Subject: Grail: "The Great Brightness"; "A Preference to Cascading Waters"

Main Engineering

Stardate: 47307.29- 15:00

Kait Brennan peered anxiously out from under the console she was working

at,

in order to see who it was who entered Main Engineering. Getting used to

disappointment, she found that it was _not_ Janice Hargen yet again.

Ensign K'tel hovered over her, as if he were about to say something.

"What?!" Brennan snapped.

"I was merely going to ask you if you required any assistance," K'tel spoke

stoically.

Kaitlyn Brennan felt almost embarrassed at her inappropriate counter. It

seemed to communicate an air of unprofessionalism about her, in contrast to

his stoicism. "I'm sorry. Yes, I could use some help. In fact, I wanted

to find Miss Hargen, so could you handle this for me while I go look?"

Hiding any regrets he might have had about his offer, he asserted that the

chief engineer had already come and gone. Kaitlyn was about to repeat her

last exclamation when she stopped herself short. Instead, Kait asked,

"Where did she go?"

"Down to Sciences, I believe," he replied more affably.

"K'tel, is anything up? You're not your normal self." Kaitlyn queried.

"Nothing is 'up'," he emphasized, then walked off in another direction,

completely forgetting about his offer to fix the circuits inside the

malfunctioning console. Still, she presumed that he would remember shortly,

and she left to go find Miss Hargen.

Kait had doubts about whether to visit another department unannounced, but

found that waiting around engineering for her superior would accomplish

nothing. She had some questions about the probe and its expected

performance, and considering that Miss Hargen had spent most of the

quarantine time studying it, she would know best.

As Kait was in the turbolift, her leg began to cramp up, a recurring thing,

but likely nothing to worry about. She ignored the ache, but found it hard

to ignore the sense of foreboding about approaching Cmdr. Hargen. After

all, they had not seen or hardly spoken to each other for ten long days, and

who knows what the Commander's reaction might be at Kait's dropping in.

Kait ventured in, anyway, and was startled to find Janice Hargen right in

front of her. Hargen regained her composure by smiling kindly, as usual,

at

Kait Brennan and asking her what she needed, but Brennan regained composure

by standing more erect, thereby assuming a more formal posture.

Hargen's smile became a serious expression as she waited for Brennan to

finally say what she was going to say.

"I'm sorry to interrupt you, sir... but I was wondering if I could speak

with you for a short moment?"

While saying this, Kait could not rid the image of Hargen's amiable smile.

Janice Hargen was such a nice person. At this last thought, Kait's stomach

knotted in utter revulsion. If people were too nice, it usually meant that

they were hiding their darker side, only waiting until the perfect moment

to

use that ignorance against her, just like her last superior had. People

could be so damned two-faced that it wasn't funny.

It was then that Kait realised that her expression must have turned sour,

but Hargen did not say anything in that regard. She merely responded,

"Sure, what is it?"

However, before Kait could even ask her first question, a beep came through

and Rob Delagi's voice appeared out of nowhere. "Sir, there are multiple

cascade failures taking place in Engineering's computer systems." It was

through the comm badge, but whose comm badge, whether it be Hargen's or

Brennan's, was indeterminable since the two were standing too close together.

Kait already knew what Ensign Delagi was talking about, but Janice looked

somewhat puzzled. Consequently, Kait replied first: "Shut down the V.S.

console's power and I'll be down there shortly. Brennan out."

"Well, I'll have to speak with you later. I have to go," Kait started.

"I'll join you in just a moment, but don't wait on me," Hargen had said.

When Kaitlyn was about to walk away, Hargen added, "And, by the way, you'll

have to explain this one to me once I'm done here."

The last statement was not meant in any chastising manner, but it did not

fail to have that effect. After all, it was Kait's fault that the systems

went haywire, but Janice didn't know that... yet.

Kait left for Engineering, and saw that the console that she had been

working on was still open. Unfortunately, that console was connected to all

of the other Engineering systems and its malfunctioning state transferred

to

the others. So instead of having one console to fix, they'd probably have

to work on all of them.

Hargen arrived a few minutes later, and stood aghast as she stared at the

disarray that her engineering department had quickly fallen into.

Preoccupied with contemplating over Murphy's law, Hargen nearly forgot to

tell Brennan about the staff meeting at 11 tomorrow.

For a while it seemed that Hargen had forgotten to demand an explanation

from Brennan, but in actuality, she was concentrating on getting the

situation under control first. Once there was the opportunity, Hargen asked

her to explain what had happened.

Since no one was the greater critic of Kait than Kait herself, she did not

bother to implicate anyone else in the cause of the cascade failure, and

placed the blame entirely on herself. After revealing this, Kaitlyn's

expression resembled a deer's staring at rapidly approaching headlights.

However, Janice Hargen did not explode as expected, and, in fact, had chosen

not to place blame entirely on her assistant, as her intuition would have

it.

If Kait was not mistaken, her superior seemed to feel sympathy over her

assistant's misfortune. It was a very frustrating episode, considering

that

Kait Brennan spent so much of her energy trying to, not only be the best,

but especially to appear to be the best. As luck would have it, the world

wasn't willing to help out in this endeavour.

-=-Main Engineering--3 Hours Later-=-

At 1900 hours, all the systems were up and running again, and a problem that

took only five minutes to create had finally been solved. Kaitlyn Brennan

decided to retire for the day. Janice Hargen looked as if she should

retire, too, but she made it clear that she had no intentions of doing such.

When Kaitlyn was back in her quarters, she found herself exhausted from

working so many hours that day. She tried to lay down in bed to get some

sleep, but laying down was about all she did. Sleep would not come; so,

instead, she allowed herself to brood over all the things that had gone

wrong in her life, eventually weeping not only for the sorrows her poor

judgment and bad luck had caused, but also from her inability to get some

much-desired sleep. For some reason she still had hope that there would be

a turn in her life for the better, but as time went by, that hope dwindled

and her prayers to the deities went unanswered.

-=-Personal Quarters--Stardate: 47307.30- 08:45-=-

"Cmdr. Hargen to Lt. Brennan."

Kaitlyn awoke with a start, not even realising when she had dozed off.

"Yes?" Kait asked groggily.

"I'm sorry to wake you, but please report to Main Engineering, as soon as

possible."

Janice didn't bother to explain any farther than this, and it probably

wouldn't have mattered since Kait wasn't coherent enough to understand more

than the command: "go." Kait changed out of her rumpled, slept-in uniform

and relied on running her fingers through her hair, as she left, to get the

job done. She left in such a hurry because she already had the notion that

she was late for work. She wiped her eyes and tried to lose the zombie

expression that resulted from just recently waking up.

As soon as she came into Engineering, she was approached by Lt. Cmdr.

Hargen. Brennan did not interrupt as Hargen spoke: "Are you feeling

alright? because the staff meeting has been rescheduled. You overslept for

your shift, and I'll forgive that considering yesterday, but I don't want

you to miss this meeting, Lt."

"Yes, sir. It won't happen again, I promise," Kait replied in what was

meant to be a formal tone, but it simply revealed her drowsiness.

For several moments, there was silence. Then Kait realised that Janice was

waiting on something. _Oh!_ she exclaimed in her thoughts, as she

remembered what she was to say. "Oh, I meant to ask about the probe's

expected performance..."

-=-Observation Lounge=979:03-=-

Kaitlyn had found a small mechanical flaw in the probe's infrastructure that

was expected to take only five minutes to fix, although it took twice as

long. The discovery was almost compensation for her inadequacy earlier

because it showed that she wasn't completely incompetent. After all, Janice

was better acquainted with the electronic side of engineering, and Kait was

more familiar with the mechanical aspect. It all would have been nicer,

however, if it had not made them slightly late for the meeting.

Kait Brennan was almost certain that despite being a few minutes late, there

would be no problem, but when she entered the observation lounge, only to

find it completely filled with a large crowd of people, she began to have

her doubts. It seemed almost as if everybody was waiting on them. Epic

Terrakian sat at the other end of the table, observing everyone in the room.

She wondered if he ever experienced any sort of high from being in a crowd,

whose ambient nature is intensified by sheer number.

Even though Kait liked to have this insight normally, today she simply

wanted to be disconnected from the outside world and escape into her own

little world, where everything was perfect... Concentrating on the idea of

perfect, she found herself staring at a person whose features did not show

any sign of imperfection, besides a bit of a shadow over his visage. The

shadow was not an imperfection, but a telltale sign of his being jaded. His

hair and eyes were dark, and although she normally preferred a lighter hair

color, these very attributes gave him a sophisticated mien.

The young man, who bore the same rank as her, looked up, noticing her

attention to him. Kaitlyn, feeling a moment of embarrassment, looked away

immediately. She chose to concentrate on her hands, in hopes of keeping

a

low profile that was normally so easy to keep.

<OOC: I go from wall staring to palm staring. My dear Kaitlyn has such

intriguing preoccupations...>

Kaitlyn Brennan, Asst. Chief Engineer, USS Grail

Lynne Baillie, "Chief Engineer", USS Trailblazer

ICQ #6664187, IRC Nick (Undernet)--Kestra

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