Lt. JG. Gnai - Take The Lead, O Engineer!
Lich
((Main Engineering, Deck 15 - USS Artemis-A))
Without the usual assistance from Lt. Cmdr. Salkath, Gnai found itself reaching out to Ens. Imril for help with its standard suit check-in and repairs. This most recent mission had strained it harder than it had expected, especially since it hadn’t had a chance to tinker and fix problems from the previous mission either… So now here it was, in one of the smaller rooms of the Engineering bay, hoping that the ensign it had approached would be up to the task.
Gnai: Well, the most pressing issue that this observed was wear on the leg joints. ::pointing to them:: After countless hours of hiking, and pollen contamination, they’re not responding as effectively to inputs as in the past.
Imril: My team was tracked by a pack of semi-intelligent flowers. When one of the Da’al soldiers approached them, they defended themselves with a cloud pollen strong enough to knock them down for a while. Doctor Sadar said the residue left on their body was chemically similar to capsaicin. Was your team exposed to pollen like that? I ask because capsaicin is alkaline.
That sounded… somewhat similar, didn’t it? It had all been a blur, running from the encroaching plants, and trying not to hurt its compatriots after the pollen had burst.
Gnai: Oh, yes! Exactly that. They were… ::pausing to think for a second:: Niburian sunflowers? Perhaps? This recalls Commander Jovenan mentioning the similarity to capsaicin.
Imril: Alkaline corrosion would, in this case, result in the formation of metallic salts in the nooks and crannies where the pollen settled. The suit’s leg joints would start grinding against them, adding erosion to the corrosion.
Sensible, of course. It had suspected that to be the case, especially with how the joints had started to feel worse for the wear far beyond what it had anticipated to be their proper lifetime.
Gnai: ::flexing one of the suit’s leg joints, with a slight bit of a sound of metal scraping over metal:: Yes, this has noticed the wear…
Imril: Uh, sorry if I’m telling you things you already know. I’m just thinking through a methodology for finding the source of the problem. Are any particular joints giving you problems? Or is it more of an all-around issue?
Gnai: Don’t worry, it’s reassuring to hear you think this all aloud. ::bobbing in its tank:: It’s all around, as you said. But more in the leg joints… The ones that are analogous to knees? And the… ankles?
The legs had taken the brunt of the pollen, as had the tank, but the arms of the suit had been far less contaminated, luckily. They had far less wear, and gave fewer complaints than the lower extremities.
Imril: Response
But it couldn’t hurt to check them over, of course.
Gnai: Yes, the arms too could use an eye, perhaps… Just to be safe. It wouldn’t do for them to lock up on an away team all of a sudden. That could prove disastrous.
Imril: Response
Gnai: Let this know how it can help with diagnosis and repairs. You’re the expert here.
It gestured with the arms of its suit, opening them wide to try and demonstrate that it was open to anything here, no matter how radical. Whatever it was told by the ensign, it would follow, because it was far out of its depth in this realm.
Imril: Response
Tags/TBC :)