Searching for a crew (open)

[Anonymous]

Andraste shook her head and rubbed her muzzle, her eyes closed as she sat at a table in a pub of the lower city of Teinar. As much as she loved it down here... She couldn't leave to get more of a crew until she had a pilot and an engineer. Her ship required them the way a newborn required a mother and a father both. She sighed and rapped her claws against the table, the tail that curled around from behind her twitching anxiously. Time was running short, and she was going to make every second of every minute count. In front of her sat a plasma-board, a newer version of what was once called a laptop. It was a single screen that was transparent, but images would pop up across it at her bidding and when she was done with it, she could fold it up into a small metal card that fit in her pocket easily.

Her emerald green eyes scanned the crowd, very few of them seemed like likely candidates for the jobs she needed. The few that did look like likely candidates were completely ignoring her, which she didn't like, but still, she had to find at least a pilot. Those that had previously approached her about the job had been lackluster in the skills she required. If push came to shove, she could fix the ship. She hoped this would get more eventful. Andraste stood up and headed straight back to the hangar, and as she walked up underneath her ship, a Spartan classed armed transport. She began working vigorously on the right lower engine. The engine flared up and the alarm began going off again. She immediately shut it down. Andraste cursed under her breath, walking out and punching the engine once before sitting down nearby.

[Anonymous]

A small form moved in the periphery of vision, shrouded and darkened by the overhang of the great spartan class vessel. Behind her, a graceful, hairless tail ending in a soft tapered tip flicked and wriggled impishly. She wowed, eyes as big as ping-pong balls, ears splayed to each side of her head to frame her face, the points sagging just a little. Tenderly, she put a hand to one of the landing struts, and murmured a soft "Hello", not to anyone but the ship itself. What a machine! But... it wasn't.. humming. She could tell - it was wounded, down, incomplete. It just... broke her heart.

Pheobe wasn't trying to be sneaky - but she was quiet anyhow, knowing this wasn't her ship... but she felt so horrible for it and with it being such a beautiful machine... she couldn't resist! She just had to dig in, had to help this bird and mend its wings. It was her responsibility as an engineer, no, her responsibility as a person!.... At least in her mind.

Planting her hand onto a rail, she vaulted herself up, and into the hatch, making her way into the halls of the great transport.

Not twenty minutes passed... before without warning, a joyful squeal came from inside, and the great hulk came to life, the reactor taking on breath and life with a low thrumming sound. Within, Pheobe checked the instrumentation, mid-victory dance, part of her still wiggling joyfully behind her. Deft hands accessed the control panels one by one, each gentle keystroke bringing up new sheets of information, received by bright eyes that danced on the screen rapidly.

Considering she'd just sat down with the reactor, Pheobe had done alright for the bird so far - Looking at the original schemata, her efficiency was down a couple notches... but she was just getting started after all! It would take some time to refine the kinks out - and by her mind... time wasn't an issue in the least. Hell, she'd already forgotten that this ship didn't belong to her. In her mind, this was a person - people didn't belong to people in her book.

Spreadsheet after spreadsheet, she tracked down a problem - Lower right engine. It was off the network completely - was it GONE or what? She bounced her way toward the hatch again, feet carrying her at a bounding run.

[Anonymous]

Andraste had just completed a very short run for a part when she came back to the engine. She swore she had seen someone nearby, but she dismissed it and went straight to the engine coupling, the missing piece to the equation. She was no mechanic, but it had taken her weeks to figure out what the problem was, a fuel intake valve connecting the engine to the rest of the ship was cracked badly, causing the engine to rupture. She had managed to clean it up, but it was still damaged heavily. As she dug up into it, she heard something inside the ship, moving. She was curious, but a bit perplexed as well. She continued her work, knowing that the needed job of much higher importance than her curiosity. She put it into place, replacing the part easilly. She had used a plasma blade to cut the damaged part out, but now she had to weld it back into place.

Once the part was in place and ready, the engine came to life, allowing her to close the panel and weld it shut again. The engine whirred to life, the screens inside the ship coming back online, indicating the recovery of the engine 4. The reactor was idling, but the engines were all online, and immediately, Andraste felt joy at knowing in a pinch she could fix minor parts of her ship. However, right as she climbed up to the stairs that went to the wide open hatch, she ran into it and immediately stopped, seeing a slender female who had been heading out. "Oh... Hello there." She said softly, blinking.

[Anonymous]

Pheobe stopped midstride like she'd just reached the end of her leash, looking into the control room again - Did number four engine come back on? Holy paint on a paper bag, it did! The blue-cream haired, seemingly elfin female looked back into the hallway to the Dragonlike female that dwarfed her in size a great deal. It wasn't fear in her eyes, though, not the look of a thief or a looter. No, this was balls-out excitement and joy.

"You fixed four! I was about to do that, but it looks like engine four is at sixty percent efficiency, just like that, clear up from nothing - Whatever happened blew the engine clear off the map!" she damn near vibrated, saying all that in one breath.

"Hah! Shes not airworthy just yet, but... Oh." she actually stopped, and remembered - this was not her bloody ship. It probably belonged to the dragonlady.

"Er..." a long, slender tail swished and squirmed behind her nervously, the elflike creature's ears splaying to each side of her head. "Beg your pardon... She just called to me, and I had to answer, see... Poor things got broken wings - cant let that sit, savvy? Its not in my nature. So... Hi, boss!" she said, perking again before bounding back into the control room. It was hard to argue with a person like that.

[Anonymous]

Andraste was a bit surprised, the scale plates on top of her head twitching emphatically. "Do you think you could get her airworthy?" was Andraste's only question. The smaller female seemed interesting, and if she could get her baby airworthy, she might have a job. "You have yourself a job if you can get her airworthy. It took me seven bloody years to get 'er built." She added as she headed towards the reactor room. She needed to check to see if any damage had been done. "Engine Four blew A FUEL INJECTOR... How in hell does one rupture a fuel injector?!" She grumbled to herself as she inspected the subspace generator. She had not gotten it tofunction fully yet, it was more hit-and-miss, but it worked fine when it wanted to.

Hopefully, with the help of the other female, this ship would be flight-worthy in no time. Andraste, after running a quick damage check, headed into the control deck again  where the other girl was. "If you don't mind my asking, what's your name?" she asked politely, She activated the small plasma screen which came up with all of the schematics for the ship. She didn't know what else to ask, the female had just randomly shown up on her ship and tried to fix it. Granted, Andraste was grateful for it, but she was still quite confused. Her eyes trailed around untill she walked over and sat down in the pilot's seat, sighing wearilly. "It's very rare that I find people who understand ships as much as I need them too. Very few are even decent pilots, if pilots at all." She muttered, more to herself than to Phoebe, but she still spoke aloud, and Andraste was more than happy to have someone to talk to.

Her fingers moved over the plasma screen, individual specs coming up. She selected damage levels and the stats showed up. Engines, thirty percent damage; wings, forty percent damage; reactor, ten percent damage; radar, fifty percent damage; life support, ten percent damage... The more Andraste read, the more depressed she became. The fuel injector rupturing damaged her whole fracking ship more than she wished it to. "Da Shiong La Se La Ch'Wohn Tian." she muttered under her breath, rubbing her muzzle again. "This has gone to hell in a handbasket..." She added in the universal language, switching from her native tongue. She sank down and began cursing more in her native tongue, wishing this hadn't happened to her. "Wo Cao... Soh Ya Feh Tian..."

phrases-----
-Da shiong la se la ch'wohn tian = explosive diarhea of an elephant
so ya feh tian = ruined at the last moment.

[Anonymous]

"Do you think you could get her airworthy?"

To which Pheobe did not respond - She was in the control room already, elbows deep in the capacitor terminals, pulling wires and rerouting them to a different configuration. Her bubbly disposition was missing - she was in the zone, her concentration wholly on her work.

"You have yourself a job if you can get her airworthy. It took me seven bloody years to get 'er built."

Pheobe looked up to the Captain with hidden mirth, and obvious admiration and smiled. "Now keep in mind, boss... Flying and Worthy to fly are not the same thing... not in my book. I could get her airborne in a week with the right parts, without breaking a sweat, boss..." she nodded dutifully, clapping some dirt off her hands. "But to have her worthy, to be up to snuff, thatl' take another couple weeks of tender loving care and tuning." Then set right back into it like she didn't have a moment to waste.... with whatever she was doing.

When the captain got to the reactor room, it looked like a warzone at first glance - char marks lined the ceiling and walls, but the gentle, healthy thrum of the reactor met her ears, the thrum of each living pulse in the heart of the ship running through cables deep within, relaying power around freely. Whatever Pheobe had done, the reactor was fit as a fiddle again.

"Engine Four blew A FUEL INJECTOR... How in hell does one rupture a fuel injector?!"

"Well apparently, it was getting a huge surplus of fuel" Pheobe called from the control room. "Huge! I mean... it would have blown damn near anything how much it was getting... And whats REALLY a kick in the head, is its not going anywhere or doing anything - its just plain surplus from the reactor. I wasn't sure what exactly to do with it, so I've cut the reactor back a notch to prevent it from happening again... I mean, by my figuring, the bird can run her subspace generator, all four engines, all weapons systems, and still have enough to blow four to kingdom come - its like... the reactor is two sizes too big, see?"

She was hooking up the capacitor terminal to her liking, how she'd seen it done on many modern ships of the fleet - A modular alternation node! She did so love this style of capacitor management... Everything from a corvette to a capitol ship used this kind of system to manage its energy systems. It was hard, repetitive work, that it was... but being able to shift power where it needed to be without mucking with the reactor directly, that was damn well worth it.

"If you don't mind my asking, what's your name?"

"Avos Delta model 18x000411... but if you call me that, captain, I'll kill you in your sleep." she joked, smiling cheerfully at the female - it was painfully obvious she was joking about that much. "Call me Pheobe... or Phee if you like, boss."

"It's very rare that I find people who understand ships as much as I need them too. Very few are even decent pilots, if pilots at all."

"Well cap'n... I'm no pilot... but I've worked in a shipyard since I woke up not four years ago pretty much damn near constant. Ships got a language, see... and I know it. Being born of the same flesh does wonders for understanding such beautiful machines."

"Da Shiong La Se La Ch'Wohn Tian. This has gone to hell in a handbasket..."

Pheobe actually stopped and looked up, cat-smiling and tailsquirming cheerfully, hearing a language that sparked something... old in her. An old memory, something she heard?

 "Wo Cao... Soh Ya Feh Tian..."

Pheobe moved from her... console of doom... and sat beside the captain on the ground, ears perked high, eyes big. "Juh jen sh guh kwai luh duh jean jan, Cap'n - You made her with your own two hands! I know what its like, believe me... But this was a hard thing to do and you've done it - I've pieced back together old girls in far worse shape than this! Shes almost done - just a bit of loving and she'll be right as rain!"

((This really is a happy day. ))

[Anonymous]

Andraste sighed. "Just a tad too cheerful. By the way, you can call me Andraste, I don't mind." she replied to the mechanist's cheerful attitude. Sitting on the dash of the pilot's seat, however, was a small picture of a group of her race, more than likely her family. She tried not to look at it while she sat in that seat, holding the plasma screen up, monitoring the system recovery. As she did, her eyes closed and she leaned back, turning her muzzle to the ceiling. "I built this ship so I could catch up with my family. Our race fled into space when Earth went to hell, but me and some others were left to ensure that they would make it away safely." She said calmly.

Her voice may have been calm, but her expression wasn't. It was obvious that Andraste was tortured by those memories that she suffered, and though her ship would be her greatest savior, the mechanic would be even more so. "So what about you? What's your story?" She asked politely, smiling kindly. This mechanic seemed special, and Andraste knew now that she wouldn't have gone wrong with this girl.

(Finished)