Little Lost
Posted on Sun Oct 29th, 2023 @ 5:13pm by Ensign Evanora Drei & Master Sergeant Michael Buck
Mission:
Shakedown Shake-Up
Location: Nelson :: Deck 18
1436 words - 2.9 OF Standard Post Measure
This was definitely not the secondary science labs. It took Eva a couple minutes of exploring on whatever deck she was currently on to reach that conclusion. The first giveaway was the presence of a gym, but the ship's gym was on deck 24 and she distinctly recalled going up in the Jefferies tubes from engineering, not down. The second clue was an area that looked like the junior officer bunks, but filled with people who were definitely not her bunk mates. She left that area with a sheepish little wave, catching a couple of them share glances with each other as she left. She noticed the signs on some of the doors, and decided to test an unmarked door, hoping for a turbolift or something to indicate where on the ship she was. The door let her into the room without any complaint, but it seemed content on staying shut when she tried to leave again.
"Seriously?!"
Eva gave the door a kick out of frustration, wincing as it did nothing but bruise her own toe. She tried the access panel, but the door simply didn't want to open. How was she going to get out?? Calling for help was an option, but she didn't know where she was. She was an engineer, dammit, surely she could figure out how to open a door!
"Typically the doors hold up pretty well to being kicked at," A deep slightly accented voice came from behind the young Ensign who was currently trying to kick in, rather poorly, the exterior foyer door to the Armoury. Buck had replaced the Sergeant who had been stationed here for a little bit while he had gone for his meal break, leaving the Master Sergeant alone or so he had thought in the back. He had heard the kicking of the door from through the blown interior armour door and come to investigate finding the Brown haired Starfleet Ensign appearing rather perplexed.
The realization that she wasn't alone made Eva whip around. She hadn't bothered to check out the space when she first entered, since it was clearly not where she was supposed to be, but she realized that it was some kind of armoury, and the owner of the voice was a man currently staring at her. "Uh... good!" She said, giving him a smile that conveyed some sense of embarrassment over the possibility that she could be stuck. Which she totally wasn't. "Yeah, thaaat's... what I was checking! As an engineer. Checking things, yes. The-the door is... quite sturdy." There was a brief pause before she asked, "does... does this room have another door that I can, uh, check the sturdiness of?"
Buck chuckled a bit to himself as he nodded and took a step to the side, "Yes Ma'am it does."
As he stepped sideways the door that the Major had blown apart while attempting to get to her weapons came into view for the Ensign. An engineer actually was the best person of any to have gotten stuck within the armoury's foyer even if she did seem a bit... lost. The door itself was more melted than blown with a man-sized hole that had been placed there via a high heat quick burn det-cord. "Though I feel it may fail the kick test if you put too much effort into it."
As her attention went to the... well, remnants of a door behind the man, Eva's brows raised in surprise. "Whoa..." She approached the wrecked door to get a closer view. This was a brand new ship, how the hell did this happen? "How-when... what...?" she stammered, trying to decide on which question to ask first. "How did this even happen?!"
"Well mostly it was a shaped charge, detcord to be specific..." Buck said as he took a step further out of the way to allow the ensign to pass him and get a closer look at the door. "Detonation Cord." He added to clarify the acronym that he realized not everyone outside of the Marine Corps may get. "Combined that with the earlier computer issues with access levels and who was allowed to have access to what and a rather angry French-Canadian woman who really wanted access to her rifle... well the results are what is in front of you."
Buck leaned up against the counter and rested his hands on the edge as he took a rather nonchalant stance over it all. "She got access to her rifle in the end however we've been operating with this since it happened and with all the other issues that have been occurring with the ship, it was rather low on the totem pole to getting fixed. Besides we need access to our armour and weapons at the drop of a hat so the clearance issue was well.. a large issue for us, Major solved it."
Eva looked to him as he explained, then back to the hole in the door. So the Major blew it up. "Maybe the doors can be removed?" She thought out loud. "They'd have to be taken out to be replaced anyways. I don't see a reason why my boss would object."
"Well fixing the ship is your area of expertise, I'll let you and Jack determine what's best for it." Buck said with a shrug, "We're best for kicking them in and breaking it, dont ask us what to do after."
Eva chuckled at the reply. "I can pass along a work order." The mention of communicating with Jack reminded her that she still needed to get out of this room somehow. "Is there anything else that needs a work order placed while I'm here, sir? Or is there anything can be immediately repaired? I don't have a spare door on me, but I do have my tools," she gestured to the handful of tools by the door she absolutely wasn't fighting with earlier.
Buck shrugged, "There's probably something around but I wouldn't know what that would be. The primary issue that us good ol' Jarheads were having was with the door that prevented us from getting to our equipment.... which you can see what happened to that." He smiled as he waved a hand towards the door, "I suspect you could just walk around and try to find something broken, no one would argue if it's fixed. The replicators work, other doors work, computer works mostly."
Eva returned the smile. "Yeah, if you all don't mind me looking around, I'm sure I can find some stuff to fix. I've been running around fixing things all day, so it wouldn't pull me from anything. I'm Eva, by the way. Or rather, Ensign Drei. Sorry, forgot to introduce myself." She then stuck out her hand for a handshake.
Buck took her hand in his and gave it a firm shake, "Master Sergeant Michael Buck at your service Ma'am, but most just call me Sergeant, Sarge or Buck." He released her hand and waved around at the general area, "I whip most of the motley crew of Marines into shape through fear, coercion or bribes. Sometimes I even use a carrot if that's what I need." He finished with a chuckle.
Eva returned the chuckle. So she was on the deck with the marines, that made more sense. A long pause settled in as she tried to find a reason to get him to go away so she could continue to struggle with the door in peace, but her efforts resulted in an even longer, and perhaps slightly awkward, silence. Then, she sighed in a combination of defeat and embarrassment. "Can you... open the main doorway, please? You know, so I can continue searching for things to fix? It's not opening for me."
The Marine Master Sergeant stared at the young Engineer in front of him for a moment before outright laughing as he moved towards the door, "Go ahead Ma'am, search away," he said as he hit the open button on the panel, the door swishing open before them both.
"Thanks," Eva responded, chuckling at her own misfortune as she scooped up her tools. Why the stupid door panel wouldn't open for her was perplexing, but since she was here, she could try and figure it out. But she'd work on it in the corridor so she wouldn't have to request his help to open a stupid door. In hindsight, it would be funny, but for now, Eva did her best to hide her embarrassment as she removed the panel beside the door's panel to poke around.
