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When Pigs Fly

Posted on Tue Apr 23rd, 2019 @ 5:18pm by Ensign Briaar Gavarus & Ensign Fiona O'Dell

Mission: Detours
Location: USS Hera, Deck 3, R&D Simulator
Timeline: 2396

"How does this shit keep happening to us?!?" Briaar Gavarus called out from her seat in the back of the Starfleet Cyclone fighter dubbed 'The Getaway Driver'.

The golden, two-person craft was floating adrift in the empty blackness of space. The interior cabin lights were flickering on and off and the comm system was completely dead. Once again, the towering Tellarite, Ensign Gavarus and the diminutive Maraposian red-headed pilot, Ensign Fiona O'Dell found themselves in a powerless cyclone in the middle of nowhere.

"Diagnostics are coming back green, what the frickin' HELL!? I have no idea why this stupid goddamn thing isn't responding. Are you getting any input response from the helm, Fee?" Gavarus grumbled from the back seat where she served as the test engineer.

"Nay, I've got jack all up here. Stick's dead, I've a complete power failure across the boards. Again, I think the engine is hummin' but Ah canna be sure, these new mimetic couches are pretty sweet. Didn't Gonadie install redundancy systems to prevent this this shite from happ'nin agin? Is the sim broken or the interface twixt it and the ship? Because this is bollocks!"

"I have no goddamn idea!" Gavarus grumbled. "But I won't have to go back outside again. That crap should all be accessible from the inside now. Hold on."

With a grumble, Gavarus pulled the control panel to her side open to go over it. "Fee, pop the panel cover off of the one to your right and tell me if the circuts are still connected."

"Port is left and starboard right.. right, got et... ah... " Wiggling the connections, the tiny test pilot maneuvered her suit lights to peer about inside the panel. "Nae sure a'alla what I'm lookin at here but it looks alreet ta me. If everything shut down it was overloaded, like an ionization, right? So we joost hafta reboot? How do we do a hard reboot a' the system?"

"That makes sense." Gavarus commented. "That lines up with what I'm seeing here. All my connections are solid here. Okay, hell. Let's try a hard reboot. I can... Damn."

Sighing and rolling her eyes, Gavarus continued. "You're going to have to do it. The system access is under the panel by your feet. You'll have to twist yourself upside down and tuck down there. I can walk you through it."

Squirreling around in her seat in the zero G, O'Dell retracted her helmet to get better visibility, plucking a penlight from underneath the dashboard left there magnetically by the engineer in the back seat 'just in case'. Easily the midget Mariposian was able to get turned around and underneath her pilot's couch in what was for her a roomy fighter craft, even with the seat pulled forward to give Gavarus some legroom.

"Sorry aboot this, but the seat has ta go back to access the panel. Yuir g'win ta hafta suck it in, me chummy chum." With that, Fiona triggered the seat adjust back, squeezing her flight couch into Gavarus' personal space. "Alreet, panel open... what am Ah lookin at here?"

With her knees tucked up tight, the two meter tall Tellarite groaned under her breath. "Okay... There's a junction box above you. It's the manual power reset."

"Slide the cover back. There will be a flat gray panel to the side and a series of large, colored buttons. All mechanical. Do you see it?" Gavarus instructed.

"Aye, joost like ye described it," O'Dell reported. "Now what do Ah do?"

"Okay. Great. Now, you can't throw the main switch by hand. In order to get the charge you must pump up the primer handle. It's large, flat, and grey. The primer handle must be cycled four times. Got it?" The irritable engineer called down, breathy from sucking in her prodigious paunch.

Placing her hand on the handle and the other hand on the deck (the overhead to her at the moment) Fiona pulled at the lever, grunting and straining. "Who the bluiddy hell is supposed ta be able to reach under the seat and do this? I mean seriously. I'm the only one wee enough to get doown here, and I'm nae strong enough to budge the damned handle. Am I pullin it the right way? Oop, right?"

"It's the only place it fits right now. I'm working on getting it smaller and under the seat, though. Easier to..." Gavarus was getting frustrated. "It shouldn't be that hard to... Shit... there's a little tab on the side of the handle. It's a lock. Flip the tab and it should move freely. Sorry. Pump it about four times and that should build the charge and the yellow button should say 'charged'."

Snapping the tab on the handle, O'Dell pulled mightily, and it came up with practically no resistance, causing the lightweight pilot to bounce her boots off the canopy before recovering and adjusting to to the lack of resistance. "Alreet, now that's joost insane. Nobody's g'win ta be able to work that by touch under the seat inside a panel under the seat... I kin barely manage and I'm bluiddy upside down!" Fiona pumped the handle three more times until the yellow light came on. "Aye, system's charged. What's me next move?"

"Oh, for... it's a goddamn work in progress!" Gavarus replied, irritated more by the situation then anything g else. "Sorry. I'm just... this is frustrating! Okay. There's a big, green button that says 'push to close."

After a slightly pregnant pause, Gavarus continued. "Push it."

"Aye, well, when it comes to moments like this ye do need to instruct me yannow..." O'Dell muttered. "Yuir button's pooshed, the panel's closing now what's next on me list of 'how could a normal sized pilot manage this' fun under the pilot's seat?"

"Okay, now the system should..." There was a drawn out silence. "Why the @#$&!! is the system not rebooting!?!" Gavarus yelled as the screens remained dark. "Okay. Hold on, I'm coming down there!"

With a grunt, the wide-middled engineer struggled to put herself up over the top of the seat in front of her, only succeeding in wedging herself in the space between the seat back in front of her and the canopy. She could reach the control panel of the pilots seat, but her bottom was still on her side of the cockpit with O'Dell's legs sticking up around her head. "Oh, what fresh hell is... I... I think I'm stuck."

Hold on ye great barrel-shaped beastie, I think I kin..." O'Dell managed to get a grip on the seat recline lever, and slid her seat back all the way. Then fumbling for the side lever release, she got a grip on the recline release. "Poosh on the neck support of the pilot's couch and it should lay down, give ye enough room to get in up here. I'm guessin' ye still need me doown here in case that reset needs to be reset, aye?" Not claustrophobic in the least, and with the gravity not active nor the SIF generators to keep her glued to the couch, O'Dell was calm and in good spirits for the most part as her partner crowded her in the cockpit.

Pushing down on the neck support caused the seat back to drop as O'Dell indicated and Gavarus began to float free again, which was preferable to flumping down to the reclined sleep. As she would have if gravity were in place. "Okay... Opening up the console access panel up here to see... The hell?!"

Irritated, Gavarus fiddled with the isolinear chips controlling the power conduit connectors for a moment, grumbling while she hovered just above O'Dell. "Someone is going to have a lot of frickin' fun playing back the feed from the cockpit when this is over and it's not going to be me. Okay..."

"It canna look that funny," O'Dell brought her knees up to her chest to compact how much space she was taking up, to give Gavarus more room in the cockpit as she held onto the underside of the pilot's couch. "Besides, the Lieutenant needs a good larf every now and then..."

Tilting slightly to the side, Gavarus gestured to the retractable cord that could be extended from the arm computer on O'Dell's EVA suit. "...I need you to plug that in to the power adapter down there. The port is right... right here." Gavarus grumbled, feeling for the port under the control panel with her hands.

"AGH! Giant hand! Alreet, alreet, sure, acess port... seriously, who installed alla thus under the bloody seat! If I dinna have ye here I'd nivvir know..." All the power inside O'Dell's EVA suit winked out as she plugged int a port. "What the hells? Wait, armor systems said they just experienced a massive power surege.... are ye serious? Who puts a power coupling next to a data port under the bloody seat where ye hafta fumble blind fuir et! Got to talk to the chief aboot theat... alreet, hold on, I think I kin... aha!"

The light of her helmet returned as O'Dell got the plug inserted into the right port... or so she thought as a loud feedback squeal shrieked briefly in her ear before she got it yanked out. "Trasna ort féin! Alreet, third time's the charm..." With the correct port accessed, O'Dell managed to get her EVA suit online and the requisite system as well. "Izzat it?"

"Okay. The problem seems to be that the controls are working but the displays aren't getting signal from the main computer. So we're going to use your EVA and our HUD's to compensate." Gavarus plugged her own suits computer in and instantly, her visor's HUD began projecting a overlay of the ships systems, all functional.

"Okay. Now all we have to do is... shiiiittttt... switch places." Gavarus' voice sank as she said it.

"Alreet. Is there, uh, room for that...?" Again, O'Dell wasn't the least bit claustrophobic, so that wasn't much of a cross to bear for her. The well-rounded engineer, on the other hand, who currently had a small bungle of space-suited pilot between her legs, was already quite cramped and feeling the pressure.

"Okay... Umm... " Gavarus grunted, trying to wiggle alongside the pint sized pilot and spin herself upside down at the same time. "If I twist over and you ... you slide down this way... we can... No... craaaaaapp! the irritable engineer groaned accidentally having to pull O'Dell's legs around her own head.

"I can't fit under there. And this kama Sutra crap is not working. I can't... SHITSHITSHIT!"

“D’ye want me ta rotate up ta sit in yuir lap? Ah think I kin still pilot her like that… wait, ye need me down here ta work this port, concha.” There was a pause as O’Dell giggled. “The rest of the team is g’win ta laugh like hyenas when they hear the audio track from this one. Alreet, this is nae completely fubar. Ye can joost pilot us back to limp us ta the Hera, then we kin spend the afternoon replacing this system to where ye dinna need an upside down midget in yuir lap ta make it work once she shorts out.”

"What? Pilot? Fee, I can't fly! I only barely passed my basic, emergency flight tests and frankly am fairly certain I forgot every damn thing I learned!" Gavarus replied nervously. "And how am I supposed to do this with your damn legs wrapped around me?!"

“Look on the bright side,” O’Dell chirped from her position half under the pilot’s couch. “If it was the Commander and the Lieutenant who were tryin ta do these gymnastics in a dead Cyclone in space, how much trouble do ye reckon we’d be in by the time they got back to the flight deck wi’ both of them all tangled oop like this? better us than them. neither of 'em is the size a' ye, but neither of 'em is as wee as me, either. That'd be a right cluster fook, and ye and me would be on the carpet fuir sure then.”

"How is that BETTER?!" the irritable engineer balked, "My ass is still stretched over the back of the seat and we look like the worst 'twister' team in the quadrant!! And, to re-frickin'-iterate, I CAN'T FLY!

“Ach, quit yuir bellyaching, tis nae s’bad!” the cheerful copilot chirped through the comms. “All ye hafta do is punch in the coordinates and let the flight calculator do the…. Okay, let me do the flight computer’s job, which I’d really like to see that system get a battery backup or somethin’, and then we juust program in speed and duration. S’easy briar, ye kin do et! Realy pilotin takes some doin… that we’ll hafta do when we pop back oot and approach the Hera. Again, tis nee engineerin, so should be easy as a drunk on Sunday.”

"Yeah, fantastic! Except I'm pretty sure that this damn thing is set to manual controls because I am NOT seeing how to just enter frickin' coordinates!" The increasingly stressed Tellarite yelled with just a hint of panic lining the edges of her frustration.

“Gavarus… Briaar… s’okay, s’alreet, calm down. Here...” O’Dell compacted her legs, curling up into a very compact bundle of spacesuit, tucking her kees in tightly and minimizing the amount of space she took up in the pilot’s compartment. “Ye kin fly, ye’ve a perfectly good copilot right here. And I’m nae taking oop that much room, ye should be able ta get inta the pilot’s couch now… give it a try, aye?”

While the minsicule Mariposian was not particularly affected by tight spaces, it sounded like her very large and very broad partner was very much not fond at all of cramped quarters, and it sounded like claustrophobia was setting in. Had their positions been reversed, Gavarus would be working to keep O’Dell calm without ever pointing out the source of the anxiety. So today it was Fiona’s turn to be the cool under pressure half of the duo, and she was confident she could get them through this scenario successfully despite the difficulties.

Struggling against her own prodigious paunch, Gavarus grumbled to herself as she tried folding her legs up over the back of the seat. "God damn stupid gut! Okay, maybe I do need to exercise a little more. UUGH!" After a solid minute and a half of contorting and twisting and cursing, Gavarus was able to unfold herself into the pilot's seat, with her own long legs folded up on either side of Fiona's legs.

“S’nae life or death, we got this!” O’Dell reassured from below... Alreet, one step at a time, aye? She is set to manual control. Not a problem though- all we have ta do is plug in some coordinates. So, what does the astrogation positioning indicator say? It’s the console on the port side, midway up the dash, should be a few numbers then mark then another few numbers?”

"Uhh... hold one." The nervous engineer felt like she was almost actively forgetting what limited flight training she had the harder she tried to recall it. "Uh... okay. Is this it? Is it... three two six... point... is that the mark? Three two six, MARK Three eight two seven."

“Almost! Ye got the right panel, so good job! It’s actually 326 mark 38, mark seven. 325 is our relative position to the center of the galaxy. Mark 38 is our current angle of differential from that center point, and the bearing is how many minutes at warp 5 we’ve traveled on that course. Nae s’hard, right?” Without waiting for an answer, O’Dell continued.

“So on top an’ bottom of that display are tab arrows. Since we know where we’re going, since the Hera’s at spacedock right now, that makes it a lot easier than catching up wiu’ a moving target. So really, we just need to raise and lower the numbers ye see there til we get 114, mark 12, bearing…. Ahhh… 12. No, eleven. No, twelve,” the pixie pilot reported from underneath the dashboard.

"Which the hell is it? Because this crap is always insane. Eleven and we're back at the Hera and Twelve and we come out of warp inside a frickin' star ten light years away!!" Gavarus barked, overwhelmed and starting to panic. "Seriously, this is... how do you... I'm going to get us killed here, Fee? We're going to die sitting on top of each other with the insides of our thighs pressed together!"


“Okay, again, thighs pressed together? We’re joos beggin ta be mocked. But aside from that… Briaar Gavarus, I need ye calm, alreet? We’re nae g’win ta die oot here, this is nae life or death, and ye kin do this,” the pixie pilot reassured the aggravated anxious engineer. “None of the fancy stoof I do wi’ the Thunderchicken, this is joost basic astrogation, by the numbers- literally. Ye kin do this. 114.12.12, I promise. Ye’re smart and capable and while I will admit this isn’t the best ‘a circumstances, ye know how ta do this, so deep breath, punch in them coordinates and we’ll be back t the hera soon enow, aye?”

The unfailing good cheer that came through the comms was meant to reassure. After all, when she was panicked or upset or just plain frightened, Gavarus worked to keep her calm. So today it was O’Dell’s turn, and she was trying to soothe her porcine pal. If that didn’t work, the yelling would begin- for as much as she didn’t care to admit it, squabbling with Gavarus was a lot like being with her family, and Fiona O’Dell very much valued the Tellarite’s friendship and wanted to help. Which might end up being yelling at her to calm her tits, but that remained to be seen.

Looking down between her legs an over her ample belly, Briaar saw Fiona O'Dell inexplicably beaming up at her with an enormous smile, and the frustrated Tellarite couldn't help but let out a slight snort of a chuckle at the ridiculous sight. "O... Okay. 114 mark 12 mark 12. Okay..."

Hesitantly, Gavarus awkwardly followed Fiona's instructions, entering the coordinates as instructed as her thick, three-fingered hand shook in the glove of her EVA suit. "Okay... it's entered."

“Yuir doin great Gavarus! Noow, below that display and… one, two, three panels to starboard is another display, that’s set at 00.00 right now. That’s the speed indicator… how fast we want to be goin. Noow, this is the tricky part, but fortunately, ye got me. The telemetry is bein’ run through the suit at the moment, so I kin see what’s the what, as opposed to takin a blind hop on a wing and a prayer and the math skills in me tiny brain. This time all ye have to do is tap that one ta bring it to life, and ye kin bring her up to 4.0. That’s the warp speed setting, and Warp 4 is cruising speed for the Cyclone, so no strain on the engines or whatnot. Once ye punch that in, a display will light up below it with a low number, and that’s the travel time. See? Pushbutton flyin! And ye still have nae engaged the engines yet, so ye dinna hafta be nervous.”

"Oh, go ahead. Make fun of your tiny brain again and I will frickin' fart on you from here. And EVA suit or not, you will smell it!" Gavarus tried to joke to calm her nerves as she looked around for the controls and buttons Fiona had mentioned. "Okay. Warp four is entered. Flight time is calculated. Heading is... already in there... right. Okay. Okay. I think it's all entered in."

Ridiculously, a thumbs-up thrust up from around the flight yoke in the center of the console that Fiona was currently wrapped around to accommodate her position. “Alreet- there’s a big shiny red button should be flashin on the console that is askin ye if ye wanna engage, so ye do… joost poosh the button and we’re on our merry way!”

"Really? A shiny red button? Isn't the rule to NEVER push shiny red buttons? That's just terrifying." Gavarus kept talking and trying to put off actually pushing the button in question until she couldn't stall any more. "Okay. shitshitshitshit... Okay. Hitting the buttoooonnnn... Nnnnnnnnnooow!"

With the lightest touch of her thick finger, the Cyclone turned in space to face it's new heading, causing Gavarus to actually let out the quickest of squeals of fright before the Warp engine flared to life and the ship stretched into warp space. "SQUUUEEEEEEE!!!!"

“Woohooo! Ye did it, Briaar! Look, today yuir a pilot!” came the cheer from around the engineer’s feet. “Now we joost ride this oot, and when we get where we’re goin…” At that the simulation shut down, and the lights came up even as the Cyclone, still parked on the deck, popped the canopy to give Ensign Gavarus some room the metaphorically breathe.

“Or that might successfully conclude the sim too, sure. Think ye could get up so’s ye can haul me oota here by me ankles?” came the cheery request from below.

"Right... uh..." With gravity restored, Gavarus kept her HUD visor in place hoping to cover up her embarrassment as she pulled herself up from the pilot's seat, gently grabbing O'Dell by the ankles and extracting her gently up so she was held upside down by an ankle. In the panic of the moment, the mortified engineer literally forgot she was in a simulation for a few moments and was not looking forward to the review of her poor performance. "Here... here you go, Fee. Uh..."

The usually grouchy and opinionated Briaar Gavarus was ashamed and uncharacteristically quiet as she tried to figure out the quickest way to the locker room to get away from the sim platform as quickly as possible, looking around like a little girl lost in a crowd, even though it appeared to her that it was only the two of them in the room as the sim was running on automatic.

Or so she thought, until she caught a glimpse of the gold uniform that was worn by only one member of the crew of the USS Hera- the out of date uniform of one Commander Rita Paris, the First Officer. The one whose gold Cyclone fighter was sitting on the deck, the antique Starfleet delta on its wing matched by one on her prodigious left breast. Standing somewhat frozen, holding O’Dell upside down by the ankle, Gavarus was unprepared for what came next as the Commander offered a slow clap.

“Lieutenant Dox mentioned that she had formed a research and development team to work on the Thunderchicken and to hammer out the bugs in the Cyclones. She also mentioned that her test pilot and flight engineer were quite the comedy duo. I’m assuming that would be you two?” While the phrasing could be taken any number of ways, the Commander seemed, if anything, bemused by the awkward sight before her.

The thick, pink cheeks of the porcine engineer lost all color as Gavarus swallowed and her deep-set eyes all but bugged out of her visor. With a shock, her grip slipped and she all but dropped the diminutive test pilot she was still holding up like a prize fish. "Uh... Commander Paris?! Um... uh..."

“Hullo Commander!” O’Dell waved cheerily, still upside down as Gavarus appeared somewhat frozen by fear. Muttering on her internal comms, smile fixed in place, O’Dell squeaked, “We are SO dead…”

The eyes of the engineer darted down to the tiny upended form of Fiona O'Dell, and realized she should probably put her partner in crime down. Using both hands, she righted Fiona and set her down on the deck next to her, her heart pounding in her chest. "Um... I... yes? I'm... Ensign Briaar O'Dell and this is Ensign Fiona Gavarus... Wait... Fiona O'Dell and Briaar Gavarus."

The usually confrontational and sarcastic Tellarite was, instead, stuttering and stumbling over her every word as she whispered to O'Dell, the inside of her EVA suits visor almost opaque as she was breathing so heavily to have fogged it up. "Oh gods, kill me."

Striding over to the sleek golden craft, Paris traced her fingers along the metallic gold skin of the small starship, an affection for the craft clearly visible on her face. “I understand you two have been charged with finding all of the problems and troubleshooting them. So I’m curious, which problem resulted in your two exercising the Kama Sutra in the front seat of the cockpit, hmmm?” That light tone was still there, but there was that ever-present sense of danger in the high ranking officer having come across two low ranking officers in a compromising position.

“No! Oh, nae, mum, tweren’t like that a’ tall,” O’Dell volunteered. “See, we shorted oot the flight computer, which was one of the things for the sim ta test randomly. So we had to get at it, and in the current configuration it’s in a bit of a tight spot, so I was down there, aye? But to keep the system booted properly I hadda stay doown there, so Ensign Gavarus, she climbed up front to do the pilotin’. Did a bang-oop job too, she did, for an engineer in an experimental craft!” O’Dell patted the tall Tellarite’s bicep, then hastily added, “Um, ma’am. Sir. Commander.”

"Mmmm hmm. Anything to add, Ensign?" Again, the Commander's tone was one of amusement, but both junior officers knew that could change at any moment, and could well be the calm before the storm.

After what felt like the longest two seconds of utter silence, Gavarus exploded. Looking slightly down at her First Officer, the exasperated engineer began to verbally vomit in her still closed helmet.

"It was my fault, Commander! After the system shutdown that happened in the Cherry Bomb a couple of weeks ago, I experimented with installing a MANUAL reboot system that.would enable the pilot to physically restart the ship's systems in the event of a total power failure but I screwed up and put the access to the reboot controls under the main cockpit control panel where the only way to get to it properly was for the pilot to lay upside down and slide up under the console which only even worked because she's small enough to fit down there and while the controls rebooted the displays went dark so we needed to patch O'Dell's HUD into the hard drive and link to the ships mainframe which meant I had to fly the ship but I couldn't remember how to do it and Fiona had to walk me through the procedure which required me sitting in the pilots seat while she had to stay on the floor panels until we got the ship back into warp, Commander!"

At this point, the visor if Gavarus's helmet was beginning to drip on the inside as the towering Tellarite was beginning to feel light headed.

Stepping over, Commander Paris cocked her head, the short blonde hair shifting in its boyish cut. Stepping in front of Ensign Gavarus, into her personal space, in fact, the human representation of Starfleet past very precisely tapped the modern Starfleet delta on the Tellarite engineer's chest five times. The helmet immediately retracted, and the porcine junior officer's mild claustrophobia of the moment could relax.

"Breathe, Miss Gavarus," Paris cocked an eyebrow and smirked up at the perturbed pig playtester. "It looks bad if you faint in front of a superior officer when she isn't even yelling at you. Yet..."

"Uh... Thank you, Commander." The thoroughly overwhelmed and moderately perplexed young Ensign slowly caught her breath and started to calm down. The commander looked gavarus over, taking in a number of details, noting small details before peering into the woman's black eyes. Nodding at whatever she saw there, Paris moved down the line to O'Dell, who snapped open her helmet then came to rigid attention.

A small smile crossed the face of the ghost of the 23rd century as she stepped back with military precision, snapped to attention and returned the salute, after which O'Dell snapped hers off as well. The comely commander's smile returned, she moved into O'Dell's space, basically losing sight of her over her prodigious bosom. Stepping back, the Commander genuflected before O'Dell, bringing them about equal in height.

"May I see your hands, Ensign?" the inquisitive executive asked, and O'Dell obliged, holding out her suited hands. "D'ye want me to take me gloves off, ma'am?"

"No," Paris replied, checking the size of her own hands against those of the miniature Marisposian, then eyeing the little woman, much as she had Gavarus. Then she stood, resetting the tablet in her off hand on her hip. "I read the reports of you two getting stranded out there. Lieutenant Dox had the entire flight crew out there searching sector by sector, and Doctor Dael showed me the medical reports. You two had it very rough out there, and you handled yourselves with level heads and smart thinking. The command is proud of you two. Keep up the good work."

As they reacted, Paris held up an imperious finger that stopped both of them in their tracks.

"Which means we're watching. You two might be making history down here, but it's risky to you, and lives will depend on it later. So have your fun and blow off steam- you deserve it. But on the job, remember the responsibility you bear. All the lives yet to come, who will depend on these miracles of engineering we're producing here, will be counting on you two."

Beginning to realize she still had a career, at least for the moment, Gavarus felt her heartbeat begin to slow down to a mild gallop. "T... Thank you, Commander. We... will remember... W... w...we will keep that... We..."

Taking a deep breath, Gavarus tried to rein in her anxiety-induced stuttering. "T... Thank you, Commander. We will be better."

"We'll work oot alla the boogs, nivvir ye mind, Commander! We'll mess oop everything until they're foolproof, ye kin coont on us!" Nervous, the little leprechaun's brogue had become nigh impenetrable, but she was still chirping assurances.

"Good. Just keep up the good work and thorough documentation, ladies. Carry on..." the first officer dismissed the two test pilots as she clambered into the cockpit of the flyer they had just abandoned. In a few seconds, her booted feet were sticking out, as she was apparently inspecting that circuit breaker panel O'Dell had been operating.

"c'mon... c'mon... Let's go before we make this worse, Fee." Gavarus whispered, leaning down close to O'Dell as she began inching back toward the lockers.

"What? We're dismissed, that means piss off," O'Dell opined as she did a hotfoot scoot for the relative safety of the locker room, with Gavarus hot on her heels.

Once in the locker room, Gavarus began pulling off her EVA suit somewhat angrily. The porcine engineer was muttering under her breath unintelligibly for a few moments until the bulky panels of the suit were all off, leaving g her in just the black undersuit. "I... I can't believe I did that! What is wrong with me? This is why they sent me out of the damn department to begin with. I don't know what the hell I'm doing!"

"Whass alla this nonsense then? What're ye beating yuirself oop over noow?" Fiona, on the other hand, was used to wriggling in and out of things, and was quick to doff her armor, and even now was sitting on the bench, peeling off the leggings of the bodysuit. "Whist! Ye were dead brilliant an' I'll nair hear innything else!"

It was clear the atomic astronaut was still a bit rattled herself, as her accent was still quite thick, and not entirely Federation standard.

"No, it was stupid. I just put that damn panel where there was available space without thinking it out. But that's... I don't..." Gavarus pealed off the undersuit down to her underwear as she talked. "Fee... I got so flustered and forgot basic academy flight training. I mean, what if that was real and you were hurt and couldn't have talked me th... through?"

Sitting down on a bench brought her eyes down to O'Dell's. "I... I... UGH!" The frustrated engineer groaned. "I can fix the panel placement... But I need... help learning the basics of... ya' know... flying."

The grinning mop of red curls shoook excitedly. "Aye, a'course I'll teach ye! It'll help ye unnerstan the spacecraft if ye know what it's supposed ta be doin, aye? Makes perfect sense ta me. A'course I'll teach ya. Ye taught me basic maintenance, right? I kin disassemble me foot now!" O'Dell grinned at that as she wrestled out of the foot of the black EVA bodysuit.

Feeling just a bit less freaked out, Gavarus let the thinnest of smiles curl her thick jowls. "So... Inexplicably we're not dead OR demoted. We've lived to screw up another day. So, shower and lunch then back at it?"

"What screw up? We dinna screw oop. We done good today, ye and me. We went oot ta test some of the failure simulators, and we found a correctable design flaw. Which was an improvement installed from previous testing results and resolutions. We're buildin' a better spacecraft, Briaar. S'g'win ta be literally trial an' error. Tyhe higher oops, they think we got the right stoof. An' ye know what?"

"So do I. Out there today we jump started a dead cyclone, and wi'oot the pilot at the helm, the engineer followed instructions to get the ship home safely. Found a flaw, write oop the report, submit to the chief wi' a solution as to where ta put it. Inside the armrest, maybe? Tomorrow we try it agin, see how it goes. We test it, build it, improve it. Test pilots, ye and me, aye?" O'Dell smiled up at Gavarus, inviting her to the club, as it were.

"Test pilot? Me?" Gavarus snorted. "When pigs fly..."

 

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