Relics

Posted on Thu Sep 1st, 2011 @ 6:18pm by Lieutenant Commander Aral Aix & Lieutenant JG Toshie Minamoto

Mission: Tomorrow's Arizona
Location: Main Bridge, USS Arizona
Timeline: Following 'A circumstance most unusual...'

Aral Aix caught the Borg transponder as the Commodore had practically thrown it in his general direction when no one on the bridge was forthcoming to receive such a wondrous gift. To say the trill admired Borg technology from a scientific standpoint would not be accurate; he treat it with levels of reverence and fear that the ancients had reserved for magicians, kings and monsters. It was therefore with some ceremony that the Chief Science Officer entered Main Engineering. The large room was an iridescent mixture of federation blue and borg green and Aix proceeded through the shadows and coloured light bearing the node before him in the regal fashion of a knight templar carrying a holy relic.

Aral set the item down on one of the unoccupied horizontal LCARS terminals and looked about in the hope of catching an Engineer. "Lieutenant!" Aix waved the Chief Engineer over. "We have a job from the Commodore."

Toshie had her arms buried up to the elbows in a wall-mounted access panel in the "office" she maintained in Main Engineering. She looked over as Aral called for her and put down what she was doing, strolling over to him. "What can I help you with, Commander?" she asked with a pleasant, if tired smile on her face.

"This is a Borg transponder. We need to install it in the communications array." He paused, looking down at the box, "Normally I'd handle it myself and just add it to the watch, but this ship is now..." he shook his head with incomprehension and gestured about the room, "half assimilated and wired back round itself three times over." He paused. "If this blows.... we're toast." He patted the little box sacrilegiously.

"Great, more Borg technocrap on my ship." She leaned forward, her voiced dropping to a quiet whisper, "I don't trust them and to be quite frank, this is all making me very nervous. I remember when they attacked Earth when I was a teenager." Her face twisted in a soft grimace at his words, but she nodded with a long sigh at the realization of the state of the Arizona's integration. "I know, but you're speaking to someone who still knows her ship like the back of her hand. Like I'll let this ship blow up on my watch."

Aral nodded in response. "This is the last piece of the puzzle. Shall we get moving?" He picked up the transponder and headed for the doors

=Jefferies Tubes=

Entire sections of the Arizona's Jefferies tubes had been modified beyond recognition, coated with an industrial, but organic in appearance, covering of black and green borg technology. Aral found himself crawling behind Toshie as they made their way to the relevant intersection. However the dramatic changes to the scenery barely registered between dragging the transponder and admiring Toshie's posterior. "How much further?" Aral asked. The Trill was familiar with the Arizona's specifications and her technologies more in theory than practice.

Toshie grumbled to herself as she crawled through the oddly-colored Jefferies tubes deep in the bowels of the lower section of the ship. She had an Engineering kit slung over her shoulder and was still sweating from the temperature in there, despite rolling her sleeves up. "I'm sorry, Arizona, I'll get you back to normal soon...." Her words were barely audible even to herself as she wiggled through a junction and brushed back some of her hair that had escaped her ponytail and was plastered to her face. "Just a little more, it's near the end of this tunnel, right before the next intersection."

"She'll never be the same again." Aral called out. "They've truly fucked her." The officers continued crawling through the bowls of the Arizona.

"Yeah, don't remind me. If I had my way, I'd strip her down to the keel and clean her out," she huffed as she stopped in the tube and scooted up so she was sitting, crouched over with her legs crossed. "Okay, here we are." She reached out with her arms and took off a wall panel, revealing the mixed Borg and Federation circuitry coursing behind it." The look of disgust on her face escaped even her good control.

Aral extended a finger into the void. "I think this is a transistor node, this is the ODN link and this is a... sharp flashy thingy."

Toshie pulled out her tricorder and opened it, aiming it at the wall. "Hmm, it's either an interface junction or...a bread box? I don't know, I've never seen anything like that before." She looked over at him, "Got the transponder?"

Aral dragged the small box up and pushed it into the void without success. "It doesn't fit." He replied as he attempted to give it a final push into the slot, all that happened was a small movement. The trill dropped the box. "I think I bent the breadbox."

Toshie rubbed at her brow as Aral jammed the sensitive item right into the slot with a bit of force. "Umm, Commander, with all due respect, I would appreciate not being atomized in an explosion..."

Aral sighed as he lowered the box to the deck, noticing it had suffered no damage other than cosmetic at his hands. "The diagrams say it should fit." He retorted more at the aperture than the engineer. "Perhaps if we move this violet plasma transistor." Aral pointed to a small violet box that intersected between blue and green plasma flows.

Toshie let out a hmmm as she stared at the offending part and reached into her kit, pulling out a hyperspanner. She leaned forward and pressed it on the side of the device, which abruptly went dark. "There we...go," she tugged it off the wall at the last word. "Now, try it again. Gently this time."

Aral groaned. It seemed he had less patience with the physical aspects of technology this lifetime than he had when he last got his hands dirty as Kerras. "Here we go." The two officers held the device between them and began to fit it into the matrix. As the box made contact with the board Aral let out a mighty scream and was thrown several metres down the Jefferies Tube by a pulse of violet, green and blue light.

Toshie found herself slammed back against the wall of the Jefferies tube as the box reacted to the ODN board. She took stock of herself quietly for a moment, then when she was satisfied, she looked over at Aral.

The Chief Science Officer lay quietly on the deckplate for a minute allowing his breathing to normalize. Eventually Aral managed to sit up. His face was pink and his hands a mixture of blackened flesh and bright red blood. He exhaled sharply as he came round, "I'm never touching a breadbox again." As the intial trauma subsided he began to feel the pain.

"Commander!" Toshie yelled out as she stumbled forward next to him. "Commander, hold still, don't talk, I will get help" Then with a less hectic sound, she paused for a moment, "I'm sorry, it shouldn't have done that. Borg crap!" She tapped her combadge, "Minamoto to sickbay, medical emergency in Jefferies tube near intersection 17-Alpha. Requesting immediate assistance. Commander Aix is wounded."

Aral sighed. "Cancel that. I'll walk in," and nodded at Toshie. He shook his head as he clambered to his knees and tried to remember the nearest exit to whatever deck they had found themselves on. "It's my fault, is the bloody thing in yet?"

"Forget it, I'm not letting you walk in like that by yourself. The transponder is in, but not interfaced." Toshie tapped her combadge again, "Minamoto to sickbay, change of plans, I will bring him in." Then another tap, "Minamoto to Lieutnant Broca, I need you to take care installing a Borg transponder in a Jefferies tube on Deck 17. I have to help the science officer to sickbay after a discharge of some sort. Be careful."

Aral sighed and followed Toshie's lead down the horizontal axis of the tube. "You know, I used to be able to hardwire anything into anything back in the day." He omitted the fact that it was easily two hundred and fifty years ago.

Toshie reached the end of the tube and climbed out into the intersection, reaching down to help Aral to his feet with a hand on his upper arm, "Come on, let's get you to sickbay and cleaned up. I don't want to have to fill out the paperwork for letting a higher-ranking officer die on my watch." She led him to the door exiting onto the corridor, towards the nearby lift that would take them to sickbay.