[snip]

George felt that he had exhausted everything he could achieve on the Bridge. Diverting power from Life Support to the Shields, or using it to reach a higher orbit, those were all Executive Decisions well above his responsibilities, and he would leave it to the XO ( and to the ex-XO who was really just the barman.) George wanted to return to Engineering where he hoped that the CE or someone else in his department were working on restarting the Warp Engines (and then all of these difficult decisions would no longer be necessary) and he couldn’t understand why it hadn’t happened yet. He thought that he was probably best employed helping them in any case, so he made his excuses and asked if he could leave.

“Ay think Ay oughta get to Enguneering and restur the powuurr!” George said.

“Er… When ay were last down in Engineering thay …err Warp Cawe done had gone awful dark, yes! But ay’ve been sitting at navigashun since ya done told me too!” George added to Joe. “Ayn’ thay …uhh XO ain’t a-tellin’ me where ay oughta be neithuurr!”

Joe in the meantime after swallowing what may have been the last sandwich and last sip of beer he may ever have sat thinking for a moment before burping. As he did, he noticed that the place was boring and getting a bit dark. “Dammit I hate to just be standing about.”. And with this he found the nearest Jeffries tube with a few things in a toolbox and a flashlight. Kicking out the vent and shouting out ” HIHO!” He stepped forward and dropped down the tube to land this time in front of the warp core itself. He stood a bit crookedly having landed a bit off center. Standing then with his hands set on his hips as if he were about to challenge the core to a duel, he asked the warp core. ” So, you’re all dark, are you?”

The Warp Core was definitely dark as were the consoles in the Main Engineering area.

In the absence of new orders, George followed Joe the barman down the Jefferies tube and back to Engineering. He tried to avoid Joe as he landed awkwardly himself. George was keen to find out what his colleagues in Engineering had been doing all this time and whether or not they had solved the problem.

” Ah , George my man!” Joe spoke as he clumsily handed over the engineering tricorder to George. ” Here you go Engineer George. Extra power cell and a tricorder. I think we should start at the front and work back what do you think? You know this could be some game of all of us losing our minds together. So, let’s take this beast’s temperature. Joe walked over and stood, looking down into the dark maw where the matter anti matter core should in theory be. Making a bit of noise and making at least a bit of heat.

The tricorder would turn on but unfortunately as it only scanned with signals, it would not scan. They could open things up with tools that were battery operated though and look at things.

There was an urgent and angry high-pitched animal vocalisation, and something small and dark ran across Engineering in front of them. It headed for the doors, which had stopped working, only half open, and escaped through the gap.

Joe promptly jumped into the air thinking that surely the warp core had exploded in his face. Finally, the thing decides to work as I’ve got my face in it!” He thought.

Turning he yelled as the cat was escaping out of engineering. ” You, felonious feline you! If you show your furry fuzzy carcass again and I’ll toss you into the warp core to check the warp core temperature!”

Joe scratched his head. ” Well, this makes no sense George. Taking a temp is a passive thing. The temperature should come to us. ” Well maybe something is completely stopping any air flow. Maybe we got a clog of sort George? Maybe we need to give the old girl a good cleaning what do you think? It’s a darn crazy thing when passive things can’t be measured let me tell you. So, you want to climb in there and see if we can get vaporized George? I know I have nothing better to do at the moment.”

Joe just looked at the silent George and shook his head as he wondered why him. A bartender was crawling into something which could turn him into iddy bits which would be too iddy or biddy to even be registered anywhere. He sighed then and said to himself. ” Yes, I remember. Miri. Adam should never have let that spare rib go.”

Joe gathered more tools than what he thought he would need. But you never did know. Just when you thought you might need a good slippery whosit . You wouldn’t have it. The thing would be somewhere else being used as a paperweight. Joe got to the top and tried the door to the catwalk there. He grumbled as he looked around for the interlock. As he popped it open, he asked Silent George. ” So, George you have a girlfriend or a wife or anything?” Joe then handed George the bundle of tools to carry as they started walking down the catwalk.

“Ay have ayy gerl bak home, Atlanta is huurr name,” George replied.

What George really couldn’t understand was where all the other Engineers had got to and why there was no one in Engineering. He thought his colleagues would have already begun this work, especially considering they were all going to die otherwise.

“We done had bettuurr do this here!” George replied to Joe’s earlier question. They had to fix the ship if no one else was going to, and if he never saw Atlanta again, well, ‘C’est la vie’ as they said down in New Orleans. He took the bundle of tools and carried them as he followed Joe down the catwalk towards the silent Warp Core. They should be okay, as long as it didn’t suddenly spring into life again.

• George, Eng