A Sprinkle of Hope

Posted on Wed Oct 25th, 2023 @ 6:10pm by Lieutenant JG Anton Zakharov & Ensign Madelyn 'Madi' Moore

Mission: Contagion
Location: Hydroponics Bay
Timeline: MD 364
1513 words - 3 OF Standard Post Measure

Madelyn sat on her stool, tucked away in the corner of the hydroponics bay, with her chin rested on both hands propped up at the elbows. For a normally optimistic soul, it was a rather dejected pose but life had a way of getting on top of even the most cheerful, especially when it routinely insisted on painting her as incompetent. She had placed the call to engineering under personal pretext, which she didn't feel particularly good about, but Anton was Anton even without the promotion to seniority. At the very least, he wasn't Kiyara, who Madelyn was starting to suspect didn't believe that half the calamity's her friend caused were entirely accidental.

"Madelyn!" Announced Anton in his gregarious manner. "Have you found me some potatoes I can use for the still?" Asked Anton with a bit of a belly chuckle. Anton had made it his personal mission to batch make some of his very own vodka. Seeing the dejected nature of her posture toned himself down "hey what's the matter?"

"Hey Anton." A wane smile did its best to appreciate his good nature, which typically was a mood booster. With a sigh, Madi pushed herself upright and gestured towards the control unit she'd been leaning against. "Just went to set the irrigation system to overnight and it's..." She screwed up her nose in search of an accurate-sounded term. "Completely borked again." She was pretty sure it wasn't user error, Kiyara had written her an entirely detailed step-by-step instruction manual after the last time, but she somehow still managed to be the one person assigned to food production that couldn't make anything work properly, at least with any consistency.

"Borked, Madi.....is that your professional assessment?" asked the Russian engineer with a wry smile. "Let's take a look at it then," said Anton as he made his way through the trays of soil, plants, and gardening equipment. He reached the computer console that was linked into the irrigation system. "Hmmmmm," the engineer said thoughtfully.

Watching from the side, Madelyn focused more on the engineer's expression than the offending piece of equipment, which had monopolised enough of her attention already. "Is it bad?" Normally, her occasional bouts of clumsiness were restricted to her own movements; an inability to avoid tripping over things, or running into things, or spilling things over herself. The ensign knew that this recent problem with computer systems not behaving was probably more to do with being lost for a year without decent refit options than her own incompetency but it felt personal.

"Well I am no plumber" responded Anton with another chuckle. "But I think we have a pressure problem" he put his hand down to to his tool belt and got out his sonic spanner and started to worker it on a pressure valve.

"A pressure problem?" Madelyn hovered, doing her best to stay out of the way whilst attempting to satiate her ever-present curiosity. "The recycler unit was refitted during the exchange with the Realians, it was supposed to improve efficiency so we didn't eat up so much energy trying to recycle the water. I didn't touch it," she added by way of defense. "But maybe the upgrade did something?"

"Hmmmmm" said the engineer again thoughtfully. He put back the sonic spanner on his tool belt and took out a scanning device. Scanning the pipes he said "Ah Ha." He then tried to turn a valve, but it was very stiff. "Can you give me a hand with this?"

"Uh."

The hesitation was only brief, Madelyn's desire to be helpful far exceeded her concern over her capacity to incite mayhem. That didn't make it immediately obvious what the best way to intervene actually was. Half reaching out a hand, she faltered at the ridiculousness of assuming she had any kind of brute strength to add to Anton's efforts and instead bench to search through his toolkit. "Maybe try banging it with this?" She held up something she didn't recognise.

"The welding torch?" answer Anton with a smile and a chuckle. "No my friend" he said in his thick Russian accent. "This is going to take a little brute strength." " He pointed to the valve. "Turn that anti clockwise whilst I release this bypass lock with the wrench."

There was no way, Madelyn decided in advance, that she'd be strong enough to shift it even an inch. Already committed, she tentatively took position and was momentarily surprised to be met with virtually no resistance. At least not enough to warrant the amount of force she applied.

There was a slight rumbling a hiss, then a torrid of water blew from the pipe and hit Anton in the face.

"I'm sorry!"

An attempt to rectify the situation saw the brunette continue to spin the valve in the wrong direction.

"I think I broke it!"

"Other way.....turn it the other way" spluttered Anton as the water continued to spray in hit face!

Thoroughly flustered, Madelyn hesitated a moment before following the command, hands already slippery from the spray. As the jet of water slowly reduced to little more than a trickle, she stood stunned, saturated to the elbows, hands held outwards so that tiny droplets dripped from her fingertips onto the floor.

"I...amsosorry."

Anton wiped the palm of his hand over his face to clear off the the water, and then made a gesture with said hand to remove the water in flicking motion. Anton knocked his spanner against the now only slightly dripping pipe, it rang with a hollow sound. Anton gave a wry smile. "Not your fault ensign" said Anton with a reassuring chuckle "We seem to have a pressure build up somewhere in the system."

"Are you okay?" The water on the floor, even though it had mingled with the dirt residue she hadn't swept up yet to create a thin layer of mud, was the least of Madelyn's concerns. Wide-eyed, still slightly stunned by how quickly everything had gone from potentially bad to actually terrible, she stood as if afraid to move a muscle.

"Ensign it's fine. I am fine" said Anton pulling out his scanner and popping it open. He raised above his head scanning the small pipes across the ceiling. As his feet moved they squelched in the mud. "Think I am going to need to re-polish my boots" said Anton conversationally.

"Yeah, I hadn't got around to sweeping up yet. We did some repotting this morning, it's kind of..." Madelyn caught herself mid-ramble, recognised it as the excessive self-blame that Finn kept telling her to stop with, and clamped her mouth shut whilst she thought of something more helpful to say. "Is the pressure issue a serious one, do you think?"

"Don't think so" said Anton as he kept on looking at the small network of pipes above the hydroponics bay sweeping his scanner back and forth trying to get a reading on the broken pipe. "Ah ha" he said enthusiastically. "There is the little blighter." Anton rummaged around on his tool belt. "looks like the pipe is faulty, we should be able to saw it off, beat out flaw in the metal then re-attach it....Damn I'm an engineer not a plumber."

"You're definitely still better at this than me." Scrunching her face up in thought, Madi craned her head back to stare at what was apparently the problem. She honestly couldn't really tell one pipe from another. "Though if you feel better about it, we can always let Kiyara know. It's technically their domain, I just...didn't want to bother them again with it."

"oh i don't think we need to get our Damage Control Specialist involved with this. Between you and me Kiyara scares me bit...." He looked at the pipe. "Right I better get down to the workshop to get a replacement bit of tubing. Your job is to stay here and make sure nobody uses this damn thing whilst i am gone please?"

"Why are you scared of Kiyara?" The prospect seemed genuinely odd to Madi, though she supposed if she really thought about it, there was something a little intimidating about the engineer's self-contained composure. Even Madelyn had worried at first about approaching, Kiyara did tend to exude an air of not really seeking company.

The chief engineer shrugged a little "Have you met Kiyara. Their stoicism is like trying to talk to a brick wall or get blood from a stone. Have you ever tried to get a laugh or even a smile out of them....." he smiled to himself and shook his head gently from side to side. "forget about it. " Anton put his loose tools back on his tool belt "right to the workshop."

"And I just stay here, right? What do I do if it explodes again?" Glancing around the floor, Madelyn could see plenty she'd keep herself occupied with, at the very least, starting with a mop and bucket of water.

"sure" said Antony with a smile and a wave as he was already heading out of the room.