USS Marathon- Powering up

Posted on Fri Jul 12th, 2024 @ 3:20am by
Edited on on Sat Oct 12th, 2024 @ 8:13am

1,694 words; about a 8 minute read

Mission: A marathon not a sprint
Location: USS Marathon- Various
Timeline: Md01 1500hrs

The small secondary engineering bay of the USS Marathon was a hive of activity as the ships engineers; all four of them scurried around making last minute checks, it was getting close to the time the Captain had said they should be getting underway and there was still lots to do. An engineering team from the Wolff was helping out in other places but a six foot two musclebound black furred Caitian male had insisted his team do the main parts of the work, and he'd found over the years that not many people were willing to argue with him

"Crewman Cronauner, are you ready?" Chief S'Ralor asked as he clambered his large form out of a jefferies tube hatch.

"As we can be Senior Chief S'Ralor. Let's hope they don't rush us too much, it could become a very bumpy ride if the warp bubble drops us out."

"If it does I'm throwing you out of the nearest airlock and you're pushing us Matthew." S'Ralor said in as non threatening a voice as a man his size could. "We spent 3 months installing those nacelles, if they don't hold up to warp speed they'll never take this transwarp thing."

Matthew laughed "It would be much easier to get the USS Wolff to give us a tow, that's what a tractor beam is for after all, for those that have them. We gave Captain Munro our best warp speed so I don't expect he'll push it too hard."

"Twelve days at warp 5 is going to be a boring trip, hopefully nothing will go wrong but these warp coils are new, we might have our work cut out keeping her going." S'Ralor chuckled slightly. "Have seen it before. Brand new ship fresh out the dock, all the bells and whistles about her launch. Stalled her warp engines in front of 10 admirals, 2 other ships and about 100 FNN reporters."

Matthew laughed, then said, "Just as well Captain Scott is beyond the grave this foray into Transwarp Drive then, isn't it! Seriously though when was the last time anything went catastrophically wrong like that at least we have this trip to work out bugs like that before our main drive has been installed so at least those Admirals and reporters will be able to go somewhere at faster than light speed."

"Things going catastrophically wrong, I could tell you a few times." The soft voice of another crewmember came from the other side of the warp core.
S'Ralor's ears and especially his nose twitched intently as an Orion woman in engineering yellow stepped out.

"Ever hear about the Dorian?" The woman asked. "Orion ship, bought a warp system off the Ferengi. Blew up as soon as they hit warp 4. The shockwave was so strong it changed the course of a nearby comet into the gravity well of a planet, killed over 10,000 people when it impacted."

"I swear that story gets more exaggerated every time you tell it Talos." S'Ralor said with a chuckle and then scratched his nose, even with her pheromone blockers he could smell the young Orion from a mile away, in his younger days he'd have chased Indra Talos relentlessly, Orion pheromones were a heady drink for a Caitian in their prime.

Smiling and going with what S'Ralor said Matthew added "Yep it finally got to 10,000, and it is a comet this time, It must have been a very big one or had a massive asteroid core not to burn up to become rain for the planet. When buying anything from a Ferengi, it was probably appropriated from an illegal source."

"It's all true, I swear." Talos laughed heartily. "Everything checks out here Chief, we're ready to go."

S'Ralor tapped him combadge =/\= “S’Ralor to bridge, we’re ready to bring the warp core online.”=/\=

On the bridge, in the Captain's chair, Commander Munro gave a small smile. =/\= "Very well, Mister S'Ralor. You are go for bringing the warp core online." =/\=

Lieutenant' Ethan Winters glanced back over his shoulder to the Captain at that, trying to look casual about it, but in truth the helm officer was growing impatient for action. Any kind of action. When he'd been transferred to the Marathon, he'd thought it a testimony to his achievement as an officer, being a part of a confidential experiment. But in truth, he'd had little to nothing to do since arriving. Nothing of consequence at least.

"Sir, we're still clear in the local vicinity," Ensign Leo Carter confirmed from the Tactical station...perhaps for the second time, too. But he figured if they were about to make themselves even more vulnerable, the Captain could use the assurance.

Munro looked at Carter at the words, nodding to him. "That's good...let me know if that changes," he said, before he looked over at Winters. He could see his body was tense. "Once we've got the warp core up and running, it'll be another thing off our list."


==== Engineering ====

"Alright you heard him, lets power her up." S'Ralor told his engineers and moved over to the primary control panel. "Matthew bring the core up to start up temperature, Talos prime both the injectors."

"On it Chief." Matthew responded before teasing and blowing on it like people would blow on their hands to warm them in winter. Then he got down to the business of bringing the warp core up to temperature.

Moving to a small catwalk that circled the top portion of the warp core Indra checked the antimatter injector assemble and primed it for use, it would only take a minute amount of antimatter to kick start the reaction but the amount and its positioning had to be perfect.

Gradually the warp core temperature and pressure reached the required levels, deuterium fuel began to be pumped into the reaction chamber. "Ready...." S'Ralor said, his voice almost a purr as he held the word. "Now." The first slivers of antimatter were compressed into a stream and fired into the reaction chamber, the core began to slowly thrum as matter and antimatter began to annihilate each other generating vast amounts of power. "Increase the flow rates."

Up above Indra cranked up the injectors some more. "Flow ratio approaching 25:1." She called out.

"Hold it there, just starting her up will do for now." S'Ralor called back not wanting to call for too much power from the core until they'd assured everything was running fine. =/\= S'Ralor to bridge, warp core is online, you can cut the external power feed. =/\=

=/\=Bridge here, we are cutting the external power feed. =/\= Munro's voice was firm and it was clear it was also an order on the bridge as the external power feed was cut and the warp core took over.

The warp core thrummed to life as it took over powering the ship. Matthew smiled, he loved when the ship did that and for the first time he had actually the one watching as it happened. "Well that was cool!" He said to his two friends there with him.

S'Ralor grinned; his long canines flashing. "It's good to see her finally up and running.

"I agree." Indra added as she dropped down to the main level. "Nice to see our hard work paying off."

"This is just the start though." S'Ralor told them. "We have a lot of checking to do before we take her to warp speed, not to mention at least 12 days of keeping her running, and making sure it doesn't shake the ship apart, and this and that.

"We get the picture boss." Indra chuckled. "I'll go run one more check on the impulse engines. Commander Munro won't be happy if we can't even make it out of the system."

Matthew smiled as he said, "We get to do it all over again after we drop the main engine in and light those fires. That's when the main fun starts."


==== Bridge ===

"Mister Winters," Commander Munro shifted in his chair as he looked over at the dark-haired man at the CONN. "Do a system check, see if the nacelles are responding. We're not disembarking, just...warm her up a little."

"Aye, Captain," Ethan replied in a soft drawl, tapping abruptly on the console to start up the system's check. His features remained virtually emotionless as he went through the motions. His finger ticked impatiently against the edge, a slight, terse breath escaping. "Nothing's being flagged."

Munro nodded, standing and moving to the science console, initiating the diagnostic there. "Mister Carter, I know we are about as armed as a toddler in a sandbox, but how are our weapons system and targeting looking?"

"Well the good news is that what we have is in excellent order," Leo replied with a soft tone of humour to his voice, his eyebrow arching with the other half of his delivery. "But, like you say, the bad news is that if we were to find ourselves in a real fight, it wouldn't do us that much good."

"Good to hear we are on the same page," Munro said and looked at Leo, giving him a nod. "Let us hope this is a smooth run." He walked over to the Operation console, looking at it. "Power distribution looks as expected. Winters, how does navigation look? All good there?"

"She's running a little hotter than would be usual, but it's nothing she can't handle, and I believe it is to be expected," Winters replied evenly, not even glancing away from his controls. He was sure the experimental part of this was fascinating to the geeks amongst their small crew, but he was eager just to get out and give her a try.

"We'll take that as a win," Munro said, almost lightly. The fact they were in one piece and with no warp core ejection was indeed a win in his book.


OFF:

Scpo S'Ralor
Engineer USS Marathon
[pnpc Taliserra]

Ensign Leo Carter
Security - USS Marathon
[PNPC Rowe]

Lieutenant JG Ethan Winters
Flight Control - USS Marathon
[PNPC Rowe]

Crewman Matthew Cronauner
Engineer
Pnpc Edwards

Petty Officer 2nd class Indra Talos
Engineer
Redshirt npc

Commander Dario Munro
Captain - USS Marathon
[PNPC Slattery]

 

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