Mei-Lin had the engineering bay set up the way she wanted it by 0845 which was forty five minutes before she had told Avery to be there because forty five minutes was how long it took her to be satisfied that everything was in the right place before another person came into her workspace and started having opinions about it.

The crystals were in their transport case on the main workbench, already scanned and verified from the previous evening. The calibration tools were laid out in sequence. The crystal housing assembly was prepped and the alignment guides were in position and the molecular bonding compound was at the correct temperature, she had set the thermal unit before she went to bed the night before and checked it when she woke up. The warp core diagnostic was running on the wall display, current readings alongside the baseline she had established when she first came aboard so she would have a direct before and after comparison once the installation was complete.

She had also pulled the old crystals from the housing first thing that morning and set them aside in a separate case. They were not entirely without value, worn down to sixty two percent efficiency but potentially useful as emergency backup material if the situation ever became desperate enough. She had labeled the case accordingly and put it on the secondary shelf where it would not be in anyone's way.

She was running a final check on the alignment guides when she heard footsteps in the corridor outside and looked up at the door.

Avery arrived to main engineering to find Mei-Lin already hard at work. “Good morning! You could have called. You didn’t have to do this all by yourself,” he said in a thankful tone. She had all the materials and equipment prepped for the new crystal installation.

He glanced at the monitor screen closest to the dilithium chamber. “Leave it to Sykes. Got us really nice components here. The crystals are almost 95 percent impurity-free. Remarkable. I bet the ones going into ships at Utopia Planitia look this good.

Are we ready to go, Mei-Lin? Make sure the regulators are online and I’ll double check the anti-proton injection seals.”

"Sorry Chief, just a habit. I figure I'll let you focus on bigger things aside from staging and whatnot. I'm sure you'd like some time to go over that new runabout Zedd put in the bay." She moved over to the nearby display and re checked the regulators, catching a slight drift and correcting it in one of them, everything else was nominal. "Looking good here". She walked back over to the workbench and grabbed her PADD, running through the checklist once more. "Just double checking prep, I've never actually done this before."

“You’re doing very well. So the first thing we have to do is obviously mount the crystals inside the articulation frame,” Morgan gestured to the fragile components near the warp core. “The mounting brackets have to be configured precisely so the crystals are stable. Go ahead and remove the brackets and then we’ll get the crystals seated properly. Push down gently into the bottom of the chamber and twist clockwise. The brackets should come free.”

She gave a nod, grabbing a pair of gloves so as to not contaminate the chamber and made her way over. Reaching inside felt odd to her. She looked in, seeing the brackets and grasped them firmly, pressing down as she had been told. She began to rotate however it didn't move. For a slight moment she felt an internal panic. It shouldn't have been that difficult. But at the same time who knew when the last maintenance was done. She pushed down twice as hard, feeling the ring move down, then was able to rotate it until the mount was free. She carefully lifted it out ensuring not to bump anything and then set it down on the table. She let out the breath she'd been holding in. "Good to go. I can decontaminate it real quick for you." She reached over and grabbed the appropriate tool.

“Thanks. You can relax, you know. I can tell that you’re stressed out about this. You’ve got more experience with this set up than most people, especially me. We’re in this together, alright? Now do the same to the other side. The crystals can’t get mounted properly until both brackets are open. So….you never answered my question from before. I wanted to know more about T’Vara. There’s something about her….I’ve met Vulcans and Romulans, but SHE is….I’m quite taken with her if you couldn’t tell. I’m no empath or telepathic, but there’s some mystical vibe that emanates from her. I was in sickbay for less than an hour, and…..I can’t stop thinking about her.”

Mei-Lin raised an eye brow. She wasn't sure she knew T'Vara well enough to be talking about her, or to Avery about such things at this point. She decided to stick to what she knew. She made her way over to grab the other brace and responded "Honestly, she is my roommate but you probably know about as much as I do.. She's Romulan, seems to be a pacifist or at least doesn't want to hurt anyone unless in pure self defense. Pragmatic, hard to read. I would say she likely would only go with something that seems to suit her. If it doesn't, I would be surprised f she put time into it. That's what I read at least."

She freed the other brace with ease and sat it next to the other. "I'm not quite sure what vibes you may be talking about, it may be a reason to take a step back and do a self assessment if it's maybe just you and the love at first sight feeling?" As she spoke, she began to think about Zedd as well, and considering if it was maybe a similar feeling for herself, but only for a split second before tucking the thought away.