A Midnight Clear

Finally, a bona fide journal entry. I've missed doing these.--Maer.

Excerpt from Peripatetica, by M. K. Sebastien, Engr. ret.

Tuesday, 24 Dec 2520
Kuiper II class, Summer’s Gift
En route to Ariel
2345hrs, ship’s time

        I woke at the first vibration from my watch, tucked under my ear as I pillowed my head on my arm. After that instant’s start, I relaxed, turned off my alarm, and moving slowly so as not to wake Joshua, I extricated myself from under his arm and quit my bed. I tucked the covers around him against any chill, pulled out the change of clothing I’d stashed behind the folded upper bunk and dressed quickly. I had fifteen minutes before Christmas officially arrived and I had several tasks to complete before the crew got started with their day. I took one last look at Joshua before I left, saw that he’d slept through my moving around the tight cabin, and reckoned it was just as well I’d tired him out earlier. The last thing I wanted was to explain why I was sneaking around in the middle of the night when I should be sleeping, like any other decent person.
        Decent. Huh. That’s pretty ironic, coming from you.
        I turned my desk lamp down a notch and quietly let myself out. Thirty paces to the left of my door had me at my tools locker in my work room. Thirty seconds saw me striding for the bridge with my tool bag slung over my shoulder and my first task in hand. I stopped at the entrance to the midships lounge, listening to the splash and hiss of the shower running. It was coming from the portside shower and I knew that I’d timed it perfectly. I quickly went forward and glancing left at the galley I saw it was dark. No one moved within, grabbing a late night coffee or midnight snack to tide them over til morning. No light shone beyond the hatch to the bridge, no whisper of music drifted to my ears.
        Clear.
        The bridge was deserted as I’d hoped. Nika was likely in the shower I’d heard on my way up here but not counting on it, I pulled out my drill and quickly attached my Christmas present to the pilot’s chair. Four screws. Four seconds.
        Done.
        Pausing only to double check the cupholder did indeed open and fold flat beneath the left armrest as designed, I quit the bridge and turned right toward Rick’s botany bay. The next job would be trickier: swapping out the filter pump for a newly refurbished one required fiddling with wiring as well as underwater hoses and the pump itself wasn’t exactly what you’d call silent. Its absence for the time it took to swap it out might be noticed by someone accustomed to its murmur in the background. Nevertheless, I had to try.
        I laid everything I needed on the deck beside his carp tank, flipped the switch on the old pump and got to work. I was fortunate that it was a model that simply slung over the side of the tank. Working my drill across the container from his bunk would have given the game away. I disconnected the power source and got busy. I worked the old hoses free from their clamps and inspected them, found one in need of replacement and grabbed it from the spread of tools and parts at my knee. On it went onto the new pump and into the drink the assembly went. I reattached the hoses, clamped them in place, and grinned as the carp nibbled on my fingers for food. I waved them away with my hand and kept working, up to my elbows in water. Three hoses later, I pulled out of the tank dripping and dried off with the towel I’d packed in my bag to keep my tools from clanking. Two minutes later the new pump was connected to the power and humming quietly away, and I slipped out for the med lab.
        Arden wasn’t pulling an all-nighter at his terminal and that suited me just fine. I closed the door to the corridor, the better to hide the noise, and pulled the last item out of my bag. I’d noticed that Arden habitually took notes during his exams and I’d always thought he needed a more convenient method to have his data pad at the ready while keeping his hands free. And like a cup holder for a pilot’s coffee, I’d devised a rig to hold his data pad securely to the side of the exam bed that would fold out of the way when it wasn’t needed. It didn’t take much, being nothing but a few lengths of rolled steel, some joints and hinges, a clamp at top and bottom. Child’s play with an erector set. Still, installation would take more than four screws with a cordless drill. I had to be certain it wouldn’t interfere with the bed’s workings when deployed or folded, and the height and angle when in use had to be geared for a man standing at six feet-plus, not a barefoot woman who barely cleared five.
        Following the adage to measure twice and cut once, I got my dimensions, made my marks, and took up my drill. Once I dropped a screw and had to crawl around on hands and knees to look for it, my flashlight gripped in my teeth. Twice I had to shut everything down and duck behind the bed as someone stirred in the corridor outside. I saw by my watch that I’d already tipped over into Christmas proper but reasoned it wasn’t Christmas until everyone woke up, so I was still in the clear. I got the last screw tightened, oiled the hinges and the joints so it would work flawlessly and silently, and swept up the metal shavings with a tack rag. Tools stowed, bag slung, I got out of there and back to my workshop with no one the wiser.
        My workshop lay silent, lit by the overheads on dim, and I put away my bag with the satisfaction of having pulled off a fast one. It had taken some planning and not a little guile to fabricate everyone’s gifts in defiance of Arden’s orders to avoid working so I could heal. It was a challenge finding the materials I needed from the scrap we carried, especially when it came to the pump, without giving away what I was doing. I was fortunate that just about everything was made of components that didn’t immediately betray their function and aside from some minor shaping and drilling, it was mostly a matter of screwing them together in the right order. The hardest part was keeping Joshua from observing me for more than ten minutes at a time, lest he divine what I was doing, and only tomorrow could tell me how successful I’d been.
        Thinking of Joshua made me think of my bunk and him in it, but there was one last task I had to complete before I turned in. Sniffing my hands I caught the distinct whiff of fishy water and knew there was no crawling back into bed with that stink clinging to me. I'd anticipated the outcome and had already stashed the towels and the soap in my tools locker in advance. Grabbing a quick shower at this time of night wasn’t hard. Neither was cadging one sight unseen. Smelling considerably better leaving than when I arrived, I quit the head and slipped back into my quarters thirty minutes after I’d left.
        Mission accomplished.
        I stripped down, stashed the clothes and got under the blankets, grateful for the warmth Joshua lent them.
        “Everything okay?” he murmured, his eyes fluttering open then closed.
        “Just had to hit the head,” I said, burrowing backward into his embrace. His breath tickled my neck as he mumbled a muzzy reply and I listened to him drop off to sleep. All around us the Gift lay waiting and I thought the pitch of her engines had an anticipatory hum, like a little kid hiding a surprise.
        It’s late. Christmas can take care of itself, you. Get some sleep.
        And since I’d done what I’d hoped to do, if only just, I did.

Since this season turned out to be RP heavy, it's only fair to include the link to everyone's efforts.

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