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A group of drones floated around Alec, monitoring the mechanic to ensure he didn’t get in anywhere he wasn’t supposed to be while forcibly making him walk by prodding his back.
With that all done, he went back to work. No threats, no nothing.
Alec spit in his cup and replaced the cap, screwing it on before sliding it back into his pocket. His head tilted for a moment, a clear sign he was getting a communique Quinn couldn’t hear, not that he was paying attention to him. He grumbled as he walked off, smacking at a drone, “Watson, get that blasted music off.”
Alec grumbled further at whatever reply he received, pulling a thing of wax out of his toolbox. The item rolled behind him, levitating as he moved. Slipping it into his ears, he left Quinn, who’d shifted his attention back to his work.
KIRA
Kira knew she was going to have to listen or destroy her own speakers based on the report of the situation. Watson had the personal interface to relay anything pertinent, but she didn’t mind the music. It might have been loud and intrusive, but it drowned out her other thoughts as she took another sip before the glass clinked down again on the metal tray that was next to her.
Deciding to make her way down after a few more slow swallows, the pounding in her head from the music overrode her usual sensibilities when there wasn’t alcohol involved.
Watson was her conscience, Captain, I would advise against this.
“Yeah yeah.”
Captain, his voice repeated. Instead of keeping the general tone of indifference most A.I.’s carried, he sounded irritated.You promised to keep things civil.
“I’m going to be civil,” Kira said as she worked her way down through the ladders that were a part of the manual override system. There were still ways to move about without having to actually go through any of the doors with security systems. It was difficult, and one needed to have insider knowledge of the ship that was almost impossible to memorize.
It took her until the Beatles came over the speakers to pop down from the ceiling. An irksome grinding noise echoing as the hatch gave way a fine layer of rust sprinkling like pixie dust downward. Yanking the ladder, it fought against being extended. Every inch was an effort. Deciding on using her body weight instead of fighting, she hung onto the rungs, then hopped on the bottom one. It gave her a whole three feet in a room with twelve-foot ceilings. Monkey barring the last handle she landed on her feet, heavily, swaying into a standing position.
The engine room no longer looked like her engine room. A massive amount of drones circled in a symphony of timed reactions. Panels were laid flat on the ground after being removed from the walls. Stripped wires in assorted shapes and sizes littered sections along the side walls, a larger drone grasping them and throwing them onto a transport.
Grudgingly admitting it was impressive beyond that she noticed the amount of changes he enacted in but a few hours. The room was the same shape, but literally, everything inside had been gutted. While they were in Eikos station, the ship was being powered by the external feed that made sure the life support, gravity, and other systems all stayed online while the reactor was being worked on. He isn’t just updating the reactor. It looks like he’s going to do a complete overhaul of the ship; she thought.
Toke was correct. Quinn was the sort of genius that Paradigm would have exploited without looking back. She remembered how they operated, as she’d done some work with Paradigm once upon a time in order to relocate some supplies.
Or at least she’d called it relocating. They may have called it something else.
Cheeks flushed from the exertion of the journey down through the manifold pipes and something else, she started forward, each step carefully placed. Had she been a little less under the influence, she might have avoided some of the grease that rubbed off on her clothes, and the line on her cheek, but she’d not been paying much attention and she didn’t wash her own laundry. Taking a few settling breaths, she gingerly stepped around one of the smaller drones working on a piece of the wall next to where she’d landed, taking off at an uneasy walk, one hand on the wall to find the culprit of her current mood.
Locating him, she watched Quinn absently pop a gum bubble as he ripped out the transformer array that currently powered the ship’s non-essential systems. The new one he’d fabricated was a quarter of the size. Slapping it in, and bolting it, he cracked his back, stretching before he started stripping and connecting wires. His gruff voice parroted the song. He didn’t sound very good, but at least he was on key.
“Quinn?”
She caught the exhale through his nose. His eyes closed before he looked down at her. They were electric blue, illuminated by an unnatural light that came from behind the iris. Like electricity powered his very sight. It struck her as funny to wonder if in complete darkness he could be used as a flashlight.
It reminded her of Toke’s warnings to treat him kindly. While he may not be capable of blowing up her ship, yet, he could certainly blow up Toke’s at the moment. With that in mind she backed down from responding with equal zeal to the ‘what’ he sent her way and kept herself from cackling.
Hands on her hips, her position denoted power, but being looked down upon did not aid her in making herself appear more than she was.
“Look, O’Malley can be stiff about what’s been his home for some time, but he needs to make some structural repairs while we’re in dry dock. I’ve asked him to stay out of your way as best as possible and work in different locations, but he cannot do that if he’s locked out of every area.”
It was as close to a please as he was going to get. Her tone had been cordial, overly polite maybe. The slight making her a little more pleasant than she might have been before.
“I, strictly speaking, don’t have an issue with that. However-“ He gritted his teeth as each word left his mouth like he tore them out. “He would waste his time. Ta accommodate yer new engines, I am going to have to repair and reinforce any structural weaknesses myself. So anything he does, I will likely wind up having to redo, anyway.”
“Well, at least turn off the music then, so I can think long enough to figure out how to explain this to him.” She rubbed at her pounding temples.
Watson came over in her ear. Mr. O’Malley is pacing in the mess hall.
Gritting her teeth, mimicking Quinn, she was going to grind them into nubs by the time this was all over. Kira could already feel it happening. She shook her head minutely at Watson, both at him simultaneously warning her and giving her Alec’s location. Quinn barely did anything to the man, and he was already under his skin.
“Ya know, when I got on the ship and learned people were still around, I gave yer fekking A.I. the ability to control the volume, hoping it would lead to me not having any conversation about it.” Reaching up, he rubbed at the bridge of his nose. “If I let your A.I. control the music in the crew living quarters, will you and yer mechanic stay in them? All I fekking want is to be left alone. I don’t even think I am being unreasonable here.”
Her mouth pressed together in a thin line, and the little sway she made on her feet either denoted she was about to vomit or she’d been dizzy for a second. She’d not reached for anything to stabilize herself, knowing the nauseating feeling came from hearing him talk like he’d been the most polite creature on the Eikos at the moment.
