Can't Stop Won't Stop

Posted on Mon Aug 31st, 2020 @ 8:33pm by Lieutenant Commander Angus Murphy

Mission: A Day In The Life
Location: USS Majestic
Timeline: Anyday
1884 words - 3.8 OF Standard Post Measure

[0425 hours - Quarters, Deck 2]

Lieutenant Commander Angus Murphy rolled out of bed without an alarm clock reminder. The technical name for the body's internal clock was Circadian rhythms, but Murph called it a curse. He couldn't sleep in if his life depended on it and it had always been there. Some called him a morning person and he believed that to be true.

He wasn't entirely silent, but he didn't make much noise getting ready so as not to wake his still-sleeping partner. It wouldn't be too long before his partner, Patrick, was awake anyway, probably to prepare the morning meal in the mess hall, but Murph thought it respectful to let the man get his rest without being woken early.


[0500 hours]

Deck two was a great place to run, Murph had discovered recently. There was very little foot traffic, if ever, but especially not before alpha shift. They'd been upgraded to a suite on the ship's diplomatic level recently because of extenuating circumstances, a visiting relative. Though he would have been just as happy in his original quarters on the engineering deck, Patrick seemed to have fallen in love with the upgraded digs and Murph still needed to address that with the Captain at some point. He jogged easily around the main outer corridor, his light steps muffled by the carpeted floors here.

So quiet in fact that he almost ran into Hak coming out of the captain's quarters in his pajamas and a pair of bunny slippers. Not something you see everyday.... He knew so little about the captain's husband. He wondered if the man even had a full name or occupation. Rumors had it that he was some kind of secret assassin for the government, but Murph found it difficult to believe anyone who wore bunny slippers in the hallway could possibly kill anyone.

He did two laps, then accessed a hatch and climbed a ladder down one floor and repeated, running two laps on every floor until he finished on Deck 14.


[0600 hours - Engineering, Deck 10]
Hot, sweaty, and generally gross, but feeling re-energized for the day, Murphy stepped off the turbolift into Main Engineering still wearing trainers, shorts, and a black workout shirt with MAJESTIC written across the chest.

"Cravens! Thirty minutes," he barked at one of the senior engineers as he made his way toward his office. The nice thing about Cravens was that Murph didn't usually need to tell him anything, they just understood each other. It was a nice feeling to be able to count on someone like that.

He passed through his office to the Chief Engineer's Quarters, one of the more unique features of the Majestic-class-- accomodations directly attached to the engineer's office. It had made him near giddy when he first moved into them because he was so close to his work and accessible at all hours, but these days it was feeling more like a ghost of a previous life. Still, he made use of the quarters because, why not. He showered quickly, dressed for the day, styled his hair, and ordered his 'coffee, iced, caramel sweetener, light cream' before stepping back out and into his office.

Cravens was already waiting for him and didn't bother to stand up. "Deuterium injector cleaning on the schedule for today, there's an error report coming from the docking hatch that I think we'll need to get someone out on EVA to look at, someone reported Holodeck three is playing only Klingon Opera again, and Tox needs you to look at a bypass valve in the aeroponic bay? I thought aeroponics meant that they didn't need water," he wondered aloud.

"No, it just means that they get water from the air. Misting, mostly," Murph answered easily as he leaned back in the chair and sipped on his coffee. "She doesn't need anything. It's code, anyway."

"Code?" Cravens was confused.

"I asked her to get me something," Murph smirked. "She has connections."

"Oh, is this what I think it might be?"

"No comment," Murph chuckled. He took a breath and re-focused on work. "So, let's notify the bridge that we need EVA time for the docking hatch. Probably a bad sensor. I'll take that if you can straighten out the programming in the holodeck. We'll get Sanders and Evel on the injector maintenance, but double --"

"--double check their work before we bring it back on-line, yeah, yeah," Cravens said, making notes as he finished his boss' sentences. "Can't have a repeat of last time."

"Is that really it? Seems like a light day."

"God, do you never learn anything? Don't say stuff like that," Cravens shook his head as he rose to his feet and exited the office.

[1025 hours - EVA]

Wearing the bulky EVA suit and jetpack, Murph stepped off the ledge of the secondary airlock and into the true weightlessness of space. The exterior of the ship was one of his favorite places to work. Quiet, dark, and no one was able to run into him for chit-chat. He craned his neck to look upward across the hull and then engaged thrusters on the jet pack. "Computer, give me some appropriate music," he mused into his helmet mic.

"Oh, jeez, you're not going to sing along are you?" Cravens voice was in his ear just before the song Rocket Man kicked in.

"Only if you're really, really lucky," Murph replied, slowing down the thrusters as he got closer to the airlock. He reached for his tricorder, scanned over the hatch over the airlock controls.

"Faulty comm chip," the chief added once he'd reviewed the tricorder readings. "I'm going to reseat it."

"How about I just bring out a new one?" Cravens offered.

"And I think it's gonna be a long long time," Murph couldn't help sing out loud to the music.

"Keep that up and I'm shutting off this channel," Cravens threatened from across the comm.

"I'll try this first. Maybe it'll buy us enough time before the next layover at a station and we'll replace the entire control system then," Murph answered as he removed a control chip and then pushed it back into place. "Almost there..."

[1215 hours]

"Commander?"

"Commander, can you hear me?"

The voice sounded like an echo from a deep, dark well at first and then Murphy opened his eyes a bit, blinded by the bright overhead light and disoriented by the fact that he had no idea where he was. Except that there were two medical officers standing over him.

"Commander, you're in sickbay. You had an accident," one of them said.

"Yes, Rocket Man, you didn't ground yourself and there was a surge that took out the EVA's life support," Craven popped his head into view over Murphy and grinned.

Both Cravens and Murphy said at the same time, "Rookie mistake."

"Ok, I'm good. A little black out never hurt anyone," Murph said, trying to sit upright but finding himself being held down by one of the medical officers.

"You can't get up yet. We have to wait for the tests, it's going to take a few hours," the other one said.

"Do you want me to go meet with Tox and see what's up with the hydroponics thing?" Cravens offered.

"Aeroponics," Murphy corrected his engineer. "No, I'll go as soon as I get cleared here. You go down and check on the injector maintenance. And can you NOT tell Patrick about this, please? He'll just worry."

[1700 hours - Arboretum]

"Sorry, I got tied up in things," Murph apologized as he approached the bolian botanist as she was working at the base of some plants in the arboretum.

Tox popped up to her feet and brushed the dirt off her hands, smiling. "Oh, no worries. I mean, what am I going to do, sell it to someone else? Actually, I probably could sell it to someone else. You have no idea how hard I worked to get one." She motioned for him to follow and then traipsed off toward the botany office.

"I can pretty much guess how hard it was, given the price," Murph grumbed.

"About that, the price doubled. I thought you still wanted it though, right?" she asked, slightly cringing as she broke the bad news. She pulled down a medium-sized shipping box from the shelf.

Barely keeping from an outburst about cost, Murph nodded. "Yes, it's fine. Is that it?"

"Uh huh," she cheerfully flashed a smile as she passed the box over. "Don't do anything I wouldn't do."

[1900 hours - Engineering]

Working late, Murphy's line of thought was interrupted by the bridge's operations officer.

"Commander, you have a priority message from the USS Odin."

"Patch her through, please," Murph answered, his brows furrowing. The Odin meant news-- family news.

The viewscreen on the chief engineer's desk lit up and quickly flickered over to a woman in a teal starfleet uniform with curly, red hair.

"Aileen," Murph spoke his sister's name with some hesitation. They had once been close, but anymore he didn't know who she was. They had kept track of each other's careers, but they hadn't talked in years. He couldn't imagine any scenario in which she might call except with either really good news or bad news.

"Angy. It's... it's Mom," she said, clearly fighting back emotions. "I barely got any information out of Cath. She just said they had to rush her to the medical center and that it doesn't look good. She may only have a day or two left."

Color drained from Murphy's face and he nodded slowly as he processed. "But she's there with Dad. There's no way I can travel there. We're too far away."

"Same," Aileen admitted. She lowered her head a bit. "I'm going to try to get Cath to set up a video link, if Mom is coherent at all..."

"I said my goodbyes a long time ago," Murph said. "I don't want to see her like that. I don't... I don't think I can see her like that if that's the last time."

She cocked her head and looked astounded. "Angy, that's.. no. Don't hide from this. You'll regret it later."

"Can you just, just keep me in the loop. I don't know. I can't think about this right now," Murph clicked off the communication and rubbed the bridge of his nose. The last thing he wanted to do was to talk about it. It was too much to unpack with her.

It was too much to unpack with Patrick, too, who would notice something bothering him like this.

Murphy tapped his commbadge, "Cravens. I need you to get ahold of Patrick and tell him that I have some emergencies going on in engineering and I won't be home until late. Or I may just stay in my quarters so that I'm closer to what's happening. Thank you."

"Uh... what's going on, Murph?"

"Nothing. I just need some space," Murph replied.

There was a long silence. "So you want me to... lie?"

"I'm just asking for a favor," Murph said. "It's not black and white."

"Alright."

"Alright." Murph clicked off the badge, stood from his desk, and went into his quarters.