lab. He had work to do. Lab animals to feed. And then the lift began to shake. And then there was a metallic screech, and Roman leaned against the wall as the lift stopped, and rocked back and forth.

This was not good. He was thankfully not claustrophobic or anything, but he really didn’t have time to be stuck in a lift until Engineering could fix it. “Deck 9,” he said to the lift, but there was no response. “Let’s call Engineering, they can get it moving,” Roman said. He hoped anyway. The lift comm shouldn’t have been down just because the lift was, but who knew.

~ Lt Cmdr Alden, XO/CSO

“I am engineering.” Kovan said dryly, before adding, “I double tracked. There should be an access panel. . . Here it is.” Disguised as another panel lining the wall, it was easily removed to reveal several buttons, connection ports, and a circuit board. Kovan wasted no time linking the panel to his diagnostic PaDD, which automatically began its search for problems. “This will take a couple minutes, but it should tell us what went wrong.” Then what? Another several minutes stuck fixing the problem? That is if they could even resolve this from within the turbo lift itself. =^= Ensign ch’Sirc to engineering. Turbolift 13 has ceased operating.=^=

Stuck in a turbo lift. With no definitive time frame of when they could be freed. Great. Just great. It’s not the confined space of the turbo lift. It’s the fact that he’s stuck here with another person.

Ensign ch’Sirhc (COMMO, ENGR)

Roman shot Kovan a look, apparently unimpressed. “Unfortunately I won’t be much help. I am no mechanical engineer.” He said, resigning himself to standing out of the way. Roman was no fan of being trapped in such confined space for an indeterminate amount of time with another person either. And his mood was worsened when the comm returned nothing. It seemed because the turbolift was offline, so was the comm. It seemed the only thing getting power were the lights. “Isn’t there some way to push the doors open? Perhaps we’re close enough to a floor to get out?” He wondered, giving the doors a hopeful look.

~ Lt Cmdr Alden, XO/CSO

No reply on the comm. Lights on. “Turbo lifts are equipped with small power banks for situations like this. There’s enough power to maintain lights, life support, and communication. . .” Kovan fiddled with his diagnostic PaDD. Error after error flashed across the screen. Though he couldn’t say for certain, it seemed the turbo lift was indeed offline. “I suspect the lift slipped off the track. That would explain the shaking and. . . that sound. . .” All that moving about could have snapped key wiring or busted something, cutting off the comms.

“Sounds like you’ve got an idea? Something fixable, I hope?” To be honest, ‘slipped off the track’ did not sound fixable from inside the pod. But he could hope it would be that easy. If not, they could be here a while…

Kovan regarded the doors for a moment. “We could try.” He left his PaDD and hyperspanner on the floor and moved to the opposite side of the doorway. “If we each pull on a door we should be able to open it.” Kovan slipped the tips of his fingers into that slight gap between the doors, positioning his hands apart to give Roman room for his hands. “On your mark, sir.”

Ensign ch’Sirhc (COMMO, ENGR)

Roman positioned himself, slipping his fingers into the doors. “Three… two… one… Pull!” He said, and on ‘Pull’, he pulled hard on the door, trying to open it.

~ Lt Cmdr Alden, XO/CSO

On Roman’s mark Kovan pulled with all the strength he could muster. Between the two men working in tandem, the doors steadily opened. When it seemed they would be able to open the door, the metal scraped against the side of the track, creating another metallic groan. In all, it seemed they only opened the doors by twelve inches.

At that moment Kovan knew they were trapped. He could not fix this.

The doors were surely a dead end. It had been worth a shot, but there was no escape through them. Not a chance.

His diagnosis PaDD beeped twice from the floor. Kovan picked it up. The PaDD stated that the lift was offline and disconnected from the ship. “Sometimes I hate technology,” Kovan said, each word seeped in resignation. His little hyperspanner could perform minor repairs, but this was well beyond its capabilities. “The ship will have flagged the offline turbo lift and forwarded a report to engineering.” No doubt announcing itself with that irritating and shrill chirp.

Ensign ch’Sirhc (COMMO, ENGR)

“How long will it be until they see it? And decide to work on it?” He asked, frustrated. He had to agree wholeheartedly with Kovan. Sometimes, technology was the worst. “Nothing at all we can do from here? Just wait?”

~ Lt Cmdr Alden, XO/CSO

“Depends.” Kovan said between clenched teeth, his own frustration apparent. “A lift going offline would not be flagged as an emergency, so the report will be sent through the general maintenance ticket system.” And since it’s not an emergency, they were at the mercy of whoever was on-duty and near-by. Their one saving grace was that an offline lift would be placed high in the ticket order. Which meant that someone was bound to see and respond to it sooner than later. Until then. . . “Until then we wait.”

This could take hours. Hours of not working. Hours of being trapped in a space which already felt crowded with two people, and had a maximum capacity of five, maybe six people. Sure, they were in no danger, but it was not going to be a pleasant wait.

Kovan leaned against the side of the turbo lift walls, his arms crossed across his chest. This is fine. He told himself. I may be trapped, but I’m not in danger. This is only temporary. Then Kovan thought about his open maintenance report, and how the computer kept track of the time between accepting a ticket and resolving it. The paperwork he’ll have to file to get the time adjusted. Of all the work in need of completion in engineering. The fleet-wide communication and languages reports he needed to read. Kovan did not feel fine in the slightest.

Ensign ch’Sirhc (COMMO, ENGR)

Thankfully, Roman knew there was someone on duty in science who could feed the animals he was studying. And surely, they’d wonder where he went. Or, they’d take the oportunity of him being out of the lab to slack off. He could hope for the former. Until then, he was stuck, with absolutely nothing to do.

~ Lt Cmdr Alden, XO/CSO

When you thought about it, Time (the concept) was meaningless. Time had no real meaning. Time is a name given to that which was counted and measured to signify the difference between two differing points. Many would argue that one can observe the passage of time by observing change such as the growth of a flower, the development of a humanoid, the change of seasons. Kovan would argue that is not time being observed but life. Living things grow and change, and would continue and grow and change regardless if the time of that change was measured or not. Many living things could cease growing even while the rest of the universe continues to measure time. And that brings him to the measure of time. Every planet and people perceive and quantify time differently. A difference of planet rotation, distance from the sun, seasons, and other things affected their perception of time.

Kovan thought about time because their only measure of the passage of time came from his diagnostic PaDD. In total only ten minutes have passed, but that ten minutes felt like twenty. Kovan could go on about the philosophy and semantics of time and Time. He could, but the more he thought about it the more he hated Time and his current situation. If only he had his drawing PaDD. Then at least he could be doing something useful and not standing around in idle indulgence. With nothing to occupy himself but his own internal musings.

Ensign ch’Sirhc (COMMO, ENGR)

Only ten minutes had passed, and yet, Roman began to pace back and forth, unable to sit around and do absolutely nothing. The more time went by, the more restless he became. All his paperwork, all his reports, all his notes, were in the biology lab. And if they didn’t get out soon, his reports wouldn’t be done on time. Now that was a thought that drove him crazy. Timeliness was incredibly important to him. If any junior officer came to him, and said the lift had been stuck, and that’s why they were late, he’d be fine with it, but for he himself to be late for any reason he found unacceptable. He wished he could teleport himself out, or something, though he knew that to be quite impossible. “What would you be doing if it weren’t for the lift?” He asked Kovan at last, breaking their ten, perhaps fifteen by now, minute silence.

~ Lt Cmdr Alden, XO/CSO

Kovan found himself measuring time by the number of turns his XO took in pacing the lift. The human was surprisingly consistent in his steps. Then Kovan realized just how insane that was. To be counting his XO’s steps while trapped in a turbo lift. It was that realization that prompted Kovan to answer the other’s attempt at conversation. What else was there to do? Kovan hated idle chatter but idleness was all they had in this confined space. If there was ever a time in indulge in conversation, to let go a fraction of his contempt for purposeless conversation: now was the time.

“Repairing a malfunctioning door on deck nine.” Kovan said, thinking of his open maintenance ticket. “After which I would have returned to engineering to compile the 24-hour power usage report. You?”

Ensign ch’Sirhc (COMMO, ENGR)

“Reports. Notes.” Came Roman’s short reply. He wasn’t very good at idle conversation, as much as he didn’t like it. The waste of time was a problem on its own, but being trapped with someone else made it absolutely tedious. “Lot of work lately?” The question almost felt strange to form, it was so out of character for him to ask.

~ Lt Cmdr Alden, XO/CSO

Kovan, an equal stranger to this took a moment to answer. If this were any other time or place (and not to his XO) his response would be sarcastic and scathing. Something like, I’m engineering and communications. Of course I’m busy. How do you have so much time to ask such pointless questions? He had the restraint to not speak to his XO like that, at least. So, Kovan took longer to reply because he needed the time to compose a measured and (this hurts) polite, reply. “There’s always something happening in engineering.”

Roman could tell there was restraint in Kovan’s answer. It had been a dumb question, and he really couldn’t blame the engineer for his trite response.

If someone had said that to him. . . Kovan would have called that reply a pointless non-statement that might as well be life on space debris: something so entirely insignificant it might as well not exist to begin with. Now he had to say something to keep (why him) conversation going. Perhaps if he keeps conversation on work they could entirely avoid personal questions. “Is there. . . a. . . interesting. . . experiment? In the labs?” He grimaced through that entire sentence.

Ensign ch’Sirhc (COMMO, ENGR)

The question was meaningless and his response would normally quite clearly indicate so. However, they were trapped here together and it wouldn’t do him any good to respond in that way. Instead he said, “I study exobiology and alien environments. It’s always interesting.”

~ Lt Cmdr Alden, XO/CSO

Exobiology and alien environments. Kovan. . . could work with that. He took a deep breathe, closed his eyes and tried to pretend that they weren’t trapped in the lift, but talking of their own volition. Which, was something he actually did, years ago. “Have you heard of the Autzan people of Tani Khanaii?” He asked, eyes still closed because that helped. “Humanoid. . . ish. Hollow chested. No vocal capabilities. Communicated by tapping on their chests, which amplified the sound.” Kovan drummed his fingers on his chest, basically repeating everything he said in the Autzan language. Their homeworld had many sound-sensitive predators and other factors that lead to their quirk of evolution.

Ensign ch’Sirhc (COMMO, ENGR)

“I do more study of the animals and plants but I have heard of the Autzan people. Evolutionarily, they’re highly interesting, because of the differences from how they evolved to humans. Sound based and sensitive predators led to most if not all animals to evolve sound based adaptations.” Excited and talking about his own field now, there was little anyone could do to shut him up. Biology had been his passion since childhood.

~ Lt Cmdr Alden, XO/CSO

“Yes, like the hortas. Never saw a live one but I have seen a skull. Ten sets of ears. And two mouths if I recall right. . . can’t remember what the second mouth was for. I do remember that one of their earliest gods was depicted as a bipedal hortas. Which has caused many religious, biological and historical debates.” There was a prominent theory that hortas were once far more intelligent, and even sentient before the Autzan people evolved to stand on two legs.

Ensign ch’Sirhc (COMMO, ENGR)

“One for killing, one for eating,” replied Roman, about the hortas’ two mouths. There was certainly evidence of intelligent hortas, evidence that thousands of years ago, perhaps millions, they’d gathered into tribes much like early man, however they hadn’t progressed. No horta structures were ever found. And once Autzan people evolved, it seemed horta was unable to get its footing again as an intelligent species. “It would’ve been quite the thing to see if they had retained their intelligence.”

~ Lt Cmdr Alden, XO/CSO

“Would it really, though?” Kovan questioned, highly skeptical. An intelligent apex predator sounded like something out of one of those horror holovids. That god depicted as a bipedal horta was a god of destruction and suffering. The Autzan were a quiet and highly retrospective people (a life spent mostly in silence seemed to encourage that). He didn’t think they would have survived into a space-fairing race if the hortas continued to evolve. They could have become another aggressive species like the Klingons.

Ensign ch’Sirhc (COMMO, ENGR)

On the other hand, humans were considered apex predators, and they weren’t like the Klingons. In Roman’s mind, one could never tell what could’ve been. He nodded. “Things would be different, sure. But different doesn’t always mean bad.”

~ Lt Cmdr Alden, XO/CSO

Bad things always happen. In Kovan’s mind it seemed the bad always outweighed the good. “It doesn’t always mean good either,” He challenged, letting his (non-natural, but learned) cynicism come out. “But now we’re getting into semantics over something that does not exist.”

Ensign ch’Sirhc (COMMO, ENGR)