Jinx, Part 2

Posted on Mon Mar 2nd, 2020 @ 10:49pm by Lieutenant Dylan Blake & Lieutenant Commander Sawbones & Commodore Wilkan Targaryen & Lieutenant JG Zomuul jav Ghul & Commander Galatea
Edited on on Fri Jan 20th, 2023 @ 10:25pm

2,822 words; about a 14 minute read

Mission: Genesis
Location: Main Engineering, Starfleet One
Timeline: 2430-01-06, 17:35

The Emergency Engineering Hologram was a line of rudimentary holograms manufactured to serve in an emergency capacity to support Engineering during periods of need. Controlled by the main computer of the vessel, the EEH possessed little independent operating capacity and were normally completely subservient to the directives of the AI. That meant they lacked the ingenuity of most engineers, which irked many.

Hologram F8 stepped into the Main Engineering compartment and logged into the computer console there. Typing quickly it studied the readings presented. "Engine component error detected. Logging service support ticket in queue." It was too late though. Lights darkened as alarms started to blare. "We are under attack."

"Collision Alert," the main computer warned followed by a thunderous roar. The hologram shimmered as the damage took hold, alarms blared, "Major hull damage reported."

Chire had simply wanted to see engineering. Always interested in how things worked from a young age, she wasn't even on duty yet, a simple sightseer with clearance because she would begin her tour soon. She was dumbstruck at the sudden attack but managed to grab a hold of something she considered fairly sturdy when she heard the collision warning. "Where?" She called out, thinking she might be able to assist in some way.

The Engineering Hologram struggled for a moment as the holoprojectors tried to keep up. "Engineering Hull, Aft Quarter, estimate 3.6 days to repair."

Like Chire, new recruit Lieutenant Blake was browsing through engineering having recently completed his introduction with Hawkins and the ship's AI, Galatea when the alarms sounded. "Commander," he called to the human who'd still been accompanying them around. "What's your orders?"

Nathan was already on the move: "You two stay here and aid with the repairs," he called heading toward the lift car. "I'm needed upon the bridge."

Taken back slightly Blake looked toward Chire dumbstruck - what had they just walked into?

"We do what we can to repair things. Remember your training," Chire said to the man. Find something that needs fixing and fix it." It was a rather human statement but she had lived among them so long. She went to access the computer to find the most damaged thing she could repair without having to ask the glitching hologram.

"Right," Blake nodded swallowing down his anxiety.

F8 nodded as he approached the diagnostic workstation. He began running checks of the drive as another series of impacts rocked the ship. A series of beeps erupted from his station as he spoke in monotone, "Overload in the plasma regulators. Attempting to bypass." He wondered where Commander Randall could be.

Commander Randall released the mag-lock on the boots of her tactical EVA suit so she could move around in the space between the inner and outer hull of the aft quarter. The Chief Engineer came prepared for the possibility of going EVA to find the energy trace that had faded in and out of the, low bias, lateral scans she'd been running and was now faced with a piece of the station, the size of a house, protruding through the outer hull to penetrate the inner hull. Once again, the Tuansee was in the wrong place at the right time and just missed being smashed like a bug. Entry through the inner hull was two sections away. Ash looked up to where the station debris had penetrated the inner hull and braced herself, momentarily, while the ship shuddered under the shock of what Ash surmised were the polaron cannons of the Dominion Battleship, and jumped up onto the segment of station. As she'd hoped, Ash found that she could navigate through the segment of station to gain access inside the inner hull where the antilepton radiation was effectively blocked.

"Randall to transporter room one. I need a site to site transport to main engineering." She called, now seeing just how extensive the hull damage was. She'd be half an hour navigating out of the damaged hull sections.

"We have a lock, Commander. Initiating transport, now." The transporter tech responded. A few seconds later, the Chief Engineer found herself in a mostly, deserted Main Engineering and flipped back her helmet. "What's our status?" Ash asked, while she moved to and activated the main status board to see for herself.

"We are under heavy attack," the hologram answered emotionlessly.

Commander Randall didn't bother to roll her eyes at the answer from F8 and shifted her focus to tasks at hand.

"Sorry, we haven't been introduced." She called to LTCMDR Chire and LT.jg Blake. "And there's no time now." She added, the hands of the small felinoid almost a blur as she tapped away and manipulated the main status and diagnostic display. "Lt. Commander." The chief engineer called. "Shields are at near collapse. Route emergency power to shields, please. I've brought the coaxial warp core online and will filter power from it through the emergency backup battery array while F8 gets those plasma regulators under control. Lieutenant, if you could please assist F8 I would appreciate it." Ash added, while she continued with what she was doing.

"Y-yes Ma'am," Blake stuttered slightly momentraily stunned by the Commander sudden appearance and appearance.

Relieved that someone was around to dish out orders, Chire happily began her work, ignoring the rocking of the ship and any sparks that flew around her. Her wings twitched as she had neglected to band them thinking it would only be a tour and not serious duty but she was old enough to have good control over their movements. That was something that humans never seemed to understand, sometimes wings had a mind of their own. "Right away Ma'am," She said already half way through her task.

The situation that Starfleet One found itself in was completely nuts. The Dominion battle ship was big and dangerous but it wasn't designed to be a brawler. It was designed to sit behind a fleet and dish out punishment from a distance. Starfleet One could pummel it into dust if it fought dirty and, Ash KNEW how to fight dirty. With that in mind, she tapped her Com Badge.

"Go ahead Ash." Bishop replied to the CEO even as the ship shook from the Dominion's heavy cannons.

"We're diverting more power to shields and getting things buttoned up here in engineering for a prolonged brawl. If we have some room to maneuver, we should endure, but we have to hurt that battleship in a big way to make it want to leave the field. I'd like to recommend we blind that big bastard with a flash torpedo at the same time we use a low yield, tachyon war head to neutralize the antilepton radiation so we can get our people off the station and then use a few of those Quantum torpedo with the rodinium cores, we cooked up to use against the Preserver Juggernaut, on it. Plant two of them in the same spot on it's shields, one-two-like, and the second one is going to blow a hole through that ship the Spock could fly through." She rattled off, quickly. Ash was, keenly, aware she wasn't privy to what was transpiring on the bridge but, what the heck, a suggestion couldn't hurt. Everyone thought she was nuts anyway.

"Excellent work on the shields and we should have room to maneuver shortly." Bishop answered as he listened to Ash's recommendations. When she had finished he glanced at Jasmine. "You heard Commander Randall's recommendations. Make it so."

"Randall Out." The Chief Engineer responded.

It was an interesting suggestion but Chire never took her eyes off of what she was doing to look at the Commander.

LT Jr Sonden nearly fell in through the door, catching his footing before coming to stop. "I'm not on shift yet, but let me jump in if needed." This was not how he had wanted to meet his new senior officers but then how many people wanted to be in a space battle in the first place. "What are our priority system failures?"

The Engineering Hologram went through the priority failures as he fought to keep cohesion for his own system. His emotionless response was befitting a Vulcan as he reported, but there was a new complication. Behind him the Coaxial Drive started to emit plasma from its coolant system. Each workstation turned red as isolation systems began to fall into place, "System malfunction detected in Coaxial Core. Emergency venting has failed," the hologram informed. "Estimating Core Breach in 2 point 3 minutes."

"Oh zas! Um. Is there time for manual venting? And can you set up a force field to protect the poor sole, likely me, from plasma burns?"
The moment of shock was all Sonden allowed himself before leaning in to his training. Going down to into the Jefferies tubes without protection would be lethal. And with around two minutes there wasn't enough time to get a hazmat suit on.

"I have a protective layer over my skin," Chire said suddenly. "It would burn off some feathers, but I don't need them to survive, only to fly and they would grow back." She offered in her usual quiet voice.

"Oh yes! Good, good, but it will hurt. A lot. Are you qualified on manual vent operations?" Sonden said while running over to fetch a tool kit from the locker set in next to the door. The joys of Starfleet standardization.

"That'd be my responsibility, Lieutenant." Commander Randall commented. "And, I'm already dressed for the occasion." The small felinoid was, indeed, already dressed in a tactical EVA suit. The suit helmet snapped into place, out of nowhere, as she made her way toward Sonden and relieved him of the kit. "Everyone get to an escape pod." She ordered and, then crouched slightly before jumping to the second level cat-walk some 5 meters up. "That would mean now!" She called back.

Lieutenant Blake felt a nervous sweat sting his eye as he tired to keep as many systems as possible in one piece, things were quickly spiralling out of control no matter how hard they tried. Now their was nice: Evacuation protocols - he'd barely been on the ship a few hours, a great way to start a new assignment.

Sonden stood for a moment in awe watching as the Commander lept. The call back snapped him to the moment. "Aye." Turning to leave, the Denobulan said to Chire, "No fire wash for you. Shall we?" As started dashing for the escape pods. "Not a good first day on board."

"Well I certainly wasn't looking forward to it. But it would be preferable to blowing up." Chire replied following.

"Duly noted. Good luck." Ash responded, activated the personal force field of the EVA suit as she opened the entry hatch, slipped into it, and pulled the hatch closed with her tail as she moved forward.

While Commander Randall secured herself Blake hurried over towards the pods with the others with his chest pounding.

It was all over in a flash. The coolant leak immediately ended and was replaced by open air. All of the monitors displaying control failures returned to normal as END SIMULATION appeared on the displays.

F8 stared at the screen as the issues all returned to normal. "Service support ticket removed from queue," it said in monotone as it resumed its duties.

"How nice." Chire responded with the deadpan humor she showed usually only briefly.

Sonden stopped suddenly, catching his breath. "Oh zass. I thought I was done these drills. I wasn't even on shift yet."

Surprised by their sudden deceleration Blake collided with his fellow crewmates: "Oh, thank goodness," he panted.

A few seconds after the simulation end announcement Commander Randall emerged from the Jefferies tube head first and rolled to her feet on the cat-walk. She turned and, carefully, closed the hatch behind her, then hopped over the safety rail to drop to the ground level of main engineering with a 'clank' of the armored soles of her EVA foot wear. "That was, interesting." She mused, while her tactical EVA suit melted away to nothingness with a transporter-like shimmer and looked to the others over near the main doors. "Since dooms day has been cancelled, I guess introductions are in order." She announced. For many species it was difficult to gauge ages and commander Randall was no exception in that regard being, small and somewhat petite of build, looked every bit like a teenager. "I'm Commander Ash Randall and the Chief Engineering Officer of Starfleet One. I graduated from Starfleet Academy in 2400 and I'm a Tuansee, not a Catian or Kzin in case you might wonder." She added, with a meaningful swish of a tail that was as long as she was tall. The commander sported, arctic white, fur with inky-black rosettes much like a Terran leopard and might have been 5' tall or so to the tips of her ears. "Welcome to Starfleet One." She finished.

Sonden stepped forward. "Commander," He said with a nod. "Lt Junior Grade Sonden. Denobulian. Not many of us in Starfleet actually. Family separation is a major thing. Still, I believe I have been assigned as your second. If you'll have me. Was simulation timed when I happened to be near by? I could have easily been anywhere on board." His cheerful tone prattled a bit, as he was getting back to a relaxed mode.

Ash nodded to Lt. Sonden and looked to Lt. Blake as he began to speak.

"We'd only just arrived when this all started kicking off," Blake rambled on. "Commander Hawkins was still showing us around at the time then he had to go obviously." He paused, "I'm Lieutenant Junior Dylan Blake, Ma'am Ops officer."

"Pleased to meet you both and I am happy to have you aboard and glad to have you as my ACE, Lt Sonden. Ops and Engineering are, in many ways, two sides of the same coin. Personally, I have a bad habit of blurring the lines between the two." She responded, to both.

Ash probably should have been angry, but wasn't. She'd been pulled in by the magnitude of the simulation and was impressed by the forethought involved to draw her out of main engineering to the no-mans-land between the inner and outer hulls chasing a suspicious energy signature that mimicked the trace left behind by a phase shifted object. Just the kind of thing she'd been scanning for and the hull breach in that section had been a nice, if not over the top, touch. The assessment was going to be epic. If it had been real, no one was likely to have survived. The Coaxial drive core explosion would have erased everything for about a hundred AU.

The image on the screen was replaced with that of the Admiral, the confines of a small office aboard Gateway behind him, "I want to thank you all for taking part in this training exercise. I know that it was unannounced and caught everyone a bit off guard, but the reality of this situation is that's exactly the scenario that we're going to face if our diplomatic mission goes south. We need to all be prepared for any eventuality, and the risks of our President and government facing genuine harm increase with each passing moment. Do your best, that's all I ask, and thank you for your efforts here. I look forward to reviewing them," the recorded message ended.

"Well that was dramatic," Chire said, feeling her heart begin to slow and her feathers settle from the fight or flight response that all beings had. "Now I don't need to exercise today."

"I would rather have the drill of a space battle over a real space battle any day." Replied Sonden, "I wonder if this was just a welcome to the ship drill, or a regular event."

"Dramatic, is one word for it, yes. I'm guessing you're Lt. Commander Chire." Ash addressed to Chire. "Welcome aboard. Commander Kaldiran has been in need of an assistant for some time and, now, more than ever." She stated. "Again, welcome aboard." She addressed to all of them, and sighed. "The simulation you just experienced was for every department end effected every compartment on this ship including the space between Inner and outer hulls. Ship wide simulations have not been a common event and caught me by surprise. Had it been real, I wasn't going to be able to keep the coaxial core from going critical, just buy some time for the Spock to scoop up as many escape pods and personnel as it could and get to warp and out of harms way." She explained.

"Thank you," Chire said listening to the rest of the woman's words. She nodded that she understood even if her feathers were still a bit ruffled by the experience.

Hologram F8 merely nodded in response, his subroutines returning him to his duties as they awaited the next challenge to befall them.

 

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