Christina sighs as she checks the gas bags, making sure the gauges were holding steady, then glances longingly at her improvised bedroll of blankets, lying under a table with a battery lantern. A cabin would offer her more privacy - but easier to shut her in. It also meant being too far from the engines.

Putting down her steaming mug of coffee, she produces a cigarette from her shop coat pocket, neatly tearing off the filter from the end. Peeling away the paper, she rolls the filter with her fingers until it was compressed, then carefully inserts it into her right ear, sticking out slightly. It began to swell as she repeated her actions with a second cigarette filter she stuck in her left ear, the roar of the engines becoming more muted.

Christina's smile was so slight as to be mistaken for a shifting of the light, then she took the stars down to engineering.

Only the compressor was silent, there being no need to fill the tank further. It took a lot of air pressure to get those engines started, burning that Blau gas, out there on a strut in their engine pods. The master engine gauge panel showed her how each of the engines were performing. A good part of her work was to get them running right - with careful maintenance and avoidance of battle damage, it should work well for several weeks, as long as she feathered them in pairs from time to time. 

Even engines needed their downtime.

Happy she moved forward again, putting a heavy door between her and the engines as she yawned tiredly as she headed for her sleeping pallet. It would be great to strip everything off, scrub herself down and sleep between clean sheets.