Posted on Wed May 22nd, 2019 @ 7:16am by Captain Luka Mahone & Lieutenant JG Kikua Mahone
727 words; about a 4 minute read
Mission:
Deep Freeze
Location: Engineering
Timeline: MD 03 1824 Hrs
Requests for personnel to the colony were handled at a pace that Luka would not stand for. He had spent most of the past week plying Brass for staff deployments at a more immediate speed, but there was always a lack of Starfleet officers when there was a need for them. With an investigation looming over their heads, Luka decided to take matters into their own hands.
A simple call had been made to a few old colleagues of his, which returned more replies than he intended. One of such calls was to a friend he had made over his courses at Command Academy, which led to a sped transfer of a certain engineer, who was currently following Luka into the makeshift engineering 'headquarters' that had been set up for the Starfleet engineering contingent.
Luka caught sight of Shurlok where he was working, beckoning him over.
"Sir?" Shurlok asked, moving across as he continued to polish a toroidal chrome inductor coil with a sheet of what looked like steel wool. Heavy gloves covered both hands.
"What are you..." Luka held up a hand, shaking his head. No matter how many times the details were explained, he would likely never understand it. "Lieutenant, I managed to call a few of my connections, and wanted to stop by with the first of hopefully many of our new engineers." A hand went on the yet to be introduced man's shoulder. "Shurlok, this is my brother Kikua. He's been in Engineering on another colony, so I thought I'd get him in on this."
Kikua in turn nodded his head in greeting, looking between the two, before holding out a hand to Shurlok. "Pleasure's mine, Sir. Bro's been talking about the situation, but I'd definitely like to get the tech perspective once I'm all settled in."
"Welcome to the Colony, Kikua." Shurlok said, pulling the coil up over his shoulder to free up a hand to shake. "I imagine it must be a comfort to have family close so far from home." He said as he released the Lieutenant's grip, some residual static electiricty sparking between their hands. "Excuse that." Shurlok said, realizing his hands were safe but that it may have caused some slight discomfort for the human.
Kikua gave a jump as their hands parted, but continued about as if it didn't occur. His brother seemed more concerned, frowning at the pair, but Kikua waved it off. "He's alright. Woulda been better if this was warmer. That for one of the cooling systems?" He asked, pointing at the coil.
"It came out of one that had failed, we are hoping it can be refurbished for inventory." Shurlok explained. "Do you have an area of specialty?" Shurlok asked as he passed the coil to a passing Petty Officer, before removing his gloves and clipping them to his belt.
"Energy conservation." Kikua gave a nod. "I can have my file forwarded over so you can get a better look, but Leto was pretty famous for keeping everything nice and sustainable. Wasn't all that cold on Leto, though. Tons of warmth, and on the lakeside so snow never lasted long. I'm sure I can adapt. What are we lookin' at right now, Sir? Lotta bad? Lotta good?"
"A lot of work. I do not believe it would be appropriate to assign dichotomous adjectival values at this stage. I remain cautiously optimistic that we have resources enough to provide sufficient shelter. The most pressing issue remains time, however any new hands at our disposal will certainly aide us in meeting our goals ahead of schedule." Shurlok said. "Energy and it's conversation remains a primary concern, it is agreeable to have you with us at this stage."
Kikua shot a quick, confused look toward his brother, who had decided to wait for the younger to do so before giving a little wave and wandering to more 'important' adventures. "Yanno," the young Mahone led on, eyes shifting over to a disassembled nacelle component, "A lot of starship parts like that give off a lot of heat on their own. I bet if we could find a good housing unit to reduce any potential safety concerns, we could find a way to rig 'em into hanging heat lamps. They already give off a glow, so that's two purposes for the price of one unit's energy consumption."
TRUNCATED