Explosive Tendencies

Posted on Sun Aug 16th, 2020 @ 8:12am by Captain Michael Meezo & Lieutenant Avery Paxton III & Lieutenant Tyvok

Mission: The Avenger
Location: Bridge / Main Engineering
Timeline: Present

:ON:

Everything had run like clockwork in engineering that morning. All of the upgrades were functioning as expected and the routine diagnostics were coming back with passing colors, but that wasn’t enough to fully satisfy Avery. Some of the reports had numbers that, although within tolerances, weren’t where she liked to see them. It meant the system wasn’t working as efficiently as possible and that was one of Avery’s biggest pet peeves.

She made her way to one of the main engineering stations to investigate when the ship rocked, altering her balance. A moment later, it happened again.

She tapped her combadge, "Paxton to the bridge, what the hell is going on up there?!"

{Bridge}

“Evasive maneuvres!” Mike barked towards Reynolds at the helm. “Tactical, return fire!” He tapped his comm-badge as the Wayfarer banked sharply to avoid more weapons fire, “Lieutenant Paxton, we’ve come under fire from some Cardassians,” the man explained, “what is the status of the engines? Are they being effected by the Nebula in any way?”

{Engineering}

“The engines are fine,” she said casually, self satisfied with how their upgrades were holding up, “Actually we increased efficiency to the impulse engines before we entered the nebula, so you should have some extra maneuvering power up there.” She secretly hoped that the XO was hearing every word of this exchange since he had hounded her about working too hard when they were making the updates, but now that hard work was paying off.

“But it looks like the deflector is getting taxed and it’s sending some feedback through the EPS conduits. We increased the tolerance, but they won’t hold out forever!”

Rife with electromagnetic interference, but no one thought to mention Cardassian attacks in that briefing she thought sarcastically as she sprinted to the EPS conduit to try to control the overload.

{Bridge}

“We can’t go back, we can’t go forward...” Mike rubbed his chin, deep in thought.

He didn’t have more than a few seconds to think before Commander Sito announced loudly, “Shields are down to 29%, and there’s a build up of energy surging through the EPS conduits.” He paused and looked Mike in the eyes, “We won’t hold up for much longer at this rate.”

Mike agreed with a nod. “Helm, move us closer towards the anomaly. Tactical, fire aft torpedoes at your discretion.” He spoke loudly and with authority, “Lieutenant Paxton, those brilliant engines of yours might take a battering in a few moments. I’m about to take the Wayfarer into the anomaly!”

{Engineering}

The conduit schematic was up and Avery was diligently trying to reroute power to the less taxed parts of the system to prevent an overload, but someone was also going to need to handle fluctuations in the engine’s power when they entered that anomaly.

She saw Tyvok out of the corner of her eye and looked up for a moment. “Tyvok, go keep an eye on those engines! See if you can modify the power algorithms to maintain the engine efficiency when we enter the anomaly.” She commanded before returning her attention to the imminent overload as the conduit next to her was reaching critical levels.

Tyvok was knelt on the floor in front of an open bulkhead, replacing a burnt out bio-neural gel pack when he heard his name. He raised a finger to speak up, in order to remind Paxton that he wasn't a warp core engineer, but she was already barking orders to other members of the crew.

He hopped up and immediately headed over to the main warp core console, and began looking over the plasma flow rates. At first, it all looked like gibberish to him, as he had never actually worked on a running warp core before. He had read plenty of textbooks, and had taken the requisite minimum courses in M/AM reactor theory in order to qualify for the Engineering Corps, but practice was completely different.

Think, think, Tyvok. Now is not the time to freeze up. The crew needs you. Now, how did we balance flow rates in class..., he thought.

It was then that Tyvok remembered that he was able to understand plasma flow by thinking of server load balancing. Immediately, he got to work implementing a weighted least connection algorithm to the different flow systems connected to the core.

A spike of electromagnetic interference rippled through the ship as they entered the anomaly. The EPS conduit next to Avery erupted, unable to take the load from both the attack and the surge of electromagnetic activity. The air smelled like smoke and there were conduit fragments all over her uniform when she opened her eyes a moment later. She’d been thrown across the room and her whole body felt like it was on fire, but for the most part she was still intact. She winced as she stood up and dusted off before taking a breath of relief. She had been able to distribute the load so that all of the other EPS conduits were undamaged.

“Antimatter containment leak detected.” The computer announced.

Tyvok saw the micro-fracture light up red on his screen, located on one of the deuterium injectors. Luckily, it wasn't the anti-dueterium, but a leak would still eventually raise the radiation levels in the engine room to lethal levels. Alright, alright.. what did professor McMahon say to do in this situation....

He remembered that he needed to cut off flow to that specific injector, and did so. Unfortunately, maintaining the necessary flow rate for M/AM annihilation at the ship's current draw meant that pressure was starting to build up right before the reaction chamber.

Tyvok spoke up, "Lieutenant, I have redirected the flow away from the fracture. But, I estimate 12 minutes and 36 seconds before pressure in the deuterium manifold overtakes maximum tolerances. Someone will need to seal the micro-fracture before then, or we will need to cut warp power."

Avery let out an audible groan. The conduit overload combined with the electromagnetic activity must have caused something to rupture. Great, just great, she thought.

“Paxton to O’Donnell, I need a damage control team in main engineering, now!”

"Already here, Lieutenant." Paxton heard from behind her as Rosaleen led one of the damage control teams into Engineering. Rosaleen smiled sheepishly. "Sorry, but the board was lit up like a Christmas tree. I figured you could use a hand or two."

Avery turned around and gave O’Donnell an approving look before barking out orders, “O’Donnell, you’re with me. We’re going to go seal that fracture. Get your team started on repairing that EPS conduit over there.” She pointed to the conduit that had sent her across the room a few moments earlier. “Tyvok, keep that flow away from the fracture long enough for us to seal it!”

"Yes, sir", Tyvok replied, as he continued implementing his algorithm, now running the weighted values through a general purpose neural network to optimize the amount of time they had to fix the rupture. "I may be able to increase time before rupture by at most 2 minutes, but I would work quickly, lieutenant"

Avery grabbed a repair kit and motioned for O’Donnell to follow. They sprinted to the jefferies tubes and climbed down to the injector access hatch. “Paxton to Tyvok, we’re at the injectors, where is this fracture at?”

Tyvok tapped his commbadge. "Readout says the rupture is in the primary deuterium injector. I'm sending the data to your tricorder."

She opened her tricorder, “It’s right there!,” she pointed O’Donnell to it since she had already gotten the sealant tool out. “Seal it up and then let’s get out of here.”

The Chief Operations Officer worked quickly and meticulously, not an easy thing under this sort of pressure. In the end, she managed to successfully seal the rupture.

{Bridge}

Captain Meezo sat in his command chair, looking in awe at the anomaly they were passing through. The bright lime green flashes of colour, mixed in with speckles of purples and red were a treat for the eyes. However, just quickly as they had entered the anomaly, the Wayfarer exited.

“Report!” Mike questioned aloud to whoever would dare give him an answer.

Ensign Reynolds read her helm console before speaking, “Damage control teams are helping out in engineering, but otherwise the ship appears to be undamaged.” She continued to read when her console chirped loudly. “Captain, there’s another vessel out there.”

Mike got to his feet and straightened his uniform, “The Cardassians?”

“No sir...” Reynolds answered with a shake of her head. She tapped a few buttons on her console and the image of a damaged looking NX-class USS Avenger appeared on screen.

Mike couldn’t believe his eyes. It was definitely the Avenger. But something didn’t seem right. “Ensign, where are we?”

Reynold’s features turned into a frown as she read her sensor readings, “According to this, we’re on the Federation-Romulan border.”

“And the date?” Mike held his breath.

Reynolds continued to furiously move her fingers across her console, “From what the sensors are telling me sir, and according to where local star systems are currently positioned, its highly likely that its the year 2160.”


:OFF:

Captain Michael Meezo
Commanding Officer
USS Wayfarer, NCC-72113

&

Lieutenant Avery Paxton III
Chief Engineering Officer
USS Wayfarer, NCC-72113

&

Lieutenant Rosaleen O’Donnell
Chief Operations Officer
USS Wayfarer, NCC-72113

&

Ensign Tyvok
Computer Systems Specialist
USS Wayfarer, NCC-72113