ON: Tom x Yuzuki
AT: Subdeck.
Begin:
"You are unaware of your recent promotion?"
"What?" the sprite asked, trying to dig her open-ended question's answer out of Tom with her eyes. What she managed to scrape up didn't help her understanding - armor helmets didn't have readable facial features, or very detailed expressions.
Running a hand through her hair uneasily, Yuzuki took a breath and examined the deck plating again, trying to find something to say that made discernible sense. This certainly didn't. She wasn't a Heisho. That was easily a half a dozen grades above the bright, well-stained orange jumpsuit she was wearing.
"Why?" she decided to ask, eventually, "What for?"
"It was decided by the Taisa and Shosa that your performance during the mission was exemplary," Tom said as he nodded to Yuzuki's patchwork. "Without your efforts, I believe the outcome of our mission would have been much grimmer."
The orange-paneled, newly christened Heisho tugged at the collar of her uniform, idly. It suddenly seemed a little too tight. She was thinking; that much was fairly obvious. About what, exactly, not even she could be entirely certain. It was almost too much at once. It was attacking her already frayed nerves, and coming out quite victoriously atop them.
"Oh," Yuzuki managed, "Well."
"I haven't had much time to look over your personnel record," Tom admitted. "But what I have read from the reports praises your ability to perform under pressure."
Tom's Daisy shifted in place, the engineer moving his weight back and forth on the flats of his feet as he spoke.
"There are a LOT of sprites on this ship now," he said. "And I need people who can communicate with them, people who have their trust and can guide them when necessary. Can you do it?"
Yuzuki gave Tom's helmet a blank stare.
"Probably," she ventured, testing the waters. "They more or less take care of themselves."
Tom glanced at the frazzled sprite from the side of his visor. Something tugged at him inside, a twinge of sympathy for the sprite, but there were more important matters at hand than her feelings.
"I don't need probably," the Chief Engineer said. " I need yes or no." Yuzuki, watching him, looked away. She looked back shortly thereafter, but finding no real compassion or concern there, she couldn't help but tense.
"Yes!" she answered, still staring at the helmet. She was becoming genuinely frustrated - mostly with herself, but partially with her inability to grasp or gage the situation. The sprite couldn't even see the person she was talking to. In the face of the emotionless armor, all she had to go on was the modulated drone of the suit's intercom, and it was making her uncomfortable. "Yes. I can."
The helmet turned to face the sprite, the visor facing her straight on now.
"Good," Tom said. "Grace under pressure. That's what Miharu demands from each of us. No less."
Yuzuki did her best to fix the visor in her vision, staring past to the person beneath, but in the face of her own reflection she was forced to pause. The face she was showing the Juni was one of barely concealed aggravation. Tired - strained - feral in a way.
She dropped her gaze and put a hand on her forehead. It fell to cover her eyes almost immediately. "Yea, I'm sorry. I... thanks. Nobody had told me. I'll do my best, Freeman-Juni."
Yuzuki heard the gentle pop of a Daisy's face plate and felt a gentle pat on her back. She looked up into the face of the Chief Engineer, and her hand dropped further, to cover her mouth.
"Hey now, congratulations," his true voice said softly. "You did well."
Yuzuki nodded, dully. She rubbed her eyes once more before dropping her hand down to her waist. They both came up, resting there. It felt a little more like she was doing regular business, now. The stance helped. She could almost believe she was eye-to-eye with the Juni, except he was taller in the armor. "Well, you were gone and the Miharu made all the other sprites. We were the only ones down here."
"That must have been very hard for you," Tom said. "I was informed of the damage as well as the loss of Junko. It's never easy, I know."
Yuzuki was finally back in the proper territory. Although the mention of Junko brought a painful pang back into her memory, she fought it down and shook her head, once. "That's fine. She's alive and well, now, and we're not in too bad a shape. I took a look into some of the power armors that you guys damaged out there. What were you all fighting, anyway?"
"The Taisa will inform us of the details as they come," Tom answered diplomatically. "But I can say that it was not easy and the enemies were well-equipped to do battle with us." Tom removed his hand from the spirite's back and let out a small laugh. It melted the tension, and Yuzuki found herself smiling a little bit, despite herself.
"In all honesty, it sucked. A lot."
Yuzuki let out a light "Ha," looking back to the work that was being done on the capacitors. Well, this wasn't so bad. Maybe she would finally get a few new uniforms. Her old jumpsuits were beginning to feel a little manky. They were a little older than she was.
Now that Yuzuki was thinking straight, and the news settled in, it didn't really seem so bad.
"So, Juni-san," Yuzuki ventured, her voice having regained its regular cadence. "When we strip and refabricate the capacitors you are removing, do you want us to refabricate the resilient mounts you just cut through, as well?"
"No reason to," the engineer said. "We can't refabricate new capacitors, so it's best to just take the mounts down with them and use the spare metal where we need it, instead of having it hanging off the wall there like a sharp hunk of danger."
The engineer paused to think for a moment. It was impossible to rub his chin at the moment, but he gave his face his best rubbing-of-the-chin look.
"When Rin cuts down the other capacitor, and we carry them away for refabrication, I need you and her to go over your work and make sure that all possible improvements are made. I simulated with Miharu last night during dinner and it seems the best we can hope for is an approximate 80% performance without space dock. Personally, I'd like to aim for higher than that, so we need to work our brains here."
Not one to be much deterred, Yuzuki pressed on; "I thought we had a carbon reserve we could draw from, for the electric panels in the capacitors. Don't tell me we've run out?" She paused, then continued. "We need the capacitors, there, or it'll put a lot of pressure on the generators, and they're almost nearing the end of their run, as-is. And those pipes - " Yuzuki flexed one of her hands, tapping a finger near her abdomen, "It'll take time, but I'm convinced we can get more than eighty percent of it replaced, while we're still out here. It'll just take time, and your permission to take a system or two offline for the maintenance."
"I need to check with the Taisa," Tom replied. "We're pressed for time as it is. Heisho, we're practically out of everything. Did you not see how much of a hole got blown through us?"
"Yea," Yuzuki conceded, "It did hit a lot of systems. But, the matter collection assembly wasn't too badly damaged. At least, we can fabricate the basics, and maybe form replacement minerals for some of the rarer parts."
"The matter collection assembly just spent the last two days trying to fix the gaping hole in the ship, which, I must say, is coming along as well as we could hope for." Tom's matter-of-fact approach hid just a bit of a ribbing.
Yuzuki opened her mouth, and shut it. Then, in a tone of vague accusation, she said, "The welding we did was airtight. You had them redo all of that, replacing the whole thing?"
"Of course. You can't be too safe when it comes to the hull." Tom dismissed the accusation. "Plus, it looks really ugly."
That brought a vague groan from the new Heisho. She pushed some of her bright orange hair out of her face, behind her ear, and frowned slightly. "Well, if that's the case, you're right. We're in a bad position. What do you have in mind?"
"With the matter collection assembly focusing on hull repair, we need to spend our efforts finding materials to use for internal repairs. Depending on the amount of time available to us, this may not be a concern. If we're given about... hm... I'd say 3 days or so, we'd have enough to do everything we needed." The engineer was heating up now. His more nerdy management side was coming out again.
"Now, this in no way gives us 100% functionality. We still need a space dock for that, as you mentioned with our soon-to-expire systems, but what it does give us is enough juice to function for another mission. But, if we don't have three days? Well, we're going to start cannibalizing non-essential parts of the ship to speed repairs. Frankly, I'm starting to think that may be the case."
Yuzuki whistled low. "It could work, yea. I would have never thought of it like that, but I don't see why not. You said we didn't have enough material left to fully repair those capacitors? What's the mineral we're missing?"
"Frankly, even though this isn't written in the books," Tom said with a smirk. "We can make do with almost any material if we put the jigsaw pieces in the right place. Oh, and don't do stupid stuff like try to contain aether within Xanium instead of Zesuaium.
"So long as it's properly magnetized..." Yuzuki started in, cherubically.
"Exactly. Heck, we can make do with Durandium, Yamataium, anything really." He continued excitedly. "It's just that, well, it won't be able to take as much of a hit. But that's for the pilots to do with the not-getting-us-hitness." His yellow-gold hair bobbed with his nods.
"So basically," Yuzuki continued, the corners of her mouth still turned mischievously up, "You're saying it would be a good idea to form replacement minerals for the rarer parts."
"Basically. If we don't have time, that is. I don't think the others would appreciate having half a wardroom unless it was absolutely necessary."
Yuzuki fixed Tom with an odd look. She broke into a full smile.
"So," he said. "We can fix the capacitors."
It took a few moments for it to really sink in before the chief engineer burst out laughing. Yuzuki followed him, unable to help it. The two of them stood there for several moments, unable to stop, before Tom's laughter died down finally.
"Looks like they made a good decision with you."
After catching her breath, still fighting back the giggle-fit, Yuzuki rapped the breastplate of Tom's power armor with the back of her knuckles. "Yea," she conceded, "I guess. So, should I get in armor, now? Some of those piping runs are going to have to be cut off again."
"Nimura's been assigned to crawl through that stuff and check on the wiring behind it," he said. "So I'd recommend grabbing her and Rin and forming a team to assist you."
"Hai, Juni-san."
"Oh," Tom said as he turned away to face the piping once more. "I want you, in your spare time, to read some files on the duties and responsibilities of an officer. This in no way is an indicator of future promotion, but it is something you need to be aware of, as lower ranking sprites will be looking to you for guidance. I expect you to grow into the role with practice, but I want the foundation to be there before we leave."
He continued.
"You are on equal footing with Ichigo-Heisho now, but in combat situations, I hope you trust her example. She has much more experience than you, as well, so I suggest speaking to her about the subtleties of your new role. Of course, I am here to help you as well, when I'm not working."
"Okay," Yuzuki said, knowing full well that she would probably have very little free time. She had already gone through that with Kai. "You're planning to put me with an armor team, or something?"
The back of Tom's head shook from side to side.
"I have no plans to throw all my sprites into combat, but that is not my decision alone to make," he said. "Ichigo embodies grace under pressure in her way. You do in your own way as well. It is best to share your knowledge of what that means."
"Alright, I'll try." Yuzuki nodded, following Tom's gaze as he looked to the team removing the capacitors. "That's all I can promise though. You know we're doing a lot of stuff right now."
"Yes, and we'll keep doing whatever is necessary to keep our ship healthy and our crew alive. That is our duty." Tom's gaze hardened as he slipped back on his helmet. Yuzuki watched him, a feeling of quiet purpose stealing over her. There was something about all of this that clicked.
"One more thing," Tom's robotic voice said firmly. "It's never fine. It's always going to hurt."
Yuzuki looked back at the helmeted armor, the smoldering coal of buried regret freshly stoked, and shot the faceless Chief Engineer a glare. After a moment, though, the tension drained out of her and her gaze softened. The look she gave Tom then was mixed - Tired. Strained.
Resigned, in a way.
Yuzuki turned her back.
"Oh, and please see me naked in my cabin, around 2000?"
"What?"
"Nothing."