Berret absently wiped a sweat-damp tendril of hair off his forehead and went back to soldering a circuit connection into the main junction box in-between tiers eight and seven. The Shrike was balanced and tied off on the ladder descending down toward Moya's keel off one of the Amnexus System access ways.
The tight confines of the junction box seemed to multiply the heat from the tacking gun, making the task much more unpleasant than it should have been. Still, there was no other option but to complete the job and the ex-assassin saw no benefit in complaining about the temperature.
With just three more connections to make left in the splice, his comm badge chimed signaling that another crewmember had opened a channel to him.
"Berret?" came D'argo's rough voice, "Have you finished with the power patches in your section yet?"
"No," the ex-assassin replied minimally, while continuing his work.
"Why the hezmana not?" spat the Luxan, "The others are near finished, if not already done."
"The others are not working in a vertical crawlway," the Shrike answer imperturbably. "Cable!" he then shouted upwards toward the main horizontal access way two tiers above him. Immediately a length of T3 supply cable dropped down from above, slapping him lightly in the back. He reached rearward and snagged the wire without looking.
"Well, work faster," countered the warrior. "Without power to the navigation and guidance stations – Moya is blind, and so are we."
"I am aware of that," Berret replied as he began tacking in the new T3 to the splices he made in the junction box. His voice actually had a slight hint of feeling put upon for a moment. "It still does not change the fact that these splices and connections can be made only so fast… unless you don't mind if I accidentally cut a power feed to the Atmospheric Mix - Line Master?"
"No, as John says, 'that would be a bad thing'," answered D'argo dourly and with little amusement. The whole crew had been on edge after Moya exited Starburst too close to a solar flare, which had burned out the power supply lines to her navigation sensors. Which they were designed to do as a last chance safety protocol to protect her from more serious damage. Most of the crew and every available DRD had been working steadily for the past three arns to repair the burnouts. When asked to take the vertical assess ways in the keel, Berret had not debated the assignment as some of the others might have. As an ex-Enforcer, heights did not bother him, nor did being perched on uncomfortable ladder rungs while working for extended periods of time. He had clung to far less for much longer time periods as a Syndicate assassin.
Tension was understandably a mite high as there could be a Peacekeeper Command Carrier within a single metra of the Leviathan, and they wouldn't have any clue about it until the Prowlers and Marauders were landing in her hanger bay. Which is why Aeryn and Malika were out on long-range patrols in their own Prowlers instead of working on repairs with the rest of the ship's crewmates.
"We need those systems on-line now!" the warrior prodded again in his worry.
"If you think you can make the circuit splices faster, you are welcome to come down here and take over," Berret said nonplused. He finished the last connection to the T3 and closed the junction box.
"Just finish it and stop arguing!" D'argo snarled. The Shrike could picture the frustrated look on the Luxan's face and knew the warrior wasn't use to holding in or masking his anxiety, so he didn't take it personally. He moved down the ladder toward the next and last junction box in the access-way.
"I am heading to the last junction box near tier nine now," he reported.
"Good, don't take all frelling solar day," the Luxan growled and clicked the comm off.
Berret sighed loudly. Sometimes the warrior's quick temper could be trying, but Chiana was always pleased when he kept his own in check during one of D'argo's outbursts. Oddly enough though, she wasn't above getting into a shouting match with D'argo when the Luxan attempted to tell her what to do.
It seemed she was more apt at giving advice on how to get along with the others in the crew rather than following it.
Berret reset his work light then opened the new junction box and began pulling out the circuit blocks he needed to bypass. He'd just finished extracting the last one when he noticed something peculiar about the way his forearm felt to him. He readjusted the work-light on its clamp to better illuminate the area and then turned his arm over to inspect it.
Clinging to his shirtsleeve he discovered a slug-like creatures about half the size of his closed fist. The slime-covered thing looked back at the Shrike with three bulging eyes perched on the ends of long stalks at what passed as the creature's head. It blinked its orbs in the sudden light, then made a warbling sound to him and then followed that noise with a gurgling one.
Berret's normally expressionless face turned to a look of utter disgust as the slug goggled back at him.
The Shrike drew the lone pulse pistol he was carrying in a cross-draw holster on his left hip and leveled the weapon at the creature propped on his forearm.
The creature turned its three-eye gaze interestedly to the pulse gun's muzzle and warbled questionably at it.
Berret squeezed the trigger and the pulse bolt vaporized the creature an instant later.
Three tiers above him, a surprised Chiana poked her head into the vertical crawlway from the main access way where she waited to supply him with more T3 cable.
"What the frell was that?" she yelled down to him in alarm.
"Nothing," Berret called back up as he re-holstered his weapon and idly patted out the smoldering spot on his shirtsleeve.
"Nothing?" Chiana repeated, "You shot at something. What the hezmana was it?"
Berret sighed once again and went back to working at the junction box. "Nothing, it was a Greeboe," he reluctantly told her.
The pretty Nebari's head bobbed in surprise once more.
"A Greeboe?"
"Yes."
"A Greeboe, you shot at… a little Greeboe?" she asked again with the beginnings of a grin. Her smile widening more as she added a moment later, "Was it armed?"
"No," Berret added, in a tone that told her he was not as amused as she was.
She knew that for some unknown reason, Berret hated the harmless slug-like creatures that lived throughout the lower sections of Moya. Greeboes were what the Hodian Trill Bats lived on and Moya needed them to help seal any tiny cracks in the hull that might develop.
"Did it attack with big poisonous fangs then? No, wait! Can't be anything that serious, Greeboes don't have any fangs to attack with…"
"Chiana," Berret muttered tightly.
"Oh! It was a Syndicate hit then? An eradication with extreme prejudice?" she teased. "Did it owe somebody some money or something?"
"Chiana…" the Shrike said now with growing agitation.
The gray girl giggled with delight. "It was Rygel, wasn't it? He put you up to it. The Greeboe got into his food cube stash and he ordered you to put the whack on it."
Berret halted work and looked up at her while uttering several Scarran curses that not even she had ever heard before. Her eyebrows rose in pure glee, this little distraction was not only fun, but also educational. She filed the new swear words away for future usage. Tormenting Berret about his odd squeamishness with Greebos was more entertainment on this dreary job than she could have hoped for.
They had been working in the crawlways steadily non-stop since the burnout, so they deserve some type of a little break she considered, even if only for a few microts of teasing.
"Is this… really necessary?" he finally asked her when he was through swearing, obviously on the verge of losing all patience with her. Which for the Shrike was something rare in itself.
The Nebari sniggered and decided she'd had enough fun at her friend's expense… for the moment at least.
"Okay, Okay… I was just playing," she told him. "Better get back to work before D'argo finds out you took some time off for target practice."
Berret frowned and gave her another look that said he didn't find her funny in the least, but instead of returning any further comment, he resumed his task.
"Disgusting nick'knozs… with those bug-goggle eyestalks…" Berret was idly muttering to himself lowly as he worked, and the Nebari girl wonder if he realized she could hear him up where she was.
She shook her head as she retreated back into the main access way to wait for his call for more of the T3 cable. The gray girl found her prior spot of laying back with her arms folded under her head as a pillow while she pass the time. It was these rare glimpses of Berret that the others never saw that she liked. The silly weakness somehow made him more… human, she guessed the term would be.
The subject of her thoughts uttered another disgusted loud curse, followed by the muffled snap of another pulse bolt shot. This time she didn't bother to look or ask what had happened.
"That's my big brave assassin," she chuckled to herself.