video; 01/04

[keelahselai]

[It's basically the middle of the night cycle when you might notice - or be woken up by - the sound of the engines starting to fade down to almost nothing. Machinery usually powerful enough to reverberate - albeit very softly - throughout the ship goes still. It's just about completely silent when the MID broadcast goes out.

Tali's isn't a face - or mask, right now - that's seen on the network much, but here she is anyway. There's a slight air to her of having prepared this in her head.]

If you just noticed the engines shutting down, don't be alarmed. They're just in standby so I can do some maintenance. [Her eyes are only just visible as glowing points behind the opaque visor, but her whole head moves to pay attention to something below the MID - and there's the sound of her keying in commands one-handed.] I'd like to tell you it's routine maintenance, but tiny bots eating into the manifolds isn't routine in most places I've been.

It'll be done in a couple of hours. [...Pause.] I don't think I need to tell you that life support's still running... Do I?

[Well, she just did. She's about to sign off when--] Oh! Almost forgot.

I asked the captains a while back if I could start doing some research into the Ingress. How it works, what's wrong with it... Anything we can use, anything that might help us repair it, or...or something. [This is clearly not rehearsed.]

It'll be slower work on my own, so I'd really appreciate some help looking into it - and anybody who works with the Ingress probably knows it better than I do right now, too.

Let me know.

Comments

[petridish]

Hey, you were thinking about the ship. Luckily for me they were more interested in bigger pieces of metal. [Hurrah for amps being small.]

[keelahselai]

When you put it that way, I almost feel bad for complaining about the engines
Almost

We should catch up, maybe get some food or something?

[petridish]

[ABORT MISSION]

Nothing else to check on? I don't want to pull you from your work if those things got into anything else in the ship systems.

[keelahselai]

Don't worry, I'm not going to drag you out of bed or anything. I'm going to be in here all night at this rate

Tomorrow sometime, maybe?

[Sleep? Who needs that.]

[petridish]

[DEEP SIGH]

Breakfast? Only if you're sure by then that everything's fine.

[keelahselai]

'Fine' might be a strong word, but 'not about to fall apart' should be doable by breakfast.

In about eight hours?

[petridish]

Sounds good.

[Eight hours later, guess who slept in. Not even intentionally.]

[keelahselai]

[Eight hours later Tali's still working...and far from wanting to eat, she wants to crawl into bed and never move again, so when Shepard isn't in the mess hall, she's more amused and kind of relieved than bothered about it.]

are you still asleep
really, shepard
[Screw grammar and punctuation, she's dying here.]
i'll yell at you when i'm not dying
see you later

phone tagging!

[petridish]

[an hour later]

Sorry! Slept through my alarm. Civvy ship's making me go soft.

You okay? [please be literal about dying] Still want to grab breakfast? [please say no please say no]

[keelahselai]

[Naturally, Tali has the worst luck in the world and is getting hit with insomnia, so she's at least awake to reply.]

Don't worry about it
I'm not sleeping so i might get some coffee and go back to work
you can join me if youre up?

[Maybe if cloney's lucky Tali's poor life choices will kill her?]

[petridish]

Is not sleeping really a good idea after your all nighter? [Think of the ship, Tali. All those humans on the ship that you're working on sleepless.]

I'm kind of rushing to get to my shift on time

[keelahselai]

I have trouble sleeping nowadays. I'm getting used to working on low sleep. Don't worry about me.
...But I promise I'll go and exercise or something instead if I start getting woozy.

But OK - see you another time
Have...uhh, fun over there.

[At this point, it hasn't really occurred to Tali that Shepard might ever avoid her - but if it was anyone but Shepard, she'd probably have gotten the hint by now.]