Those Transporters Will be the Death of Me

Posted on 20 Mar 2012 @ 12:28pm by Lieutenant Commander Chauncey Remington III (KIA) & Rear Admiral Lirha Saalm

1,693 words; about a 8 minute read

Mission: Episode 00 - Pre-Deployment
Location: USS Galileo, Deck 2, Transporter Room 1
Timeline: MD 05 - 1145 hrs

[ON]

Will ran his fingers over the transporter controls and a metal cylinder marked with a biohazard label appeared on the transporter pad. Hurrying over to it, Will knelt down on the pad and pulled a tricorder out of his tool kit. The tricorder hummed as it scanned the cylinder and when he read the results, the operations officer frowned and gave the tricorder an annoyed tap.

The day had been rather busy for Lirha, as she had been preoccupied with conducting her own inspection of the Galileo's primary systems. Starting with the bridge, she had worked her way around the various rooms on Deck 1, and now found herself on Deck 2 near the primary transporters. The captain entered Transporter Room 1 and casually looked around, her eyes finally settling on the operations chief who was knelt down around some type of metal canister. He seemed to be deep in thought as he stared at his tricorder. "Everything okay, Commander?" she asked him in a soft voice so as not to startle him.

Will looked up and held his tricorder up for her to see the readout. "No," he said, "Look. This canister's inner containment field is showing a temperature increase of point .5 degrees. It could indicate a malfunction in the Heisenberg compensator if the matter stream fluctuated." Despite the relatively benign problem, Will was clearly concerned but perfectly cool about it, "I want to send this canister to an engineering lab for a full submicron scan. I haven't even looked at the biomimetic gel yet."

Even as he spoke, he reached for a medical tricorder that was sitting at his waist to scan the gel. His workplace was disorderly, with tools strewn about the transporter room floor and even a wall panel open above the transporter controls. Several rather delicate objects were lined along the rim of the transporter pad along with a large data PADD. Among the 'test subjects' was a bioneural gel pack, a hyperspanner, and a small dilithium crystal.

"Wow..." Lirha whispered as she glanced around the transporter room, in slight disbelief at the number of tools and equipment scattered about. Of particular interest were a set of three items, a gel pack, hyperspanner, and what appeared to be a dilithium crystal. "You know, Commander," she began in a reassuring voice, "The whole purpose of a containment field is to handle such fluctuations." she said and knelt down next to him, picking up the gel pack and inspecting it. "What exactly are you doing?" she asked, motioning to the various items scattered about.

Will stopped with the medical probe from the tricorder hovering over the canister, inactivated. "Not if the energy field matrix of the inner lining has microfractures that might disrupt containment." He briefly scanned the canister, then placed the tricorder down carefully beside him and began to open the lid. "I'm testing the transporters, ma'am. When I was chief of operations aboard Starbase 235 I trained my people better than any of these technicians who worked on the Galileo. Every ship that docked for maintenance left with transporters that worked better than they ever had. You could send a pearl string of tachyon particles through there and they'd come out the other end with not a particle out of place."

"Well, you seem to be doing a very thorough job." she commented, "Are you always this meticulous with your checks?" she asked with a grin and a raised eyebrow. Being a former operations officer herself, she was knowledgeable of the workings of the transporter system but had never seen anyone perform such a detailed diagnostic unless a malfunction had been detected.

"Of course I am," he said with a frown, "you can never be too careful with this thing. One component goes wrong and you'll end up dead, or worse. Haven't you heard the story of Quinn Erickson? Or Thomas Riker? Things like that happen. These transporters break you down into little subatomic particles and send you flying through space as energy and then hopefully reassemble you the way you went in." He removed the contents of the canister, a small vial of biomimetic gel, and began to scan it with the medical tricorder. "The molecules seem stable," he declared skeptically.

"I suppose you're right, and I can't argue with the fact that it's always better to err on the side of caution." she admitted. She had never personally witnessed a transporter malfunction but she, along with all Starfleet personnel, were aware of the occasional tragedy. "I will say, however, that the incident rate among transporter usage is far lower than that of a shuttlecraft." she added to try and ease his worries.

"I'll take a shuttle crash over quantum limbo any day," he replied decidedly. Having finished his analysis of the biomimetic gel, he set it back into the canister and moved to transporter controls. "Are you ready for launch, captain?" he asked, more than ready for a change of subject, transitioning with a conversational tone.

"More or less," she replied with a shrug, then returned to her feet. "Probably about as ready as I will ever be. Most of the status reports have been taken care of and Commander Holliday is helping taking care of the last-minute updates." she said. "And yourself?"

"Oh, of course," He replied with a smile, walking back around the console after beginning a diagnostic. "I've launched many ships, most far from new. Starbase 235." He gave her a searching look, "Though I've noticed captains are always more anxious about their own commands. They try to hide it, with varying degrees of success." He placed the bioneural gel pack on the transporter pad and then headed back towards the controls.

"Anxiety is a natural feeling...unless you're a Vulcan." she said with a wry smile. "And how well do you think I am hiding mine?" she asked with a raised eyebrow and an expression of amusement on her face. Part of her was joking with the Commander, but she was also curious as to his opinion.

"I'm not quite sure, yet, captain," he replied with a secretive smile, "but Vulcans feel it to, they're just best at hiding it. Don't be fooled by any vulcan that tells you 'suchandsuch is a human emotion' because it's a Vulcan one too. Energizing." He ran his fingers along the controls and the bioneural gel pack shimmered away. The commander checked the LCARS display, entered a few commands, and then re-energized, restoring a complete gel pack a few feet from where it had vanished. He made for it straightaway.

Lirha watched as the commander moved to inspect the gel pack. "Yes, I find Vulcans are quite an interesting species. In many ways, they are similar to your own, however they often deny the involvement of emotions in their decision-making, which I find hard to believe." she said with a shrug. "Have you become familiar with the personnel under your command yet?" she asked, changing the subject as she wondered if he was satisfied with the crew in his department.

"Some of them," he admitted with a slight nod as he reached for the medical tricorder. "I keep expecting to see operations officers scattered all over the place with a few months worth of names to remember. This is different from a starbase or even an Akira-class." He studied the tricorder readings, adjusted the settings, and then scanned it again. "Do these readings look stable to you?" he asked, "I'm an operations officer, not a doctor, but I wouldn't want my brain to have such weak neural cohesion. How does the ship function on these things?"

Lirha stepped forward and stopped next to Will, looking at his tricorder readings with him. "They look pretty standard to me." she replied. "The organic circuitry isn't as developed as a humanoid's brain, but the neural fibers are complex and sophisticated nonetheless." she said.

"Perhaps," Will conceded, closing the cover of the tricorder and returning the medical probe to its slot. "I want to do a level 3 diagnostic on each of the transporters once we are underway and before we reach out first mission objective. They should all be finished in a day or two, depending on when we can spare the time."

"We should have plenty of time for that during our first leg to Starbase 234." she said with approval. "If you find any problems or need any components that we don't have on board, feel free to make a requisition list and leave it with myself or Commander Holliday."

"Yes, captain," the human replied with a nod of his head. Once more he returned to the transporter station and started to work at the controls. "Level four diagnostic check out," he told her absently. "Oh, captain, I am also working on programming the ship's power distribution to give our sensors a boost and extend their range by up to 4.7 percent. I'll have it on your desk in twenty-four hours. Quinn and I figured you might appreciate an edge, considering our scientific focus."

The Orion smiled and gave the commander a friendly squeeze on the shoulder. "That would be great, I'm sure we could find some good uses for such an enhancement." she said, "Send my thanks to Mister Quinn, and I look forward to reading your modifications."

"If there's anything else I can do for you, ma'am..." he watched the Orion woman expectantly.

Lirha shook her head, her dark hair bobbing across her shoulders. "Nothing specific at the moment, but be sure to notify me if you come across any problems with the primary or secondary systems." she said. "I'm sure you have a lot of work to finish so I'll leave you to it. I just came to check on our transporter system but you seem to have that under control." she politely added.

Will nodded. "Of course, ma'am."

The captain gave him a final smile before walking to the doors and stepping out into the hallway to continue her inspection.

[OFF]

--

CMDR Lirha Saalm
Commanding Officer
USS Galileo

Lt. Cmdr. Chauncey William Remington III
Chief operations Officer
USS Galileo

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