Helping Burnie Part 2

Posted on Thu May 14th, 2020 @ 11:02am by Leiddem Kea (*) & Chief Engineer Michael Burnstein & Laurier Cami

Mission: Mission 11 - Prospecting
Location: New Laurium - Market District
Timeline: MD 02 - 20:00
2138 words - 4.3 OF Standard Post Measure

The trio of Cami, Burnie and Leiddem worked their way back towards the industrial forge at the agreed time.

Cami, for her part, was still a little confused by the whole situation between Leiddem and this Noelle woman. From what he'd admitted already, the woman had had some dealings with the Rosie crew before - prior to both Cami and Burnie joining the crew. But the details were a bit vague and there were probably more pieces to the puzzle than he'd admitted.

"This woman's not going to cause us any problems, is she?" she asked out loud as they approached the entrance.

Leiddem sighed wishing he had not said anything now when he had seen Noelle. He did not want everyone worrying. "I do not know." He said softly wishing they had, had time to check in with Gregnol or at least mention how the little fire starter was there on that planet of all places she could have been.

That did not sound reassuring. Burnie stopped. "Okay, hold up. Before we go in there, I want to know exactly who she is and how that relates to you and the ship. She's obviously known here." He looked toward the entrance, which was only a couple meters away. "And possibly trusted. We need these parts and the last thing I want is to have something go wrong because I was blindsided by not knowing the story."

Leiddem took a few more steps before stopping dead realising the chief engineer actually meant business and really did want to know the full story of what had happened way back. The Betazoid winced as he knew all eyes were on him as he turned back and they really did want to know. “Well you know how we had a few odd cargo runs before you all joined and one of them was delivering her and that man you saw on the screen when we arrived for their wedding. It never happened because a bomb went off on the ship and she is the bomber. She might look all sweet and dainty but she is dangerous.” He said looking at the floor.

"Okay, I recall the Captain saying something about that... she was trying to get out the marriage, right?" Burnie tried to keep a slight smile suppressed. Blowing up one of Rosie's cargo bays was bad of course, but he couldn't help feeling a certain ...affinity... for a woman who'd come up with that type of solution. "I mean, sure, she's dangerous, but blowing things up doesn't necessarily mean you're a bad person."

Cami eyed Burnie a little curiously. She'd not picked up on that particular character trait of his while they were on the Rosie. Maybe because he was usually a little more structured when they were on the job. Out here he seemed more open. "Do we want to be dealing with dangerous people?" she asked, wavering slightly. "There's only the three of us."

Leiddem looked at the man opening and closing his mouth like a fish stunned. "Yes... yes it does when you blow up a cargo bay on a moving vessel," Leiddem assured quietly. "I count as at least two people thank you." The man said slightly offended that the woman thought they were not a match for a woman like Noelle.

Burnie glanced to the side. He blown up more than just a cargo bay on a moving vessel. Granted, creating a feedback loop to overload that Nausicaan energy lance had been sort of necessary at the time, as had planting a phaser on overload in that Gorn cruiser, and ejecting that red matter back at the planet where it had been created. Sure most of the system had imploded, but the life there had been underground in that hidden base...

The point was, it didn't make him a bad person - he'd gotten a medal for one of those explosions! "So she's capable of being dangerous, but like he says, Leiddem here is dangerous too." Burnie shrugged and started heading toward the entrance. "Besides, if we're counting this by experience with explosives, I count as at least three."

The Betazoid shrugged, the human was not getting it. "We were not counting explosive experience in the slightest," Leiddem said nothing more about his being dangerous. He was not going to get into that with them at all, he was a Marine even if his commission was up in the air. "All I am saying in there are better ways to get out of a marriage and Liem is a nice guy."

Cami sighed as the two men went at it a little. Classic boys being boys and bickering over the complete wrong thing. "Prophets, will you two behave for a minute?" she protested. "All I want to know is if I'm going to get kidnapped by big ugly miner-types if we go back in there to pick up what we came for. Is that hard?"

"No," Burnie laughed. "Not hard at all. This is business and the only trouble I'm worried about here is getting refused because we were blackballed by a local over some past incident."

"And I am pretty sure if you were kidnapped by a big ugly miner type they would soon return you," Leiddem commented on with a wink. "From what I can discover the local, as we shall refer to her, is part of that big corporation and in personnel."

Cami pouted at his comment but didn't rise to it. "Maybe she won't be a bit deal then. Let's just go, get what we came for, and get out again. This place is starting to give me the creeps."

She was an engineer, so the remark surprised Burnie. To him, large scale manufacturing facilities were fascinating, and ones tied to any kind of shipyard were practically holy ground. "It's an industrial facility. Honestly the way they've kept it up and running well despite what we've seen outside is pretty impressive," he said.

Cami shifted between her feet. "It...it sort-of reminds me of the old Cardassian ore-processing plants. My parents showed me around some of the old work camps. Told me the stories." She didn't like it. Even if she was happy to be working around the reconstituted tech, she was starting to get uncomfortable with the people more than the gear.

Leiddem put a hand for a moment on her shoulder and squeezed before the moment was gone and he become the joker that he was again. He knew that feeling, he had been on Betazed for the occupation so he knew those lingering feelings and thoughts.

"Ah. I'm sorry," Burnie said sincerely. "I hadn't thought of that connection." He almost offered that Cami could go back to the ship, but that seemed insulting - she was grown woman, and had chosen to come on the return trip, so obviously she felt she could handle it. Still, he headed straight for Maasar as soon as he spotted him. "With any luck we can wrap this up fairly quickly and get out."

Cami elected to shadow Burnie as he approached the workers. It wasn't that Leiddem wasn't big and tough and scary enough, it was more that her crew chief was more familiar. Burnie looked after the engineers, regardless of how they felt about him. And in that moment, she needed that familiarity. Of course a few silent words to the Prophets might help too.

Leiddem just stayed back and kept looking around with interest. Everything was different and unique to him, a lot of it he had never seen before ever. "Ah, the off worlders with the Connie ship." Maasar declared with a grin as he saw the three from earlier approach him again.

"You did say to come back after 20:00," Burnie replied with a friendly smile. "So here we are. Do you have time to work on our order now?"

"Indeed I do but I have one question to ask. How exactly are you going to get these pieces back in place?" It had been bugging him since he had started preparing the machines to allow them to do something other than the usual day to day processing.

"I have a great team of engineers," Burnie replied proudly, casting a smile at Cami. "And the original designers knew repairs might have to be made in space, so there are procedures in place. Once we transport them back to the ship, we start lining things up and reconnecting them, then do staged deployments to check the work and finish the job in EVA."

"EVA will be fun work with these type of fixtures." Maasar grinned just thinking about it all. It had been many years since he had done that type of work, it was hard being his size sometimes. Most places still not design suits for his length or berth despite him being more than capable of doing the work. "I used to work on Utopia used to see many Connie's come and go for museums or scrappage." He finally admitted.

Burnie felt a twinge at the mention of Utopia - he'd been there as part of his Academy internship and knew a lot of people that died in the attack. "I did a stint at Utopia too, and a month on one of the museum Connies, but I have to say, challenging as it is sometimes, it's pleasure to be part of keeping a working Connie up and running."

"I almost envy you... Burnie wasn't it?" Maasar asked as he indicated for them to follow him. "I was going to be asking for payment but Ms Livaam has covered the majority of it so whatever your relationship with her is I do not care and the rest can be covered by a tour if you have the time?" He asked not at all bothered if he was being cheeky.

Cami cringed at the thought of letting one of these grease monkeys prowl around their ship. Making it all dirty and moving things around. She didn't need to be told what a unique ship the Rosie was. She wanted to whisper into Burnie's ear to discourage the idea, but she held her ground with a fierce frown on her face instead.

"Yes, Burnie. And we'd be happy to give to give you tour." Burnie smiled broadly, completely ignoring the reactions from his companions. "Nothing I love more than showing off our Rosie. You can even help with the evac corridor if you want to put a hand in."

"Oh no certainly in no shape to do that but I would love a tour," Maasar assured as he pointed to where he had already started to make the parts for the ship. They were a simple design so it was quick and easy but no ship replicator would have been able to create them seamlessly even with an industrial replicator.

"That is excellent work," Burnie said, appraising the parts starting to coming off the line. "You just let me know when you time for that tour, and I'll arrange to take you around personally."

Leiddem looked at the parts smirking. Even as a Marine he could appreciate the perfection and professionalism that had gone into creating them. "They will be the newest parts on the ship." The Security Crew member joked with Maasar.

"And the best quality. We do not shrink out on materials." Maasar added smiling at the young man.

"We'll see about that..." Cami mumbled to herself, still not completely convinced. It felt like the man was being too nice. In her experience these sorts of people generally had a lot more self-interest.

Burnie smiled at the man's obvious pride in his work. He'd inspect the parts later - he wasn't a fool, and even the best facilities could still wind up producing a minor defect since quality assurance was always a continuing process - but he liked Maasar. The man reminded him of a foreman he'd known, now lost with so many others at Utopia Planetia. "Thank you. We can start transporting pieces up as soon as you clear them for release."

"They are good to go." Maasar assured ignoring the Bajoran's mumbled words and the Betazoid nudging her. Not everyone could like everyone and that was okay. He got it a lot and it did not even bother him any more. He was a good Engineer and that was enough.

"We'll take them and let you close up then," Burnie said, and extended a hand. "Thank you again, and let me know when you want that tour."

OFF::

Michael Burnstein
Chief Engineer
SS Mary Rose

Laurier Cami
Engineer
SS Mary Rose

Leiddem Kea
Security
SS Mary Rose
(PNPC Gregnol)