Engineering - Day 46 (morning) - [open to engineers/unfinished]

[miss_gaila]

Gaila was always a bit skeptical of Federation diplomacy, and something about this mission bothered her. She wanted to believe that they would do the right thing - whatever the hell the right thing was - but she was immensely glad that Scotty was committed to finding out what was going on down there... by whatever means necessary

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[eatabean_bedone]

Although he kept such thoughts to himself, Keenser was of the opinion that 'diplomacy' was simply a fancy Federation word for 'wasting as much time as possible and spreading the misery of wasted time around to as many people as Humanly possible'. Apparently part of this 'diplomacy' nonsense involved checking out some kind of engineering facility on Maros An, which in Keenser's opinion - another one that he kept to himself - was a pure waste of time. Of course, knowing the Federation, there was some incredibly vital reason they were being sent to check things out - vital as far as those at Starfleet Command were concerned, at any rate

[eatabean_bedone]

He wouldn't have minded if she had asked. Wouldn't have minded, but would have had difficulty explaining, at least in Standard. (Although, truth be told, if he really felt like making the effort, he could speak Standard as fluently as he could read and write it, but doing so took time, and Keenser had always been of the personal opinion that the less time it took to say something, the better.)

When Gaila asked what he thought of the mission, he shrugged a bit. Diplomacy had never been his strong point, and for the most part he just went where he was told to go. The mission seemed fairly straight-forward, though, and Keenser was blissfully unaware of the odd timing surrounding Uhura's sudden leave, or in fact that she'd left at all. "Likely waste of time," he said, after a moment of consideration. "But what can do? Follow orders."

[miss_gaila]

"Exactly," she replied, smiling. She would keep the rest to herself, for now. In any event, once they beamed down to the planet they'd be following Scotty's orders. She moved over to a console to start performing a few standard maintenance scans, frowning slightly as she noted a few minor abnormalities.

Keenser was still within speaking distance, and she glanced over at him, still feeling a little curious. She suddenly realized that she didn't actually even know what species he was. "Where are you from?" she asked, hoping it wouldn't be considered intrusive.

[eatabean_bedone]

He moved off a bit to start checking various bits of framework for metal fatigue, climbing if he needed to in order to check some of the bits that were farther up off the ground. "Federation call planet 'Mephis I'," he replied, shifting a bit to get a better look at one section. "But. Spend time on Earth also."

[miss_gaila]

"Mephis I," she repeated. The name sounded vaguely familiar, but she couldn't recall anything about it. She didn't think she'd ever seen another of Keenser's species, either. "Will you tell me what it's like there?" she asked, curious but not wanting to press. She had a hard enough time reading humans, and wasn't at all sure that she'd realize if she was bothering him.

[eatabean_bedone]

He was quiet for a few moments, trying to decide what Gaila would be most interesting in hearing about. "Most live below planet surface. Most surface not good for live." The gravitational pull of the expanding sun had changed Mephis I's rate of rotation - slowly, over the course of hundreds of thousands of years, or possibly more - until one hemisphere always faced the sun and one hemisphere always faced away from the sun, leaving most of the surface area of the planet either scorching desert or frozen wasteland. As such, most of the population lived either within the terminator between the "night" and "day" sides of the planet, or else they lived underground.

[miss_gaila]

He was silent for a moment, and she considered retracting the question, but then he started to answer. "Under the surface?" she asked, voice betraying her curiosity. "Is there a natural cave system, or did your people construct something?" He seemed willing enough to answer her questions, and she didn't know anything about Mephis I. She spent so much time trying to make sense of her human colleagues that she sometimes didn't pay as much attention as she probably should to other species. Still, a part of her couldn't help but feel a kinship with the other species of whom there were very few. Many of the Enterprise crew were open-minded and accepting, but there were still barriers, if only because there was a lot that humans didn't know about other species and vice versa. "If I'm bothering you, let me know," she added. She was fairly certain that she could tell when humans were bothered by her, but she wasn't sure she would be able to tell with Keenser.