Ensign Doz Finch - Here Lies Doz
Doz Finch
((Jefferies Tube Junction 1, Deck 9, USS Gorkon))
((Timestamp: Some days before the Cyrithra Forest Party))
Murphy called them crawlways—Doz called them tubes. Can you walk through them? He’d said. Well no you obviously can’t, she’d retorted, eyes rolling back with propeller-speed. Then it’s a crawlway, isn’t it, he’d laughed. You call it a crawlway, Murph–said Doz–and I’ll call it as I see it: a tube! The truth was that both of those words were correct and it really didn’t matter, but taunting each other was part of their routine. Part of the covenant of their friendship. Murphy had to prod her a few times, and she had to prod back, and through the exchange, miracles happened; relays found themselves repaired, pipes reconfigured, conduits realigned.
Murphy was excellent with fiddly engineering. He had the eyes for it, which made up for his shoddy hearing. All it had taken for his eardrums to kick the bucket was ten minutes next to a warp core testing site at the Utopia Planitia Shipyards; like many young and arrogant men, in an attempt to seem indestructible, he thought he was too good for his ear plugs and soon found himself in a Martian Medical Centre, ears bleeding like two faulty taps. A docking of academy points later–as if that bothered him–and a redo of the standard operating procedures class, and both he and his hearing were as right as rain, or so he made out. But Doz begged to differ. She wasn’t sure if it was simply part of his act–a smallprint in their covenant–or if his ears genuinely were never the same. Either way his what? and say that again? was always expertly timed whenever he didn’t want to hear something, and often came laced with a cheeky grin.
Finch shook herself out of reminiscing with a lilted chortle and finalised her work on a conduit replacement; a simple bit of maintenance that she could do in her sleep—or in her few and far between naps, anyway. Sleep was a foreign concept in her world that not even an electric shock could subdue her into, as her colleagues Gnaxac and Vylaa had already seen. Mundane work–like a conduit replacement–felt bittersweet. The right amount of it allowed her time to think of improvements, and to consider other tasks on her usually self-inflicted long list of things to do. But too much of the same encouraged complacency, eliciting a syndrome of flashbacks. Memories within which past versions of herself frolicked freely, without the knowledge of what was coming. Younger Doreen’s, all strong in their beliefs that their current selves had seen and heard it all—and how wrong they were.
Finch: There we are. Nice and sturdy. ::she squeezed the cover holding the conduit relay firmly, and nodded knowingly:: That should do it for a good while.
Her knobbly knees pressed awkwardly against the cold floor of the jefferies tube, and she reattached her patchy hyperspanner to her belt, propped her PADD into her mouth, then shuffled her way through it with tiny scritch-scratch movements. Her white speckled hair jittered in tow, along with her little breaths, as if she were a mole digging herself a finicky but fine new home. Few noises and smells tickled the pinprick hairs of her nose to begin with, other than that which was typical. The occasional scent of warm circuits, woollying the narrow space around her, and that all too familiar humming sound, creating its classical metallic hymn. Though eventually she began to smell the creamy musk of coffee, hearing the distant witter of voices along with it, which wasn’t impossible—It was deck nine, so the Brew Continuum lingered somewhere below. Or was it in front of her? Or to the side of her? And if so, what side? Her teeth unclamped the PADD, and within seconds, a schematic of the jefferies tubes was illuminated in front of her, her brown eyes squinted hard at it.
Onward she wriggled till she eventually came to a junction, which was all she needed right now. At every angle stood entryways to different tubes; vertically, horizontally, north, east, west, south. Just her bloody luck. Her beady eyes honed in on her PADD, which started to resemble more of a parallelogram, than the neatly organised tubes that stood before her.
Her face grimaced as she peered over the edge of the junction, trying to decipher the downwards direction and where it would lead. Knowing her luck, it would be straight into a depressurized airlock.
Her lips thinned. It was a funny thought, but she wouldn't give in to it. Not right now. Not here. No; it wouldn't do, to laugh.
Finch: Computer, love, where am I?
Computer: You are on deck nine.
Finch: Yes, yes, I know that, but where exactly am I?
Computer: On the USS Gorkon that is currently in orbit of the planet Palanon.
Finch: You think you’re funny, don’t you?
Computer: Specify?
Finch: I said, you think you’re fun-forget it! ::she inhaled sharply through her nose:: Computer. What jefferies tube is this precisely?
Computer: This is tube junction one, deck nine.
Finch: And how do I get out of it? You know, how do I leave it?
Computer: Tube junction one serves as an interconnected point to tubes five, six and seven, with access routes to decks eight and ten.
Finch: That’s all well and good, love, but it doesn’t really answer my question on how to actually get out of it, now, does it?
Computer: Specify?
Finch: I’ll specify you in a minute!
Computer: That procedure is not recommended.
Finch harrumphed loudly, then deflated like an exhausted balloon—a state few had the luxury of seeing her in. She took a moment to consider her options. Before her were five different jefferies tubes, six if she included the path behind her, which must have led back the way she came. But the fact that she had gotten lost in there at all was nothing short of ridiculous; it was obvious that she had somehow wound up inside a nightmarish holonovel in which entrances and exits criss-crossed. The Kobayashi Maru of jefferies tubes. The thanks she got for doing her job, and doing it well. Certain death in a hodgepodge maze; here lies Doz. Bones and all.
She reached inside a small pocket and pulled out a tiny and shiny container within which a set of dainty ocular enhancers dwelled, almost translucent if not for the sliver of circular mechanics outlining the edges. She lifted each one precariously onto the surface of her eyes, causing them to ruffle over for a moment, before resting on the colour grey. And through them, things immediately in front of her appeared slightly bigger. A gift from him—from her Murph. Part of why he was such an expert at those finicky bits of engineering; a master of anything small and electric. She only wished that she had returned the favour, and built him something for his ears. Here you go, Murph, hearing aids. You know, on account of your ears being all mushy on the inside.
He’d have said something about her not speaking loud enough, being as quiet as a mouse, as if that were even possible. Then he would have laughed out loud, and she would have too, and the both of them would have swigged their tea together, steeped in the raillery.
One last look at the schematics and there it was, plain as day. A quick turn around, scooting ten minutes in a backwards direction, and she’d find the latch she had originally climbed through. And all it took was to see it through his eyes.
oO God, you're a nuisance, Murph. Even now. Oo
The corners of her lips turned upwards, and moments later, the latch was opened, Doz's body clambering gratefully through it.