@thisbtchxmpty ( continued )
â  iâm doing it for the betterment of the science.  âÂ
âWell, youâre lucky âthe scienceâ didnât take your hand off for your trouble.â
Itâs absolutely a rebuke, and the good humor in her voice doesnât soften it very much. But sheâs joking, so itâs not grave.
Christine glances up from her notes after a moment to give him a chummy sort of smile. âTell me about your ill-fated project, then,â she adds, because in her line of work, everyone is easier to deal with if you distract them â and she is genuinely interested. She hadnât joined Starfleet because she wasnât curious about the actual engineering that went into it all.
âW-well, uh...â Heâs fairly sure thatâs humor in her tone, but heâs a bit too frazzled to really tell. He gingerly keeps his hand held out for her to see the scrapes and burns along his fingers. âIt was -- it was a test of the, uh, the new plasma flow regulators. I... I th-thought that I could modify the magnetic intake valve to work faster and m-more, uh, more efficiently, and it worked, but then the, uh... the outputs couldnât handle the excess flow and they... exploded.â He moved his hand slightly to indicate, wincing at himself.
