Cleaner Than When You Found It
Posted on Jan 04, 2016 @ 10:48am by Commander Jacob Crichton
Edited on on Jan 04, 2016 @ 10:49am
Mission: Promethean
= Cleaner Than When You Found It =
(cont’d from “Parting Shots”)
LOCATION: USS CENTURY
SCENE: Corridor
STARDATE: [2.16] 0103.2229
TIME INDEX: Before “Belong”
Some time had passed since the “surrender” of the Neo-Essentialist fleet, and it had been busy. The sudden and unceremonious outing of every Neo-Essentialist officer created a number of security situations, all of which had to be defused before everyone felt safe enough to stand down. Fortunately, no one had been hurt worse than a light stun, and now all of the names on Selyara’s list were cooling their heels in various cells scattered throughout the fleet. Soon, they would be consolidated onto one or two ships, to be taken back to Earth to stand trial. But before any of that could happen. they would first have to deal with Richard Edgerton.
But that was a problem for another day- for now, Jake Crichton was content to focus only on cleanup. The nanite stores had already remained aboard the CENTURY for longer than Jake was comfortable with. But in the immediate aftermath of Thoris P’trell’s arrest, the CENTURY (along with the DEMETER) had been locked down, as a precautionary measure against other sleeper agents hiding within the ranks of the loyalist fleet. It had taken a few hours to transfer all the appropriate command codes, and then Jake was finally allowed access to the ship to remove the modified nanites.
It was a routine job, one Jake would normally have delegated to Rochemonte or Maynell. But Jake wanted to oversee this work himself; the nanites still gave him the creeps, even with all the precautions they’d taken during their modification process. Jake didn’t have a lot of first-hand experience with the Borg, but he had enough to know that letting your guard down around their technology was a bad idea. He had to be sure that none of delivery devices had malfunctioned, that all the seals were intact, and that none a single nanite would go unaccounted for. His vision of an apocalyptic techno-plague sweeping across the fleet were exaggerated…. probably… but Jake knew he’d sleep better if he handled this job himself.
Ensign Asta Elgin was with him, brandishing a tricorder as her gaze floated between its display screen and the walls of the CENTURY’s corridor. Jake had built the devices to be invisible to normal sensor sweeps - if a fight had broken out, Jake didn’t want Marxx dismantling one of them, after all - and it was making rounding them back up a pain in the ass. They had Major Thytos’ report to go off of, and so they knew the general areas where they should focus their search, but it still had taken them the better part of the morning.
“I’m not picking up any readings,” Elgin said, shaking her head at the display screen.
“Kass said this was the place,” Jake said, inspecting his own tricorder. “At least, I think she did.”
“What does her report say?”
“Deck 10, T-Junction aft of turbolift 8,” Jake said. “Then she just wrote ‘ish’.”
“Aunt Kass - that is, the Major - doesn’t have a lot of patience for precision paperwork,” Elgin said.
“Just precision shooting,” Jake said. He remembered Kass saving his life when she’d shot Savaar during Arthur Embry’s riot. It had been a tight angle, from one of the upper tiers in Main Engineering, and Jake thought the beam had come close enough to part his hair, but the Major had made the shot and dropped Savaar. She’d even taken the time to be cocky about it afterward.
“We’re close to an isolinear storage assembly,” Elgin said, consulting a schematic of the CENTURY she’d accessed through her tricorder. “That would give the nanites easy access to a considerable portion of the ship’s systems.”
“That’ll be inside the wall,” Jake said. “I don’t think the strike team had time to take apart sections of the corridor.”
“Maybe they put it nearby,” Elgin offered.
Jake nodded. “Alright, it’s worth a look. Run a trace-element scan for victurium and toranium, that should be enough to light up the disbursement device.”
Elgin made the necessary modifications to her tricorder and ran the scan, moving slowly up the corridor until coming to a stop in front of an emergency evacuation panel. She disengaged the pressure locked and pulled the panel open, and smiled as she saw the small device mounted on the inside of the panel door.
“Bingo,” she said. “Last one, Commander.”
“Finally,” said Jake. He shouldered a brown rucksack that contained the other devices they’d already located and dismantled. He pulled a small particle emitter from the sack and stepped up to the panel. He waved the emitter over the disbursement device, blanketing it in a tight beam of kinoplasmic radiation, frying the nanites held within the container. Then he disconnected the device from the panel and slipped it into his rucksack.
“And that’s a wrap,” he said, with a nod. “Now I can sleep without dreaming up terrifying ‘Revenge of the Borg’ scenarios. Good work, Ensign.”
“Thank you, Commander,” Elgin said. “What’s next?”
“Next, you report to Rochemonte,” Jake said. “She’s in charge the rest of the day. I’m talking the afternoon off.”
“Special occasion, chief?” asked Elgin.
“You could say that,” Jake shrugged. He was scheduled to take his first bridge watch tonight, in the wee hours long after most of the ship had gone to bed. With everything that had been happening, Jake had almost forgotten his promotion to Second Officer, and when his name had come up on the duty roster for nightwatch on the bridge, Jake had almost gotten in touch with Aerdan to have the mistake corrected. Then he’d remembered Kane telling him that late night shifts were part of the position, and so he’d made the necessary arrangements.
“What about those?” Elgin asked, gesturing to Jake’s rucksack. “I can see to them, if you want.”
Jake thought about it, then nodded. Elgin had done good work in helping to modify the nanites; Jake decided he could trust her to see it through.
“I want them destroyed,” Jake said. “Down to the molecular level.”
“I understand,” Elgin nodded. Then after a moment, she added: “...so do I.”
“We didn’t use them,” Jake said, unslinging the rucksack from his shoulder and holding it out to her “You got nothing to lose sleep over here, Elgin.”
“I know,” Elgin nodded, accepting the sack. “But I’ll feel better when they’re gone, you know?”
“Just don’t tell Foster about it,” Jake said with a grin. “I think he was expecting to get his souvenier vial back. He’ll be pissed when he finds out we destroyed them all.”
“Somehow I’ll live with that,” Elgin said, affecting an appropriately grave tone. Jake grinned again.
“You’re alright, Ensign,” Jake nodded. “Dismissed.”
Elgin disappeared around the corridor, in the direction of the nearest transporter room. Jake took a moment to look around. The last time he’d been aboard this ship, it had been when they’d returned from the K-60 system. They’d discovered the CENTURY, an empty derelict, floating cold and dead. Jake and Cindy Rochemonte had managed an emergency restart of the CENTURY’s warp core, which had allowed them to escape K-60 and return to Earth. He’d only been aboard this ship for a few weeks, but like every ship he’d ever served aboard, Jake had come to love it a little. It had broken his heart a little to see the CENTURY at the head of the Neo-Essentialist fleet, to think that it might be destroyed in the battle… and he was glad that that had not come to pass.
=[/\]=
LOCATION: USS PHOENIX
SCENE: Bridge
TIME INDEX: A few days later, after “Belong”
It was Jake’s second night watch. His first had been uneventful, and this second one was shaping up to be more of the same. There was only a skeleton bridge crew - Lt. Byte was there, but the rest were officers Jake didn’t recognize. He knew he’d have to learn their names, but names had never been Jake’s strong suit. That was part of why he gave out so many nicknames; they were often easier to remember.
Jake was seated in the Captain’s Chair, something he still was not quite used to. He’d spent most of his first night watch on his feet, pacing around, coming up to watch the work of the other bridge officers from over their shoulders, and generally making a nuisance of himself. Eventually, Jake had realized he was making them nervous, and so he’d finally settled into the big chair, where he spent most of the rest of his shift squirming around uncomfortably.
He didn’t know what he should *do*. Night’s watch was often an uneventful time, since many nonessential subsystems were powered down for routine diagnostics and maintenance. Jake had already coordinated a lot of that in his capacity as Chief Engineer, and so there wasn’t much left for him to manage once he took the conn. Of course, if something unexpected *did* pop up, Jake would be the one making the calls (at least until Kane or Jos hit the bridge), but the route they had plotted towards Earth would be taking them through fairly well-traveled sections of space, and so there was not much expectation of anything out of the ordinary.
There were reports, as well: bureaucratic odds and ends that both Kane and Jos had delegated down the line. Jake had finished them quickly on his first night, and then spent the rest of his time feeling fidgety and uncomfortable. Tonight, Jake was taking his time with them, trying to ration them so they’d last the whole shift.
Jake had had his fill of the reports for the moment. He rubbed his eyes, stood up, and took a few steps forwards to stretch his legs. He’d come up behind the Operations station, where Lt. Byte sat. The android did not look up from his console, but was aware of Jake all the same.
{{Hello, Commander,}} the android said.
“Lieutenant,” Jake nodded, stifling a yawn. “All’s well?”
{{All systems are nominal,}} Byte reported. {{As they were the last time you inquired, 174 seconds ago.}}
Jake shifted his weight uncomfortably. “You could have just said three minutes.”
{{That would not have been precise, sir,}} Byte said..
“Right,” Jake said, rolling his eyes. “Sorry, am I asking a lot? I feel like I’m asking a lot.”
{{It is part of your duties, sir,}} Byte said. {{As making these reports is a part of mine. The frequency of your requests does not trouble me.}}
“But I am asking a lot,” Jake said. The android paused for a moment, then turned to look up at Jake.
{{Relative to Captain Kane and Commander Jos, yes,}} Byte said.
“Yeah,” Jake nodded. “I knew that. I’m just… I’m *bored*, you know?”
{{I do not get bored,}} Byte said.
“Oh,” Jake said. “Right. I suppose you wouldn’t.”
{{What is it like?}} Byte asked.
“It’s like being itchy, but there’s no way to scratch it,” Jake sighed.
{{I do not get itchy,}} Byte said.
“Nobody likes a show-off,” Jake said.
{{Sir?}}
“Nevermind,” Jake said. “I just thought command would be more… active, you know?”
{{You command a team in Main Engineering,}} Byte observed. {{Is this so different?}}
“Absolutely,” Jake said. “I’m in the thick of it down there. I tell people where to go and what to do, sure, but then I’m right there next to them in the maintenance tubes. You should see how fast I go through uniform tops.”
{{You wish that bridge duty were more ‘hands on’,}} Byte said. {{Is that the correct use of that phrase?}}
“You nailed it,” Jake said. “And yeah, basically. I mean, up here, I say ‘run the ship’, and then I sit back and watch the rest of you do it. And occasionally I ask ‘how are things’ and you say ‘good, sir’, and then it’s back to just sitting there.”
{{You wish these shifts were more active,}} Byte siad.
“I don’t know,” Jake sighed. “No, not really. I mean, all this routine means everything is fine, the ship isn’t about to blow up, there’s no enemy fleet decloaking off the starboard bow. It means we can relax.”
{{The need for vigilance has not passed,}} Byte said. {{We have turned Edgerton’s fleet, but Edgerton himself remains at large. We do not know what kind of defenses he may yet muster against us. We must be cautious.}}
“Yeah,” Jake nodded. “I think that’s it. I can’t relax because this… all of this… it doesn’t feel like it’s over yet.”
=[/\]=
NRPG: Just playing around with some stuff, plus I wanted to be the first post in 2016. ;-)
Looking forward to the next mission. Moar posts!
Shawn Putnam
a.k.a.
Jake Crichton
Chief Engineering Officer
USS PHOENIX