For When the Work is Never Done

[Jackalope]

Finding the item had been the easy part.

It loomed in empty space, the metal contorted and twisted and the dull flashing of open electronics and lights striking out against the deep black that surrounded it. The stars even seemed faint in this section of the universe, and ǢǷelwulf peered out at it with a deepening frown, his jaw working around a metal nut in his mouth. He crunched it with a sneer, nose crinkling, and the sound cracked like a split jawbreaker in time with his sudden turn, mismatched eyes wild with distaste as he stomped through the ship.

"Of all the bloody jobs…" ǢǷelwulf was a monster of a man, all strong angles and height, deep skinned and scar struck and his voice was no different, a deep rumble of a growl that echoed in his nose when he snorted halfway through, rubbing at his face with the back of one wide hand. He frowned, the expression wrapping around his oversized bottom canines, and stretched his arms wide, cracking his back in time with thumping against an intercom on the hallway walls. "Got eyes on the Rebel. They dinnae mention that the damn t'ing is in pieces though." He grit his teeth as he spoke and rolled around the halves of the nut when he opened his mouth again, the sound of it clicking audibly as he continued, "More than that, its twisted up. Its not gonna be an easy retrieval."

The man sighed, blowing air mostly through his nose, and without waiting for a reply leaned back away from the intercom, long legs already eating up the hallway as he stalked away. Still frowning a bit like someone had shot his favorite puppy, he turned a corner and ran a hand through his rusty red hair, careful to maneuver his calloused fingers around the thick black nubs that split his temples, growing into a set of eerily lobed horns. On the way back down he carefully touched the base of one with the pad of his thumb and his nose scrunched up as he hissed, eyes narrowing. "Dinnae care to take away the pain this time, eh?" He grumbled, seemingly to himself, as he shoved his hands deep into the pockets of his worn out pants, shuffling his boots loudly. He got no reply, unsurprisingly, but the golden line wrapped tightly around the pupil of his left eye flashed in time with a speaking voice, and he tilted his head side to side as though weighing his options, before growling and nodding once. "Yeh, yeh.."

ǢǷelwulf—called Benji for so long that he hardly responded to his own name anymore—turned down another corner and shuffled finally into the bridge, green eyes narrowed and long ears perked as he searched out his partner in crime. "Oi, c'mon then. I am not doing this on my own." Once again refusing to wait for an answer he scuffed his boots again and turned around, the nut clicking and clacking against his teeth as he reached up antsily, tugging at one of the dozen or so earrings dangling messily from his long ears. He rolled the drop for a moment before he reached and tugged a hoop in the other ear, the delicate claw of his finger scraping against the metal. "Hurry up already. I dinnae like this part of space.."

 

[T'Shara]

Morena

Image: http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/memoryalpha/en/images/4/45/Ishara_Yar.jpg



Morena's eyes narrowed at her old friend's words. "Damnit Benji! I'm not just sitting here relaxing for my own health... I'm trying to properly align the grappling hook so that we can pull that thing in without actually having to take a space walk. Would it kill you to be a little more patient?!" In truth she was not that angry, just slightly annoyed. "If you need something to do while waiting, go and clean the fuel injection ports or something! Just let me finish this so we don't lose the part." Morena's scarred and calloused hands glided easily over the computer controls. Her chair was bolted to the floorboard, but it spun to access all of the controls on the bridge. Morena spun it now to access the computer console and type a couple of edits to the grappling robotic arm program.


"There! That … should work... ideally," the Captain muttered, looking up at her first mate, who also happened to be her best and longest friend. She stood next to him and watched the robotic arm pulled the piece towards the ship with near perfect precision. Within a few minutes, the old Capissen Engine was sealed tight in their cargo airlock.


"See what happens when you are a little more patient?" Captain Morena asked, smirking slightly. Pushing a strand of her dirty blonde hear out of her eyes, she looked at him. "Unfortunately, the other half of the job is to repair that piece of junk before we get back to Scana Prime. Meet me down at the cargo bay with your toolkit, will you? We have a lot of work to do."

 

[Jackalope]

"Yeh, it might actually." Benji grumbled in reply, strong arms crossed over a broad chest as he turned to glower over his shoulder at Morena, curling his lip in a sneer as he did. "Injection ports?! You dinnae have any manners, Morena. That is work for the grunts--not for me." He frowned, puffing out his cheeks slightly, and averted his eyes, choosing to ignore the woman completely until the airlock began its hissing song and his booted feet stomped in that direction instead. "We cannae linger here any longer. Dinnae come down to the cargo until we're navigating well out of here--I dinnae trust this sector at all."

Harrumphing as though he'd been personally insulted by not being allowed to escapade out into space, the man strode off towards the cargo hold, not waiting for Morena as he pulled a spare toolkit out of a hole in the cargo hold, frowning intently as he set his attention to the damaged engine. "Ch...." His frown was back in full as he gnawed on the inside of his cheek, the toolkit strung over one shoulder as he began to circle the object, frown growing deeper as his observations continued. "This is not going to be simple work." He announced after a moment, speaking into a headset he'd carelessly slipped over one ear, "There is a lot missing and these wires..." His nose scrunched slightly as he peered at a fizzling line, "I dinnae like this, captain."

He dumped his toolkit and pulled out a tablet, casually tapping in a list of materials and repairs he knew they would need, and scowled as he started to inventory the damage as well, "Something is not right--I t'ink we are dealing with more than the wreck we were told about.. I'm going to get the Jaws of Life--some of this metal is warped beyond repair." He shifted and strode out of the room, sliding into the other room to retrieve the tool in question, but as he went tossed out, "Anyt'ing else I should get?"

 

[T'Shara]

Morena had raised her eyebrows at Benjis protests of waiting being deadly to him, and about cleaning the fuel injection ports. While she was not serious about making him do that annoying job right now, the fact was that there were no "grunts" on this ship to do those kinds of things. With a crew of exactly two, it was a little difficult for a captain to delegate. As far as patience killing anyone... well, Morena had no idea what was up with that destructive worm her old friend had decided to put inside himself. Maybe the idiot could actually die from impatience.

–

After grabbing her own toolkit from her bunk, Morena met her partner in the cargo bay. She stood there for a good five full minutes, just glaring at the thing, walking around it, checking part numbers, viewing it from every angle. Finally, after Benji had returned with the Jaws of Life, she looked up at him.

"I can't fix this. No one could. 'Fixing' it, would mean replacing nearly every part of the engine. Old Marco is better off melting this thing into scrap metal. Help me document this so we can prove to him that we aren't liars. Take as many pictures as you think you need to with your tablet. Once we send them and get his approval back, we will take it apart and look for any salvageable parts, then prepare the rest for melting." With that, she started taking her own pictures and dictating notes to her own datapad. This was going to be another one of those long and tedious tasks that she wished she could delegate.

 

[Jackalope]

The Jaws of Life were really meant to be carried by two men, but Benji carried it over his shoulder with notable ease, his expression nevertheless sour a he entered the room and promptly gave his captain a dirty look. "You could have told me that before I got 'em." He rumbled with a soft sigh before he shrugged the tool of his shoulder and slid forwards with it anyways. "Well let me see if I can't get us a better look inside it at least--this thing s so bloody crushed here you couldn't see if your life depended n it..."

He frowned, shifting, and lined up the tool here the damage was most contorted, carefully prying the metal apart just enough for the worst part of the destruction to be seen. "Wow. If that dinnae shut the man up then nothing will." He crooned, grinning ear to ear before he turned away and walked off, returning the tool to its rightful place before scurrying back, tablet in hand.

The sound of its shutters was loud--he loved that traditional sound--and he was careful to be thorough, alternating lighting for some of the more stubborn places. "I wonder what even happened," He muttered after a moment, flicking on an x-ray filter, "Pretty nasty stuff."

 

[T'Shara]

"I can't tell what happened without more information. There's more debris to salvage, but we should wait until we get a reply from Marco on subspace before trying it. He may want to call the operation off when he sees what condition this thing is in." Morena sighed audibly. If the work was called off, it would mean a serious pay-cut, and they were not doing all that well on bills lately. Sure, there was no rent to pay out here in the middle of outer space with your own craft, but maintenance and fuel costs were no joke.

"It could have been a Goana attack, or any number of devastating accidents. Do you honestly want to hear everything that can go wrong in a ship like this? Our engine model was only one generation down from the Capissen, and judging by the debris out there, this ship may have been pretty similar to our Phoenix here. So let's not go down the road of discussing everything that can happen just accidentally, not to mention through sabotage or outside attack."

Morena kept taking pictures and documenting what was wrong with each engine component with a reasonable thoroughness. After ten minutes or so she spoke to Benji again. "That should easily be enough. Send me your work so I can merge the data and send Marco a report."

 

[Jackalope]

"Dinnae be so grumpy, Morena." Benji whined, sticking his tongue out at her as he finished with the photographs, "I was just musing aloud after all." He shrugged, shuffling past her to interact with a screen on the side of the room and began to type in some of their general findings. "It isn't so bad to be prepared for bad things, right? I dinnae look forward to death by obliviousness."

The man shrugged again and mumbled something to himself, giving a lopsided grin at the answering reply that echoed only in his head. "Sure thing, captain." Benji shifted and pushed a few keys, "The majority is already uploaded to the system, just in case...suppose we should go ahead an' call Marco or just wait for the slow ass to comment on his own?"

 

[T'Shara]

"I know, I know. I'm sorry. I suppose I'm just a little stressed right now. We need this payoff, but we aren't going to get even half the money if all Marco can get out of this is scrap metal. He's a... relatively honorable guy, compared to most of the lowlifes we deal with, so he'll pay our costs, but not much more," Morena apologized while she merged her data with Benji's own. "Let him comment on his own. He doesn't like to be rushed, and he'll be taking a loss at this too. His own anger will probably speed up his response at that."

"Besides, I'm hungry. Let's whip up some tasty protein and vitamin rations for dinner while we wait," Captain Morena offered with a smirk. Most of the food they had was space rations... because they were cheap. The reason they were cheap? No one in the galaxy wanted to eat the horrid things.