Blue Light Special

Posted on Mon Jan 20th, 2025 @ 7:26pm by Ensign Noah Balsam & Lieutenant Irynya

Mission: Mean Green Queen
Location: Debbie's Diner
Timeline: Mission Day 21 at 2130

[Debbie's Diner]
[MD 21; 2130]
[An hour after Green. Very Green]

Debbie's was both fully its usual bright, warm, and loud self and not. As Irynya followed Noah through the door she couldn’t keep her reaction off of her face. Eyes wide she took in the decor that was now both familiar and somehow not all at the same time. If the red, green, gold, and silver decor that accentuated the living space she now shared with the diner’s matron hadn’t already given the Risian a peek into Earth’s Christmas decor, what she found now might have stopped on the spot just so she could take it all in.

The cherry red booths and black checked floor were still there, but draped along the backs of each booth were garlands of shiny gold tinsel. Enormous round balls with gold and silver caps nestled together at the intersection of each booth and the back of the wall. To one side a tree… or what Irynya recognized as a type of tree she’d once seen while at the Academy… towered over the diner’s patrons festooned with strings of popcorn and cranberry, shining bright colored lights, and more of the round baubles with their gold and silver caps. It was late enough that most crew had already eaten dinner, but Debbie's was as popular a place to spend time after hours as any and the new seasonal decor seemed to invite anyone entering to linger and enjoy the ambiance.

The diner’s soundtrack, a high energy mixture of 50s era Earth music, had also been replaced and Iry found her senses assaulted by a crooning voice bemoaning the blue Christmas he was about to have without… well… whomever he was singing to.

“You were not kidding about the Christmas decorations,” she stage-whispered to Noah as she slid into a booth across from him, still taking in everything around them with wide eyes.

Noah nodded while he cast his eyes up. "That took awhile." He chin-jutted to the ceiling, which looked easily twice the normal diner's height by way of holographic trickery. The tree Irynya had set eyes on extended into it, looking tall. But the strangest- albeit magical-aspect of the illusionary ceiling was it appeared to be snowing lazy, small flakes of snow. They never reached below shoulder height of Noah or Irynya.

In something like awe Irynya tilted her head back, looking straight up into the gently falling flakes. It was trickery, indeed, to give the impression of great height in a space that did not have it. And she couldn't stop herself from reaching out to touch the flakes as if by doing so she might actually capture one so she could look at it more closely. She had just opened her mouth to ask Noah if this was what snow was like on Enceladus when she was stopped short.

There was a strange sound. A sort of reedy, moaning sound. And from a holographic "hole" near Debbie's kitchen, a toy train began chugging along the circumference of the room. It "left" through a tunnel illusion in the outer bulkhead and reappeared on the other side of the room. Noah smirked when he heard Debbie's cook grumble about the noise. Noah turned to his Risian friend. "He got vetoed. It was... a little tense. I was sitting at the bar pr-programming it and I could feel his eyes burrowing into my head." Noah flicked a tap of his ear. "I could hear his teeth grinding, I-I swear."

The mirth and mischief in Iry's eyes was unmistakable. She didn't know Debbie's short order cook well and, absently considered that she hadn't seen Mo stop by Debbie's quarters at any point in the short time she'd lived there. Of course there were numerous explanations of that, but she couldn't help wondering if Debbie and Mo's friendship extended beyond the diner or if it didn't what it was that Mo got up to when he wasn't cooking and grumbling about the demands of the establishment's matron.

"I don't doubt you could. He probably ought to get that checked out. I've heard regrowing teeth is unpleasant," she commented with a chuckle before her eyes were drawn back up to the snow. Not that she thought Mo was likely to need teeth replacements, but the sentiment stood. The moaning sound of the train could be heard again and she turned to watch it, giggling as she followed its path with interest this time. "How often does it come out?" she asked.

"Oh uh," Noah looked at the other end of the room expectantly. "Its moving at a-about point two five meters per second so... about fifteen more seconds." Noah calculated. But he drew a thoughtful look, his nearly black eyes narrowing. He tapped his lips with the flat of his finger. "Iry... do Risians believe in ghosts?" Noah asked. "There's a-a very old story from the nineteenth century. Um. On Earth. About a grumpy old man who gets visited by three ghosts. Trying to fix his ways."

Irynya raised her eyebrows at the change of topic, but otherwise gave the question some consideration. "If by ghosts you mean like a spirit or... an essence of a person that isn't physical then, yes, some of us do. There's too many elements of a person that can't be entirely explained. But I don't know that I've ever heard of anyone being visited by a person's essence. Do you mean like... a dead person? Or..." Curiosity piqued she was rambling and she stopped, raising her eyebrows once again. "Did they fix him?" She asked.

Noah's nose bridge wrinkled. His lip curled, that old indicator and tell that he was having impish thoughts. He tapped his lip one more time. "S-sorry, that was probably uh... really random. Yeah. They get the old man to fix his ways and help people. I just..." He narrowed his eyes, "N-no, sorry... okay. I should focus on why-why we're in here. Though." His neck craned toward the replicators. His mouth split into a wide and toothy grimace, "I-I am hungry... we didn't eat much in the Holodeck."

Noah's feet took him over to the replicator, "But yeah... ghosts, spirits, souls... the postm-mortal. Tom Kha, tepid. 400 milliliters... extra lime, medium spice, in a thermos." The replicator chirped at him while he turned and put his back to the bulkhead. His arms folded. He looked up again at the "snowing" illusion ceiling and the tree. "Ok, we-we should bring out those coordinates. We're at the end of the ship so-so I'm not super confident this is the right place but..." He raised and dropped his shoulder and then reached back to pick up a metallic-looking canister that had a citrusy, brothy, unusual smell to it. He sipped it, the creamy-brothy soup clinging to the fuzz on his upper lip.

Iry listened well--it was one of her better skills--but it took far more effort to rein in the curiosity that plagued her with the half formed thought about ghosts and people being visited by them to be fixed. Noah was right, though, they should focus, and as if on cue her stomach rumbled at the smell emanating from the canister. Without a second thought she stepped up to the replicator, repeating his order before turning back to him. "This isn't the one where we replicated the..." as if somehow they might be overheard and get in trouble she glanced around them, "kali fa," she said meaningfully. "We were back in the kitchen. Can we calculate the distance there or do you think maybe it's more... like... a general location? They'd calculated the same thought process from other locations and when the exact point from Opportunity's replicator indicated a spot squarely in the middle of a bulkhead she had begun to wonder just how flexible this coordinate concept could be.

The sound of a second canister materializing in the replicator behind her signaled the readiness of a second set of soup, but before she turned she reached a thumb and swiped at Noah's lip as if she were his mother and he hadn't realized the mustache of soup that was left behind. "You've got something..." she said, as she did so. "There, all better. What is that, by the way? It smells amazing."

"Thai soup. Its uh... lime leaves, galangal, lemongrass, coconut milk, chicken broth. I went without the mushrooms and... well, you can add a lot of different proteins. But I just wanted something to drink. Also..." He sipped it again- and his mustache of brothy cream resurfaced. "Its usually hot. I'm just weird that way. Um. Bachelor-y habits I-I guess." Noah smiled and wiped his mustache away. His mouth widened into a grimace and he shot a quick look at the offending replicator behind them. "No, that's in there. I-I think I can adjust, if these are coordinates... I don't really want to ask Mel if we can go back there. Otherwise we might end up as the ghosts."

Noah craned his neck back again and narrowed his eyes. "Probably about... four meters." Noah went for his PADD and began to input the coordinates. His head tilted. "well... not aft... and forward puts us in the middle of the deuterium tanks.... but..." His lips pursed. "Huh. Port nacelle control room's within those parameters?"

As Noah calculated Irynya sipped the savory broth infused soup and sighed happily. Somewhere along the line she'd found that Noah's food choices were almost always a safe bet and she wasn't disappointed with this one. There was a definite citrus edge to it, but it was slightly creamy as well, the flavor pulling at different flavor points on her tongue and making the sides of her cheeks tighten with the prick of sourness.

"Not bad huh?" Noah smiled at the Risian, even his relative social blindness picking up that multiple sips probably meant it was decent. "I've been drinking a lot of soup lately..."

She was halfway through a second sip as he reported his findings and her eyebrows raised at the mention of the port nacelle control rooms. She swallowed quickly, wiping her own lip with the back of her hand. "That's the first habitable location we've come up with so far," she commented and then pursed her lips, "I mean aside from the bathroom in Rumat's quarters." She pulled her bottom lip between her teeth, worrying it absently as she thought. "I mean... I've never seen the port nacelle control rooms...." she let the thought linger rather than stating further, curious to see what her friend thought.

"Shelly and I get posted there... well... we did until until his promotion. But we've been there a lot. We could try... its at least habitable. Only thing is, there's some delicate stuff in there. Especially with-with us at high warp. We'll have to time it right. Or end up in Sickbay with plasma burns. Are your boot insulated?" He gestured at her feet. It was a peculiar thing but not all uniforms were made the same. Engineering and Ops had some departmental necessities. Like reinforced boots. "So.. should we go or..." He sipped his soup again. "Finish."

Iry looked down at her boots and flexed her toes in them reflexively. She'd changed from the tunic and leggings she'd worn out of the holodeck into her uniform before they stopped in the shuttle bay in hopes of raising fewer eyebrows as she and Noah boarded the shuttle. She briefly considered that pulling rank, which she'd done with a nod and non-explanation of their presence to the officer on duty, might be an abuse of her new position. But they weren't hurting anything and both were qualified to be on the shuttle. Still...

"No, they aren't," she commented with a frown before taking another sip. "And we can take these with us." She considered a moment, eyeing the replicator at Debbie's as if sizing it up and then abandoned the wild hare of a thought that she could simply replicated insulated boots there. Replicating boots in the middle of Debbie's would unquestionably get someone's attention. "Umm... Back to my quarters quick? And then to the control room? We can take these with us." She held up her canister and wiggled it slightly. A splash of warm citrus liquid escaped the container with the movement, coating her hand. With an awkward half jump that moved her lower half back while holding the canister in place she managed to avoid the few drops of liquid that were meant for the same boots she'd just been looking at.

"Probably with a lid on it..." she amended and then gave Noah a sheepish grin.

Noah nodded to both. He replicated a pair of lids for their thermos. "Right, back to your place. Deb's place. Your's and Deb's place." His nose wrinkled. "Still having to get used to what to call it." It was, regardless, practically on the other end of the ship. He tapped his commbadge, "Computer, who is on duty in port nacelle control?"

"Crewman 1st Class B'tano." The computer replied. Noah grimaced at that.

"You- we might have to pull rank. B'tano's... stickler-y." Noah said while they headed out the doors and toward the turbolift. This was exciting though. They finally had a palpable lead on this strange game they'd come across. Noah wasn't sure why it was so cryptic. With a blink he voiced his thoughts, "Do-do you think this whole game is all clandestine because we might have to do... you know... questionable stuff?"

Iry wrinkled her nose at the idea of pulling rank, but also shrugged as they made for her quarters at a pace that couldn't quite be considered leisurely. Her eyes slid sideways, glancing at Noah's profile in reaction to the question. "I don't know," she answered truthfully. "I mean... what do you consider questionable?" She glanced at him again, gauging his reaction. "I'm guessing maybe harmless mischief. Nothing that would put the ship and crew in danger, but maybe... you know... rule bending..." She pursed her lips and then added, "A bit."

Noah's head sort of bobbed, more like he was digesting her answer and his own question. Noah wasn't at heart a trouble maker. "Hmm. As long as its not.... not really bad. I guess questionable to me... um... well, anything questionable. Going where we aren't supposed to be and doing stuff we aren't qualified for. or really, I-I think anything that is going to be dangerous or maybe make a problem for someone else." He shrugged. "It sounds like we're mostly agreed. I guess we can abort if it feels too far."

They'd been quiet for the last few minutes as they neared the aft part of the ship again, Iry newly outfitted in insulated boots that she instantly decided were not broken in enough. She shimmied a bit as she walked, rolling up onto her toes as if that might help the inflexibility of the boots.

Noah stopped at a Jefferies and smiled at her. He bent over and tapped in the general access code and the hatch came free. "No turbolifts to the nacelles, obviously. Who knew we were going to get such a workout today. Though... if you want to be a little strange... we can do an Eilat Drop." Noah's smile coiled upward at the corners. He bent over again and started to slip into the Jefferies Tube. The junction access- at least the first one- looks to be a good ten meters of crawling.

The word Eliat was familiar--a term... or, no... a name... she'd heard Noah use before and so, curiosity piqued, she ducked her head to the level of the Jeffries Tube that Noah was slipping into. She watched as he expertly navigated the circular opening, disappaering in stages until, finally, his booted feet were fully inside the space. "What's an Eliat Drop?" she called after him, feeling slightly like she was talking to his butt, or maybe his feet, rather than to Noah., himself. She bent, ducked her head into the tube and drew in a tightened breath. The Tube wasn't excessively small, but it wasn't open either.

Her eyes drifted shut for the briefest of moments as she took another breath. And then another, moving ahead into the Tube as she did and, blessedly, feeling the tightness in her chest release. When she was fully ensconced she reached back and tapped the controls to close the hatch behind them, leaving them limbed in the lower lights of the Jeffries.

"My hometown," Noah clarified as they began to crawl. "On the surface is Eilat Hub... that's where our space port is, and the Bright Thinktank's orbital facilities...." Noah said. "But my family lived in Eilat Anchorage. Under the ice. Well, between us is about a ten kilometer block of ice. And that's the Eilat Drop." Noah's body clanked and rattled the plates under his featherweight. "Its kind of like a long shaft. It goes both ways. It used to be a bunch of lifts but with artificial gravity and repulsor technology, its kind of a tourist attraction now. There's directional zero-gravity. Closest you'll ever get to feel like you're flying without a console and thrusters."

Noah stopped and looked behind him, for a moment giving her a chance to talk to his face, not his ass. "So, when we get to the junction, we just turn the gravity off. Pull up. And up we go." He flashed a quick smile.

Whatever Iry had expected an Eliat Drop to be it hadn't been free floating upward. Her eyes lit and she met his eyes, grinning. "That sounds amazing. How similar is it to the zero G training we get at the Academy? Like... you said it's directional so..." She craned her neck to peer past him, trying to make out exactly how far they had to go before the junction, "... what do I need to know to do it without... you know... knocking myself out on a support structure or... ending up feet first?"

"Eh, similar. It's technically m-microgravity. Normally Enceladan gravity is about a tenth of Earth. Even less than native Luna. The Drop just doesn't assert artificial gravity anymore. And there's directional assists with graviton particle flows. Sort of like a repulsor beam. In the fast lane, you can get moving pretty fast. But most people t-take the slow way. Well, most tourists."

To Iry's last queries, Noah's nose wrinkled. "Uhh.... practice. We'll just shut the gravity off. There's still the ladder rungs that you can stabilize on. You just won't have to pull your weight up." Noah was the first out of the tube, ducking his head through into an open shaft with a number of access panels and two sets of ladders. It was vaguely diagonal, and ran far enough that the terminus in the nacelle was quite distant. "This, waste-rec and deuterium storage are some of the harder areas to access. And the deep systems of the computer kernel controls."

Following close behind, Irynya, ducking slightly less than Noah had to, straightened into the open shaft and peered upward following the ladder rungs to where the shaft seemed to veer upward and away. It was a long climb up into the dimly lit space and she was quietly grateful for Noah's suggested drop beyond the fun it might offer. "I've seriously never been this far aft before," she murmured and then, unable to help herself, added, "this would be a great place to make out with someone if you wanted some privacy and didn't have it."

Noah tilted his mouth and shook his head, "If you say so. I'd rather find someplace nice and soft." His eyebrows rose. "Computer, deactivate gravity plating in junction AP-21 in ten seconds." The computer beeped and Noah wrapped his fingers around a ladder rung at comfortable height. "I-I don't think most of the stuff in here would react very well to body fluids either. But I've heard some people use junctions like this for singing and music. Some of them supposedly, um have decent acoustics."

Irynya's thoughtful expression veered toward conspiratorial. "Soft is a very easy thing to make portable if you're determined enough. And sometimes easy access to privacy is... more important than comfort," she commented with a chuckle. "I hadn't considered acoustics though... How much do you think people could hear?" Though her mind was still churning through the logistics of the location she mirrored Noah's action, wrapping her own fingers around a rung of the ladder nearest to her.

Noah's nose scrunched again, a rise of doubt forming incredulously around his eyebrows. "Are you saying you want to take a date in... here?" Maybe it was simply that as an engineer, these passages were Noah's worksite, and on occasion his nemesis. It wasn't a comfortable place. It was hot- or cold- depending on the machinery nearby. It was loud. The plating dug into your knees. "Um." He looked at his Risian friend again. "Well..." He smirked.

Iry had just started to hum a soft tune, curious to see just exactly what singing... and other sounds... would sound like in the space when the gravity disappeared. The sudden weightless sensation caught her off guard despite knowing it was coming and she squeaked in surprise, a small sound that did, indeed, carry along the tube upwards as if it, too, had been released of gravitational pull. She wheeled wildly with her free hand for a moment, trying to pull herself to face the the ladder fully. She was suddenly very aware of how awkward she must look and as she snagged the rung with her fingers she giggled.

And Noah did something he'd seen once in a movie to dramatic effect: he tilted his chin up and closed his eyes. "Unnhhh... unnhhhhh... uh! Mmhh! Uh! UNH!! Yes!" He faked an orgasm sound- and the reverberations were epic. It seemed to ricochet off the bulkheads like a bullet not once but multiple times, growing hollow and strange. Noah shook his head, "Truh-trust me Iry. Us engineers know when people are getting down and being dirty in our Jefferies. If you can hear me druh-drop a spanner for three sections, we can hear when people come."

Noah, who was more used to a weightless environ, did not hang on the rung he held for long. Instead he used the push down of only his fingers to begin moving him in the direction of the nacelle.

At Noah's... performance... Irynya, who was now effectively clinging to the ladder rung, felt her mouth drop open and her eyes widen in surprise before the corners of her mouth turned up into an enormous grin. A tiny corner of her brain wondered how close to real Noah's fake actually was. It certainly had been faked but it had been the kind of fake that indicated some familiarity with the subject matter. Despite herself she felt her cheeks flush hard with a blush and, as he floated upward slightly she managed to get out a slightly strangled, "Noted."

Pulling herself back to the present moment and away from any unplanned mental tangents she tilted her head up and then, watching how Noah moved, pushed off from her own rung. It took one or two pushes to get the hang of the movement. She hadn't been required to practice anything in Zero G for some time and hadn't been particularly amazing at it to begin with. But as her body began to cooperate she found herself grinning for altogether different reasons, enjoying the little bit of stomach tickling sensation that came with each upward thrust.

It wasn't until a good 30 meters later that a thought scuttled into her brain unbidden. "Noah," she asked, a bit of uncertainty coloring her tone, "Do you think B'tano will have... heard... you?"

It would likely be hours and in solace before Noah fully internalized his performance, but when Irynya asked if B'tano would have heard him, Noah pinked. He nodded, a nibble on his lip. "Oh yeah. I-I am going to have to explain things. I-I think we're going to get some weird looks from him. And whoever else is up there." Noah looked up, adjusting with fingers against the bulkhead to assure he maintained the diagonal. "This is more fun in a wider space. By the way. There's no up in zero gravity." Noah pointed out. "You can do flips... or circles. Though it's harder to stop the moves if you can't grab something."

He looked down, "Are you doing OK?" He asked.

Hearing the directional change in Noah's voice she looked up, meeting his eyes, the broad smile on her face showing off her enjoyment even as her movements proved much more cautious and slower than his own. "I think so?" she said enthusiastically. "At least I haven't hit my head yet." And, as if to prove that she hadn't quite gotten full control of her body she felt herself float backward toward the opposite ladder as she pushed off her most current rung at the wrong angle. Her reinforced boots clanged against the opposite side of the tube, but she recovered herself quickly and bent her knees, using her feet to maneuver herself back out toward the middle. She had pulled her head back down at the error and now, more carefully, looked back up, still smiling. "I may hold off on flips for this trip, though."

"Oh, I-I would too. This isn't big enough for flips." Noah continued floating, in relative silence with occasion checks down to see if his Risian friend was doing alright, until they reached the hatch. "OK, grab the ladder." Noah instructed. "You don't want to fall all the way back down. The-the other thing that's hard about this." He wryly smirked, "Elevator kink aside, is its hard to get medical teams in here fast." Noah followed his own dictate and foot feet on rungs and then wrapped an arm around a rung. "Maybe do a full wrap, Iry... when we restore gravity it might be a little... shocking." His eyes squinted, "Well, not shock-shocking... but suddenly getting pressed down on again can be startling."

This time Irynya was quick to comply, no longer distracted by the idea of using the Jeffries Tube for casual hook ups and having managed to do fairly well keeping up with Noah along the way upward she was pleased with herself, but had no desire to plummet to the bottom because she hadn't been properly tethered. Pulling in her feet, she settled them along a lower rung, sticking her feet through until the toes touched the sides of the tube. Then she curled one arm around the top of rung nearest her shoulders, snaking the other up underneath the rung so that she was, effectively, hugging it. "Ready," she said with a nod.

"Computer, restore gravity to AP-21 in ten seconds." Noah began to count down.

Noah's counting couldn't have been more precise if he'd tried. The gravity came back online with the same suddenness it had gone. It wasn't there and then, suddenly, it was. Iry felt her weight drop and her chest and thighs press tightly to the rungs as she tightened her arms and, though it made no difference, curled her toes in her boots as if she were able to use them to cling to the rung beneath her feet. She felt heavy and blew out a sigh at the sensation. She remembered it well both as something she hadn't enjoyed from her training and from the strange feeling that her body was suddenly outsized to what she expected it to be.

Noah also jerked a bit at the sudden return of his weight. "You ok?" He asked again. It was never fun to pay the gravity karma after a few moments of feeling as close to bird-like as a humanoid was likely to feel.

"Yeah," she breathed back at him. "You?"

Noah nodded. "Yeah, yeah. No problem."

With a deep breath and her legs back under her, Irynya shifted so she was facing the hatch that would lead into the port nacelle control room. Considering that this hatch gave direct access to one of the most important components of the ship she found herself surprised that it didn't look more important. She shot a look to the side, catching Noah's eye before giving him a nod. "I'll head in first. Follow my lead?" Quick fingers punched in the appropriate access code and the hatch unlocked allowing her to push it inward before she followed behind entering the space head first.

Across from where she had opened the hatch an annoyed and highly suspicious Algolian with a single ensign's pip was peering at her, eyes narrowed making his cranial ridges appear to bridge across where his eyebrows would have been if he'd had any. This had to be B'tano. She didn't recognize him, but then even in a small crew it was possible to not run into every junior crewman on a regular basis.

"Crewman," she said, a bit formally, as she straightened and stepped out of the way of the hatch so Noah could follow behind her. "I assume you are expecting us."

She eyed the Crewman pointedly, daring him to contest the statement of someone two ranks higher than him. "No, ma'am, I was not," B'tano answered only just managing to tamp down the suspicious edge to his voice. "I'm not due for a shift change for another hour."

Irynya nodded sagely as if this was already something she knew. "Right, naturally," she said, "But I would have expected that flight control would have logged our arrival with you anyway. I'll look into that later. Ensign Balsam," here she looked to the side to make sure he was fully within the room, "and I need to take a look at the nacelle."

Noah played his part- when Irynya spoke about being expected and B'Tano said no, Noah went into motion. He crunched his eyebrows with doubt and pulled out his small PADD in his work pocket. He peered at it. "Oh." Noah scrolled, eyed B'Tano like he was feeling ashamed, "I'm-I'm sorry ma'am. I forgot to hit send." He looked at the Algolian. "Sorry B'Tano."

Fully enveloped in her role now she tilted her head in Noah's direction and nodded. "Well that explains it," she commented wryly then returned to looking at B'Tano
B'Tano raised his nobbled and leathery chin. "I see. Well, I need to log you in." B'Tano swiveled in the chair, their face illuminated by the pulsing regular patterns of the warp coils. It's pattern was nearly identical to that of the warp core at warp. Their fingers moved quickly. "Computer, log Lieutenant Irynya and Ensign Balsam to warp coil access, 2130 hours, add to my duty log as a supplemental."

Noah looked at Irynya. His grimace looked apologetic to any outside, but truly Noah was sweating a little. He'd forgotten about that aspect. "Uh this way, Ma'am. You said there was an anomaly on your board?"

B'Tano followed Noah with their eyes, staring. Noah double-checked their gaze. He picked up a pair of thickly insulated and clumsy-feeling white gloves that went nearly up to his elbow. Then he handed Irynya a pair. He looked over at B'Tano again- who was still staring. "Uhh... I'll go first?" Noah suggested, popping his brows.

As if B'Tano's clearly questioning and piercing stare were of no consequence, Irynya pulled on her gloves and fixed her attention on Noah. She turned and tugged her ponytail over her shoulder to run down the front of her uniform, effectively offering a bit of cover for her face and then, giving Noah the smallest of smiles, she winked. It was a quick motion and one that she hoped B'Tano wouldn't pick up. If he did, though, she figured he was welcome to conjure whatever story was needed to explain away both their unplanned arrival and the echoing sounds of pleasure that he had undoubtedly heard.

"I'll follow you, ensign," she said to Noah with a calm that she didn't exactly feel. Inside she felt bubbly and jumpy, the effects of adrenaline making her want to fidget with something. She hoped Noah had some idea of where they needed to go next, because as she tugged at her gloves unnecessarily reseating them around her fingers she realized she didn't actually know what they needed to do next.

"Yes ma'am," Noah couldn't help the smile that unconvincingly pulled at his mouth. And to it, B'Tano squinted. Noah led within. There were short corridors on either sides of the warp coils. Noah went left from the main control room and rounding through the corridor a clear "A" in Starfleet font indicated they were entering Alpha-side. Noah keyed in his code and waited for B'Tano to accept it. With a hydraulic groan the doors opened to a markedly hotter and drier atmosphere. It was easily as warm as the computer core control room.

Noah pulled his PADD out again from his utility pocket and flipped it on. "If Debbie's is the right place... we are looking for about... Alpha 20-something." His feet clanked as he stepped onto the scaffolding bridge between the humming thrum of two sets of rib-like warp coil racks. "That'll be near the back." Noah attested. The warp coils had a palpable vibration to them that raised the hairs on Noah's body. "N-nothing like receiving enough electro-magnetic energy in one go, that's like sitting in a medical scanner for a few days.. "We can't stay in here real long, Iry." He added. "Even in, uh, standby these things aren't great for our nervous systems. If you start feeling dizzy or nauseous, we need to go."

Irynya nodded wordlessly, feeling the prickly sensation of the energy tickling her skin and raising the desire to twitch or swipe at the offending feeling. It was almost as if something external was lightly trailing its nails across her nerve endings and with it B'Tano and the barely cohesive tale she'd told to help get them this far fell to the back of her mind. This was something entirely new and novel and she was too curious not to simply sink deeply into the moment. Her shoulders twitched upward and then rolled, making the fabric of her uniform brush against her skin as if that movement might alleviate the prickly feeling that she couldn't quite shake.

Clank clank. Each footfall rattled the gangway. Noah's lips were moving, counting. Each bank of warp coils was made of five coils. Each coil was almost a meter wide. Each ebbed with the same fluttering vibration. "Fifteen...." Noah called out. "Should be around the next five coils or so...."

In the short time they had traversed the first fifteen coils Irynya had been quiet, taking in the alienness of the space she was in. She knew, in theory and through photographs, what she was walking into. But seeing it on a screen and actually walking down the gangway between the coils were two very different experiences. She found herself wanting to gape, and absently ran her gloved hands over her arms where the prickly sensation seemed most determined to bother her.

At Noah's observation she sped up, closing the small gap that had formed between them as they walked. "What do you think we do once we find it?" she asked, pitching her voice so he could hear her above the hum. The question had been nagging at the back of her mind. Their message had simply been coordinates and she dearly hoped that what they were supposed to do would be obvious when they arrived because she was having trouble imagining what that might be now that they were there.

"I-I wish I knew," Noah lamented. He was, surprisingly to some, out of his comfort zone. This was not the realm of the systems engineer. Propulsion engineering had been one of his weaker subjects within the discipline. He preferred structural and fabrication engineering, and designing systems. But his love was programming. Noah broke through the brief feeling of overwhelm and refocused on the glowing, occasionally cracking coils. "I-I'm not actually sure what we're..."

Almost instinctively Irynya had tucked her hand, oversized glove and all, in his as if doing so would create a bit of extra confidence -- or maybe just comfort -- for them both.

He trailed off. And the lanky one frowned. "What... the heck?" His eyes narrowed, his eagle-nose wrinkling. "Iry?" He asked. "Have you-you ever been to Antares Shipyards?" He pointed at a symbol embossed on the interior bulkhead near the warp coils. It looked similar to an old maker's mark, something a master craftsman might work into their design. Or a special signature an artist might put on their work.

Noah tugged on his bottom lip, his eyes narrowed. "Antares Yard is near Bajor Sector. About two-thirds the way to Bajor from Risa." Noah leaned in some. He guffawed, his face alight in neon blue. His eyebrow rose with a sly sense of rare irreverence, "Iry? I think the ship is searching for Jamaharon." He pointed, grinning widely. The maker's mark was a clear embossed behind another symbol: a Risian Horga'hn. Below it was Risian script.

"Can you read that?" Noah asked. "That's the symbol of-of Antares Shipyard. It's Antarean. I, uh,think its their glyph for resilience or something?" Noah shrugged witha. wide blink of his eyes.

Irynya leaned in as well, giggling as she did and quickly confirming Noah's assertion that the symbol was a horga'hn. There was more there, though, beyond the text and the very obvious outline of the fertility statuette. "It says," she offered, squinting slightly to make out the curving script. It had a handwritten quality to it despite being embossed in the same fashion as the symbol. "

"Seekers... Read me..." She said this slowly, frowning. "But that form of me refers to the symbol... Not the text itself."

Her eyes darted back up to the horga'hn, looking for more text and not finding it. "This isn't going to end up in some kind of inexplicable orgy is it?" She asked, trying to puzzle out what else the words could mean and catching on the word seekers. "I mean... On Risa we say a person with a horga'hn is seeking jamaharon... So ... I mean..."

Noah again guffawed. "Um, 1-2-3 not it on being where the Sojourner gets inserted."

Even in the midst of puzzling out what felt almost like a riddle, Irynya couldn't resist a snort of amusement at Noah's comment. She bit her lip, eyeing the mark and the text again before turning to look at Noah helplessly and feeling an almost irrepressible bout of giggles threatening to take over. "It's not like the ship can... Ya know... Partake."

Noah nodded. "Jamaharon n-needs consent, absolute consent. If I remember what you said right. How does a ship consent? Maybe that's not.... I mean this was put here by a person." Noah pointed his finger at the glyph and mark. "And-and they wanted it found. And obviously someone else's found it. Whoever made the replicator bypass for the Kali-fal."

"Or the person who made the bypass put it here," Iry offered, nodding along with Noah's reasoning. "But... yeah... consent is the most basic principle. And the text isn't referring to the ship. It's referring to the horga'hn. Or... like... the symbol." Brows creasing she turned to look at it again. She quietly mouthed the words she'd read over and over, turning them around in her mouth as if they were stones that she could somehow turn into bread if she thought about it hard enough.

It was another moment before a fraction of a thought wiggled its way to the front of her mind and she stilled, brow creasing even further. Slowly she gave the thought voice. "Maybe it's not that the Ship is seeking Jamaharon. Maybe it's supposed to be..." she hesitated, the thought sticking a moment. "Maybe it's... our... horga'hn. Like... we're the seekers... we're the ones seeking the coordinates, right? So... in theory... we could be..."

But the idea of the two of them seeking Jamaharon still seemed unlikely. There were two of them as a matter of chance. The game couldn't have known it would be two of them and from what Noah said there was no way a partner was somehow waiting further down the coils for them somehow managing to conceal themselves in what amounted to an open tube.

"The text says read me" she said, picking back up. "But me means the horga'hn symbol. Maybe... maybe there's more information here than we can see?" She whirled, unnecessarily twisting and nearly colliding with the engineer. "Do you have your tricorder?" she asked, the question fired off with excited rapidity.

Noah straightened long enough to pull his slim tricorder from the pocket of his work pants. "Yeah. Just scan it?" He asked even as he opened it. He flicked his fingers at the screen, made a pinch motion and then flung it out. An amber LCARS screen appeared before them in holographics. Noah held the sensor toward the mark and made a pass as close as he could get without singing himself on the coils. He could feel the uncomfortable prickling and static charge zotting across his body. "Ah!" "Ah!" he uttered discomfort a few times before he pulled back.

Noah flicked at the data. "You're right... its a basic Basilisk. Hide data in symbology." He flicked his fingers at the amber and then made a flicking motion. The LCARS dropped and the words, "SOJOURNER BINGO" appeared in amber.

"Uh, if you two are done pretending this is a whatever it is and are done scanning that stupid game mark? I'd like to bring the coils back online?" B'tano's voice said over the comms.

"Holy shit B'Tano," Iry yelped, completely caught off guard by the disembodied voice of the ensign when it sounded through the confines of the warp coils. She grasped at Noah's arm as if doing so would steady her and looked at him with an expression of wide-eyed uncertainty and no small amount of guilt. They had, after all, lied to get in here. And heaven only knew what B'Tano thought they were up to if he already knew about the mark.

"What do we do?" She stage whispered as her brain seemed to protest in the moment creative responses.

Noah had frozen in a rictus of embarrassment when B'tano's voice had broken over the comms. When Iry spoke, he blinked, wet his lips and carefully folded his tricorder up and pushed it down into his cargo pocket. "Later. Let's... uhh... just go." Noah started retreating down the gangway between the coils. "We can read whatever it is in your quarters. Or mine. Either."

Iry nodded, trying to draw on as much composure as she could find even as her heart thudded in her chest. She suddenly felt as though they were going to be viewed as two teenagers who'd been caught making out by their parents instead of two officers who commanded the appropriate respect that came with their ranks. "Ok," she agreed and followed behind, pausing only long enough to straighten her shoulders and raise her chin.

=/\= Hijinks by =/\=

Lieutenant Irynya
Chief Flight Controller

Ensign Noah Balsam
Systems Specialist

with a guest appearance by

Crewman B'Tano
Buzz Kill
[TAG]