[h3][b][color=636B2F]Virginia Sokolova[/color] and [color=5C6B9C]Mark Lopez[/color][/b][/h3]

Mark sat hunched over a console deep in the guts of engineering, diagnostic lines crawling across the screen while the steady hum of the ship grew just a little stronger with every cycle. His biomech fingers tapped absently at the edge of the panel while the other hand keyed through readouts, making sure nothing was ready to cook itself the second they put power into the drives. 


[color=5C6B9C]“Portside grid’s holding steady… coolant feeds are cycling…”[/color] he muttered more to himself than to anyone else. 


He leaned back in the chair, rubbed the back of his neck, then glanced over at the redhead across the bay. For a long moment he thought about just staying quiet, burying himself back into the work but instead, he cleared his throat. 


[color=5C6B9C]“So… you got any family among the refugees?”[/color] He realized immediately how that probably sounded. He shifted in his seat, trying to soften it. 


[color=5C6B9C]“Sorry. Don’t mean to drag up bad shit. Just… figured we might as well talk about something while we’re down here, running circles with the diagnostics.”[/color]

Ginny, for her part, was torquing down a flange not far away, a methodical series of powerful whines from the impact driver coming from not far away. It gave her a zen-like focus which would be broken with Mark's Words. 

[color=636B2F]"No, its fine, I didn't have anyone planetside."[/color] she said it casually with a slight longing in her tone. The redhead paused, as if she were confused by her own words. [color=636B2F]"My family are a few thousand light years from here. Your folks make it out?"[/color]

Mark let a silence sit, eyes on the scrolling diagnostics before he finally muttered, [color=5C6B9C]“Doubt it. They were still back on Shinar when it all went to hell. Farms don’t get priority evac. Odds are… they didn’t make it.”[/color]

He shifted in his chair, forcing a shrug, [color=5C6B9C]“Can’t dwell on it. Not when we’ve got a few hundred souls counting on this over designed heap of metal to run when we hit the switch.”[/color]

[color=636B2F]"I can appreciate overdesigned, beats the hell out of most ships I've been on."[/color] she drives a couple more bolts into full engagement [color=636B2F]"When it comes to last chances, this is about as good as it gets."[/color] she seems comfortable enough with brushing past the harder subject left to hang in the air. 

[color=636B2F]"I just hope that people aren't too against getting frozen away. We don't have the food for everyone to be awake the whole time."[/color] She says, the lilt in her voice conveying her conflictedness on the matter.

Mark leaned back, letting the console hum as he considered her words. [color=5C6B9C]“Yeah… it’s a hell of a change. Never thought I’d be crawling around in something this new. I’m used to servicing tubs two generations out of date, keeping them stitched together with tape and prayers. This thing? Feels more like I should take my boots off before touching it.”[/color]

He smirked faintly, but the expression didn’t linger, [color=5C6B9C]"Those pods are the last resort for me. No way I’m climbing into one of those coffins unless I’ve got no other option. You close your eyes and wake up God knows how long later? No thanks. For all I know, I’d pop out just in time to see one of those big-ass Ragons trying to chew me in half.”[/color]

He gave a dry chuckle and shook his head. [color=5C6B9C]“Nah. I’ll take my chances awake. At least that way I can keep a gun in my hand.”[/color]

[color=636B2F]"Not gonna be a choice for most, count your blessings there."[/color] she has some somberness in her tone, looking down toward the console to distract herself from that thought. [color=636B2F]"You do much shipboard work? Not really sure how much Eden folks went into space."[/color]

Mark scratched at the stubble on his chin, eyes still on the console, [color=5C6B9C]“Yeah, I’ve had my fair share of ship work. Mostly patch jobs after pirate raids or some poor bastard clipping a meteor field. Shinar never had the newest toys, so keeping the old ones alive was half the job.”[/color]

A faint grin tugged at his mouth, [color=5C6B9C]“One time, we were deinstalling a thruster assembly, and the damn thing fired. Whole workshop turned into a fucking tornado. Tools flying everywhere, alarms screaming. One of my squadmates caught the thing square in the head... barely flinched. Just stood there like he was made of steel until the power finally cut. Funniest damn thing I ever saw.”[/color]

He chuckled at the memory, the sound short-lived as it trailed into something quieter. His gaze drifted for a moment, [color=5C6B9C]“He’s probably gone now. Most of them are.”[/color]

Mark let out a slow breath, pushing a few buttons on the diagnostics screen like the work might steady him. [color=5C6B9C]“Still… guess I’m lucky enough to be here making this thing run. Could’ve been a lot worse.”[/color]

Ginny stays silent as the man reflects, it felt more appropriate to give some space for the man who had lost everything he had ever known. So she took her time to rush over to her console, marking the procedure complete before digging through her pack. [color=636B2F]"Suppose there's a good chance for new beginnings."[/color] she offers only slightly above the din of the engine room

Mark noticed the quiet stretch between them, her eyes down on the console, and it clicked that maybe he’d gone too far down memory lane. He cleared his throat, rubbing the back of his neck as if to brush the weight off.

[color=5C6B9C]“Anyway,”[/color] he said, forcing a lighter note into his voice, [color=5C6B9C]“once we’ve got this beast running, we’re gonna need something to keep people from going stir crazy. Maybe set up a tabletop game in the mess. Hell, even a ping pong table if we can scrounge the space, that is unless there's already something set up.”[/color]

He let himself grin faintly at the thought, [color=5C6B9C]“Back on Shinar we had this old mini-soccer table in the rec shed. Thing was beat to hell, supposedly came all the way from Earth before we even had FTL. Still worked though, kept us sane and entertained.”[/color]

Mark shook his head, [color=5C6B9C]“Figure anything’s better than staring at bulkheads waiting for the next jump. Don't ya think?”[/color]

The tech gives an approving nod at that [color=636B2F]"Mini-soccer table?"[/color] she asked almost rhetorically, trying to imagine it and seeming to get the gist [color=636B2F]"I'm sure there'll be plenty in the cargo hold to break out. Got some cards myself. You guys still use 52 and 2 right?"[/color] she's almost teasing... but she has seen some interesting divergences. 

[color=636B2F]"Even with everything fresh and clean, plenty to keep track of on a watch. Seeing as there's two of us, that's twelve a piece."[/color] She feigned excitement at the prospect.

[color=5C6B9C]"Cards’ll do the trick. Yeah, we still play with 52 and 2. Can’t say I’m much good at it, but it’s about the best way to kill time when you’re stuck somewhere you can’t walk away from.”[/color] Mark said with a smile. 

He keyed through another set of diagnostics, watching a line of green bars crawl across the screen. [color=5C6B9C]“And you’re right, with just the two of us keeping this tub humming, twelve-hour watches are gonna chew us up quick. We’ll have our work cut out for us.”[/color]

He tapped his biomech fingers against the console, thinking aloud. [color=5C6B9C]“Still, we can get smart with it. Rotate checks so neither of us is babysitting the same system all shift. Maybe rig a couple of auto-pings to alert us before something cooks instead of chasing every little light. Buy ourselves some breathing room.”[/color]

He gave her a quick look across the bay, smirk lingering. [color=5C6B9C]“There's also something I've been working on which may help, if the ship has a workbench and enough materials I may be able to cobble it together and will save us a lot of time..."[/color]

[color=636B2F]“I'll need to get you up to speed then. Ever play Durak? We'll need some extra players."[/color] she'd offer with an impish grin. Clearly she was a shark among these stars. She'd finish writing up a list of material to test, her eyes narrowing at the growing number of things that still needed to be evaluated. 

[color=636B2F]"Plenty of ways to skimp on duties as needed, and she should be running well. Material history seems pretty light so I'm sure problem pieces will be very clear very quick."[/color] She rolls her head some and turns to look at him, the man's expression and tone causing a raise of half a lip [color=636B2F]"Oh? Going to lash down some controls?”[/color]

Mark let out a short laugh at her jab, but it trailed off into silence as he scratched at the back of his neck. He hesitated, weighing whether to even say it out loud.

[color=5C6B9C]“Well… not exactly lashin’ down controls,”[/color] he said at last, [color=5C6B9C]“I had this idea, back on Eden. Off-duty, I’d fill up notebooks with schematics... half-baked, really. A sort of helper machine. Nothing smart, nothing that’d get me run out of the colony for even whispering the wrong letters. Just… an extra set of hands.”[/color]

He shifted his weight, [color=5C6B9C]“Picture a little drone, something that could pass a wrench, carry supplies, maybe even keep the crops tended while the real folk got on with their day. Pre-scripted routines, dead simple logic trees, no more independent thought than a coffee maker. I never built it, never had the resources. But I carried the notes everywhere. Guess I couldn’t let the idea go.”[/color]

Ginny's eyes betray her, those green-brown orbs being narrowed for a quick moment, their focus dipping down for a moment to his actuated arm. Even so, they reopen and she shrugs [color=636B2F]"If you think you can throw something like that together on your own, I don't see why not, might be a pain in the ass to get running with preformed boards."[/color] She offers affirmingly, her skepticism more implicit. 

She'd look over to her duffel for a moment, and sighs, slipping an arm down to schlep it onto her back. [color=636B2F]"Got my list to get things moving, should only be an hour and a little extra."[/color]

Mark caught the look toward his arm but let it slide, he gave a small nod. [color=5C6B9C]“Fair enough. Might be a pain, but I’ll see what I can jury-rig once we’re stable.”[/color] He pushed back from the console, [color=5C6B9C]“I’ll stay here and check on the secondary systems then, don't get lost out there, it's a big ship..." [/color]