EPS Party

Posted on 18 Mar 2013 @ 2:19am by Chief Warrant Officer 2 Arthur Willis & Petty Officer 3rd Class Kareel Gan
Edited on on 18 Mar 2013 @ 6:55pm

1,094 words; about a 5 minute read

Mission: Episode 03 - Frontier
Location: USS Galileo: Engineering Offices
Timeline: MD2 1600

ON:

Kareel plucked another fix-it item off the board and crossed off the one she'd just done. Silly things. A girl's computer in her quarters was on the fritz. Again, apparently. She began singing, a Terran song playing that she'd picked up out of the LCARS library. The rockin' tune was filling the atmosphere, and Kareel grinned widely, terribly happy.

"I'm thinkin' about my doorbell, when you gonna ring it, when you gonna ring it! I've been thinkin' about my doorbell, oh well!"

She swayed in time as the music played, snapping her fingers to the rhythm, and throwing her arms out in a strange kind of dance. She turned and tucked the new fix-it note in her pocket, before tapping her commbadge. "Gan to Willis. Looks like we're up refitting the EPS. Up for it? I'm in the Engineering offices. I'm Gan, by the way. Kareel Gan."

She tapped off and air-drummed the cymbals portion, swiveling on her feet. "Ohhhhh yeah! Make a sound and I'll make ya feel right, right at home, yeah!" She kicked her foot outward and switched to airpiano-ing, turning into a slide over to begin playing the piano portion, drumming alongtop of it, and moving back and forth in her own unique dance. "Right at home! I'm thinkin' bout the doorbell, when ya gonna ring it, when ya gonna ring it!"

Willis starting chuckling as he approached the assignments board. "Nice song, Petty Officer. I am not familiar with this one."

"I'm thinkin' bout the -" she paused mid-song, and grinned, "Willis, walkin' through the door... hi," she assumed in song, keying off the music and outstretching her hand. "Gan. Nice to meet you."

Willis accepted the hand and smiled. "Likewise, Gan. I hear you're pretty handy at EPS rigging."

"I'm very handy." She wiggled her fingers. "Many hands."

Willis chuckled, "Indeed. Let's go look at what we got to work with and get started."

"Aye, Chief." Gan stuck her fix-it note onto her uniform and traipsed out of the engineering office after Willis as they headed down the halls and into the hatch.

Willis led the duo into the small spaces of the Jefferies tubes and crawled towards the Main EPS conduit. Looking over his shoulder, Willis looked at Gan. "You do know not to touch this while it is hot, right? Because I didn't once, and almost was fried." Willis looked about looking for the main's shutdown switch.

Gan eyed the EPS tap beside her. "Yep, I sorta figured that one out," she smirked. She climbed down the ladder leading down into the bowels of the warp core, where the main EPS power transfer network started. She took the hatch and placed it to the side after Willis handed it to her and landed on her feet just inside the main warp power distribution area. She replaced the hatch and caught up to him. "Over here," she knelt down next to the EPS manifold and pulled off a small panel underneath it.

Willis looked about then crouched down next to Gan while setting his engineering tricorder between them, followed by an ODN network cable. "There should be an ODN access plug in there. If you can plug that into it, then I can run a quick diagnostic on it and see about installing a new software that will run a wee bit faster."

Gan nodded and pulled out one of the interlinking network cables, taking Willis's and attaching them. She pulled up a small version of the MSD on her PADD and lines of yellow began emptying down through the ship in Starfleet's usual EPS flow pattern. Replicator controls, environmental controls, gravity controls, defense systems, enviros, replicators, transporters, conventional electricity... she drew her finger down the PADD's touchscreen and began resetting the routes, multiple EPS taps on a single deck, in a single Jefferies tube, they didn't need all that... the ID and SI fields could easily bear a lot of this weight. She moved the additional lines downward and out.

"I'd suggest putting all the replicators settings back to default settings. As silly as it may sound, that takes a lot of strain off of the auxiliary power backups." Willis was scrolling though his screens, setting up and preparing to download a simple cleanse program. "Ah, here we go." Willis transferred the program to Gan's PADD. "There, take a look and see if you think that is big enough to sweep the entire EPS network?" requested Willis. "I like to have someone always check my work...sometimes a fresh set of eyes is helpful."

Gan flipped her PADD over and studied the program, idling the other problem in the back of her mind. "You add continual opening/closing algorithms," Gan said, arching an eyebrow. "It's useful for adding layered components to the program, but you can easily take this, add lines, directive coding, and just leave the open tag at the top. The program itself is fine, though," she smiled. "Leaving the tag open means you don't need to worry about how big you make the program or script." She turned her PADD back and worried her lip under her teeth, reorganizing the layout in her hand once more.

Willis looked upon the PADD and nodded as he listened to Gan. "I see what you mean. How obvious too. Thanks, Gan."

"Here, take a look at this," she held out her own PADD with a smile.

Taking the offered PADD, he began to smile at the data. "Now that is easy. How in the world did you ever come up with that? It's so simple, and so much easier than what I was proposing."

Gan grinned. "I'm a simple girl." She shrugged and shook her head. "No, every engineer has their way, you know? Some are architects. They design these grand, ginormous structures. Layers upon layers. Intricate and beautiful. Like your code, for example. Functions built into functions leading into functions. Like art. I'm not an artist, though. Rather than construct an elaborate building, I'll use a naturally formed cave."

Willis chuckled at the visualization he had of Main Engineering being built into a cave. "Let's upload this, and then give it a test run."

"Yessir." Gan took her PADD back and shifted forward on the balls of her feet, calculating the manifold in front of her.

OFF:

SCPO Arthur Willis
Computer Systems Specialist, SCE
USS Galileo

PO3 Kareel Gan
Engineering Officer, SCE
USS Galileo

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