Engineering Conversations

Posted on Fri Aug 11th, 2023 @ 4:43pm by Commander Benjamin Jamesson & Ensign Michael Sloan & Petty Officer, 3rd Class Kiyara de Vos

Mission: Sojurn
Timeline: 335
803 words - 1.6 OF Standard Post Measure

Benjamin was not sure that he liked where engineering had gone whilst he had been trying to fix the communication array. Sloan had explained the scans that they had done of items from the Realian engineer but it did not mean that the former executive officer liked it. He felt it made them morally grey especially when things were touché after his scene with the marine - it felt like they were taking advantage.

“So what have we have discovered from the scans then petty officer?” He finally just decided to ask the person who had been the co-conspirator.

"I. Ehm. uh." Kiyara wasn't sure exactly how much trouble they were in. "The, ehm. The Raelians have some very advanced alloys. It. ehm. I'm sorry." The damage control specialist they swallowed a lump in their throat. "We just wanted to try and find things to improve our lives on the ship. We're over a hundred years from home and they don't seem to want to help us." They sucked their lips in and waited for the other shoe to drop.

“I just don’t think they can help yet. The festival is pretty big for them from what I can see so it makes sense business is not dealt with. What are you going to do if Leroux and Gerhard find out?” He challenged as he leant over the railing to look at what they were doing.

Kiyara shook their head a bit, even with the festival the Raelians must've realised how important this was to them. Somehow they felt like the aliens weren't very forthcoming with their tech, even without the ongoing festival. It was just too much of a risk and the opportunity had presented itself for them to get those scans. "We took precautions." it wasn't exactly an answer to his question, but at least he'd realise that they'd thought about the consequences and attempted to mitigate it.

The man shook his head as he rubbed his forehead in a gesture of frustration. If this was his ship and engineering department he would have chewed everyone out involved in risking everything for something maybe impossible. “What am I meant to do with this discovery?” He finally demanded in a calmer voice.

"Our warp speeds are exponential, even if we can use some of this to push our capacity by a couple of percentage points we can shave years off the journey we're facing." Kiyara and Sloan had discussed this, it was worth the risk. "If need be you can pin it on me. I'm willing to take the fall. We didn't tell anyone because then you'd have plausible deniability." They gave a little shrug at that. It had sounded a lot more confident coming from Sloan.

"What am I meant to do with this as a senior officer?" Benjamin asked simply. He was in a bind here that yes their theory and logic were 100% correct but did the means justify the ends of what they and he could only assume others had done?

"No need for you to take the fall," Michael spoke up from where he had been listening. "It was my call as Chief Engineer. I wanted to get some scans, test their technology a bit to see if it was something that we could reverse engineer," he admitted. "In my previous line of work in the Romulan Star Empire, I did this kind of thing regularly. And, with the exception of Darru and myself, no one aboard can expect to ever see Earth again." He looked straight into Benjamin's eyes, "Right or wrong, I wanted to give them a fighting chance to make it home in their lifetime. But, you are right. Overzealousness should not be allowed the potential to create an incident."

"So what are you going to do when Leroux finds out?" Benjamin finally settled on now that the man was trying to speak to him at a more personal level. The Engineer was fully aware he was never going to see Earth but he was under no illusions that the planet below them technology was in any way compatible with there's. "Do you have a plan here?"

Kiyara slinked away into a corner, they really shouldn't interfere in this but it seemed wrong somehow to throw Sloan under the bus like that. Their eyes were firmly set on their shoes and currently going into hyper focus onto one of the scuffs on the nose of the right one. They took the opportunity to retrace where exactly that might've occured. Not that they would do anything about it in the future, their line of work meant shoes got scuffed, but it was a good distraction from what was possibly one of the most awkward conversations they'd been a part of in their professional life.

TRUNCATED