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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