Laughter In The Face Of Awkwardness

Posted on Wed Oct 28th, 2020 @ 12:52pm by Ka'see 'Cassie' Anderson (*) & Chief Engineer Michael Burnstein

Mission: Mission 12 - Railway
Location: Deck 7
Timeline: MD02 10:00
2530 words - 5.1 OF Standard Post Measure

Cassie hated how secretive they were being held up in her lab on deck seven. It was just her and Burnie as they had been told to stick together. She stared at herself and saw how relaxed she looked compared to how she normally looked and shook her head starting her pacing up again. If she was not careful she was going to wear a hole into her floor. “We have 16 hours until the FRS Thrai arrives and we have two options either own up to the Rangers that we have gotten into trouble or pretend to be each other.” She did not like either. She was sure this pairing could manage to fool people being Engineers and Scientists but not everyone was as fortunate.

"Personally, I'd prefer honesty, but Liha knows them so I have to trust her opinion on this," Burnie said with sideways frown. "I figure we can manage it - small ships tend to dual role people so we can just make like we always work together anyway. I'm a little worried about Liha being XO and taking over if Eden ...well, starts acting too much like Eden."

Cassie preferred that route herself but she was the one following the orders and she would follow it to the letter but it was just not the ten people or so who were affected. There were other people on board that would grow more and more suspicious as time went on with the odd behaviours. It had been a close call with Nollel. "I am worried about your relationship if we are creating a list of our concerns," Cassie added to the list of worries without stopping her pacing. This was not a biology issue that could be solved with formulas or genetic resequencing or any number of things she could do. "Why worrying about Liha? She would be alright?”

Burnie sighed. "Yes, Nollel is high on my list of concerns, though I feel a little ...guilty... about how high given the reason we're meeting the Thrai. People might be wounded, dying, and Liha..." he paused. Liha was a very private person, and she trusted him. On the other hand, people would know or at least guess a little of her past after they met up with the Fenris Rangers. "Look, it's not my place to share anything she's told me, but you know Fenris contacted her, right? She has a history that might make her a little ...driven... when it comes to refugees in danger out here."

"Of course I know that. I was on the bridge when the call came through." Cassie had seen the expressions that had crossed the woman's face. It was easy to see that things were not as they seemed. "Liha is allowed to have a history when it comes to anything she wanted to but we help people like that and we will sort this all out. I would be driven if it was my species without a home lost out in the stars." She paused thinking on how best to approach Nollel. It was a strange subject after this morning at breakfast and what she must be thinking. "You should not feel guilty about your list of concerns. You Nollel and things are not in a good place for you both. I dread to think what she thought of this morning." She finally chose to say.

The worry was that Liha's version of driven was considerably more ...intense... than Cassie's, but Burnie decided not press to point, particularly since the mention of the morning encounter with Nollel overwhelmed his thoughts. He knew what he'd looked like this morning - he'd been looking at himself over breakfast. "We aren't." He sighed. "And this couldn't have happened at a worse time. Bad enough how it looked earlier, and now we're spending all our time hidden away together. I just hope when we fix this, there's some way to explain it all that Nollel can accept."

Cassie stopped pacing and just frowned. It did not suit the man's face at all but it was pretty much her most neutral expression sometimes. She did not know what she would ever say to Nollel if confronted over what it looked like but she was sure the blonde was not that type of woman. “Why not just go to Gregnol and ask him if you can tell her? Or skip him and just go and speak to her.” Cassie said going straight to that point. It was a logical route, the man had a wife, he had to know how it would hurt.

"I know it seems logical, but..." Burnie bit his lower lip, then stopped, because it was really Cassie's lip, "...asking for a special exception for a ...personal issue..." He didn't know how to explain just how awkward and wrong that would seem. Worse, it occurred to him that the sense that it was something one just did not do was a 'guy thing' and despite occupying female bodies, he and Gregnol were guys - in fact, he might feel all the more impetus to stick to that mindset because of that. "It's just doesn't seem right."

Cassie looked at him as if she was seeing him for the first time which to anyone else would have been hilarious as it was her body she was staring at. The man had said something that had surprised her more than anyone else had in a very long time. "You are a good man. Selfless. I hope it works out for you." She said slowly.

He ducked his head, embarrassed. "I'm not. I'm just... a man," he frowned - the breasts that came into view as soon as he'd looked down making that statement a little weird - then the frown went a bit sideways. "Current body notwithstanding. Asking another guy for special dispensation because I blew a talk with my girlfriend right before everything went sideways is... well, I don't know how to explain it, but I don't think he could trust me to think straight and do my job if I did that."

Cassie nodded finally seeing why he was saying it. It made sense but she knew if she was in his place, she would want to tell her other half. She knew that Gregnol had risked everything to save Jeassaho from the butcher but maybe it was different, it was a different kind of man thing. She knew there was some type of guy code especially among humans so maybe this was one of those things. “Okay, I guess if you are sure.” She said simply hoping she could let the subject drop for a little bit as she started pacing again.

Burnie wasn't sure - he wished he could make that ask of Gregnol, and if they were close maybe he could, but Gregnol was his Captain; they were on friendly terms, they weren't best buddies. He was however glad to let the subject drop as he didn't know how to explain it to Cassie. "Anyway, probably for the best. As long as she's mad at me, you won't have to worry about what her dropping by to spend the night."

Cassie levelled him with a look that said that is not the point and you know it but said nothing. He was a pretty selfless guy in her opinion and she would help him fix it all when they were back to normal if that ever happened. She had only met a handful of people like that, one being Sebastian Deauvuex and another being Gregnol. There were not many people like that in her opinion. "Fine. So what do we have so far? We were swapped while we slept and anyone who was awake or further than all our quarters were not effected."

"Yes," Burnie agreed, grateful to get off the topic of his personal life and back to analyzing a weird occurrence - something decidedly not comfortable, but analysis of weird phenomena was at least in his comfort zone. "So it happened within a limited time span and effect radius ...at least as far as we know. We're assuming everyone affected has reported to sickbay, but since we aren't make it public, can we be sure?"

"Okay so if this was an Engineering problem what would be your first step in solving a problem?" She wondered trying to think of it as a science problem where she would investigate first. She was asking all the right question for something scientific and bouncing ideas but she was genuinely interested how an Engineer would solve it.

This was not exactly the sort of problem that cropped up in engineering, but the process was worth considering. "Well, when something is clearly wrong but the reason isn't obvious, run a diagnostic; but we already did that. So, when a diagnostic doesn't help, the next thing is to do determine the extent of the problem, when it happened, whether it's progressing and at what rate. Then look at the FEMA - failure effects and modes analysis - for the system to narrow down what might be causing it." His mouth went a bit sideways. "But this isn't in any FEMA table I've ever seen and I doubt the standard goto of kicking something or rebooting the system will fix it."

It was a logical engineer approach but not what they needed right now. Maybe they needed a hybrid approach from them both. "I would presume if you tried to kick the problem this time the problem is likely to kick you back. I know I would." Cassie mused leaning over a console as she tried to think. Something was missing, it was obvious it was there but she just could not see it. "Why don't we start mapping where people were?" She wondered.

"Sounds reasonable," Burnie agreed. "Build the time-space envelope for the effect and work backwards from there. So, as far as we know, it happened overnight just in crew quarters... say, has anyone seen the passengers lately? If any of them swapped, they might just be freaking out behind closed doors. Or, what if one of them meant to swap with a crewmember and the effect went too wide, or was set wide to keep us distracted?" He drummed his fingers on the console. "I know that probably sounds like Liha is rubbing off on me, but the people we're going to help have enemies, and honestly, after the last stop we do too. And there's all that contraband we still have aboard..."

“Had to be in a certain time frame. I woke up in the night to cheek you were breathing still.” Cassie admitted with a shrug in his direction as she thought on the passengers and who they had seen that day. “I saw Perri at breakfast when No... people came in and believe we passed Meghan in the corridor on our way here.” She did not doubt that Liha was brushing off on him but it was probably true. “Everyone had enemies and this would be a good way to distract us and get that stuff.” It left her wondering if anything there could have done it.

Burnie nodded, glad she didn't think he was being completely paranoid. "We should go check on it. Who knows? Maybe something there did this. But more importantly, we should make sure nothing has been taken and stow it all away so that nothing can be found or taken."

“Let’s do that.” She paused and sniffed the air. “After we have showered and changed. We both smell.” She admitted making a face before shrugging. How could he stand it in her body? She could not stand it at all and the human sense of smell was barely anything compared to what she was used to.

"Yeah... we do." It wasn't that he wasn't aware of it - after living with Cassie's nose, once they were back in their own bodies he was going to make extra effort to wash up before meeting from now on - but while he was smelling with a half-Vulcan nose, his interpretation of scent was still both human enough and male enough to not be overly bothered by bodies only a day and half past a last shower. And he was in no hurry to shower in her body. "It's not that I don't smell it; it's just that..." he looked down at her currently properly clothed body, "...well, using the restroom was awkward enough. Washing..."

Cassie looked at him and promptly burst into laughter which was not her at all. She looked at him again and just carried on before abruptly stopping as she realised just how ridiculous he was being and the fact she laughing. “I have not laughed like that since I was a child and my father caught me. It was what made my mother take us back to earth.” She said surprised by her reaction to it all. She wiped the tears from her eyes trying to compose herself. “Well what are you going to do? You cannot smell. I do not smell.”

Burnie shook his head and snorted a laugh - which sounded weird coming out of Cassie's face, and made him laugh more - vulcanoids were famously modest, but apparently smelling sweaty was a much more serious consideration. "Okay. I know. I just... you said you trust me with your body and I really appreciate that, but it still feels weird." He held hands up in an attitude of surrender. "However, far be it from me to ruin your reputation for lack of body odor. Just one question: is there anything ...special... I should know about your shower routine? I've never had this much hair, let alone the other parts to wash."

"I do not want to smell. It is rude." Cassie said simply trying to recover herself but it was a lot harder as a human male. It was awful and not something she could stand at all. "I do trust you as I know you are my friend. Girls and boys can be friends without it being a thing." She shrugged thinking for her bath routine. "Well if it is a sonic shower I am just fine how I am but if it is water then conditioner in my hair to get knots out. Anything else I think it is just normal from showers with J... yeah I think just normal what everyone else does."

"Okay. Good." Burnie expelled a breath. "Some of the women I've..." he ducked his head, "...um, I mean, from what I've heard the whole hair and skin cleansing/moisturizing thing can get pretty complicated."

"I think the phrase dark horse sums you up," Cassie said simply. She was never the type to need much maintenance or any of the moisturising and skin cleansing. "I am not going to over complicate it for you, Michael. So say an hour and we meet in the cargo bay and look at that stuff."

"All right. See you in a hour," Burnie said, and crackled as grin. "Provided I can get your bra back on."