JDL | Capt. Aine DiAgessi (CO) & Cdr. Jake Satie (XO) | "All Jammed Up" pt 1

Posted on Thu Oct 12th, 2017 @ 12:10am by Captain Aine DiAgessi & Captain Jacob Satie

Mission: The Round Table
Location: Turbolift | Cold Station Theta

After his trip to Sickbay, the headache from last night's wine had abated. Jake was in Operations early going over some of the maintenance schedules for the turbo-lift system. Several of them were scheduled for total overhaul and there would be some disruptions in the normal flow of traffic for several hours today. His goal was to be able to circumnavigate all of the repair work should an emergency arise while not loosing access to any one part of the station. He was supposed to be in engineering for a walk-thru with the Commanding Officer in an hour which meant he would have no real choice but to travel the lift system. Most of the work was going on in the oldest part of the station, unfortunately that part of the station separated the upper saucer from the docking arms, lower saucer, and engineering section of the station.

Jake could see the logic in keeping the old fuel storage cells. This station would be seeing a great deal of traffic as more and more of the area beyond current Federation space was charted and tamed. He didn't, however, understand why the fuel cells couldn't be located at the bottom of the station or under the docking arms. Engineers sometimes had trouble seeing a big picture and in the case of this station's design it seemed to Jake a classic example. He had his course plotted and his shift would start in three minutes. He closed his console down and went to relieve the officer of the watch.

Something had to give. Quickly. The lifts felt as if they were crawling. Snails out paced them, and this was an assertion that Aine was absolutely positively certain of. Each ride, especially alone (which almost all of her travels, thus far, had been), left her pacing and white knuckled. Lifts, elevators, whatever the hell one chose to call them, were a nightmare. A death trap. Another thing she was certain of was that one of them would wind up being the death of her when it plunged to way to a horrific end. Drumming her fingers against her thigh, she hummed whatever tune she could instantly recall and waited, counting down the seconds, until the damned thing ground to a stop and released her, with a smarmy 'ding' into the hustle and bustle of Operations.

Aine, for what it was worth, nearly skipped off the damned thing and tugged the hem of her tunic with a quick, settling sigh. Phobias were phobias, and hers wasn't irrational, or so she told herself, and yet there she was... On a giant space station with lifts that took forever and a day to get people from point A to point B.

And then there was Jake. Strolling through the consoles on his way to... Didn't matter. He was early, as was she, and the game was once again afoot where they fought to find some rhythm between them. "Good morning, Commander, how did you sleep?" Dumb question. Proper, but dumb. Still. She smiled, seemed chipper, and that had to count for something.

"I slept like a rock it was waking up that was the problem. I spent the first half hour of my day in Sickbay. I met the Doctor. She's interesting, to say the least." We have a meeting with the Chief Engineering Officer shortly, Ma'am. I'm about to relieve the watch, if you like I can stop by your ready room before I head down and we can go together? I have a fail safe path. Engineering will be shutting down some of the lifts for repair and replacement today, so we'll have to take the long way around." Jake shrugged apologetically as he stepped around to relieve the officer of the watch. With his meeting the whole song and dance would be repeated in twenty minutes but the schedule was the schedule.

Long way? Tubes? Climbing? Still safer than riding around in death cars suspended precariously somewhere within over a thousand decks of space. Lord help her. The very thought nearly made her turn green, "Commander Valeese," She nodded, "I've been hearing rumor. A Vorta. Fascinating." Aine nodded as she worked to continue on her way towards her office, "We'll just call today an adventure, won't we?" Never a dull day in paradise. Never. Not even day two would be easy and from this point on it would only serve to get wilder and crazier. A quick glance at the time promised her they'd have time for the shindig with Engineering and be back long before she had to meet with her mother for lunch. At least there was that. Coffee and reports made up the rest of the time spent waiting for Jake, and by the time he came waltzing through her door, she'd forgotten all about lifts and her contempt for the contraptions.

"Long way?" She asked, falling into stride beside him and simply letting him lead the way as they set out on their little excursion. Coffee had been left behind.

"Longer than I'd like." He pulled his PADD out of the holster on his hip and showed her the route they would have to take to avoid outages. "They are shutting down this lift in fifteen seconds and then this one in four minutes so we need to get here in two minutes or we'll have to go around to here and be late to meet with the Chief Engineer. I don't think that's the tone I want to set with anyone." Jake pushed the PADD back down in its holster and led the way to the first of four lifts they would be taking over the next seven hundred decks.

Blinking rapidly, Aine felt her step falter and she forced herself to move a little faster to regain the infinitesimal amount of space she'd lost between them. By the time they got on the old, worn, cranky looking lift, Aine could feel chills beginning to settle along the dip at the small of her back. "So remember last night?" She asked, studying the light at the top of the car. Why did it seem yellow? What the hell happened that they decided to leave something like this in use and who did she have to bitch at to make it go away?

Jake's face brightened a bit, "I may be a bit older than you but I'm not senile yet and I know I didn't drink enough to do something I wouldn't remember today." He shot her a grin. "Is it just me or does this lift smell like a gym locker. How have they not replaced this thing yet?" Jake said before turning his attention to the lift. "Deck one forty-three." A computer chirp acknowledged his request and the lift hummed as it made it's way down the tube towards its destination. "This lift looks like an original. When we get off on one fourteen we will be getting onto an freight lift. That should be a treat. I don't often see the old girls guts." Jake was referring to the station's inner most workings where often only engineers and technicians could be found.

"Heh." She offered a nervous laugh and hung towards the back of the car, "That's all wonderful and stuff, but, ah... Fun Aine Fact number two?" The Captain shivered, forcing herself to look at him. If she could focus on him, on his carefree energy, maybe they'd get through his without her tearing out of one of the lifts like a cat that had been dropped in a bath tub, "I hate lifts." Now the cat wasn't just dangling precariously over a tub, it was out of the bag, "So um... Freight lift? Not my bag." The smell not withstanding, the entire thing felt stale and dead... Or dying. Oh please, oh please, don't die.

Jake found himself wishing the site to site transport system was up and running. That was scheduled for testing tomorrow but wouldn't help them today. "Um...there was no way around it. Site to Site is offline until tomorrow something about cleaning pattern buffers. It's not like we have anything to worry about. They inspect these things all the time." Jake gave her a comforting smile. Phobias were not something he suffered from but he had known raw fear a time or two. The lift slowed to a stop and a quaint ding before the hiss of the doors opened out to deck one fourteen. "We don't have to rush to the freight lift. It's not on the maintenance schedule. After this one it is all new stuff." Jake led the way down the corridor to the next lift. It was designed for large item manual transport and ran the length of the old section of Theta. Fuel storage containers and antimatter containment vessels had been transported from storage to the old airlock for installation.

"Here we are." This lift was equipped with a manual key pad and access controlled for safety reasons. Jake keyed in the access code and stepped through the doors as they opened with a sluggish gravelly noise. "Ha, this sounds like it may need to be on the maintenance list." He held the door open while he watched the Captain debate getting on board. "Come on. It won't bite, I have my hand in its mouth." Jake gave her a mock look of horror.

A part of her wanted to plant her fist in his gut just for the tease, but as luck would have it (for him that is), the best of her knew he was doing what he could to alleviate her heebie jeebies. They weren't just heebie jeebies. They were cold, unabashed, angry chills and curls of fear that settled deep in the pit of her belly and turned her blood to ice water in her veins. The lift may have been large, but large had nothing to do with it. She wasn't claustrophobic, at least not in the traditional sense of the condition. One foot after the other she rose to his challenge, forcing herself forward even when the solid thunk of boot against deck plate changed into the snare drum-like scatter of tread against grated utility flooring. "Very cute." She snarked, folding her arms across her chest, "How long are we on this for?" Focus on him. He hasn't a care in the universe. It'll be ok, just focus on him. Not the light. Not the noise. Not the feeling of weightlessness when these stupid things start moving. Him. Jake. Satie. Whatever you want to call him.

"We have one hundred and eighty decks on this one. The length of the old station give or take a deck. I'm glad this isn't the standard method of lift travel." Once she was in the lift he let go of the door and it closed." He keyed in the destination code and with a slight groan and a jerk the lift was set in motion. A look of disappointment graced by the slightest touch of anger brushed across Jake's face. "I can't believe they ever let this station get in this condition." He shook his head.

The lift was fast, faster than the modern turbo lifts but the inertial dampers seemed to be intermittent as they descended every once in a while they would get the feeling of dropping just a bit too fast. with thirty six floors to go the lift lurched slightly to port causing Jake to need to brace himself on the wall of the car. "What the Hell!" He exclaimed as the elevator came to a grinding halt. Then with a sudden lurch and without the benefit of inertial dampeners they went into free fall for two seconds before the emergency breaks caught the lift and ground them again to a sudden stop. Jake was lifted off his feet and then slammed to his knees holding the rail on the wall for support kept him from slamming face first into the floor of the lift car. "Quickly he looked over to Captain DiAgessi, "Are you okay, Ma'am?"

A small voice from against the wall and down on the floor articulated a single word in response; "No."

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To Be Continued...
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Captain Aine DiAgessi
Commanding Officer
Cold Station Theta, SB-1170

Commander Jacob Satie
Executive Officer
Cold Station Theta, SB-1170