<OOC: Work and Play, as opposed to Silence and Noise. :) Also, I just have to say, I loved that post by Kyp Firespray.. and I like the name, too, coz Kyp does sound like a child’s name :) And I’m surprised to see DeMontigny on the Grail, this should be interesting :) Enough of the personal comments, on with the post...>

After Kait made her say about Charon and Bryant, she sat down. Castle tapped his comm badge and started dictating orders to certain members of security. Kait looked at him quizzically, but he merely held up his pointer finger as if to tell her to wait. Kait wasn’t so sure she cared to hear anything he had to say. But after he was done, he proceeded to give the background of the two engineers. He presented it all in the most unpleasant light possible, even giving conjectures which almost sealed Ensign Bryant’s doom. It was entirely possible that one of the engineers was a saboteur, but she found it to be highly unlikely. In fact, everyone had assumed that the defect was, without a doubt, sabotage. Kait was determined now to prove that it was not sabotage.

Just so that Kait couldn’t point all this out as guess-work, Castle said so himself. Kait hid her frustration at this, and said, "I am just not certain arresting them was the right way to do it."

Castle argued against this, then even suggested that a yellow alert should be sounded on the basis of this being considered sabotage. He said, "I will personally inspect the fractured tank. I’ll need a Forensics Specialist to assist me."

Kait was ready to leave at this. She might as well have said nothing for all the regard it was given. Her requests being ignored was something she was very used to. She was used to it in the sense that it had happened to her a lot, but not in the sense that she didn’t get angry over it anymore. At least he would do the work for her. She would’ve searched for signs of sabotage herself, if Castle had not offered. She only hoped that he didn’t ‘bend’ the facts he did find at the warp reactor. Kait offered no help in light of this, and decided that if he came up with unsatisfactory information, she would make claims that he was unqualified to make judgments about the state of engineering equipment, which was clearly out of his field of knowledge.

She didn’t need to deal with him now, but she would later. She was ready to walk out that door, and that’s the only thing she was thinking about.

Without warning, Janice Hargen spoke up, and addressed Castle, "If you don’t mind, Lt. Castle, I would like to interject for a moment. Firstly, I did not appreciate your complete overruling of my assistant’s request ‘that disciplinary actions’ be left to the engineering department..."

Kait was overjoyed at hearing this from Janice. Someone had heard her, and even respected her wishes. It was about time! Janice wouldn’t allow Castle to have one over anyone in Engineering, and that meant defending her assistant and two of her officers, Charon and Bryant. Kait was glad to be included in that team and to be respected. She looked over at Janice and could see that Janice respected her.

Not being deterred from her desire to leave the meeting room, Kait was the first to walk out the meeting room’s doors, but she did so not out of embarrassment as she had expected she would earlier, but out of pure determination to get all this under wraps, and with her confidence completely intact.

She stepped inside the turbolift practically before anyone had stepped foot out onto the bridge. "Deck 9," she requested. Instinct told her this would be a wise decision, even if at the moment it looked like it would be a big mistake.

Kaitlyn walked down the corridors heading towards the detention center, paying little attention to the blinking lights illuminating off the bulkheads, indicating that the ship was at yellow alert. It seemed a bit ridiculous for there to be all this hype, but if the commanding officer seemed to think that there was a need for it, then there was no point in bothering to rationalize the reasons for or against the alert.

Upon reaching the detention center, she stood in front of the doors, and in an instance they opened. Two security officers could be seen standing in front of a console facing several cells. Kait’s eyes fell down to the phasers that rested in their side holster. Then she looked up at the one closest to her and said, "I am acting chief engineer, and I would like to have a moment with my officer."

The other one seemed about ready to object, but the one she had addressed prevented him from saying anything by saying first, "Yes, sir." Kait stood in front of the cell with Ensign Bryant inside, and the security officer lowered the force field to allow her entry.

Bryant took this as a chance to barge out of the containment cell and nearly knocked Brennan down onto the ground. It was a plainly futile attempt at escape. The two security officers held their phasers up, pointing it at him, and ready to fire if he continued his attempt to flee.

"Jerome!" Kaitlyn exclaimed. The way in which she had used his first name made her sound rather like a scolding mother, but it served well to grab his attention in his otherwise distracted state. She grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him, saying, "What is wrong with you!" Softness wouldn’t get through to him, so harshness it must be. He tried to break free from her grasp, but Kaitlyn’s grip was too strong. Giving up, he slumped to the ground and began to weep like a rejected child. She could neither talk to him or offer comfort. He was far beyond such contact. So she knelt down, and merely waited until the worst of his outbreak was over. When his sobs subsided, he asked, "Do you know what it feels like to be completely empty inside?"

Kaitlyn spoke much more softly in comparison to before. She explained solemnly, "It is not emptiness you feel, or you would not feel such sadness. It is what is left in your heart that you still feel." He seemed to barely comprehend what she meant, but rather he sat on the deck seemingly contemplating it.

With the silence, Kait stood up from her kneeling position, and held out both of her hands to help Bryant stand up, too. As Bryant stood up, the second security officer, the one who was wary about letting Brennan see Bryant, made motions to indicate for Bryant to re-enter the cell. Bryant did so, and Kait remained in front of the cell. The officers tapped their comm badge and communicated inaudibly with someone at the other end. Kait ignored this and turned her attention back to Bryant.

"Why did you do this, Bryant? It’s only going to make things look worse on you."

"Does it matter? I’ve already lost."

Kaitlyn thought that maybe he was referring to the loss of his wife, and meant that he already lost in life. "What do you mean you’ve already lost?"

"They already think I was the one who sabotaged the warp reactor, what’s to make them think otherwise?" Obviously, she had been thinking in too broad of a sense.

"A lack of evidence, perhaps?"

"Evidence? Since when did they need that..."

Kaitlyn wished he wouldn’t be so negative, but then again. how could she blame him? He had no reason to be positive, so why should he?

"Since Starfleet regulations have been the law of the land," Kait countered.

Just then Lt. Castle walked inside the detention center, and glanced briefly over at her, then walked up to the two ensigns and spoke with them. The two security officers spoke confidentially to Castle, apparently explaining Bryant’s escape attempt. Kait would do everything she could to save him, but he would owe a lot to her afterwards. Kaitlyn looked back over at Bryant, as if to tell him to not say a word. Bryant went to the back of the cell and sat down, removing himself from the situation.

Kait walked up to Lt. Castle and said in Bryant’s defense, "Don’t think too harsh on him, Lieutenant. His actions were purely emotional and unrelated to our engineering problems. I think there needs to be a counselor to take care of him, not a security officer interrogating him."

"There will be a counselor present, but don’t think he’s going to get out of an interrogation, especially after this escape attempt," Castle responded.

"Tell me, do you really think any man in his right mind would try to escape in such an impossible situation?"

"No one said he needed to be in his right mind to perform sabotage," he retorted.

Kaitlyn thought about this for a moment. He was right, unfortunately, and things were starting to look bad. Then she said finally, and bluntly, "No one said it was sabotage, sir."

Kait didn’t wait for him to say more, and walked out of the detention center. She didn’t look back and didn’t stop until she was inside a turbolift. "Main Engineering," she requested.

Upon reaching Engineering, she walked, letting her irritation show less, over to the console in front of the warp reactor and began a scan of the coolant tanks. While the scan was running, she checked the computer logs, looking at all those who had logged into Engineering between the time of the first scan, which was taken in preparation of the meeting, and the scan which Janice Hargen had taken during the meeting. The computer showed that the only two people to log in at this particular besides her, were Ensign K’tel and Ensign Elizabeth Wilson. No sign of Charon nor Bryant. But this would not be proof enough. In fact, it was none at all, because she was looking at the wrong thing.

"Computer, give me a list of all engineering personnel in the aft section of main engineering between the times of 1900 hours yesterday and 1100 hours today."

The computer took a moment to respond, then it began listing off, "Ensign K’tel, Lieutenant Brennan, Ensign Ladun, Lieutenant Prynne, and Commander Hargen."

Kaitlyn kept these names in mind, excluding herself and Hargen, then looked back down at the console. She looked through the computer’s logs of this and checked for tampering. If anyone would find the secret trails of deletion, it would be her. Kait knew all the tricks in the book when it came to altering computer information; perhaps, it made her a bit cocky. The logs did show that Ensign Ladun had to try logging on three times before getting his password correct. Poor Ladun, he didn’t seem too bright of a fellow. And Lieutenant Prynne was logged on to the station for a total of 78 seconds; hardly worth logging on at all, and certainly she couldn’t have done anything there in that short amount of time. However, besides all this petty information, Kait saw nothing that indicated tampering. Quite a surprise, for Kait was ready to tamper the logs herself if the person who did, didn’t do it well enough. Kait was determined to discipline whoever it was herself, if the need arose. She didn’t need an interfering security officer for misguided engineers. However, this would not be needed, and she was ready to allow anyone to look for themselves at these logs, and make their own judgments.

Kaitlyn had thoughts of organizing or even secretly guiding the investigation, or at the very least, be present during it. However, she simply left Main Engineering and made her quarters, more specifically, an almost untouched bed, her primary destination. She walked towards the exit of main engineering. Sleep would be easy, and there was no cause of worry, now that her suspected engineers would be out of danger for the time being.

Kait walked down the corridors, looking for the nearest turbolift... She

would’ve liked to further her scans to determine if it was sabotage. Just

then Kait realized that she had left the scan running unattended.

Kait rolled her eyes at herself, and walked all the way back to Engineering, then all the way back to the warp reactor computer console. The scan was still running, and still had about twenty minutes until it would be finished.

There really wasn’t much to do in those twenty minutes, and she was positively exhausted. Oh, if she made it all this time on practically no sleep, she could make another, lousy twenty minutes. Well, she really did need to find something to occupy herself, at least. But what?

Maybe she should go do something to wake herself up, like splash some water in her face. Or maybe she could fix up her quarters. Go to the holodeck, ten-forward, crawl around the Jeffries tubes for the heck of it, or just wander around the ship aimlessly. Maybe she could randomly go talk to people. Or she could give people jobs to do. Oh, nevermind about that last thought; it would require too much thinking. How about going to that interrogation? No, she was sure Hargen would do her best to help Bryant and Charon. Kait was certain that Hargen didn’t want to see her engineers taken away any more than Kait did. None of the possibilities intrigued her... they all took more energy than Kaitlyn felt like exerting at the moment. So she thought about something else. such as the list of names the computer had given... Lt. Prynne. She was already aboard? How interesting. Kait glanced around engineering, looking for her cousin. A few moments later she spotted Kestra. Kessie was, to be sure, a few years older than her, yet she looked every bit younger than her. Kaitlyn grimaced at this.

Perhaps it was because her hair was much, much longer than Kait’s merely shoulder-length hair, and she did not tie it completely back like Kait did. Kestra was paler, her face showed much less stress, and more innocence than Kait’s. Something more notable was the fact that Kestra looked very much more Betazoid, too.

But one thing they did have in common was the family’s green eyes, which was very common on the maternal side of the family. It seemed that females in the family were genetically predisposed to having green eyes, though the laws of genetics never admitted such a possibility.

Prynne looked up and noticed Kait’s observation of her work.

"Sir?" Prynne looked at her inquisitively. Kait was almost certain that Kestra didn’t recognize her. But she had no way of knowing. Prynne turned back towards her work, and paid her no more mind. At least for the time being, Kait hoped. She wanted to get to know Kestra a little better, in the future.

Kait looked back down at the scans to see how much longer it would be. Ten minutes. She was starting to go crazy waiting for this scan to finish, and was ready to walk out on it, not caring what the result was. Instead, she stood there placidly. Some of the people in Engineering were working in pairs or groups... very few were working alone. Kaitlyn always worked alone. It was kind of a depressing thought. No one ever really paid her much mind, and the ones who did pay attention to her, most of the time, were busy with their own life to help matters any. It was getting kind of lonely down here, and she wondered if she did want to return to her quarters after the scans were finished... no one would be there. And going to places like ten-forward, where lots of people were, simply wasn’t the answer. Being there only served to remind her of how alone she was...

What had caused this change in her train of thought? It was quite depressing, indeed. There were more important things at hand, and she couldn’t seem to concentrate on them. Subjects such as this kept intruding upon immediate matters. More importantly, Kait didn’t want to become desperate from her loneliness. In fact, she kept reminding herself, she was every bit as well off independently as she could be with someone. Why did she desire to be dependent on someone when all it promised was interference in her life? Obviously, her priorities were misplaced.

Okay, time to get off that train of thought, she told herself. Kait returned to thinking about the list of names... K’tel, Brennan, Ladun, Prynne, and Brennan, it had been. Kait was quite impressed with K’tel, and quite unimpressed with Ladun. However, she couldn’t make judgments about Ladun in this short amount of time, because it would be improper to do so.

Kait thought about K’tel and began to wonder if maybe he had a little Vulcan

in him from the way he acted, but according to what she knew about him, he

was pure Klingon, not a mix at all.

Mixes were quite common among the "less important" starships, she noticed. A mix was something Kait was herself. She felt a bit ashamed of that, and yet when she looked at Kestra, she felt that maybe she should be proud of that heritage. Sometimes her Betazoid empathic powers was useful, and other times, it was purely interesting. observing moods and emotions made for a more complete picture, and Kait wasn’t sure what she would do if she ever lost that sense. Sure, she would go on. but how boring of a life that would be! But wouldn’t it have been better to be full Betazoid? There must be a wealth of thoughts she was missing out on. It was once said that you couldn’t miss something you have never known—or however it goes... but Kait felt that she did miss being able to have this sense.

Well, there was no use wishing to be anything but what you are... after all, how could she possibly control the selection of the parents who had borne her? If she could have, it probably would’ve saved her a world of trouble in her childhood... She remembered how many times she regretted having to be related to her family, but then again, perhaps having an imperfect family was better. It sure did make her look better.

A flashing light on the console caught Kait’s attention. "Scan complete," is what it read.

Kait examined the information... It was true; there was a minute fracture in the coolant tanks. Going into warp would’ve likely increased that fracture, and the coolant tank would then rupture. It shouldn’t take much work to repair it, and not much time at all either. Kait walked up to Lt. Prynne, and asked, "Do you, by any chance, know where I can find a multi-functional phase inverting thingamabob?"

Kestra looked up at her and laughed. "Kait! Why didn’t you come over here earlier!" she exclaimed, smiling warmly at her.

"Umm, because I didn’t need a multi-functional phase inverting thingamabob until just now," Kait replied mockingly.

"Oh, okay, I see now." Kestra Prynne stood up, and addressed Kaitlyn.

"Okay, I’ll help you find one."

"You better," Kait replied smartly.

"Or else?"

"Or else... or else..." Kait could think of nothing. Then said, without thinking, "Or else I’ll spread rumors about your love affair with the first officer."

Kestra looked stricken, and then exclaimed sarcastically, "Yeah right! And do you actually think anyone would believe that?! What drugs have you been doing, girl?"

"Who are you calling girl, little one?"

Kaitlyn and Kestra continued on with their playful banter, not really getting any work done, but having a world of fun, nonetheless.

<OOC: Okay, since no one loves Kaitlyn and they’re willing to leave her all by herself in engineering, and ignore her everywhere else, I guess she’ll have to resort to conversing and playing with the lowly NPC’s. ;) And, gee, doesn’t that last line really sound like Tolkien? Oh well... I’ll leave y’all alone now.. Laters :) >

=/\= "It is not emptiness you feel, or you would not feel such sadness..." =/\=

Kaitlyn Brennan, Asst. Chief Engineer, USS Grail

Lynne Baillie, Chief Engineer, USS Trailblazer

ICQ #6664187, IRC Nick (Undernet)--Kestra or Krysta‘

=/\= "It is what is left in your heart that you still feel." =/\=