A trio of junior tech priests watched over the inert plasma reactor, mumbling binaric chants as a servitor recited automated rites of reignition behind them. Most of them still had flesh on them and thus could feel the figurative and literal heat behind them that watched their every move. They were mostly at least a decade older than the spritely 57 year old Chief Enginseer who stood on a balcony overlooking them, yet it was clear to all that age mattered little as one of them misspoke and the engine began to suddenly crackle.

"ERROR ON LINE 1041, VERSE 229." Hishiryn screeched in binary. He tapped something on his data slate and the plasma reactor went into a forced shut down. He scolded the youngest of their number, the one who made the error to begin with, with eyes that burned like ship engines. "Fool, the ritual is to recite the litany on every [i]third[/i] turn of the knob, not [i]second[/i]. And each recitation is to last no more than 12 standard seconds! Do you need to be taught how to count again!"

The last bit was entirely personal preference as official cult teachings said that this particular litany had no true time limit so long as the knobs were turned in the correct order. However, Hishiryn maintained a strict timeline to be followed when it came to maintaince and his exacting standards where the thing that more than one tech acolyte feared. Yet it was because of those standards that he had been assigned to such a hallowed vessel.

Before he could continue to rip into the poor junior tech priest, a servo-skull floated by and a message ran across Hishiryn's vision as it plugged into one of his mechadendrites.

"I will be back." Hishiryn said in binary as he turned his back to the trio of tech priests, "The captain calls for me. I want this reactor fixed by the time I get back or I will have you reassigned to the organic maintenance of servitors."

[hr][hr]
A pair of servo-skulls with black iron braziers heralded the arrival of the Chief Enginseer Hishiryn whose eternally smoldering robes crackled with fading flames and left a light trail of ash where he walked. When he talked "naturally" it was with the voice of a roaring kiln mixed with the mechanical monotone so common among tech priests complete with the unnatural breaks.

"Apologetic: I was attending to the plasma reactors on deck 47b. They were 7% under standard efficiency coefficients." The Chief Enginseer did not bother with proper formalities, in his mind his status as the man in charge of running the whole ship made him at least as important as the Captain himself, "Frustrated: There seems to be a great many things which are under standard efficiency coefficients. Elated: But I am never the less thankful for being allowed such a prestigious position aboard such a vaulted vessel."