Thux'll Fix'll

Posted on Fri Mar 18th, 2022 @ 2:29pm by Commander Temperance Zachary & Captain Aviram Drell & Lieutenant Commander Cor Cordale & Commander Frank Kamar jr. & Lieutenant Edron Zaerbe

Mission: Episode 06: "Far From Shore"
Location: Main Engineering, USS Vesta
Timeline: Day 1 at 0627

ON: [[Main Engineering, USS Vesta, MD01, 0627 hours]]

It was early, but thankfully it was almost time for the shift rotation. The chief would be up and about soon, first thing he'd do is waddle in and start the coffee machine. It was such an ancient machine, why didn't he just replicate his coffee like a regular person? Marcus shook his head as he kept his eyes on the diagnostic table. Everything looked good, as far as he could tell, for the transition back to normal space. Far away, the Helm would drop them out of the stream and the maintenance would begin. It was easier to focus on the task than to consider what was on the line. The Catapult was down, and whoever was on the other side of that whatever it was had denied the Federation the use of their transit system.

Why would they do that? The Federation was nothing less than peace and prosperity made manifest. Why would someone turn them down? Oh well, these were questions for the diplomatic corps to figure out once they descended down on the Delta.

"How're we doing here," Zaerbe asked, approaching the diagnostic table. He didn't always make a point of coming too early before a shift, but seeing as how they were scheduled to drop out of slipstream soon, he figured it was worth the extra few minutes. "Everything good to go?"

Marcus gave a nod over to Zaerbe, "So far everything's good. We're all clear and ready to drop out of the slip." he stated, "Chief'll be up and about in a few. Means the coffee's gonna get better that's for sure." he chuckled.

[[Operations Office]]

Commander Kamar sat down at his desk in the Operations Office on Deck 9. He read through a maintenance report outlining the planned maintenance on the secondary navigation system. The former engineer had found the Operations position a nice change of pace. He adjusted the unlit cigar he was chewing on and began the next report. The hot black coffee helped to wake him as he read the reports and logs. Glancing at the time he realized he still had some time before his watch started to take care of the unlit cigar.

Carrying a PADD under his arm, he made his way to the aft section of the Port side Nacelle. there was a small area back there where he could smoke his cigar and then vent the small area without anyone being none the wiser. Frank would only brave this course of action once every few weeks, and he was able to write it off in the logs as further planned maintenance. Sitting there in the small space with his Padd he continued reading the maintenance logs while a small halo of cigar smoke wreathed his head and long beard.

[[Main Engineering]]

Marcus gave a glance at the maintenance table, "Eh, would you look at that, the Commander is in the portside nacelle. Must be time for the monthly maintenance." Marcus wasn't overly concerned. It wasn't like he was doing anything crazy back there. Honestly, he didn't get paid enough to really look into it.

A chime sounded, followed by a series of chirps. Information appeared on the diagnostic table and Zaerbe felt the energy in the room change. The hum of the slipstream drive began to shift downward, indicating that the ship was about to drop back into normal space. "Here we go," he said to no one in particular.

No sooner were the words out of his mouth, however, than all hell broke loose...

Everything lurched hard to port. Zaerbe barely had time to grab onto the edge of the table to try to stabilize himself. Energy crackled from somewhere...everywhere...as rumbles echoed through the deck plating. Suddenly, it all pitched in the opposite direction. Zaerbe saw a few of the nearby technicians go down. Then, the floor dropped out from beneath their feet and even he found himself falling.

Marcus was tossed into the maintenance table, hard, before the ship lurched to the other side. He was thrown to the deck and then pinned there by the sudden shift in the room's orientation. He groaned, holding his side where it hit the pooltable a little too hard.

Zaerbe pushed himself up from the deck, using the diagnostic table to get back on his feet again. Once he'd done so, he reached out a hand, aiming to help his fellow engineer do the same. It was chaos all around them. Red alert klaxons sounded. Voices shouted at each other from across the engine room. Nearby, a conduit had burst, allowing gas to issue forth into a growing cloud of smoke.

With the offered hand up, Marcus stood but still cradled the point of impact with his free hand. "What the he..." but then he realized no one had had the answers. He tapped his comm badge, "Chief, this is Marcus in the pit, we've got a hell of a situation here and... We got a LEAK! Everyone, look sharp!" unaware that he was still on a hot comm, but really unconcerned. Exposure suits were slipped on by some of the nearby crew as they started to deal with the gas leak. It's presence didn't set off any MORE alarms, so it wasn't deadly to touch. That was the pipe across the room.

In the aft section of the port nacelle Frank was nearly finished with his cigar, when the ship lurched and bounced around, moments later he picked up his broken Padd, there were burn marks on his uniform from the cigar as well as small dark colored ashes. His head hurt something fierce when the Klaxons began to sound. He had no time now to vent the space, he only hoped the cigar smoke would dissipate long before being found. He stumbled out as a small bump began rising on his forehead. "Bloody hell" Frank swore under his breath as he touched it gingerly before entering the main engineering space.

Marcus noticed the presence of Kamar, but was a little preoccupied with the current crisis. "Sir, you should make your way to Sickbay, this area isn't sa..." and then the doors to engineering opened, and there stood a figure. A being. A Thux.

"Who broke my ship?" was his first question as he entered the pit proper, and his presence alone seemed to change the attitude of the room. Changed the morale. With him, the crisis was manageable. At least, it felt that way. "Nevermind, get that leak clamped, but don't take off the suits, might need them for another leak. Get me logs of the last half hour, and run a diagnostic."

"Marcus, check the reactor integrity, make sure we aren't in deeper drek. Zaerbe, get the bridge on the open comm. I want to know what's going on." then the Thux motioned to Kamar with his prosthetic hand, "You. Sickbay. You got a bump on your head bigger than a klingon pimple. C'mon."

Cordale started to walk the Commander out of Engineering, and waited until it was just the two of them. A long sniff from the Thux confirmed the concern, "You were ten feet away from a hydrazine line. We use that for the RCS thrusters, it's very toxic and it's very, very flammable. If that was a hydrazine leak in there, and you had a single ember left, this room would go up in a flash. All they'd find are bones, my arm, and your huge balls for sneaking in a puff puff in engineering. Next time you wanna enjoy one of your stink sticks, there's a holodeck for that."

He walked Kamar to the door, "Now, I didn't see anything. Go get checked out, before that thing pops and gives birth to something."

Frank wanted to laugh at his own stupidity, but the alarms ringing in his ears and the raised bump on his forehead hurt too badly. "I'll get it checked out thanks," Kamar said as he exited engineering. He was just here to do a job and finish his time to get to retirement, this kind of stuff almost made consider an early retirement. He took a deep breath walked to the turbolift and went to the bridge.

Cordale gave a nod as he walked Kamar to the engineering door, and watched the man head off down the hall. "No, you won't." the Thux muttered as he returned to more important things. He knew arrogance. He used to BE arrogance. "Okay people, sit rep. What's broke, what's about to break, and what's the difference?"

As if in response to the Thux's inquiry, a familiar voice issued forth from the ship's intercom. "Bridge to engineering," Drell called, "I need my shields..."

"Engineering to the Bridge, on it. Sitrep in five." and the Thux turned to his engineering team. "Okay, boss needs shields. Get me a report on the EPS modules for the Officers Lounge, for Holodeck Two, for Hydroponics, and for......" Cordale traced a line on the main LCARS display for the entirety of the ship, "... Cetacean Ops."

"Sir, why those, if the issue is the shields?" Marcus asked. An emergency like this means no shift change for him.

"It's all about power placement. Officers Lounge feeds into the EPS manifold for two major shield projectors, same for Hydroponics. Holodeck Two is on the same power line as a distribution hub for yet another shield generator, and Cetacean Ops handles force feedback and magnetic displacement, which in turn..."

"... Feeds into the shield generators." Marcus finished. "Holy smokes, but they don't teach that at Academy. They'd have us check every single emitter."

Cordale gave a nod, a bit more of a waddle of the head thanks to his biology. "There's learnin' from the Academy, and learnin' on the job. Ping five systems, and you cut out about half the guesswork."

"Wouldn't the system report that?" another engineer asked. Apparently school was in session.

"With what power?" Cordale responded with a chuckle. One of the pings came back with troubling news. "Huh, okay so that's the Officer's Lounge that ain't reporting back an all clear. Marcus, grab a buddy and go check it out. Everyone else, get me a diagnostic of the power relay network and any spikes or drops in the last ten minutes." and then he tapped his badge.

"Bridge, this is Engineering. We've identified a low power fault in one of the primary shield generator and emitter stations, dragging the whole system into standby. Got a team on its way to check it out. Should have shields in no time." With that out of the way, Cordale returned to the diagnostic table to make sure that was the only snag in the food chain.

[[Outside Officer's Mess]]

Marcus and his partner arrived on scene, and after accessing the maintenance tubes behind the comforting facade of the officer's mess, they found the problem. "Marcus to Cordale, you were right. It's a blown distributor relay. Lights in the mess are out, and the whole room is power dark. I'm sending Rodriguez to replicate the parts we need. Three minutes, five tops."

[[Main Engineering]]

Cordale gave a nod at the report, "Excellent. Keep me posted." a pause, another tap. "Bridge, Engineering, shields in Five."

As soon as the chief engineer finished, Zaerbe spoke up. "Slipstream drive is secure, commander," he told Cordale, "or at least as secure as it can be..."

"Best we can ask for. Though we won't know the whole of what we need until... Bridge, this is Engineering. What broke my fancy ship?" Cordale chimed up on the open comm to the bridge.

"Ion storm..."

"Understood." Cordale cut the comm after acknowledging. "Short and to the point, good to see the bridge crew ate the red crayons this morning. Okay, ion storm means polarization. Damage control, I want degaussers on each major power junction and we should all be ready for rolling reboots of computer systems. Zaerbe, I want you to disconnect the slipstream from the power feeds until further notice."

"Disconnect, sir?"

"Yes, because if an ion pulse goes through the system and gets past our safeguards, it might fry the unit. It takes half a minute to plug back in anyway, so no harm. Priority is keeping the lights on, keeping the air flowing, and keeping gravity intact and stable. Alright teams, you know what to do, get to it. Everyone else, we answer the problems as they happen. Eyes up and ears open, let's do this."


OFF