[Backpost] Engineering Faults

Posted on 13 Oct 2022 @ 10:08pm by Lieutenant Leland Hawksley & Lieutenant JG Jarel Haze
Edited on on 16 Oct 2022 @ 8:56pm

3,131 words; about a 16 minute read

Mission: S3 Episode 5: Diplomatic Incident/Hydaransz Again (Incidentals)
Location: Deck 15, Main Engineering
Timeline: Current 1703 Hours

In the first incident, the main engineering computers had blipped a warning. The pool table trickled in small indicators of something wrong on deck 12. "Warning. 3309. Deck 12 Electromagnetic Field Stabilizers EMFS was reaching critical event level." The computer alerted. The EMFS stabilized electrical currents in the buffers for the Tomcat's Deck 12 Primary Maintenance Support Center. A failure would result in non-functioning components in the lab on said deck.

Hawksley was in the middle of a cycle cleanse of the Main Impulse Configuration MIC thrusters for various flight modes. The command prompt had caught his Engineering senses off guard. He paused and checked the issue, taping in a few key commands.

The blinking icons on the pool table in the middle of Engineering turned from a trickle of an issue to that of a full-blown Engineering event catching Leland off guard.

"Warning. 3309. Deck 12..." The computer began to re-iterate the issue. "Computer cancel the audio warning." Hawksley waived the alarm and inspected the main diagram wall. The red indicator current lines on the complex master system showed a developing failure on deck 12.

"Not deck 12. Not again with the support center." The Lieutenant grumbled. The deck had been nagging Hawksley with a sub-matrix aperture fault almost weekly. He had rubbed tiredly at the side of his face this late in the day.

“Computer. Run a level 4 diagnostic with a predictive gradient curve of .343. Report.” Hawksley commands the central computer to analyze the situation further. How bad was it, what systems were affected, and how could he stop a cascade failure?

“Warning 403 Cascade failure event. Level 03 vectored exhaust director failure.” The computer reported yet another warning alarm as what seemed to be a Christmas tree lighting up.

“Lieutenant Haze.” Hawksley had called. “Can you come here? Have a look at this?” He paused and waited for his fellow Engineer to see this.

"3309 Event Report Complete."

"Report." Hawksley stated.

"Nominal EPS flow has shunted to safety G5 Vectored exhaust director on Deck 12. Event occurrence at 1703 standard hours." Then the two had looked at each other.

Jorel seemed to just appear ghost like from a side maintenance tube as though conjured by the mere mention of his name. He wore the standardized tool belt and carried his kit with him. Jorel peeked over Hawkley's shoulder to see the read out and pointed to an oddity on the report. "Right there sir. The variants is off in the throttle its over producing." His brow wrinkled in confusion. "Huh... I just ran a system check on that last shift. How odd."

“I see,” Leland remarked. “For the past seven weeks, I’ve been pruning the G5 diode nodes to throttle the MHD system limiters, forcing the throttle through from 10 to the 8th to 10 to the 11th megawatts. This should be a standardized fix. The system does not have it.” He was perplexed.

Turning to Ensign Willox, Hawksley ordered. “Ensign, stay here. Keep an eye on this, and Haze and I are heading to Deck 12 Primary Maintenance Support Center to see this failure through.”

Joreal followed in tow. He was trying to think of what might be the cause of the re occurrence. Perhaps it was environmental in nature. perhaps something in the lab it self was some how causing the issue? "Sir, perhaps we should take some read outs from the lab and get a inventory list from the Operations officer to make sure that none of their sciency thingamahoppers isn't mucking things up maybe? After we prevent the systems failure that is. Priorities naturally."

Deck 12

Arriving at Deck 12, Hawksley accessed the IPS command coordinator service node in the hallway outside of the Maintenance Support Center on Deck 12. They were only a few decks up from leading engineering. Unlatching the hallway cowling and setting it aside, Hawksley opened his engineering kit and inspected his devices before leaning into the circuitry wall.

“Lieutenant Haze. What do you see here? What am I missing? Why does this keep giving me a 3309 warning?” Hawksley then informed the staff inside the PMSC to power down their operations for safety.

"A 3309 warning is usually a failure of EMFS, implying usually that there is an over abundance of charge building up in system leading to a cascading failure of the security field on deck 12 and possibly having enough kick back into the main system to fry the ships core if we can't sort out a place to redirect the charge and re neutralize and stabilize the electronic sensors and then reharmonize them to the correct rotations. Perhaps it could be redirected through the weapons array and then recycled through the shields?" He pondered out loud but more so to himself out of habit. He studied the screen. His eyes following the blue prints he reached out and traced a section and highlighted it bringing it up to the foreground "We could put some Sepherlax gel bags into the Liner system there and reroute the power back into the EMFS at the newly regulated specifications. The Sepherlax packs should absorb and neutralize the extra charge without any negative effects and could purge the system of what might be causing the failure. Its a temporary fix, but might get us enough time to figure out what keeps causing the problem." It was a suggestion. "I can get to juncture 319 in 5 mins and inject gel pack D12319.0012. Gives you time to get the system re routed if you want to go that route."

Leland contemplated and then ran through the analytics of Sepherlax gel bags into the Liner system. The idea is to re-route the power into the EMFS at newly regulated levels. “I love the idea. The idea is out of the box, rather in the bag.” Leland chuckled as he checked over his trusted engineering padd.

“Computer run analysis schematic scenario of proposed 3309 submitted changes. Tag at Sepherlax gel bags simulates shunts to neutralize and then run sim at corrected harmonization terms. Run Scenario,” Leland locked down the network cross feeds that were already running.

“Completed.” The Tomcat Main Computer replied.

“Report.”

“3309 Sepherlax gel bags shunt procedure with harmonized terms confirmation analysis predictive success rated 89.98 performance percent.” The central computer monotoned its succinct report back to the two Engineers.

“Computer.” Hawksley turned to look at Lieutenant JG Haze. “Predictive rate of failure T-Minus…” He checked his wrist chronometer. “-1780 hours till failure of shunt effectiveness rate. Run.”

“Analysis complete.”

“Report.” Hawksley curiously looked at Haze.

“78 hours predictive effectiveness, 38 minutes, 56 seconds .34 milliseconds.” The Main computer reported the finality of its complete run.

“Mr. Haze. Good work. If you could get to those Sepherlax gel bags.” Hawksley had to add his two cents into the Engineering fix. “Just one second. Before you do, ensure that the mixture is per SFRA – standard 102.19 at 26 oc per bagged mixture.” Leland then slowly nodded. “Yeah, yes. I like this. It will then give us time, instead of shunting the Deck 12 computers to standby mode, to determine the real fix. But this gives us time. Well done!” Leland stated and smiled. Jorel knew his stuff, and someone who knew emergency codes down to the wording was his kind of Engineer.

“Ensure that juncture 319 is on a warning standby, just in case we have someone run by the area and not understand the changes we have made,” Hawksley added.

"Aye sir, I'll be sure to leave a note in the index screen to make sure of that." Jorel said going to the nearest storage cabinet he gathered the necessary packs needed along with the Reft kit that needed to be used for the installation.

“I’m going to complete an analysis of the photosynthetic processors, particulate infiltration, temperature, and humidity control. A friend of mine had similar issues on an Akira class variant two years ago. It’s funny that this had not been in the federation engineering updates. If you can do that, I will check for faults in the atmospheric systems in the junction processors. Keep a look out for any type of anomalies you see when you’re installing the Sepherlax gel packs.”

"Aye sir,. I'll make sure to put a NODE monitor on it to ensure that I am alerted to any anomalies that may occur.". Haze said confidentiality as he moved off to carry out his task. He left main engineering through a maintenance tube picking the most direct path. He loved to transverse the tunnels. He crossed the second cross section. Then something impacted with the back of his head. His vision filled with stars. He stumbled forward. Then he was struck again between his shoulders. It sent him flailing to the deck.

"Lieutenant JG Jorel Haze, yes? Well of course you are. You know you are a difficult man to track down. I sure hope you are not doing anything too important." Came an unfamiliar young man's voice. It was almost sing song in it's glee. As though it was laughing at some personal joke.

"What..?" Jorel had hardly made the almost sound. The taste of his blood filled his mouth. But more frightening was the feeling of something stiff wrapping around his neck cutting off his ability to breath. There was a weight on his back where the attacker sat pulling them twisting the wire to secure it in place.

Then the man was violently drug off. A woman dressed in her Marine PT gear had ripped him away and Jorel could barely see anything as he reached back to try and remove the grout. Jorel choked his lungs begging for air his fingers clumsily fumbled to free him.

Nearby Rhys managed to grab Cassandra's wrist as she swung to punch him again. She had caught him off guard. Followed Rhys as he had followed the unwary engineer. Once Cassandra saw what was happening she couldn't walk away. She didn't flinch as Rhys grabbed her wrist and wretched it painfully back. She used the pain to hit him harder with her free fist. Then he managed to dislodge her and roll her into the floor. His hands wrapped around her neck. His dark eyes bore into her blue ords like black hole sucking her life away with each squeeze. Still she bucked, and kicked, and fought. Her fingers racked his arms leaving bloody trails.

"Kitten?" Rhys breathed, the note of surprise was hard to miss. He obviously hadn't thought Cassandra was going to go around making a nuisance of herself. "I wish I had the time to enjoy this the way I always wanted to. But I'm working. So I guess this is what you get. Pitty." He smiled at the terror, the anger, as she fought harder to try to breathe. Her eyes where turning pink the vessels bursting, He was enjoying it right up till a hydro spanner cluncked him over the head. The same one Rhys had used against the very engineering offers who weilded it against Rhys now.

Jorel helped roll the prone young man off Cassandra. They where both breathless and Jorel patted her back as she gulped in greedy gasps of air just as he had done only so many moments ago himself. Panting hard he did the only thing he could think to do.

Jorel went to tap his comm badge, =^= Security to engineering maintenance tunnel 319 junction E6. Someone attacked me. The attacker is neutralized please respond. =^=". He sent it out on the main channel so as his CO would also be advised of the situation.=^= This is Lt JG Haze to Lt Hawksley. I have a situation involving two intruders in my section of Engineering.=^= his voice was hoarse and it was painful to talk. He reached up to touch his swollen throat and felt a warm stickiness. From the feel of it the wire had cut deeply into his flesh. Jorel hardly felt it... Which was probably not a good thing come to think of it.

Then she was there. Trying to talk. Trying to give him her over shirt to hold to the gapping wound to his neck. He could hear her calling well er.. trying to call for help. He couldn't hardly hear it over the thudding of his heart beat.

Starting into his fix for the 3309 issues, Hawksley paused. Over the general comms, there was a call for Security to an identified intruder alert from Lieutenant JG Haze. This was up a few decks from Main Engineering. Jorel was about halfway to the NODE junction.

Having just arrived back in Main Engineering from his short conversation with Lt. Haze a while ago on the 3309 fixes, Hawksley was shocked. Leland’s face turned to pure concern. “What in hell?”

Immediately his Chief training came in as he tapped his communications badge =/\= Security to engineering maintenance tunnel 319 junction E6. Medical to engineering maintenance tunnel 319 junction E6. =/\= From his office, Leland had grabbed his phaser rifle, hand phaser, and a standard Starfleet-issued hand knife, which he tucked into his belt.

=/\= Engineering is now on lockdown! A possible intruder attack was neutralized by Lieutenant Haze =/\= Hawksley was astonished, and surprised, but his Chief Engineering leadership had kicked in.

“Ensign Willox, Lieutenant JG Hewitt, you have the main engineering I want those isolation doors locked down, now! Nobody gets past them except qualified personnel.” Hawksley ordered. “I’m going to see what the frack is happening!” Leland showed concern for his fellow officer, deeply.

Trudging through the Jeffries tube, he went roundabout to ensure he didn’t end up just where Jorel had called in his emergency.

On his way, Hawksley ordered, “Computer run a security scan of Junction E6. Who is present?”

The computer completed its millisecond scan. “Lieutenant JG Haze, 2nd Lieutenant Cassandra Matthews, one Private first class Rhys Antako.”

Rounding the corner and jackhammering the thrust lock open, the metal passageway door opened. Flashing his light in first with the end of the phaser rifle Leland called out. “Haze! Matthews! This is Hawksley are you all right?”

Cassandra breathed easier as she heard someone approaching their location. She had Joreal propped up against the bulkhead her hands where red with blood as she held pressure over the ugly wound. She had yet to notice that Rhys had stabbed her in their struggle. All she knew was her side ached and that she needed to keep pressure on the engineers neck or he would bleed out. She kept glancing at Rhys. He was still laying face down where Jorel had whacked him. How hard had he hit him anyways?? With all the adrenaline flying around Cassi hoped it was good and hard. Hoped he'd had his brains bashed right in. One thig was for sure. It was Clear Engineering had a knack for fixing literally any problem down here. Even intruders it seemed. "We are here!!! Please come help us!!" She called out. Hoping Rhys stayed out cold and undangerous until security could get here. Or she could secure him.

Junction E6

Visually seeing the two now as Leland speedily swiftly made his way through the Jeffries tube, he stopped short of seeing the two Officers and an unidentified individual. Reaching for his med kit, he didn’t have time for questions. Taking out an arterial wound dampener, he placed the Plexi-derma over the neck of Lieutenant JG Haze. “Here, it’s going to be ok!” Leland wanted to calm him down, seeing as the intruder was lying on the floor in a prone position. This was someone he didn’t know, let alone now hardly could care.

Jorel kept motioning to his bag with a shaking hand. To the Sepherlax gel pack that had in the flurry of action had been dropped and left to lay forlornly in the center of the junction. "Sir..s..sir." He choked out around a mouth full or blood. "I..I.." He could not make the words form though. He tried to get up again. But Cassi shook her head.

"No..you must stay down until he's finished." Cassi tried to sound comforting. This wasn't a new sight for her. He would be okay she knew he would be. With Hawksley's help and immediate care. Her blue eyes turned to Rhys and as the Chief engineer tended to his man. She got up and went to secure the little beast.

She moved slowly carefully. Something was off. Had he moved since she last looked at him? She was woozy and stumbled a step toward him then nearly swooned as the wound in her side gaped open like a second mouth oozing blood all over her some more. She used the wall to steady herself as she inched closer. His hand... It was under his body.... was it always under his body??? She didn't remember. The whole event seemed so cereal.

Then like every horror movie made in the 80s and 90th century he moved... He moved so fast. Rolled over and in that hand he held a phaser. He shot once. Missing Jorel and Hawksley by a hairs breath. It blasted the wall by their heads. Then as if sensing the danger he turned and the next shot caught Cassandra as she threw herself over him with a hateful roar. She felt the shock of the phaser fire. It lit her up for a moment, only a moment. She was on him. The phaser fired again into a wall panel sending sparks like fireworks to light up the small space. Cassandra grappled with his arms. It took her back to two years ago. When she had fought him to get free. How he had almost killed her. She screamed as she used that anger that desperation to slam his damaged skull into the floor. Once, twice, three times. Then she felt it more then heard the sickening crack as his neck cracked. Rhys stopped struggling, stopped moving. Like a puppet with its strings cut. Still she couldn't stop herself. This monster had killed her brother Rhys. Murdered him in cold blood. Had killed countless others. Had tried to kill her thrice now... She wasn't aware that she had started to cry as she continued to throttle the man beneath her. He couldn't live. He could be allowed to escape again.

Hawksley had turned and stunned Rhys. It was Rhys. His mind reeled at what was happening. Now Cassandra was bleeding. They needed to be in Sick Bay and fast!

=/\= Computer, beam four directly to sick bay =/\= With that the beam had energized the four officers from the junction of E6 to the comforts of four bio beds...


[OFF]


Lt Jg Haze


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