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A mirror shattered #222 "The law of preservation of misery"-=[On]=- Evans was having a rough night. He couldn't catch his sleep, so he got dressed, and started wandering about the corridor... His mind was with Kitty, and how he spectacularly messed up any chance of winning her for him. It mulled through his mind over and over again, he had to find something to distract himself, before he would go insane!... He could pull another shift, but he felt too tired to do that. There was just one option, really, and it involved a little car in a little corner of a big ship's cargobay... He walked inside, and he could swear the wheels of his car were turning, and he could hear a soft "Vroom!- EEEK!" but it was only his imagination, his little car was empty, and silent. He opened the driver side door, and sat down... Even this car reminded him of Kitty... <This sucks...> he thought. He sighed deeply, and looked at the dash. He got the key out of the glovebox and put the car on contact. Several warningindicators lighted up, as designed... ... Another sigh could be heard, from almost a lightyear away... "Computer, scan the vehicle I'm in right now." he finally said. The computer responded with a series of beeps, that were just a bit too happy for Evans' taste... "Vehicle scanned. Please provide information for storage, reference and retrieval for the accumulated data..." ...Yet another sigh... "Manufacturer: Mercedes Swatch. Type: Smart. Edition: for2. Build: 2001" Evans responded... His spirit was marginally lifted by the computer actually co-operating for once... He pushed the brake, and turned the key, starting the engine. He then looked at the stick that should normally control the sequential gearbox... He pushed it forward, and checked the readout, hoping for some reason that some gnome had repaired the gearbox for him... Nothing... As much progress as he had with Kitty... Another sigh... "Computer, please identify the gearbox..." "Gearbox identified." "Good..." Evans said. He sighed yet again... "Computer, scan the gearbox for possible defects..." "The actuator servo is not functional." "What?! It was working fine when we took it out! What's wrong with that servo?" Evans asked, completely surprised "The actuator servo has a partial short circuit, resulting in a 90% performance degradation." the computer answered flatly Evans blinked... "That's it? I've been looking for that all these years?! The servo is partially broken?" he asked incredulously. "Affirmative" the computer answered, rubbing even more salt in the wounds that scarred Evans' ego... "Computer, please confirm that computers do NOT have a sick excuse for a sense of humor..." Evans asked, holding a hand to his forehead. "Affirmative" the computer repeated... Evans turned off the engine, and got out, mixing all the emotions of defeat, frustration, embarrasment and a broken heart into the preassure cooker that was his mood. He slammed the door, turned around and kicked the tyre of his poor silly ol' car... Hard... He leaned on the car's roof, feeling tired, but too wound up to go to sleep. He stood there for a fifteen minutes, thinking about Kitty, and about his car, how he could get to that darn actuator without ripping the whole engine out. He finally got an anti-gravity generator, and lifted the back of the car, revealing the gearbox, and the broken actuator. He got a ratchet and squeezed in between the panels and parts that were shoehorned into the engine bay... It took him the better part of half an hour to finally disconnect, unbolt and remove the actuator. <I've seen this before...> he thought... <Recently, even...> he added. He just stood there for another couple of minutes, just staring at the part, and he looked over at Berth 2, thinking he might have seen it between the wreckage of G'Ulf-Fey's ship... He started walking toward the other bay, the servo still in his hand... <I've seen this before, and the only place that could have been was... Nah, that's preposterous...> he mulled through his mind. He reached the wreckage, and climbed through the wireloom still spread around the ground, and looked at one of the thrusters... There it was... Right there, connected to the maneuvering thruster... Or what was left of a maneuveringthruster... "You have got to be kidding me..." he mumbled, eyes wide... "Computer, compare the servo in my hand, and the servo I'm pointing at..." "Comparing... The designated objects are equal for 96.8 percent." the computer responded. "What are the differences?" Evans asked. "The servo held in hand, has a short circuit, that degrades performance for 90%. The brackets for attachment have a different shape, and a different number of screw-holes. The part on the ship is one point five percent longer and point five percent thinner than the part held in hand. The part held in hand has an operating tension of twelve volts, with a 3 volt delta, the one on the ship has a nominal operating tension of eleven point five volts, with a four volt delta." the computer answered... In short, Evans had found the part for his 20th century car on a starship from a mirror dimension... "...What... the... hell?!..." he thought. He took out his ratchet again, and started to unbolt the servo, which took him another fifteen minutes, and started to carry both servo's back to his car... At least that was the plan... His mind was occupied by the amazing coincidence, and he couldn't believe his luck... The one part that was still operational on Wulfie's spaceship, was a servo that could control the gearbox of his car... However, his head was not thinking about his feet, that once again got tangled into the spiderweb that was the spaceship's wiringloom, and yet again, his face was rudely reaccuainted with the cargobay's floor... Ronald blew a fuse... "GOD D... STUPID F... PIECE OF SHIT!" he shouted out, as he flailed his arms at the wiringloom... He grabbed the wires, ripping them off the ground, and with an amazing amount of force threw them to the side. He ran after it, raging with anger and frustration, kicking the wires, only managing to get his foot tangled again as he took a step back... He fell backward on his bum, stunned, and started to cry... He was tired, sad, and frustrated, He just lied down backward, and couldn't find the strength to get up... It was there and then, on the hard surface of the cargobay floor that he closed his eyes to rest for a while, and soon the hard floor didn't bother him anymore, as he fell in an exhausted sleep... -=[Off]=- Fading to black, Lieutenant JG. Ronald Evans Chief Operations Officer USS Pegasus |
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