Farmers and Labourers

Posted on Thu Apr 17th, 2025 @ 2:39pm by Erien Dianek tr'Varen

Mission: Season 6: Echoes of the Zynari
Location: GSN Havraha, Deck 11, Engineering Core
Timeline: MD 6, 2340 Hours
1962 words - 3.9 OF Standard Post Measure

The Havraha was twitching again.

Not failing--just twitching. Power dips that jumped above and below baseline tolerance. Diagnostic flags that vanished before being logged. And plasma flow regulation had somehow adjusted itself without any command.

Sevek grunted irritably as he bent over a console, eyes flicking across the diagnostic schematic like a hunter tracking some elusive prey.

"Deck 22," he said without looking up. "The plasma flow regulators are unstable. Again." He keyed a command into the console. "R'Var. Take a calibration kit with you and see to it."

As R'Var reached for the toolkit, Sevek spoke again. "Take Dianek with you," he added, almost as an afterthought.

There was a pause before R'Var replied. "Understood, Eriel'Arrain," he said aloud--then, under his breath, just loud enough for the rest of Engineering to hear, "Ah, yes. Let's entrust the plasma systems to a Mevakh"--invoking the Rihannsu word for little mouse.

The older engineers either smirked or chuckled. One muttered something about cradle-scrapers and Romulan conscription age. Dianek said nothing. He simply turned, collected his kit, and fell in beside R'Var as they made their way to the lift.

Very little provoked a reaction from the young Romulan engineer. Having been part of the Havraha for nearly two years, he had tolerated every insult about his softness, every backhanded comment about his youthfulness, and every mean-spirited word directed his way. But he never responded. Never reacted.

Reaching the lift, Dianek studied his colleague. R'Var was easily ten years his senior and five inches taller. But what he came by naturally more than offset his intellectual shortcomings. Sihilvh, thought Dianek. It was the word his father used for undesirables of the worker caste--easily expendable and unworthy of producing offspring. Well, unless the offspring could labour in the farm fields.

Dianek had long-ago decided most of the engineers and technicians aboard Havraha were Sihilvh. Luckily, many had perished either through their disastrous arrival in this alien galaxy, or found themselves assigned elsewhere as a result of attrition.

The Acting Daise'Paectum'Saehne had been bestowed upon Sevek, a thick-necked Romulan who wheezed when he raised his voice--and he frequently had to shout orders to the engineering crew. He was of a low-born family in the military caste but had somehow drifted into engineering and operations. Sevek might survive liquidation if Rihan'tal were to happen, thought Dianek, invoking the Romulan word for the Rebirth of Tradition, his own family's core belief.

Casting a long look at R'Var, he considered his fate. R'Var would be liquidated, he granted.

They arrived on Deck 22 moments later, their toolkits in-hand. Dianek turned to the task at-hand, following R'Var through a series of tight corridors until arriving at a junction of maintenance tunnels.

Dianek punched-in his own access code at a tiny console and a small hatch sprung open, revealing a long, narrow tunnel. Dim, red lights pulsed inside--indicating a problem.

R'Var crouched low, placing his calibration kit ahead of his body. Turning to Dianek, he said with a malicious grin, "Careful through here, Mevakh--you might scuff your manicure." Chuckling to himself, he disappeared into the tunnel, an impassive Dianek just behind.

They had only to crawl a short distance before finding the correct regulator control console. Both Romulan engineers popped-open their tool kits and began to triage the unit.

R'Var grabbed the calibration unit from his own kit and tapped it against his palm a few times, as though daring it to give him trouble. He connected it to the access port and frowned when the readings failed to stabilize.

"Faulty regulator again," he muttered. "Nothing but glitches aboard this cursed ship." He adjusted the dial on the unit with practiced indifference, watching the diagnostic lights flicker--unchanged.

Dianek, still crouched beside him, said nothing. His eyes remained fixed not on the regulator, but on the calibration tool itself. It wasn't aligned. The central adjustment spindle was miscalibrated by a fraction--just a hair's breadth off--but it was enough to invalidate every reading it gave. Dianek slowly reached over and lifted the tool from R'Var's hand with the quiet certainty of someone picking up a cracked scalpel in an operating theater.

R'Var blinked. "What are you doing, Mevakh? Planning on kissing it better?" he sneered, but Dianek had already unscrewed the access panel and was gentle rotating the internal sensor module. Each movement was meticulous, with exacting precision. When he returned the tool to the regulator and activated it again, the flickering lights immediately changed to a stable green glow.

The older engineer looked from Dianek to the console. R'Var either had nothing to say or decided against giving the younger engineer any credit. He simply grunted, closing his tool kit.

Dianek kept his gaze locked on R'Var, hoping the lack of spoken word and their eye contact might communicate something to the lesser Romulan. R'Var glanced back at him, noting the unnerving stillness.

"Let's go," he said uncomfortably, pushing past Dianek, returning toward the junction.

Both men emerged from the access tunnel, their boots clonking softly against the grated floor as they entered the junction. The calibration--minor but precise--was now complete. R’Var took the lead again, guiding them down a short corridor toward the Warp Plasma Flow Regulation post, a small secondary station built against the bulkhead and only manned during diagnostics or repairs.

Three Romulan engineers stood at the triangular configuration of consoles, each of the screens angled inward toward a holographic readout that flickered above them like a web of energy veins. The area hummed with low-grade plasma discharge, faint enough to not notice but loud enough to tingle the skin.

Erein Ntass, broad-faced and heavy-jawed, manned the primary diagnostic console, his hands resting idly on the edges while his unnaturally large eyes scanned readings. At the adjacent consoles stood Hevei, grey-haired and square-shouldered, and Lopek, rail-thin with an angular frame, peering into their displays with keen interest.

Ntass turned as R’Var approached. "Good," he said, offering a short nod without looking at Dianek. "Plasma regulation is back within baseline tolerances."

Hevei glanced up at Dianek and smirked. "Isn't it amazing what happens when the little mouse stays out of the way," he chortled.

Lopek didn't even look up. "Calibration probably rebalanced itself," he said, tapping a command into his console. "Or the ship became bored of playing dead."

R'Var chuckled. Dianek remained still, letting the words pass over him like a spring breeze over a smooth stone. His eyes, however, were firmly fixed on the waveform projections which danced across the center holo. There was a drift. Subtle, but the frequency deviation was real. And it was growing.

A red light began to flash on Lopek's console. The old engineer seemed slow to react. "There is a warning in the energy distribution matrix," he said, his voice tinged with uncertainty.

R'Var dropped his tool kit and pushed past the elder Romulan, fingers dancing over the interface. "That is not possible," he said, confident and dismissive.

Dianek watched the holo display as if witnessing a catastrophe unfold in slow-motion. The waveform frequencies were oscillating out-of-phase--and no one else had noticed. He knew the EPS junction two decks below would interpret it as a plasma density drop, triggering an automatic increase in flow pressure. That would explain Lopek’s alert--the system was now misrouting high-voltage plasma into a conduit rated for maintenance load only. A dangerous, amateurish failure. Farmers and labourers, concluded Dianek.

Hevei stared at his console, eyes darting. "I’m detecting a feedback loop," he muttered. "Switching to manual flow control--"

"Wait--"

The warning came too late. Hevei’s console sparked with bluish-silver energy, exploding beneath his hands and flinging him across the compartment. He slammed into the bulkhead and crumpled like a bag of rocks, motionless.

R’Var knelt beside him, pressing fingers to his throat. "He is unconscious," he called out. "But alive."

Ntass wasted no time stepping into Hevei’s place, scanning the warped readout. "Plasma coherence has destabilized across the tertiary manifold," he announced, voice tight with disbelief.

"The EPS network just initiated a compensatory pressure spike," added Lopek, having reassumed his station. "Recursive feedback is building between deck twenty-four and twenty-five. We're seconds from failure."

The comm opened and an angry familiar voice wheezed. [We're detecting a power overload. What is your status?]

R'Var had come to his feet and was now working side-by-side with Ntass, punching in several commands on the same console trying to override the safeties and stabilize flow.

Dianek, silent until now, set his tool kit beside the bulkhead and stepped forward.

"If it cycles again," Ntass warned grimly, "it will rupture the junction sleeve at Node Forty-Four-Saehne-Six."

Dianek stepped over Hevei’s still form without a second glance.

"Assist Hevei," barked R'Var, without looking up. "Take him to medical."

No rank gave R’Var the right to command him. They only believed they could. Because of his age. His silence. His stillness.

He looked down at Hevei with clinical detachment, then gently slid between Ntass and R’Var. At the console, his fingers began tapping into the matrix. R’Var shoved him backward in revulsion--but he returned without hesitation.

"The harmonic phase angle has shifted by zero-point-eight-two percent," Dianek intoned flatly. "You’re routing high-voltage plasma through a secondary conduit rated for maintenance mode." His gaze flicked to Ntass then Lopek--sharp and unreadable.

Then to R’Var, still blocking his access. His voice softened, but the edge in it cut clean as a scalpel.

"Step aside."

R’Var hesitated, nostrils flaring. For a heartbeat, he looked ready to strike the younger Romulan--but something in Dianek’s expression made him falter. It wasn’t arrogance, and it wasn’t fear. It was calculation. The kind of calculation that didn’t pause for wounded men or sparking consoles. The kind that already knew how this would all end.

With barely audible curse, R'Var stepped aside.

[Ntass, report!] shouted Sevek over the comm.

Dianek leaned in, fingers flying over the console with impeccable precision. His first order of business was to cut the commlink with that windbag of a chief engineer. He then turned his attention to the matter at hand. The moment his sequence began, the feedback loop pulsed sharply--one last surge--before stabilizing. The holo display appeared to waver, then resolved into a more orderly and readable grid.

"The tertiary manifold is rebalanced," he said, only slighty above a whisper. "I've re-routed flow through the auxiliary bypass and initiated a pulse-dampening cycle across the primary EPS trunk. Coherence will normalize in thirty seconds."

Ntass stared at the readout, then looked up at him. "That command sequence... how did you--?"

"There are redundancies buried three sublayers down in the plasma regulation programming," Dianek replied calmly. "You missed them."

Lopek blinked insecurely. "I didn't even know they existed."

"You weren't meant to." Dianek turned from the console, brushing past R'Var without acknowledgement. He crouched beside Hevei, reached out, and adjusted the engineer's arm to a safer angle, out of the way of foot traffic. His hands were surprisingly gentle.

"Someone should carry him to medical now," he said, standing.

"R'Var and Ntass exchanged glances. No one moved for a long moment.

Finally, R'Var cleaed his throat. "Lopek. Help me lift him."

As they did, Dianek retrieved his tool kit from the deck and turned silently toward the corridor leading to the lift. Before stepping out, he paused, almost as if reconsidering something.

"Someone should run a full diagnostic on Junction Sleeve Forty-Four-Saehne-Six," he said over his shoulder. "There may be residue scoring from the spike. If you wait, it will fail within the hour."

Then he was gone.