Exhaustion

Posted on Tue Dec 3rd, 2019 @ 4:17am by Lieutenant Commander Lukas Carter & Captain Bethsabée Leroux

Mission: Mission 2 - Fallout
Location: Main Engineering
Timeline: Day 2, Month 1, Year 0 08:45
1039 words - 2.1 OF Standard Post Measure

Beth slowly moved through the chaos that was the Engine Room. She stopped and looked around for the man she needed to have a few words with without everyone being around. "Carter?" She called looking around the compartment he was meant to be in. "Lukas I need to talk to you?" The woman called in his native language.

"I think he's back there, ma'am," A crewman pointed to the maintenance junction in the aft section of engineering.

The woman nodded her thanks with a quick merci before she moved back to where the crewman had pointed to. "Carter?" She called again repeating herself until she spotted him. "Lukas I need to talk to you?" She said moving over to where he was hunched over.

In the back of the coolant maintenance junction, Lukas Carter was slumped against a thrumming coolant pump clutching a tool kit close to his chest snoring softly. He roused from his slumber slowly when Commander Leroux called out to him a second time. "Beth?" He reached up to rub his eyes and his tech kit slipped free of his grasp and clattered onto the floor. The box popped open and spilled tools across the deck. "Dammit...sorry, Commander."

The woman's face crumpled into something of horror at having woken him when he must have been exhausted enough to have fallen asleep stood up to one of concern for the same reason. "I am sorry to have disturbed you, Lukas." Beth said slipping into German to talk to him quietly, not even mentioning the fact he had been sleeping. She knew none of the other officers would understand them if they so happened to pass them. She crouched to the floor to help retrieve the tools as he got himself out of the position he was currently in.

"It's my fault for falling asleep, Beth." Carter began sorting the mess of spilled tools on the deck. He hadn't slept for more than ten or fifteen minutes between shifts since they were thrown across the galaxy. Lukas believed he had another day or two in him before he needed to sleep but apparently that wasn't the case. "Maybe Seong can prescribe some stims."

"No one's fault. especially an exhausted mans." Beth leant out and put her hand to his forehead and frowned. "You need to sleep. Not stims." The woman said sadly as she pulled back. He was burning up a little from the exhaustion. "Come on." The woman hauled him to his feet and over to the nearest wall sliding down it to have a moment of peace and quiet even if it was where they were.

"How long do you think they searched for us?" Carter asked, blinking heavily. "Before they declared us lost?"

"I do not even think they know we are missing yet," Beth admitted softly looking up at him waiting for him to come sit with her. It was not like they were expected at Xindi for another three days or so yet.

Carter let out a sigh before joining Beth back on the floor. "You get the wrong people asking questions and it could start another war," Lukas said. "What if they think the Xindi destroyed us? or the Klingons? Us being lost could cost Earth everything."

"Lukas we cannot think about that." The woman had, had the same thoughts herself. It was the thoughts that had led her to not resting herself. "We have no way to contact them and I just have to hope that no the right people investigate our disappearance and that if they do not find any debris or anything they will declare us lost in action and possibly search for a little bit." It was a hopeful dream but she needed some type of hope at the moment.

"They keep asking me what we're going to do," Lukas said, looking out at the engineering bay. "I don't have an answer."

"Carter... No one has the answers." She admitted gently. Certainly, not she and Sloan did not seem to have them either so they were all in the same boat literally. "Not me, Not you, Not Sloan or anyone on this vessel. We have no choice but to try and survive which leads me to the reason I came down here." She admitted there was a reason for it.

"Lay it on me," Carter said. "As the Americans say."

"Our food stores have been irradiated." Was all Beth could utter in a barely hearable whisper. It was not something she wanted to tell him but he needed to be prepared more than anyone else on the ship after her and Michael.

Lukas swallowed hard at the news and balled his hands into fists. "How much do we have left?" He looked straight ahead into the engineering compartment. His crew was working to the bone and soon would be running on empty.

"Four days." The woman said gently looking at the man swallowing hard and the way she could almost see the cogs working in his head as he tried to process it all. "I know it is not much and people will need more than what they are going to get but there is nothing more we can do." It was an awful situation and one she would not allow her crew to go through at all if there was any other option.

"If we don't find food, this isn't going to end well," Carter intoned. "The stories my grandfather told me of life after the Third World War...the starvation...the desperation. We'll see it first hand, right here."

Beth knew he was a 100% correct. It would take everything they had to survive this but they will. She stood up and offered her hand. "Then on your feet solider. Time to go to work." She told him in German. They had no more time to rest, for now, they had to get back to action.

Carter took Beth's hand and hauled himself onto his feet. He had his ten minutes of pity, which was more than he deserved. "Thank you, Captain," Carter said with a lopsided smile. "I promise we'll have a solution."

OFF:

Commander Bethsabee Leroux
Commanding Officer

Lt. Cmdr. Lukas Carter
Chief Engineer