reversedpolarity | [ddd][log][Kaylee]

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[ddd][log][Kaylee]

By all rights, Scotty probably shouldn't have been inviting Miss Kaylee over for a tour of the Enterprise. And he did feel a bit guilty about doing it; they were supposed to ask Jim if they could bring people over, but Jim... the community seemed to have let him go. He could ask Spock, maybe, but he figured he was a good enough judge of character to bend the rules just a little bit, and besides, a fellow engineer wouldn't pose any threat to the ship.

So as soon as he told Miss Kaylee he'd beam her over, Scotty hurried up to the transporter room, got a lock on the signal of the device she was using to access the community, and brought her over, unable to help a small, cocky grin as she materialized on the landing platform. "Welcome t'the Enterprise."

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The Enterprise had to show off; she was the Federation's flagship, after all, and it wouldn't do for her to look anything less than the best the Federation could offer. Scotty stopped when Kaylee did, just standing a moment, watching his crew work. They were the best the Federation could offer too, and he was proud of them, proud of his ship, proud of the way they kept the engine running like a charm. "Beautiful, isn't she?"

"Ain't seen nothin' like it," she expressed, eyes wide. Not only was it a huge room, but there was crew members all over. Some were wander, eyes down on a sort of tablet looking thing they were holding while miraculously navigating while not looking up. Others were standing at consoles, tapping the screens. Kaylee felt very small for a moment, realizing that Serenity is very obviously a much smaller ship than she even realized. She never had any idea that something like this was possible, though she couldn't say it was since this wasn't her world. It didn't help that none of the technology and mechanics looked even remotely familiar.

Scotty glanced over at her, smiling; he was long-used to engines this size, but he could remember the first time he'd stepped foot in a Federation ship's engine room. It was overwhelming, if you didn't know what you were getting yourself into. "She's easy enough t'navigate, once you know what's what. It helps, t'break her down into sections until you get a feel for her." He couldn't help a quiet chuckle as he added, "An' now y'see why it takes about a hundred people on-shift t'keep her runnin', aye?"

She nodded almost blankly, hearing what he was saying and responding, but not quite grasping the vastness of the ship. She eventually snapped out of it and looked over at him, giving a bright as ever smile. "She's beautiful," she finally admitted. Not like Serenity, but she was beautiful. "You gonna explain her to me?"

"Oh, aye, if you want me to," he replied, offering his arm to her. He didn't want her getting lost in the engine room, after all, and, well. He did fancy himself a gentleman. Most of the time. Right now was certainly as good a time as any to be a bit gentlemanly; in an engine room as big as the Enterprise's, if Kaylee got lost he'd have one hell of a time finding her again. The first stop, he thought, should be the warp core. "What sort o' propulsion system have you got on Serenity?" he asked, to get an idea of just how much he needed to explain.

He offered his arm and she grinned like a loon, excited to see such a fine gentleman among the crew. She took his arm, naturally and kept that smile on her face - though it seldom left her face. He asked about their propulsion system, to which she answered cheerfully. "We run a gravity-drive system," she starts to ramble on about the mechanics very briefly, explaining the main propulsion system.

He listened intently as she outlined the mechanics of the gravity-drive system, and while he could follow along, it didn't sound like anything he'd heard of, at least not here at home. The physics of it made sense, at least, which was saying something; he'd come to discover that physical law wasn't always necessarily constant across dimensions. It didn't take long for the pair of them to come up on the warp core; it took up a large space in the middle of the engineering deck, a hulking piece of machinery glowing a with a soft blue light. "There she is. The heart o' the engine."

He seemed to follow, but Kaylee was too enthusiastic to notice if he wasn't getting it. At any rate, once she'd finished, they had made their way to something that was glowing in a radiant blue. She tilted her head, looking at it as if it was going to change in front of her eyes. It took her a moment to find the words, but really she only had one question; "What's it do?"

"Powers the warp engines." He launched into an explanation of how the warp engines worked, detailing the matter/antimatter injectors, the dilithium that contained the reactions, the warp plasma created through the reactions. He moved on a bit then to point out the plasma conduits, which carried the plasma up to the warp nacelles, creating the warp field around the ship. There was the impulse system to look at too, after he was finished showing her around the warp system, but considering the warp system was far more impressive...

She seemed completely engulfed in the explanation and though some of it made sense, she still wasn't sure how they had figured all that out. All she had was what she knew and it was nothing like a warp drive. They had their own ways of doing things back where she was and from what she could tell, Scotty wasn't going to be very impressed with Serenity. She kept that to herself though. "That's a lot of machine to watch out for," she replied.

"Aye, like I said. On the good days she's a handful." He couldn't help but smile fondly at the warp core, though. "She's a good machine, though. She'll run a while, s'long as I keep an eye on her." He hoped she'd run a good long time, at least. Starfleet liked to refit and upgrade as often as possible, which wasn't really all that necessary as far as Scotty was concerned. He'd get comfortable with one ship design and then they'd go and change it up on him, and he was half convinced that whoever designed the fleet's ships had never so much as thought about being out in space.

Kaylee understood that sentiment. She knew that the firefly class ships were likely to run forever. Parts were cheap and with regular maintenance, they'd stay in the skies until they let her down. They were good, hearty ships and she liked it that way. She unintentionally squeezed his arm in excitement, looking around like a kid in a candy store and pointed some odd direction asking what a particular piece of machinery was. None of it looked familiar so everything needed an explanation. After she'd gotten enough information to satisfy her she finally asked, "How fast she run?"

He was more than happy to explain everything she pointed out, keeping the explanations simple where he thought the technology might be a bit different from what she knew, going more in-depth when he was fairly certain she'd know what he was talking about. And when Kaylee asked how fast the Enterprise ran... "Depends," he answered, grinning broadly. "I can get her up t'about warp seven, no trouble. Warp eight if I baby her a little." He went on to explain just how fast that was, which, all things considered was pretty damn fast.

She was enthusiastic in her questioning and even more so in his answers. When he explained things she didn't understand she was able to understand at least the concept behind it, even if that wasn't how they did it back home. When he explained things that she could grasp, she usually piped in how they had something like that on Serenity. However, the response about how fast she ran, well, Kaylee's face fell a tad, shoulders sinking and she loosened her grip on Scotty's arm. "Ain't nothin' run that fast back home," she said softly in response.

"Good thing I'm no' looking t'challenge you t'a race, then," Scotty replied, his tone light. "Takes a lot of energy t'run at warp seven. We tend t'cruise along at warp three, most o' the time. Ship like this, she's not built t'run at high warp for very long. Believe it or not, warp three's a bit slow." It was still faster-than-light travel, true, but considering the fact that the Enterprise acted as everything from battleship to exploratory science vessel to ferry for diplomats, there was a lot of balancing resources to be done in order to keep her running smoothly. "You don't get quite as much maneuverability with a ship this size, either," he added. "She's got firepower, an' she's got speed, but it takes time t'get her turned around." He paused, before adding, "Besides, warp travel is the norm here, so... let's say your Serentiy had a warp drive, too, aye? Bet you anything she'd fly circles 'round my lass here."

Kaylee looked downtrodden at first, but the more he explained, the less she was worried. In fact, he had a lot of good points. Fireflies weren't meant for big trips to anywhere. They were reliable and they were the kinds of things that ran forever if you let them, so she really had nothing to be ashamed of. Besides, she got to have a hammock in the engine room and he had to share his engine room with a hundred other people.

She smiled, "We ain't got guns or nothin' on Serenity. She's just meant for transport, even though we use her for me. We rely on creativity to make it work for us. Besides, we ain't out doin' nice things like you are." She laughs to herself, leaning in again.

"There you go, then. If I was lookin' t'outrun the law, I think I'd much rather have a firefly on my side, aye?" He gave her a grin, and continued on, completely and utterly at home down here in the engine room. He was enjoying getting a chance to show off, though he hadn't really meant to make Kaylee feel like her ship wasn't as good as his. Different situations called for different ships, after all, and hers was perfect for what she did, and his was perfect for what he did, and that was all there was to it. He realized, though, showing her around, that... He hadn't even considered the possibility yet of giving Jack a tour. He should do that, he thought, although... There was a definite difference between showing a fellow engineer around and showing Jack around.

Kaylee beamed, which to anyone else would be a strange thing since pride over your criminal past is not usually something to be celebrated. However, this was Kaylee after all and everything was a reason to celebrate something. He continued to flatter her and she was easily swayed once that was all over with. "If ya ever need to outrun the law, we're experts," she added with a giggle.

"Considerin' we are the law 'round here, here's hopin' we never have to," he replied, chuckling quietly. Alright, so maybe he shouldn't be approving of or encouraging illicit activities, but hell. He wasn't exactly a saint himself, no matter how much he tried to act it. And considering the sort of situation Kaylee's universe was in? If it'd been the same way here, with a central government trying to force its control over the populace, he didn't doubt that he'd be right there fighting back. That was the beautiful thing about the Federation - didn't want to be a part of it? Didn't have to be.

Kaylee wasn't much for politics, but she did know that there was an awful lot of of bad going on in her world. Maybe Scotty wouldn't understand that since he was part of that law, but she was in something completely different and he didn't seem so upset about it. "When ya come visit Serenity just know that you might find yourself in the middle of somethin'. Can't control it. I just make sure the girl runs when we need her to."

"Well, there's a reason I carry a communicator with me off-world," he answered. In case of emergency, call to the ship and beam back over. It worked alright for Sulu; there was no reason to believe it wouldn't work alright for him as well. Maybe Kaylee's world was a different level of potentially dangerous than, say, twenty-first century Cardiff where Jack and Ianto were from, but that didn't mean there was any reason not to visit, at least for a little while. Although, in all honesty, if he did find himself in the middle of something in Kaylee's world, it wasn't entirely likely that he'd just skip off and leave them to fend for themselves.

Kaylee frowned in concentration, "communicator? Oh, those." She pointed over to one of his crew who was holding something. She wasn't sure she was really catching on quite yet. They had something that worked like a communication device, actually a few of them, but nothing so uniform. She was finally feeling less intimidated by the whole situation and starting to see that it was really okay for them to have their different worlds and their different ships. She smiled up at him. "Anything else you can show me?"

"Well, let's see... there's the impulse engines, but they're nowhere near so impressive as the warp engines," he answered, although of course, if she wanted to see them, he wouldn't turn down the chance to show those off as well. "Other than that, I haven't got anything really impressive left to show off. Could see if there's any maintenance that needs doin'..." Usually, he wouldn't so much as think about letting someone who wasn't part of his crew touch his engines, but once again, Kaylee being a fellow engineer made her a special case.

"You'd let me fix somethin'?" Okay, this was the best news she's ever heard ever. She nearly bounced out of her shoes she was so excited. She was looking forward to getting her hands on some of this technology. It wasn't anything like she was used to, but that was what made it so exciting. She'd had to improv a few things on her own before and this would be just another way to expand her knowledge. She was a hands on learner after all.

"Aye, if you think you can handle it." He gave her a broad grin, and beckoned for her to follow him as he headed toward his office to go pick up his tool belt. He'd been itching to do a bit of hands-on work today himself anyway, and there really wasn't any better way to get familiar with the engine than to actually work on it. "Just something small, mind you. It's our secret, aye? Not that I think she'll mind, but the captain might no' be so keen on the idea."

[ddd][log][Kaylee]

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