Elbow Grease

Posted on Tue Mar 26th, 2019 @ 4:12am by Ensign Debbie Larson & Lieutenant JG Jasad Yuvek & Ensign Mark Cross

1,166 words; about a 6 minute read

Mission: Negotiations and Apothecaries
Location: Main Engineering
Timeline: 22nd Feb 2395

[ON]

Lieutenant Jasad Yuvek walked into Main Engineering and stood for several moments observing the power core as it fluctuated and hummed at its designated efficiency. He walked over to the rail and continued to observe.

He had spent the last several hours reviewing the propulsion analysis trying to figure out what the hell was going on with his ship. He did not like not knowing what was going on with his equipment. More importantly, there was no telling what kind of conflict the ship was going to run into with this upcoming conference. He needed everything to be working efficiently.

From the upper level Debbie saw the Cardassian enter and nosey around, she made her way down the ladder and headed over. "Paying us another visit Lieutenant?"

Lt. Yuvek turned towards the voice. "Yes, I'm here to go over the engines and figure out why they suddenly and inexplicably burned out." He said directly.

"We had been running the warp engines at nearly the red line for 6 days, it's no wonder it broke down after that even with all the maintenance we did." Debbie replied, it was the most obvious reason but it was also at the core of what their own investigation had discovered.

"Exactly not the time to start running experiments on key systems..." Mark interjected, his voice muffled as it came from the depths of the panel he was working on.

"We're in a hostile combat situation." Lieutenant Yuvek said sternly. "Now is not the time to work out the kinks of the coolant injectors or for plasma fires knocking us out of warp." He continued. "Thankfully we were still combat-effective when we were attacked by the Kurai attack." He added as he walked over to a nearby console and pulled up the schematic of the warp core.

"Once we get to the conference we have to be prepared for another surprise attack. That includes keeping engines working. What is the status of the reactant injectors for the matter/anti-matter chambers?" The young Cardassian asked.

"Antimatter injector one is still jammed shut, we need a complete shutdown to correct that but the others are compensating fine." Debbie replied, she hoped he wasn't going to try and tell her how to do her job.

"We've stabilised it enough that normal running is possible" Mark added. "Extended blasts at maximum warp are off the table for now though. I think we can say a few lessons have been learnt on that front."

Lt. Yuvek's brows furrowed. "So we're forced to crawl on our knees in the event another attack happens?" He asked. "What about establishing a work-around feed into the chamber? It wouldn't be long-term, but at least it would allow us to maintain a consistent flow and maintain high warp." He responded.

"I wouldn't consider warp 7 crawling on our knees Lieutenant..." Mark responded. "We can maintain better than cruising speed. Plus, we suspect the reason we're in this situation in the first place is from an attempt to get more anti-matter into the system. Jerry-rigging in a temporary solution is probably going to create more problems than it fixes."

"Warp 7 would appear to be fast enough to outrun anything we've seen so far from the Yatal or Kurai ships, we're in no danger." Debbie told him. "The main problem we have is a few of the primary control systems are still on the fritz from the Emp effect of the nuclear weapons they used."

Lieutenant had partially tuned out the Engineer after she responded that his idea of rigging a work-around was going to lead to more problems. As he continued to review the engine schematics on the console he did hear her mention the EMP devices that had been used against them.

"The EMP devices." He said as he turned back towards the Engineer. "It's obvious that the Kurai rely upon that to disable their enemies and take away any advantage they may have in battle. Our vessel clearly out-matches them; however, those EMP devices still left us vulnerable." He said as he brought up the data on the power lost caused in the previous battle.

"What can we do to better insulate our equipment from being open to another EMP blast since we won't be going at full-speed?" The Cardassian asked.

"Our metaphasic shielding would have stopped the radiation more thoroughly but it wasn't bought online, the shields stopped a lot of the dangerous to us radiation but didn't block the emp effect," Debbie replied. "we can be glad we weren't on an older ship or we'd be a little cooked." She quickly added.

"So what do we need to do to completely secure ourselves?" He asked. He'd much rather get started now rather than trying to come up with a solution in the middle of a battle.

Debbie and some of the other engineers had already been working on solutions so she answered him quickly. "Lt Voss is already working on implementing some measures to harden our systems against emp's but if we bring the metaphasic shields online if we encounter more Kurai nukes we should be fine, they caught us with our pants down, they won't next time."

"The metaphasic shielding, I'm assuming something like that would be significant to sustain, especially during a firefight. How much of overall power would we have to divert to sustain the shields? I'm particularly concerned if we get into a situation where it is use vs. several vessels and we'll need significant maneuverability." He said.

Debbie made a few mental calculations. "If we're running both the shields and metaphasic shields there will be a little drop in shield efficiency as they both run off the same generators but with a little extra power we can run the shielding off the main generators and the metaphasic on the backup generators."

Lt. Yuvek nodded in response. "Good, let's get started with that. I'll start running the numbers once I get back to my office in regards to the most efficient power distribution flow to run from the bridge. " He said as he looked at another schematic on the console.

"What risk do we run of burning out the backup generators if we were to run both shields? We haven't run such a situation before so I'm not certain how well the power generators will handle such feat." He added.

Debbie looked across at mark, shielding wasn't her speciality. "I'll have to do some working out with a few of the other engineers but it shouldn't be much but might get higher over time."

The Cardassian Helmsman nodded. "Good, get to it and let me know if anything odd turns up." He said as he turned and began to head towards the door.

"Yes Sir." Debbie said as Jasad left, she let out a sigh of relief and turned to Mark. "I thought he would never leave."


OFF:

Lieutenant J.G.
Jasad Yuvek
Chief Helmsman

Ensign Mark Cross
Engineer

Ens Debbie Larson
Engineer
[NPC Taliserra]

 

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