Posted Oct. 4, 2021, 7:30 p.m. by Ensign Kovan ch'Sirhc (Engineering & Communications Officer) (Abigail G)
Posted by Ensign Rand Farquharson (Yeoman First Class) in Side-Sim Pranks and Jokers
Posted by Ensign Kovan ch’Sirhc (Engineering & Communications Officer) in Side-Sim Pranks and Jokers
Kovan slammed his hands down on the hard console shell, “I’ve had enough!” He snapped, speaking to no one in particular. Several engineers around him startled, and sent queer looks his way. “That. Insufferable. Noise!” Kovan ground out. “Who keeps playing that blasted noise!” The (mostly) human crew looked around in confusion. None of them heard any strange noises. Of course they wouldn’t. The sound was beyond human hearing, but well within his. Hands clenched into fists, Kovan pushed away from his station and stomped towards the source of that noise across the room.
The NE standing in his way scampered off. A few followed after him (at a distance) to see what the fuss was about. There was only one console at the source of the noise, but that couldn’t be it. Kovan got down on his knees and looked at the underside. There, a small emiter was stuck on. Kovan yanked it off and flipped the black box around several times. When no off switch was apparent he stood and smashed it against the nearest surface. The device made one last strangled noise before shutting down for good. Kovan left the mangled device where it was and took his leave from the whole deck.
His shift officially ended half an hour ago, but Kovan remained in engineering to finish more reports. He did that a lot, put more time in engineering or on comms to limit his free time. Too much free time would get him into trouble. He can’t be getting into trouble. Kovan moved across decks with no apparent direction or purpose. He simple kept going until he got his temper in check. It was when he was finally calming down that he crossed paths with Yeoman Rand.
Ensign ch’Sirhc (COMMO, ENGR)
The young yeoman, who was usually pleasent and polite, was noticably irritated. She was on a mission and carrying a cloth bundle in her hand. Someone had messed with her uniforms. She had borrowed Randy’s. And though her crazy brother wore the uniform dress like she did, it didn’t fit quite right. Some of her uniforms had mismatched prices, gold body, red sleeves, wrong cuff rankings. Others had been stitched to prevent her from ironing out the wrinkles. All. Of. Them. She was on her way to the laundry to find out who had been in and out. Rand nodded to the comm officer, but she was too angry to do more.
Yeoman Rand
Kovan saw the mangled uniforms in the yeoman’s hands, the anger about her, and knew he wasn’t alone. “Don’t tell me, you are also the victim of a prank.” He shook his head, angry all over again. “I can’t believe someone thought ruining your uniforms would make for a good joke.” The sheer nerve of going after a fellow officer’s uniform. Especially not for something as childish as pranks.Uniforms should never be messed with, in fact, there were several regulations around uniforms and their care. “If you are headed to find the perpetrator then I insist I join you.” He wanted to find the person responsible and either punch them or lay upon them an incensed verbal lashing. Either or. Maybe both.
Ensign ch’Sirhc (COMMO, ENGR)
Rand paused and turned her gaze on him. “Prank? Prank…No this is not a prank this is malicious. Regulation 4.29 of the officer code of conduct, subsection C - defiling of the Star Fleet Uniform. I will have their hides. If Cpt Rogers or Cmdr Alden doesn’t formally reprimand whomever is responsible I’ll prank their personnel file.” She turned back the way she was going and kept walking. “I’m on my way to the laundry to find out who has been in and out. The other option is someone broke into my quarters and did this while I was on duty.” She looked at ch’Sirhc, “What exactly did they do to you?”
Yeoman Rand
Kovan walked alongside her. “They hid an audio speaker in engineering that periodically emitted loud screeches discernible only to andorian hearing. Two days ago someone changed my door chime to play an archaic Earth song every time someone passed by my door and it took me five hours before I was able to return the chime to normal.” Now, because of that song, several of the crew have begin to hum it to themselves whenever he was near-by. Some did it out of spite after Kovan demanded they stop.
Ensign ch’Sirhc (COMMO, ENGR)
Rand looked at him in disbelief and then she realized what song they would have programmed to the chime. Several long strings of Gaelic issued from her mouth, and judging from her tone and body language indicated whatever she was saying was not nice. “That is culturally derogatory and harassment of the worst sort of prejudice. That is beneath the character of ANY Star Fleet officer, commissioned or enlisted. People like that should NOT be allowed to keep their commissions.” Rand was probably drawing attention to herself and she didn’t care. She entered the most ignored area of any star ship, the laundry. No one ever thought about how everyone always had clean uniforms and civilian clothes, she supposed they thought it was magic. She walked up to the crewman on duty and handed him her uniforms. He looked at her and took a double take. “Whoa Rand, what’s wrong?” He looked at them and blinked several times. “Umm…was Randy trying to make them ‘stylish’ because he failed.” Rand glowered, “No. He. Did. Not. Someone ruined ALL my uniforms, Larken. Who’s been in here and had access to the finished laundry?”
Yeoman Rand
No matter the language, Kovan recognized cursing when he heard it and grimly nodded at the end of her impassioned speech. He couldn’t have said it better himself. These pranks weren’t cute. They were humiliating, plain and simple. The kind of behavior he would expect of unruly, selfish people. Kovan was not a nice guy. He’s sarcastic and condescending, but there were lines he would not cross.
He followed Rand into the laundry, but diverted to the side to a control console. While Rand interrogated Larken, Kovan searched through the maintenance log. Specifically looking for any recent repairs to any of the machines or the door. Engineers could go anywhere on the ship if there was a reason and maintenance and repairs were a quick and easy reason.
Ensign ch’Sirhc (COMMO, ENGR)
Larken took her uniforms with the promise to get them fixed. Larken was irritated. Their job wasn’t glorious but they all worked hard, and this ‘prank’ made him and the other crew that worked there look irresponsible, lazy, and immature. “I’ll talk to everyone and see if we can get a list of who was down here. Hey! Killroy! Come ‘ere.” He showed Killroy the uniforms and then they both disappeared to see if they could track down the uniforms that had been used to piecemeal Rand’s together.
Yeoman Rand
Kovan scowled at the names, numbers and dates recorded on the maintenance log. There were no completed repairs or maintenance done within the last six days. He returned to Rand and reported the dead end. “I thought our prankster might be an engineer but no one from engineering has been in here for six days.” Whoever was behind this had access to this room and engineering. Hopefully the workers here had new leads for them to follow.
Ensign ch’Sirhc (COMMO, ENGR)
Rand looked over the list of who had dropped off and picked up and stopped. NE Baker had picked up at 0700 and dropped back off at 1000 the same day. “Hey Larken, what’s with this?” she asked pointing at the list. “Oh she grabbed the wrong stack and brought it back.” Rand looked at Kovan, “3 hours later? After her shift started and in the middle of her shift. If he had the wrong uniforms wouldn’t he need to fix the mistake BEFORE his shift started?”
Yeoman Rand
“Unless they needed the time to mangle your uniforms. Let’s see where NE Baker is now.” Kovan checked the system, and the computer reported that NE Baker was currently in the ship galley. “Let’s go have some words with the NE.” On their way out of laundry and towards the lift, there was a question at the back of his mind. Kovan voiced this question aloud. “I get why they would target me,” he stated, “But why you? You and the other yeoman run the ship. Why would they target you?”
Ensign ch’Sirhc (COMMO, ENGR)
Rand looked over, he obviously hadn’t been on board long. “There are no other Yeoman, it’s just me. Sentinel doesn’t rate a yeoman corp but all captains are allowed a personal Yeoman. And we might run the ship, but as a general rule we are often the target of such things. We’re trained on how to deal with such things at the Academy. Not officially of course, because this is Star Fleet and we are above such things.” Her voice had a robotic feel to it as she obviously recited words told to her many times over. “I have the captain’s ear, or so they assume. If they don’t get what they want, get reprimanded, over looked for a promotion, a supply request is denied, it always comes back to the Yeoman because obviously we must have it out for someone. Or perhaps this person is under the impression that I feel that I am better than everyone else because I serve the captain. There are many assumptions about command staff and yeomen. Only idiots believe it.” Rand stepped onto the arriving lift and called for Deck 9. “So why are they targeting you?”
Yeoman Rand
Indeed Kovan wasn’t on board for very long. He tried to pay as little attention to other people as possible, and never noticed that Rand was the only Yeoman aboard. “That’s ludicrous.” Of all the people to target aboard the ship, Kovan couldn’t imagine why anyone would go out of their way to harass them. Or that their harassment was so wide-spread that even the Academy had to instruct their yeoman recruits ways to deal with it on the down-low. That people would blame the yeoman than take responsibility for themselves. His hand’s curled into fists.
“Because I’m a jerk.” He said, “And I’m sardonic and rude and many other unpleasant things.” He didn’t care about other’s feelings and was never shy about sharing his opinions. He was professional, if cold, while on duty, but otherwise preferred to be left alone when off-duty. He was slowly developing a reputation and honestly it suited him fine. “I was the target of many pranks while at the Academy. Perhaps it was too much to expect graduates to put such childish things behind once serving aboard starships.”
Ensign ch’Sirhc (COMMO, ENGR)
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