Floating Engineer

Posted on Sunday, 3 July 2022 - 6:24pm by Lieutenant JG Hayashi Hamura

Mission: Shore Leave
Location: Ship Sweet Spot | Standing Bear
Timeline: 2396

ON:

The rhythmic thumping and hum of the engine tests lulled Hayashi into a restful state. The conversation with the CO and the woman they sensed was their replacement had shaken them to the core. Engineering was all they had ever wanted. It was all they had ever needed and they had turned down many a pip just to stay there. Finally, they had their wish, their life’s ambition in their hands and now it was cruelly taken from them.

“Damn it all,” they hissed out as they realized the recalibration device was on the wrong setting yet again.

Sighing they closed the panel and called down. “Avara! Come up here and finish this for me.”

“Yes Chief,” came the response.

They handed over the repair order and then decided that some solitude was necessary for the moment.

Walking briskly, they climbed over the second landing and over to the J-tube entrance. There was one place they could think of to be and that was the ships sweet spot.

Crawling through the ever shrinking and somewhat claustrophobic tubes they made it to the steel colored door. This was not a place that was used often. In fact it was one that was meant to be locked at all time but the previous engineer, Eyelaya, had cracked the code. Hayashi, now the beneficiary of that code entered it and came out I into the little room.

Three steps forward, two right, one more forward and the 0 G spot began to take hold. It pulled Hayashi’s body up and up to the bulk heads. They struck their hand out to stop the upwards motion and then shifted so that they floated in one spot.

The conversation earlier with the CO floated into their mind. Ops, they tossed you into ops…again. Although that wasn’t accurate really, was it? Hayashi, this Hayashi, had never been to ops but their double the mirror version that now was woven into their very being had been. Soral had put them in Ops to keep them close, the keep his most trusted at his right hand.

Somehow he’d done it again, he’d convinced the captain to put him into Ops.

Well this is a fine flippen mess isn’t it. Now your life is being torn apart by Starfleet, yet again.

A brief thought floated through their head about resining and about moving one. Perhaps they had outgrown their home here, maybe they had been wrong about this ship. A tiredness that was bone deep seemed to take hold of them.

“I can’t do this,” they said out loud.

“I can’t leave the only thing that keeps me going sometimes.”

Letting out a frustrated sigh Hayashi ran their hands up and down their face as of trying to scrub the memory of the conversation and the very truth that they would loose their precious engineering spot from existence.

There had to be a way to avoid this, a complaint to be launched. They were an engineer…

Even as the thought formed it dissolved. A sadness and hopelessness settled in their soul. They closed their eyes and let the weightlessness just penetrate through their bones. They needed to stop thinking, just be in the moment. Isn’t that what the last counselor had said when their anxiety reared its head.

Normally in times like this they would seek council with Soral but now…well there was no Soral and Soral himself was involved in this particular anxiety inducing incident.

“I can’t do this,” they said again.

As they floated for the next half hour the path ahead was no clearer. Again the thought to leave, retire came to mind.

Gypsy Midnight came to mind. Her words struck Hayashi, their last conversation before they had headed to Vulcan with Soral on board.

“Come on Hammy, leave Starfleet. We both know they are shit, otherwise they wouldn’t have let Romulus be destroyed. Come work for me, for the Destiny. We need a good Engineer and you are one of the best.”

He words and offer didn’t tempt Hayashi one bit, until now. Could they really do that?”

Soral would be disappointed but then hadn’t their mentor disappointed them by letting this happen. They may be two Hayashi’s this one and the mirror one but the wants of the Hayashi of this world were stronger.

“Come work for me…” Midnight’s voice floated through their mind.

Maybe the answer was as simple as that. Hayashi would give it some thought. They had nothing to loose. For now though…they had a job. The CMO was injured and the replicators, their replicators, were used and they had to figure out how. Nobody would have known the codes but his Engineers and the staff on the station.

A headache started to throb in the back of their skull. Hayashi Hamura hated mysteries. This would one have to be solved.

Just as they were thinking of leaving a sound drew their attention and then a head that poked out of the little entrance shaft. Hayashi swore at themselves silently. The locator on their communicator they hadn’t turned it off an they hadn’t closed the hatch. There she stood, the one thing that kept Haya here. Oriana.

“So you found me…”

To be Continued…

OFF: