Puff Dog

Posted on Sat Mar 4th, 2023 @ 9:39am by Lieutenant Ty-Yak Novo & Able Crewman A'Glosz and Stromi

0 words; about a 1 minute read

Mission: Mission 2: Rendezvous At Starbase 10
Location: Jefferies Tube 13
Timeline: M3 MD02 (2268.6.12) 1300

A pair of boots was sticking out of the bottom of a Jeffries Tube, next to the kneeling form of one of the ships 'grunts', literally, a female Tellarite technician in a pair of creased overalls, which did little to enhance her feminine charms. The thick raspy voice of the crewmember in the tube indicated that she, too, was of the female persuasion.

"Hey Stromi, I'm stuck like a frickin sausage roll all up in here!"

A'Glosz had been putting weight on. Comfort eating maybe. She missed her boyfriend who was on another ship, out Beta Quadrant way.

"Huh?" the kneeling technician grunted "Oh, you mean a puff dog!"

"Puff dog?! Who the frick calls it a 'puff dog'?!" came the muffled response from up the tube. "It's a frickin' sausage roll! Either way I'm frickin stuck."

Stromi's slick black bobbed hair, her dyed and coiffured bristles more accurately, swung as she saw someone come round the corner in comforting, practical red.
"Officer's coming!"

"Frick! that's all we need!" came the muffled voice.

"'S alright, it's Novo." Stromi assured the disembodied boots. She hailed the strange young disheveled looking Lieutenant with the big luminous blue eyes; they had both worked under him during the fitting out of the ship and were amongst the crew that had been retained on board during the maiden voyage.

"Hey Sir!" Stromi stood up from her crouching position and waved a trotter at Ty-Yak "Can yuhs give us a hand pullin' A'Glosz outta this tube? Fat little piggywiggy's gotten herself stuck again!"

"Hey!!" came the older Tellarite's indignant yelp from within the tube.

"Been spending a lot at the pastry shop on the starbase I take it?" Novo responded with chuckle. He walked over to the tube and stuck his head in. "Would you hold it against me if I suggested some bacon grease?" He said with a smirk.

"No, I'd just kick yer frickin head in... Sir!" came the muffled bellow.

"C'mon, grab a leg!" suggested Stromi, helping herself to a booted trotter. "Careful, we don't wanna dislodge that weave!"

"It's not a frickin weave!!" came the inevitable reply, which made Stromi give out a snuffling, grunting chuckle.

"Hey, Glozzy, the Lieutenant's gonna touch your leg now! Don't get worried, or excited, it's all in the line of dooty!" Stromi was obviously enjoying this.

She looked at the weak looking, but as both A.C's knew, oddly strong young man with the dishevelled hair and the no-sleep-for-a-week rings under his eyes.

"O.K. Sir. One.. two... three... NOW"

There was a terrible ripping sound as A'Glosz came tumbling down the tube. She hadn't been jammed at all, her overalls had been caught on something and as she hit the deck with a resounding thump and a shout of "Oh Shit, my ass!" it was clear that something had come asunder at the back.

"Aw no, your tail's on show!!" Stromi laughed a warning. The bulky tellarite woman jumped up with amazing agility and pulling her tattered pant seat back up over her backside, ran like the wind down the corridor back to her quarters.

Between guffaws, Stromi managed a sing song "Wee Wee Wee, all the way home." Then wiping tears from her eyes turned to her much respected senior officer.

"Say Sir, you give me a hand fixin' this? Relay buffers 're burned out." She knew Novo couldn't resist getting his hands behind the panelling.

"Of course, I signed on to be an engineer not a desk Jockey after all!" Novo proclaimed with a slightly crazed look in his eye. This ship was his passion, his first born and his obsession all rolled into one. With one swift move he leapt into the Jefferies tube and removed the access panel. He dropped it along with a piece of A'Glosz's tattered coveralls.

"Hold on Sir, this is a three handed job" Stromi snorted, clambering up after him. It was a little tight in the tube for the two of them: Novo was preternaturally thin and Stromi was... well, slimmer than A'Glosz at least, but they were still shoved together as Stromi took the burnt out buffers off the Lieutenant and handed him the new ones and any tools he needed.

"Course, the old relay buffers were a lot thicker, these new ones burn out after a couple of weeks, know what I mean, Sir?" she grunted, her snout close to his ear. It was hard for him to unloosen the fused components from their housing without brushing against the technicians front.

"Don't worry, Sir. They always get in the way, Sir." she assured him. He should think himself lucky he wasn't jammed up the Jeffries' with a'Glosz.

"D'you prefer the thick ones, Sir? Relay Buffers that is, Sir."

"Ah, yes that would be best... The thin ones burn out too quickly," Novo responded

"Yeah" nodded Stromi "Frickin' regs, huh?"

They worked a while, pressed up against each other.

"Course... Chief Engineer could authorise it. Usin' the old style ones. Helm wouldn't like it, not as responsive, see. But who cares what those fly-boys want? We don't got a Chief, Sir, guess that puts you in charge, huh? You could just get a big one and stick it in, Sir. How bout that?" she asked, pulling out an old fashioned double-ply relay buffer. Her green eyes glowed with mischief.

"How bout it Lieutenant?"

"Well..." Novo hemmed and hawed and then said, "The Captain doesn't like me experimenting with things... I suppose we just don't tell him. How about it Miss Piggy?"

"Oh, er, yeah..." suddenly the Tellarite woman looked a little sad. "You, er, you know that's kinda a hurtful thing to say to a Telly lady, huh, Sir?" she said, fishing out the buffer.

"I know me and Glozzy kid about with all that pig stuff. I thought you'd realise, Sir, we do that first, so nobody else gets a chance to do it. I thought you knew Sir, I thought you were more... sensitive than the others."

"I am tactless, if nothing else," Novo responded in a neutral tone.

She pulled out an odd looking tool from the pouch she wore over her unglamourous overalls. "You'll need this, Lieutenant, sonic spanner, it's ready to go: I calibrated it for you myself."

The lieutenant nodded, took the tool and began to use it. "That should do it," he responded, returning the tool, "I hope next time things will go more smoothly."

"Say, Sir." said Stromi, pulling the tool away carefully in a special loop in her belt." You ever tinker with old junkers? Like space speeders? Classics?" She was talking about small, souped up civilian planet hoppers that aficionados sometimes souped up to travel at amazingly fast speeds or chromed up to the nth degree to show off at interstellar meets, a little like the 'hot rods' of old 20th century earth.

"From time to time I've dabbled, I helped our old skipper fix up his internal combustion engine vehicle," Novo responded, "Why do you have a project in mind?"

"Oh, I'm talking about a real vehicle, Sir, not one o' them old Earth rollers. Cousin o' mine reckons there's an old 27T in a junk yard orbiting Nimbus V, kinda near where we're goin'. If we can get the Captain's permission to bring it on board I reckon me and Glozzy could fix up the bodywork and most of the wiring, we'd need the help of a expert like you though, Sir, to replace the engine. Like rip out the old impulse tach and put a mini warper in there."

Something similar had been done recently with an ancient XL5, the tiny craft reaching incredible speeds of 0 to Warp 4 in less than a minute.

"Course, if we wanted to race her or go fer records, we'd have to secure a good pilot. i don't think Miss Snooty Drawers upstairs'd be interested in helping out a couple of slobs like us... er, I mean Glozzy an' me, you ain'ta slob, Sir." She looked at him as best she could within the narrow confines of the tube "... just a little scruffy."

'Miss Snooty Drawers' was resumably the ship's somewhat haughty chief helmswoman, Lt. Thraxina.

"Oh I'm sure I can get skippy to give us a detour," Novo piped up, "He and I go way back... Sure we can even get some cargo bay storage for the sucker." He could hear it now the Captain saying no, but he was still a foolish optimist.

Stromi snorted her approval through her cute little turned up snout; A'Glosz had been right. To Stromi's assertation that the Lieutenant would 'never go for it' - a no-no from Novo - Glozzy had replied that 'sure he will, he's been bored stiff since the Ship's been completed, kid needs a fiddle-toy.'

Unfortunately, this little fix-it job was completed. As Novo replaced the panel and Stromi used the sonic spanner to secure it in place, hand brushing against trotter for an instant, sending a thrill up the technician's arm and into her heart, she realised they now had to elegantly exit the Jeffries Tube together.

"After you, Sir, officers first!" not making any particular effort to draw back, so he would have to squeeze past her.

"Thanks," Novo responded. Fortunately he was rather lanky, allowing him to squeezin past Stromi, albeit barely. His boots hit the deck, "Well that's one problem solved," he added.

Stromi came down after him, just as A'Glosz re-appeared, her overalls now patched up. "Hey, d'ya refit the buffers?" she asked.

"Yeah, the Looty did it." grunted Stromi approvingly.

"That's what we like about you Sir, don't mind gettin' your hands dirty. Hey look!" she said, turning and showing her now decently covered rump "Junkyard Julie sewed 'em up for me - good old needle and thread."

"Good to hear... I think that finishes this job," Novo responded, "Now if you would excuse me sparky needs to be fed." He gave a smirk before he started to walk down the hallway.

"Well, any luck?" A'Glosz asked as soon as Novo disappeared out of ear shot.

"Nah" Stromi replied "I think he might be gay."

"No, stoopid! the 27T!" an exasperated Gozzy rolled her porcine eyes.

"Oh yeah... he's in."

 

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