In sector hotel, Lieutenant Johnson sat in his lab analyzing sensor logs. With the recent attack on the statbase, he would have ventured through the system looking for anything of note on the system’s periphery. But security has told him to hold off on such ventures for the moment.

Reading over the sensor reading, he noticed gaps were forming. As he tried to redirect more sensor readings to his area of focus, he encountered a system error. He surmised that it could only be one answer to such an outcome. That there was a faulty sensor pallet.

“Johnson to engineering,” he said, tapping his combadge.

130 decks away in engineering, where the station never slept, Johnson’s voice joined the melody of background chatter and chimes that rang through the department on delta shift. It just so happened to be Zel’s turn to pick up the comm.

“Engineering here!” she said, perhaps a little too brightly for the hour.

Johnson reeled at her tone of voice. “One of the sensor pallets is acting up again,” he said, pausing. This hadn’t been the first time he encountered such malfunctions while in the lab. If he was honest with himself, he didn’t even notice how late it was. “How long until I can expect it to be repaired?”

“Let’s see, busted sensor pallet…” Zel muttered to herself and pulled up a schematic of the sensor network in section Hotel-Turquoise. Sure enough, one of the pallets appeared as a blinking orange light.

“Well, there’s no one working on it right now, so I’ll head down there myself and give it a once-over. No idea how long repairs will take until I know what’s wrong with it! Engineering out!”

Before the comms had a chance to chime again, Zel snagged her toolkit and was out the door.

Johnson leaned back in his seat. He understood that everything that had happened meant engineering was busy, but the way the engineer ended the channel caught him off guard. For a moment, he sat there wondering if they were even going to repair the sensor pallet. Well, he wasn’t going to just sit there and wait to find out.

After searching through his desk, he found some spare tools. He grabbed a tricorder and his PADD and left his office. Walking down to a Jeffries tube entrance, he entered and searched, scanning for the way he had to go. Looking at the PADD, he realized he would be crawling for some time, but at least this brought him some time to himself.

Twenty minutes later, Zel was crouched in the dark, staring down at her PADD and zooming in and out (and in and out) of the map she had pulled up of the local Jefferies tube system. If the green dot was her, and the orange dot was the sensor pallet, then she just needed to… turn right in five meters? Maybe?

“This tube system makes no sense. Starship crawlways make sense. This is just a jumbled mess.” She grumbled and started forward once more, crawling through the narrow confines. The PADD in her hand made a sharp ‘tap, tap, tap’ sound as she went. She made a right and then suddenly, she froze. What was that noise?

Johnson hit his head on the ceiling of the tube for… he had lost count of how many times, he just wanted it to stop. As he neared an intersection, he stopped moving and looked at his PADD to try and find out which direction he needed to turn.

Zel surged forward, determinedly ignoring any further noises that might be echoing through the tubes. The station was large, dynamic, and surely a few bumps in the night were to be expected. Still, she shoved her PADD into her uniform jacket as she went.

Five meters and hang a right, four meters and hang a right, almost there…

Zel turned the corner and shrieked, hitting the top of the Jefferies tube as she nearly jumped out of her skin.

Whether Johnson was more surprised by herself or her scream, Zel wasn’t sure, but he looked plenty shaken. “Are you the Lieutenant Johnson who requested the repair?” she asked sheepishly. “Maybe you could show me the way to the sensor pallet.”