It Ain't As Easy As You Think (3/3)

Posted on 18 Sep 2012 @ 5:21pm by Lieutenant Lilou Zaren & Crewman Aurangzeb Ameen & Chief Warrant Officer 2 Arthur Willis & Lawrence Gibbs

2,009 words; about a 10 minute read

Mission: Episode 01 - Project Sienna
Location: USS Galileo: Main Engineering/Various Locations, Deck 7
Timeline: MD 08 - 0600-0900 hrs

Deck 7: Main Engineering & Deck 8
TIME: 0600 hrs

After receiving his fix-it list form Peers. walked out into Main Engineering and stopped before the dilitium chamber. After donning the Evo-suit, Willis entered the matrix and found what he had hoped he would not find. A large crack down the dilithium articulation frame. "Damn, you just had to crack?" cursed Willis under his breath. He tapped the comm system to communicate with the engineer standing on the other side. "Get me the theta-matrix compositor, and do it fast. We may have a leak!" The crewman nodded and ran off to collect, and return the ordered equipment.

Willis removed his tricorder from his belt and began to scan the articulation frame. He then pulled a patch kit from the engineering kit and a small plasma torch, then went to work repairing the crack. It took nearly twenty-minutes for the patch repair to meet Willis' approval. During that time the crewman returned with the theta-matrix compositor.

After returning his tools into his kit, Willis began fine tuning the setting on the TMC. He set the theta radiation to an alignment to 0.3 - 0.5 microns with a frequency of 3.69 megahertz. He then activated the device and monitored closely the progress. After two hours of careful monitoring, and constant, careful recalibration.

Willis pulled out his tricorder and scanned the dilitium matrix, then checked his findings against the console. =^=Willis to Miss Peers, recrystallization complete. Would you care to check my work?=^=

=^=Quinn trusts your judgment; I don't see any reason not to,=^= she called back, relieved to hear some good news. Her board was swamped with calculations she actually needed to finish for other repairs to come up clean. =^=You just set us far ahead on the clock; thank you for being a genius. Now we just need to get into the nacelles, secure those lines, and get the drive back online. Have you slept?=^=

=^= I'll get all the sleep I need when I'm dead, Miss Peers. I'm going to move on to Deck Eight, boss. The antimatter pods ejection system is offline. I'm going to get it back up and running.=^=

=^=Sounds good. Let me know if you need a hand down there. Say hi to Slak. And be careful.=^= She paused, clearing her throat, =^=I mean it, Willis. Any reason you need me there, just say the word. Good thing we're still floating in here, or I'd be wearing tread marks in the floor.=^=

=^=Aye, aye. I'm much too frightened of you to totally ignore you. Oh, and that's probably a good thing. Now you get to explain how they got on the ceiling. Willis out. =^=

Too frightened? Lilou wondered, perplexed at the word choice, but said nothing. She was itching to get out there and do some work with her hands, but her place was here unless it was unavoidable. She was starting to wonder if it would really be all that unprofessional to engineer a situation where she had to leave Main Engineering...

As the door to the turbolift opened, Willis exited and walked onto Deck-8. He found the room that housed the ejection systems for the antimatter pods. As he entered the large room, the system's main console was scorched, and the smell of burnt wiring filled his nose. Willis sat his PADD down, and then activated the IN SERVICE switch, to notify both the Bridge and Main Engineering that the area was under service, and not to attempt to activate.

As he whistled his favorite tune, the CPO removed the ruined console cover with the tools from his tool kit. The internal wiring was shot, and the gel pack had been exposed to such high temperatures that the contents inside the pack actually must have reached a boiling point. The bag was grossly distorted and was expanded to near the breaking point. Willis extracted the ruined components from the console and pulled out a new main sensor relay board.

After an hour of rewiring and replacing ruined computer parts, Willis finally activated the mainframe and the console came back to life. He then ran a level-3 diagnostic as he walked to the physical ejector systems manual release. "Fried." responded Willis to himself as the manual clamp release's base was sheared from the release handles connection to the ejectors. After two hours and three trips to the replicators, Willis finally finished reassembling the newly rebuilt manual ejector release. He stepped back, admired his handiwork, then deactivated the IN SERVICE switch. He then tapped his combadge. =^=Willis to Peers, the Antimatter pod ejection system is back online and fully operational. =^=

=^=Great,=^= Lilou answered, still immersed in the reports coming in on her PADD from her other engineers. =^=Let's get at least one of the nacelles operational and then boot this girl back up again. Take Rothgra with you if you like.=^=

=^=Gee, thanks! I'll remember to name my first child after you. I'm on it. Willis, out.=^= Willis reached down and picked up his engineering kit and walked off towards the entrance way to the port nacelle strut. After entering his authorization code, and entering into the small crawlspace, he began to make the long crawl, up, up, up.

After what seemed like forever, stopping occasionally to seal a micro-fracture, Willis finally made it to the top. As he entered the nacelle control room, he opened his kit on a small table next to the main terminal. He brought up the primary control functions after giving the proper authentication code. After reviewing the schematics and running a brief diagnostic he tapped his badge while putting on his EVO-suit. =^= Willis to Peers, the Off-axis field controller is damaged. I'm going in to restore it back to appropriate settings. =^=

Lilou stood from the side of the desk, stretching her spine until it popped, and listening to Willis' report. It was strange to be both grateful for and jealous of the same person at the same time. On the one hand, Willis always seemed able to find an answer to any problem and he'd kept his head in the game consistently since the crisis had developed. No emotional flare-ups. No visible nerves. He was a rock. A capable, reliable rock. And on the other hand, she really, really would have rather traded places with him. It was irrational to begrudge him his repairs, but she did. She figured she might as well admit that to herself if no one else. =^= Thank you kindly, =^= she answered. They were going to have to overhaul the entire damage report ODN when they reached the next station, she thought, sighing, striding out of Quinn's office to peer at the control panel readouts. The tiny repeating phrase 'port nacelle out of service; starboard nacelle out of service' was irritably non-descriptive. Asa had his hands full with four separate monitors, so she slipped into a chair and pulled up Willis' suit and camera on another screen. Behind her, a fresh crew swept in from their naps and hurried over to the damage board to pull new assignments. Rothgra pressed his thumbprint next to a tag on damaged consoles and hurried back out again. Lilou's throat tightened. She didn't want any more accidents today. She couldn't afford to lose Willis to anything, even a minor injury. At the same time, though, she knew when she put herself in harm's way to complete tasks, the last thing she wanted was someone getting in her way or making her second guess her own skills. =^=I'm here if you need me. You've got forty minutes of 02.=^=

=^=Roger that. It should only take....two breaths less than that. Just tell me if they wanna make a sudden jump...so I can shit in my suit before I'm turned into nano-atoms.=^=

Willis entered the inhospitable area of the internal nacelle, and walked toward the end cap of the warp engine nacelle. The Petty Offcier began to wonder what the hell Quinn was thinking running into here, and how he managed to survive as long as he did. "Crazy, old bastard." said Willis aloud. =^=I am entering the MFC/G, now.=^= Willis swung his tricorder back and forth, trying to get an accurate reading. =^=There seems to be a problem with the general electro plasma system. It is not getting a feedback read from the CCF. I bet if we ran a diagnostic on the main deflector, it would show an inappropriate amount of small field holes. Therefore, that would explain why we aren't taking in enough rarified gas through the bussard collectors. I'm on it though.=^=

Willis opened his kit and started to manipulate open the panel to the general electro plasma system relays Bio-neural gel pack containment center. As he opened the panel, he noticed that the relay's Isolinear optical chips main ODN cord that connected to the EPS relay's connection to the continuous cycle fractionator was burned out. He reached into the kit and produced a hyperspanner in one hand, and a cutting tool within another. =^=Okay, the primary circuit board, located within the Bio-neural gel pack containment center of the EPS relay, that continues into the IOC's ODN cable for the CCF is toast. I'm going to bypass the primary relay, and run it through the secondary and tertiary circuit board.=^=

After a several minutes of tedious work, and several swear words later, Willis let out a sigh as he replaced his tools back into the kit. =^=It's getting hot in this suit, but I'm done. Fire it up and let me know how the readings look=^=

Lilou eyed the console, brushing the screen with Willis' suit cam to the side and shrinking it to allow for access to the other data. Watching him work first hand was almost like being there herself. Except she found herself a little jealous of his precision with the cutting tool; it wasn't a microlaser, yet he wielded it so skillfully he didn't even leave scorch marks on the surrounding board. Back to skills lab, she told herself. =^=I'm bringing power in the nacelle to ten percent in five, four, three...=^= she carefully nudged the slider up to the ten percent mark and watched the power flicker and hold. =^=Looking good down here. Bringing her up to twenty-five,=^= she reported. Again the power held. =^=Right, I'm running an algorithmic diagnostic for the rest. No reason to moon our friends while they're looking for us. Come on back down. Oh, and Willis? I owe you one or ten. Great work.=^=

=^=Talarian Brandy, neat and warm. On my way in. Willis, out=^=

=^=I'll see you then.=^= Lilou sat back from the console and nodded to Asa. "Ameen in yet?"

"He's changing 02 canisters again, but we're nearly through the deck."

"When the deck's finished, I'm sending you both on break. A couple hours sleep would do you good." She stood behind his shoulder and scanned the screens of the engineers working all over the ship. They weren't close to finished. She didn't anticipate they'd be close until they were in safe Federation space again in a docking bay with an army of engineers after the tumble the Galileo had taken, but they'd be able to fly right soon. With the transporters up, the main focus was to get them in a position where they could run safely once they'd rescued the Captain. Tapping her comm, she cleared her throat. =^=Peers to Slak, you're coming up on your ten minute mark. Withdraw to the lift, I'll send you a fresh tank down and you can take a few minutes.=^=

Scrubbing her hands through her hair, she leaned back and took a long breath. A long way to go, she thought again, but they were getting there. Now she just had to figure out where she could find Talarian Brandy.

[OFF]

MWO Lilou Peers
Assistant Chief Engineering Officer
USS Galileo

CN Aurangzeb Ameen
Damage Control Specialist
USS Galileo

Lawrence Gibbs
Encryption Specialist
USS Galileo

Chief Petty Officer Arthur Willis
Engineering Computer Specialist
USS Galileo

RSS Feed