An unexpected breakdown Part 1

Posted on Wed Oct 23rd, 2024 @ 1:19am by Lieutenant Commander Jack Slattery & Lieutenant JG Rafe Hunnicutt

2,284 words; about a 11 minute read

Mission: A marathon not a sprint
Location: Various
Timeline: Md04- 1500hrs

"So Matthew who do you think is going to win the non human league this time." Petty Officer Indra Talos called from the upper level platform of engineering, she had heard of the mostly human sport called baseball but Cronauner watched it intently and when he'd told her there was a league specifically for aliens who had some advantages over regular human team she'd paid a little more attention; seeing a Caitian team run the full length of a baseball diamond in nearly 10 seconds was impressive.

Matthew thought about it for all of about two seconds, which was all that was needed, before reaching a conclusion, and voicing his opinion. "I expect the final will likely be between the Vulcan Vipers and the Caitian Capitals. Most likely the winner might even be down to who gets the first hit. The Caitians can run fast but does that matter when every player including the pitcher can hit the ball out of the park like the Vulcans?"

"Maybe but the second one of them doesn't hit it just right the Caitian fielders will jump on it in a flash." Talos replied. Over the months they'd spent building the ship they had watched a few games together in the mess hall.

"Yeah or get their chest caved in if the Vulcan has hit the ball as hard as they knew it was. Which, of course is why there is a human professional league and several alien leagues that have developed as humans took Baseball to the universe." Matthew said, he had enjoyed the time that he and Petty Officer Talos had spen watching baseball together in the mess hall.

"Taking a baseball to the chest from a Vulcan hitting it would definitely hurt.... I think..." She paused and frowned. "Do me a favour and check the antimatter injectors."

Turning and walking a few metres to his left, checked the Antimatter injectors, because Talos was very good at her job he knew he didn't need to check the matter injectors because she'd be on it. "Antimatter streams are good Talos." Matthew responded to the work-related question before he added, "I expect spectator injury prevention is the reason Vulcan games need the field to be netted, with a fine mesh.

"Primary matter injector pressure is up 20%" Talos called out, her voice changing slightly from casual to business like.

"Remember we're doing warp six now so it may be it's in the normal parameters. Didn't you and S'Ralor have to cycle the injectors when we first went to warp? Maybe that is the issue."

"We're back on the primary set of injectors now, it's still borderline normal but a 20% jump is odd." Talos let out a light sigh. "Better keep an eye on it."

"Well, it is our puppy until the next shift, unless the shit hits the shovel." Matthew said with a smile he knew 20% was a problem, as Talos had said but it would be fine if they could drop it by 5%.

The next two hours passed without event, more discussion about sport and how well the ship was running passed between them as they worked till an alarm klaxon sounded over their talk.

Talos immediately climbed back up the the upper rail around the warp core. "Matter injector pressure just jumped another 50%, temperature is up 20% too."

"Whatever is happening it is above your pay grade, we can't control it and now the temperature is coming up too that is above my pay grade, Chief S'Ralor needs to know about this." Matthew responded.

"Get him down here, I'll try cycling the injectors again." Indra told him not looking away from the displays.


=== Bridge ===

=/\= Crewman Cronauner for Senior Chief S'Ralor, We're having troubles down in Engineering, and could use your extra experience.=/\= Matthew said to let S'Ralor know he was needed.

On the bridge S'Ralor quickly moved from the Ops station back to the Engineering station, he checked all the displays but nothing appeared to be wrong other than an increase in injector pressure. "Captain?" He called to Dario.

Dario looked at S'Ralor, raising an eyebrow. "Do what you need to do. "Winters, I want you to drop to warp 5 for now," he said, not wanting to slow down too much. He stood and moved to S'Ralor. "Seeing anything I should be worried about?"

"No alerts from the computer, everything looks within tolerances, I should go down there and have a look." S'Ralor replied after checking the engineering console again.

"Go," Dario said with a nod, taking a deeper breath. "Let me know what you need once you got eyes on the problem."

"Aye Sir." S'Ralor secured the station then made a beeline for the turbolift.

Dario nodded and rather than moving to the Captain's chair, he took the Operations station to monitor. "Winters, how is the ship handling?"

"Fine..." there was a shrug in Ethan's voice that didn't quite make it to his shoulders. "She's more agile than you'd expect. But of course, we've not really tested her properly yet..." he looked up to Dario with clear meaning.

Dario let out a breath before he looked at Winters. "All in good time. Remember, we're just delivering her. I want to do it without us losing a nacelle or the warp core."

The disbelief from the pilot was palpable, no matter how schooled he thought his features were. "You want to hand her over without even seeing what she can do?"

"Not really, but we're under orders," Dario said with a small smile, shaking his head. "Kid gloves."

Somehow, Ethan managed not to groan or sigh at being kept on such a leash. "Understood...Sir," he stressed the title, in a way that managed to make his disapproval clear without throwing his career away.


==== Warp Engineering ====

Within two minutes S'Ralor came bursting through the doorway of the warp engineering section of the Marathon. "What's going on?"

Matthew looked around as the Senior Chief came in, and he was ready to report as soon as the question was asked. He called S'Ralor down as Talos continued to work on the issue. "Matter injector pressure and temperatures are spiking. Petty Officer Talos noticed a twenty per cent spike a few minutes ago, but still within parameters. Then the temperature spiked by twenty per cent and the injector pressure shot through the roof. Antimatter pressures haven't budged."

S'Ralor hummed as he thought about the report. "Indra you cycle to the second set of injectors?" He asked recalling the high pressure incident the first time they went to warp.

"I tried but the system isn't responding, I can't get it to work." Indra called down from the upper platform.

"Send the internal scan to this display." He moved to a nearby console and began to examine the scan of the injector assembly. "What is going on......" eventually he noticed something.

"Matthew what type of matter injectors were installed?" He asked.

Matthew looked it up on another station and after a quick look, he exclaimed, "What the Hell! Fleet fucked up big time. They sent us the wrong ones. They sent us MI1071C27/1, Big Rig Corporation."

"What??" S'Ralor almost growled, his teeth baring slightly. "Who signed off on that, check the log."

Matthew continued to follow the paper trail on his station, and after a few minutes said, "They were signed off before we got here, by one of the Mazar Station Engineers. It seems we weren't studious enough to catch it before we left."

"Fuck, how did we miss that." S'Ralor did growl this time as he took a few moments to think while looking through the internal scans. "Alright. Matthew open the injector trunk and check injectors one and two, Talos check injectors three and four make sure they're closed."

Matthew checked to make sure the Antimatter injectors were the correct type for this ship before he climbed the gantry to the top level where he could check the matter injectors. As soon as he opened the injector trunk he could see they had a long repair on Injector one. "We're not getting one out without a shutdown Chief S'Ralor, two might come out reasonably easily but one is fused, that one may have to wait until we get to Dakala station because she completely fused open."

While Matthew checked the first pair of injectors Indra checked the other pair. Physically they looked alright but something else looked wrong. "Some of the circuitry between injector pairs is melted." She added to Matthews report. "That'd explain why I can't switch sets."

"The four Antimatter injectors down below are all the right sort which is why we haven't had any problems down there but I would suggest we start with injector two, after we have the Wolff make three of the matter injectors that we need and using them replace the three in there now and limp the Dakala station, before we attempt to take out one." Matthew added.

Indra shook her head. "With injector one fused open its only going to get worse. We'd not make it to Dakala before we break something more critical.

"Alright Matthew get the serial numbers for the injectors we need, Indra try and repair the circuitry between the injectors. Be careful though.

"Yes Chief!" Matthew said before he headed to one of the upper stations to look up the information.

S'Ralor tapped his combadge, it was time to break the news. =/\= Engineering to bridge, we got a problem.=/\=

Munro closed his eyes for a moment, taking a moment to compose himself. He really wish he encountered problems he could shoot or talk his way out of. Unfortunately, Engineering was not the place for it. =/\=Lay it out to me, S'Ralor.=/\=

=/\=Someone signed off on us running civilian grade matter injectors.=/\= S'Ralor began to explain. =/\= One is overheated and fused open the other three are intact but their control circuitry is damaged.=/\=

=/\=S'Ralor, do we need to do a full stop and shut down?=/\= Dario sat back in his chair, considering it for a long moment. They would need to inform the Wolff. Hell's teeth, that was the last thing he wanted to do.

=/\= I can't shut the core down fully with a fused open injector, I can keep us at warp but we'll need to throttle back a little. I need replacement matter injectors the right ones, we don't have any. =/\= S'Ralor replied.

=/\=Right, I got it. Liaise with Winters about the speed, I'll sort out the injectors. Bridge out =/\= Munro closed his eyes, running a hand over his face. He went to hail the Wolff himself. "Marathon to Wolff, do you have some matter injectors you can send us? We've had a few issues our end and need replacements."

"Baka here," she answered the comms, "that's not something we keep stocked, but the industrial replicators can be programmed to create replacements. We can stop to do that - it won't take much more than an hour to complete."

"Thank you," Munro said and considered it for a moment. "We are still going at warp, but would appreciate those parts. We aren't outfitted with industrial replicators." The tone clearly said to everyone that it was another thing he did not approve of, the Marathon's lack of things.

"You can't stop," Baka asked, there was a degree of concern in her tone that wasn't fully masked. She stood up from the command chair with the intention of manning the Engineering console, but she stopped to scrutinize the viewscreen.

"Well, we can't shut the core down fully," Munro said, sounding oddly calm about it. Because you needed to roll with the punches. "We have a fused open injector. We are however in a position to still move, so...we're doing that. After all, the sooner we get to where we need to go..." he let it drift. The sooner everyone would be able to go back to their usual work.

The Chief Engineer nodded, "Send over your specs and we'll run it right away." The communications window shut down and Ops reported receipt of the specifications for the needed injector parts. Baka pulled up her chair at the engineering console, relaying the orders to her team. Turning back to the bridge proper, she instructed the pilot, "Helm pull us away from the Marathon, but stay within transporter range." She tapped her comm badge next. =/\=Baka to Slattery,=/\= she said over the ship's internal communications system, =/\=There's a situation with the Marathon you should be made aware of...=/\=

Lieutenant Commander Slattery took a slow breath at the words. "Very well, I'll come to you. Some news is best delivered in person..."

==== an hour later ===

Wiping sweat off his brow in the transporter room, Rafe Hunnicutt looked at the matter injectors nicely wrapped up. He tapped his combadge, rolling his shoulders. =/\=Hunnicutt to Baka, the matter injectors have been replicator and are in transporter room 2. It's a big job installing them though, I don't mind going across and helping out=/\= Because if nothing else, it meant that it could be done quicker. He felt for the engineers on the Marathon, not easy knowing you had to keep engineering running on bare bones. And seeing as they didn't even have an industrial replicator, it was truly bare, bare bones.

=/\=Yeah, that's a good idea=/\= Baka answered. =/\=The quicker the repairs can be made, the better. Approved.=/\=

=/\=Thanks. I'll see you on the other side=/\= Hunnicutt smiled as he moved to the transporter pad. =/\=Might be an idea to let their engineers know I am coming, don't want to get hyperspanners thrown at me when I materialise...=/\=

=/\= They're expecting you... I'm letting them know everything is ready,=/\= Baka answered. =/\=Be safe.=/\=


TBC

 

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