Those who stay behind... Part III

Posted on Thu Jan 27th, 2011 @ 11:16am by Captain Nathan Cowell MD & Lieutenant Dravic Rixx (MIA)

Mission: Hippocratic Hijacking
Location: Main Engineering, Deck 5, USS Arizona

Fresh from his visit to the Lounge to meet with Major DeVries, Captain Nathan Cowell traversed the corridors of the ship, this time to Main Engineering to visit his favorite elastic man. Nathan hadn't spent much time looking into the man since he'd met him just once. Again, his penchant for glazing over manifests and personnel readouts was proving to be a bit limiting. Unlike the other departments, Engineering had been blessed with an almost full compliment, minus a few positions that could be easily covered by others in the interim. And, also opposed to other departments, Engineering was a buzz of activity, which was natural since the Arizona was no less a 'living' thing as any of the crew living within her. Parts needed to be replaced, bugs worked out, and all those other little things that as a doctor, Nathan could empathize with.

"Stretch! Where are you boy? We need to have a pow wow," Nathan said in a slightly southern accent that general cropped up when he started using ancient colloquialisms from his 'Old West' days on Earth.

Dravik heard the Captain, and sighed, ~I guess the kid wasn't able to keep up his end of the deal,~ suddenly Dravik had an idea and a devilish grin slipped onto his face.

As Cowell was casually looking around Engineering for 'Stretch', Dravik slipped behind the Commanding Officer quietly, and shifted into a small child, no more than 4 years old, and reached out, tugging on the ol' Man's pant leg, "'Scuse me mistuh, that man over there said you might be my daddy. Are you my daddy?" Dravik allowed a precious, cute look to slip onto his face, the look that melts the hearts of even the most heartless bastards, but he wasn't sure if it would even phase the Captain.

"Good look for you, Stretch. All you need to do is shit in your pants and you'll smell as bad as you look. Now hurry up and put your game face on, we have work to discuss," Captain Cowell said, accentuating the point by backhanding Rixx on the side of his diminutive head with enough force to jar him but hardly enough to do him any real harm.

Rixx smiled, and slipped into his normal look, "Work, is all we ever do around here. Fix the warp core, don't let the ship get destroyed, more power to the shields, stop that warp core breach, geez what the hell do you think I am, an Engineer," he looked over at Cowell, who only nodded at him, "Oh, Right, I am the Chief Engineer, whats hap'nen, Cap'n?"

"We will be leaving orbit tomorrow and from what I can foresee of this mission, we'll be needing this ship in peak performance both offensively and defensively. If you haven't bothered to already, I want you to go over all the weapon systems, shields, and everything in between to make double damn sure if someone shots at us out there, we can take it and dish it back ten fold. If you have to, get with the Major and work out some kind of dry run drill to make sure everything is good. Replicate some drones to shoot down, whatever it takes to make sure we are good to go. Got it?" Nathan ordered.

"Carte Blanche," Dravik asked, looked around engineering and suddenly remembering his days of close quarters combat drills with Romulan disruptors during his days as a Romulan Tal Shiar agent, or the times he was stabbed by another Klingon during his lives as a Warrior of the Empire. "Sir, you want some simulations, I have an old program I wrote years ago, it'll will help run some simulations, just call me the ol' Battle Dragon."

"As long as it doesn't kill anyone before we can use them, do what you have to do... But whatever it is you two decide to do, remember that we don't have a whole hell of a lot of time for it to happen. Once we catch up to these pirates, all bets are off and we'll all be hitting the ground running. Comprende?" the Captain laid it out for Rixx.

"Then why are you still standing here? From the sounds of it I got work to do, so go," LT Rixx makes a shooing motion with his hands and takes a step closer to the ol' Man, "You're harshing my mellow, get outta here, let me get started."

"It's my ship, boy, if I feel like standing here watching you work, that's what will happen," Cowell frowned, "Now you shove off and get to work and I'll see my way out when I get the urge to."

Dravik shook his head and rolled his eyes, "Yeah, but the little people," Dravik inclined his head back towards the two Petty Officer's who had been staring at the CO, nervous at his presence in Engineering almost as soon as they noticed him talking to Lt Rixx, "they don't stand around nervous and unable to function when your not here, but suit yourself, I'm gonna get back to work. I'll have the guys who aren't transfixed by your Marvelous Beauty pick up their load," the entire last part of his comment dripping with sarcasm as Dravik turned his back to the CO and stepped up to the Master Systems Display Table, and began to touch several buttons.

Cowell turned to the nervous crew and with a look of anger barked, "Get your asses in gear. If this was a combat zone all that gawking would have given the Krauts all the time they would need to line up a perfect shot between your damn eyes!"

While they might not have known who the Krauts were, the tone in his voice told them that moving from their current location was far more favorable to staying where they were...