Nerdy and the Beast

Posted on Wed Nov 19th, 2014 @ 4:54pm by Staff Warrant Officer Nexi & Lieutenant Ventarus Nosplet

Nexi wandered through the halls aimlessly, trying to gain familiarity with the layout of the ship and areas she would likely frequent now that she was living here. It was a nice ship, but way too much space for her liking. No, her runabout was more than enough ship for her, but Aewia couldn't live on her runabout with her, so the Captain had given her quarters on the Hera. It was taking some getting used to, being tethered to one place like this, but it wasn't in any way unpleasant. And she was taking care of Aewia, so it was all worth it.

Nexi stopped mid-stride as she heard an alert ping in her ear. Someone was trying to get into her shuttle. It was probably nothing, just the shuttle bay guys doing routine stuff, but it couldn't hurt to check to make sure they were taking care of her baby. She changed direction and headed for the lift to take her to the shuttle bay. they had better be taking care of her ship and not trying to sneak a peak or heads were gonna roll!

Ven had snuck down her and checked out Nexi's shuttle before, but he had not gotten to peek under the hood yet. Wow, this shuttle was all kinds of tricked out. He would love to get his finger into this baby.

Nexi made it to the shuttle bay and headed for where her ship was being kept. Then she noticed someone poking around, someone she immediately recognized was not part of the regular shuttle bay maintenance crew. She drew one of the throwing knives and flipped it in her hand. She had no intentions of throwing it at him, especially not when he was so close to her baby, but a bit of intimidation couldn't hurt. "What are you doing?" she barked out at the man sneaking around.

Poor Ven. He was startled by Nexi and jumped, he smashed his head on the hull causing his large goggles to fall around his neck. He took a step back holding his head and tripped on the deck plating and fell on his backside, his over loaded tool belt clattering tools around him.

Nexi rolled her eyes as she fingered the blade in her hand. "If your head hurt my 'Star, I will make your life a living hell," she promised him as she moved to inspect the section of hull his head smashed into.

Ven had been warned about Nexi. He quickly went about picking up his tools with out a word. Best to keep his head down and get out of the bay as quickly as he could.

"You didn't answer my question," Nexi said as she smoothed her hand over the flawless black hull plating of the Orion-class runabout she called home. "What were you doing with my ship?"

"Looking, only looking I swear! " Ven said in a nervous tone. His tricorder had slid under a storage bin and he was having trouble reaching it.

"Uh huh..." nexi eyed him suspiciously. "It a decommissioned Orion-class runabout, Starfleet design. You should have access to the schematics, look at that," she insisted. "So unless you're here to do scheduled maintenance, I don't want to see you around my ship again."

"Yeah but star fleet does not alow us to modify our ships like you have." Ven grunted and got his tricorder. He stood, and slipped it into his tool belt. "I mean look at the mods you did with the flight controls! It's a little sloppy, like who ever did it was in a rush but I bet this baby is smooth!" As Ven started talking tech his fear of Nexi wad forgotten almost as fast as it had set in.

"You think you can do better?" Nexi challenged. She had been rushed through most of the modifications to her ship, not to mention she wasn't actually an engineer and had been figuring things out as she went along, but at least it worked.

Ven had no idea he was talking to the person who had done the work. "I know I can, I mean look at how rigged in the thruster control is. I'm surprised it has not shaken loose yet!"

"Hop to it," she said, nodding to the thruster control. "Dazzle me."

Ven considered this for a moment then shrugged and reached in and ripped the thruster control module from the control port. "See..." he said as he pulled a tool from his belt and started cleaning the contact site. " I think who ever did this didn't clean the part first..." little bits of corrosion were falling at his feet.

After a moment of working with the tool, he put the tool back into his belt and held the part up to the light. He pulled a rag from his belt and wiped the part off, then pulled out a tube of something. He squeezed a healthy amount of blue goo onto the area the the fit into the control port and started wiping it around the part with his finger.

Well, he wasn't afraid of getting dirty, that was good. Most of the 'fleeters Nexi had known were so uptight about getting their precious uniforms dirty, so at the very least Ven had impressed her on that detail. "I see," Nexi said as she watched him fit the part back into place. "Will this stop her from shaking as she exceeds Warp 7.5? Or is that something else?"

Ven wiped the goo off his finger and on his duty jacket at he refit the part. He pulled out a plasma torch and some solder and started a fixing it. "That sounds like something to do with your warp coil assembly. Probably a broken stabilization strut. She be easy to fix but will take a few hours."

"Yeah, probably knocked a strut out of alignment when I put in my cloaking device," Nexi said as she watched him welding her ship. "If you got a few minutes, you could maybe look at it."

Ven nodded his head in his jerky fashion. He bobbed his head up and down so hard his goggles swung from his face and he had to readjust them. "Sure, I just got off duty and have nothing better to do then spend some time with a sexy lady..." it was clear he was talking about the shuttle as he ran his fingers along it hull.

"Watch the hands, 'Star don't know you yet," Nexi warned as she walked around to the rear hatch and entered in her access codes to unlock it. The ramp lowered and the access hatch opened. "Remember, show some respect. This girl just ain't my ship, she's my home," she added as she entered the runabout.

"Have some faith..." Ven said following her and looking around inside. "Wow... you have really done some work now this baby haven't you?"

Ven pulled out his tricorder and started scanning. "That would be a shame for your shuttle here cause I am definitely in love." His tricorder started beeping at him and he fiddled with the settings the continued scanning. "Bad news...not only did you knock a stabilizer out of alignment but you have clearly been running it this way for a while. It's got micro fractures all up and down it." Ven snapped his tricorder shut and looked up at Nexi with his big purple eyes. "Don't fly this girl again until we can get that replaced. I can start working on her right now but I'll need your help and it's going to take longer then I thought because in ororder to get to it we will need to remove your cloaking device first and that's going to take a long time. But if you go any faster then impulse you risk the core and nacelles ripping right off the ship." Ven explained.

"Fuck..." Nexi ran a hand over her face. Of course this wouldn't be an easy fix... But then again, it was better than remaining ignorant of the damage and blowing herself up with her ship. "Alright, fix it, but I can't really offer much help, I got things I gotta take care of." More specifically, a who; she couldn't leave Aewia alone for long. "Find someone you trust to help you out. No wait, get that Andorian girl, Amelia I think her name is... She's done work on my ship before, I'd trust her to help you handle this."

"That's exactly who I would call." Ven said. Amelia was one of the few people he actually knew on this ship.

"Good," Nexi said with a nod as she knelt down to help him remove the cloaking device. "I'll help you get this out, then I gotta go."

Ven pulled out a tool and started working at detaching the cloaking device. "Can you deactivate the power to the engines?"

"Yeah," Nexi replied, accessing a panel nearby to shut down the core, bleeding off the remaining power to the EPS. Once the reaction had stopped and the core was confirmed as shut down, she returned to help Ven ease the clocking device out of the space where it was connected. "There we go..." she said once the device was safely out of the way. It was a very old Klingon device and she had been beyond lucky to find in working condition considering how ancient it was.

"Wow!" Ven exclaimed once it was out and he could really look at it. "How do you keep this thing running? It should be in a museum!"

"It requires a lot of love and attention," Nexi said with a grin. "Amelia worked on it a little, so it's running better than it has in the past, but it's still a bit temperamental."

"I always heard that even when new they were tricky. It's amazing this thus even still runs." Ven pulled out his tricorder and scanned the cloaking device.

"Core first, you can play with my cloaking device later," Nexi said. She checked the time on a console. Aewia would be getting out of therapy soon, so she needed to walk her back to their quarters. "I gotta go, but I'll try to be back later. Don't touch anything you shouldn't, and don't go snooping around."

"You're going to leave me alone in here and tell me not to snoop around? You clearly don't known me that well. Yet..."

"Fine, then get out of my ship, you can do the repairs when I get back," Nexi said with a hard glare.

"Ok ok..." Ven said with a little laugh. "I'll call crewman Amelia down here and we will get this taken care of...no snooping with out you. But can I snoop at you computer systems when you come back?" He asked, his big purple eyes pleading to her.

Fuck, is he trying to play her? because it wasn't going to work. "Sure, you can snoop around. If you know how to read Ferengi, because I had all my consoles swapped out for Ferengi interfaces. So have fun with that!" Amelia already knew the deal about that and wouldn't let him get into anything he shouldn't.

"Awesome! Great thanks!" Ven said as he leaned back into the warp core compartment.

"Alright, I'm out of here. Try not to make a mess of things, I'll be back in a few hours," Nexi said as she strode towards the rear of her ship. "Just remember, you break it you bought it!"