Ens. Nolen Hobart — Muggy Maintenance

[Nolen Hobart]

((The Billable Hours, Shuttlebay 2, USS Arrow))

Gott: Atraxia, my digital assistant, really handles all of that for me...you'll have to be quite careful nosing around down there.  There could be...I don't know...wires...I suppose.  And I've got some very valuable items in my private storage hold...and in the ship's vault....and of course in the secondary vault.  Can't let you into those without a signed and notarized ND&NJA - non-disclosure & non-judgement agreement.  

The Starfleet man took a moment of pause and brought his little beeping box up to his chest.  

Hobart: I'll be discreet, Doc. Just going to look at your comms array and power systems. Your ship and ours aren't getting along, and, if we can't sort that out, I'll have to keep them separated.

Gott shrugged and plastered on his most innocent smile.  He didn't take this young man as a stickler for interstellar commerce regulations but there was no reason to push his luck.  With a tap on the gilded padd hidden within his coat he had Atraxia go to maximum security around the cargo hold anyway.  Just to be sure.  The lift dinged to a stop and they walked into the uninteresting engineering space that ran the length of the ship where the lights came up automatically.  Dozens of smiling golden Gott's smiled back at them, lighting their way along the corridor as they walked in.  Gott decided to put himself on more familiar ground.  

Gott: So Mr. Toesmart, you seem like a young man - new to Starfleet?  Is it everything those saccharine recruiting posters promised?  

Nolen tried to avert his gaze from the lighting fixtures which, to his eyes, bore a striking resemblance to buttocks. Combined with the strange smell of the place, he really didn’t want to give it too much thought. But as they roamed deeper into the ship, Nolen was forced to realize that, aside from the smell and the butt-lights, the ship was quite pleasant.

All his life he’d lived within artificial atmosphere and artificial gravity, in environments cool and dry and reassuringly antiseptic. But here on this virtual slice of Ferenginar, Nolen was confronted by new sensations of a kind he never imagined to find aboard a starship.

The engineer held his tricorder up to a wall and identified the power relays hidden behind a mess of pipes and ventilation conduits. He began to measure, and, with measured footsteps, followed the power systems along their covert route.

Hobart:  ::focused on the readings:: Wouldn’t know, Doc, I grew up Starfleet…-ish.  Not many posters in my neck of the woods. They lay it on heavy?

Gott chuckled tonelessly to himself as they made their way further in.  

Gott:  Oh yes those Starfleet Recruiters are even set up on their little space station out there.  I see the holo-posters on my way to the office every day...always bright eyed young people like yourself staring off at the unknown horizon, chasing adventure or...'intellectual fulfillment,' whatever that's supposed to be.  ::Gott made a rude, dismissive noise.::  They'd be better off joining the Ferengi Commerce Fleet...at least then they'd learn the value of personal profit.  

Ensign Hobart pulled his tricorder away from the wall and considered the Ferengi psychologist for a moment. Were all Ferengi ships like this on the inside? With mushy floors and hazy air, smelling of… something, and illuminated by mounted golden tochuses. Or was it just this one man’s pleasure yacht?

Hobart: Personal profit would get in the way of Starfleet’s operational priorities, wouldn’t it?

Clicking his teeth together in annoyance that wasn't entirely feigned, Gott shook his head and spoke like a parent speaking to a clever pet or a slow child.  

Gott:  Starfleet spends a lot of time teaching you people how to contribute to the greater whole, which is all very noble...but it doesn't seem to spend much time teaching you how to enjoy yourself.  Or how to foster relationships....or find yourself a mate....or have children!  Do you know I've heard that the majority of your senior officers aren't married and have no heirs?  Absolutely nobody to pass on their possessions to when the time comes!  Dreadful!  Absolutely dreadful!  

Nolen turned back to his tricorder, and made a frowny face. He then began to look around for any sign of the Billable Hours’s communications array. Usually such equipment could be found toward one extreme end of the ship or another, but usually starships weren’t made of flying swamp.

Hobart:  We don’t have much in the way of personal possessions anyway, so, I suppose not having heirs is not so big a tragedy. ::snapping the tricorder closed:: The problem isn’t your EPS frequency. So it’s probably the comms. Free advice, though, you might want to improve your insulation, or cut down on the standing water. Or both.

Gott: Response?

Nolen shrugged, and started walking in the indicated direction.

Hobart: First subspace eddy you bump into causes a big enough slosh, you’re liable to electrocute yourself. I can tell you from personal experience— best avoided. I understand your reticence, though, this is a nice change from the standard Stafleet environment.

Gott: Response?

As they approached the quiet end of the Ferengi ship’s subspace transceiver, Nolen reopened his tricorder. But his mind was elsewhere, reflecting on the air inside a Starfleet ship. It had seemed natural to him, like a fish having no concept of “wet” without “dry.” The only change in temperature or climate, really, came from his time at the Academy, and even then he was mostly indoors.

Hobart: Oh, sure! It’s lovely. On Starfleet ships, the air’s so dry you’d get constant nose-bleeds if it weren’t for your frozen nostrils. But warmth and humidity come with sanitary issues, and it’s much easier to run a starship cold and dry than it is to fight a constant war against disease. 

Gott: Response?

Nolen stared at his readout and frowned. He’d hoped to find a problem he could fix, something mal-aligned within Gott’s communications array. But everything on Gott’s ship seemed to be working properly (for now), and the issue was more fundamental: Federation starships were capable of shutting out a great deal of noise from the outside, but when a powerful signal originated from within the ship’s own cargo bay, that was a different beast entirely.

Hobart: Okay, Doc, do you want the good news or the bad news first?

Gott: Response?

TAG/TBC

———

Ensign Nolen Hobart

Engineering Officer

USS Arrow (NCC-69829)

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