Tick Tick Boom

Posted on Wed Mar 20th, 2024 @ 7:55pm by Captain Malcom Llwyedd & Lieutenant Owen Woodhouse & Warrant Officer Arlan Harlan & Lieutenant Soto Gantt & Ensign Barek Gleason

2,218 words; about a 11 minute read

Mission: Mission 1: A Long Hard Road Ahead
Location: DS18, Main Engineering
Timeline: 23 August, 2396 - 2100 Hours

[ON]

"Sounds good," came Harlan's reply. "Let's go in that case. We have to work fast with almost no time."

Harlan and Woodhouse hustled to the main console double-time. Harlan immediately went to it and began to try firing it up. It seemed dead, but it started to beep and glow with very little feedback. "Curses, this might need a full reboot. Gleason! Cover us while we do our thing."

"Roger that, Chief," Gleason said and took up a blocking position that gave him sight lines to the main entrance but also to the cavernous main engineering section. He was stunned by how much larger the DS18 engineering space was than the Firebird.

"You could fit ten... twenty of our warp cores in here," he muttered. The reality was that DS18 had a quad-setup of warp cores that worked in unison. There were ten total engineering consoles scattered around the lower level, each twice the size of the main console on their own vessel. Above all that were two additional levels with minor consoles. Gleason had no idea what they did. He craned his neck and looked up, wondering how far it was to the top.

"EPS disruptions in the second and third lines," Owen said as he slung his own phaser rifle over his shoulder and pulled up a power schematic on one of the panels. "Can we divert?" He tapped his commbadge. "Gantt. What are you seeing over there?"

"How much bad news do you want?" said Gantt. The damage alerts glared with flashing red eyes from almost every system. "Damaged primary plasma conduits are causing power systems to fluctuate almost everywhere. Backups are fairly intact. I'll start rerouting power to places we need it.

There's a lot more damage; however, structural integrity fields are compromised on multiple levels, requiring immediate reinforcement to prevent further collapse."

Gleason was a complete idiot when it came to engineering stuff. He could do maintenance on his weapon and sometimes when he hit the console hard enough, it fixed glitches. So while the engineers were engineering, Gleason began to wander around, keeping the engineers in sight. Near one of the more distant panels, he noticed something stuck on the bottom and bent down to see what it was.

"Warning. Three minutes until secondary power systems failure. Antimatter containment failure imminent."

"You reroute and I'll work on reinforcing integrity fields as best I can----" Owen replied to Gantt, then noticed something on the schematic he was looking at. "Hey, there's a holodeck in the process of being installed... if it's tied in already, we might be able to use its independent power source to bolster secondary power, but we have to close off the damaged conduits first." He was already working on accessing the holodeck systems and added under his breath, "And it might not work at all, which is way more likely." He wondered how Harlan was coming on the main system, but dared not ask the temperamental engineer.

It would have been easy for Harlan to get intimidated at the sheer technical scale of what was in front of him, but at this point, he was just angry. The main console he started gave a quick hum as he hit the power button, but it wasn't moving fast enough. He hit the side hard enough to split the skin at one knuckle and gave the system just enough time to let him into a boot menu. It was at this point that he entered a couple of fast command prompts and force-started things outside of the usual boot process. It might not be ideal, but it should be enough to get more commands entered within the three minutes before antimatter containment failed and they all died faster than the human brain could react.

"We're going to cut it close over here," he grumbled into the comm system. "But we will likely have about 30 seconds to get the right stuff back online before we are all annihilated. Give me a shout, people. What're other things like?"

"Huh," Gleason said as he wandered. "You guys ever see flowers falling in an engineering department? Cause those look like flowers," he said and gestured to the space above them. In truth, they looked more like jellyfish than flowers but Gleason had said the first thing that popped into his mind. A half-dozen of the jellyfish things were floating towards them. The were about twenty feet overhead and the tentacles hanging below them were waving from side to side.

"Priorities, please," Owen reminded, letting whatever Gleason was talking about fall on deaf ears. He was far more enveloped in the work of routing power and finding some kind of solution than listening to the musings of a security officer. "Holodeck generator is a no-go. Maybe there are a couple of ships in dock somewhere that we can reverse the umbilical power flow from," he started down that unlikely rabbit hole when something made the hair on the back of his neck stand on end and he looked up at the Jellies. "Whoa," was all he could say at the sight of their gravity-defying progression.

Gantt pushed the noise around him into the background. If one positive thing came from believing you would die early it was that death lost some of its fear. "Reversing power flow from craft in dock," he said. There were more small vessels on board than he had expected. Some might even be alien craft. But as long as they were pulling power from the ship he could reverse it. Power seeped into the base's systems.

"We should have enough power to stabilize the system as it stands now." Gantt locked the flow so it couldn't easily be stopped or reversed, "Harlan, where do you want the power directed?"

Gantt was so locked into what he was doing, that he didn't see the shimmering tendrils cascade around Harlan's head.

The floating jellyfish hovered above the officers, small round eyes observing. "You should not be here," a lyrical voice said. We ask you to please leave this place peacefully," the largest jellyfish said.

The tendrils around Harlan gently swayed, brushing the Warrant Officer's head. A halo of blinding light surrounded his head, along with the crackle of energy. When the light faded, Harlan had crumpled to the ground, immobile.

Harlan had just a moment between the time Gantt asked his question to register that something else might have been amiss aside from the power outages. "Whuh" was the only thought that floated to the surface before everything was darkness.

"Warning. Two minutes until secondary power systems failure. Antimatter containment failure imminent."

It was not a great position to be in, Woodhouse realized of the predicament. Harlan was down and needed medical attention, there were 'peaceful' aliens that had just incapacitated a member of the team, and oh, by the way, the emergency countdown was still going which meant there were far more lives to consider than just Harlan's or Gleason's or Gantt's or his own.

Instinctively, Owen tapped his comm. "Woodhouse to medical team, medical emergency in engineering." His gut was telling him that he wasn't going to get an answer given the system constraints at that moment. He was staring at the aliens, half terrified they would attack him next, but it did not stop him from the larger task. "We are only here to help. If we fail, this whole station will explode," he told the Jellies before calling out, "Gantt, focus on getting power to the fuel containment pods and then the auxiliary systems. They're in better shape than the main reactors." He entered the command to reboot the backup power systems. "Gleason, do not fire.. if they really want peace, they'll show us that."

Gleason moved back out of range of the aliens, resisting the urge to fire on them because of the Lieutenant's orders. When he glanced down at the immobile form of Chief Harlan, he was shocked to see that instead of the grizzled face he was familiar with, he saw a very young man's face that looked slightly familiar. Looking back up, he saw that the aliens hadn't moved closer.

A few seconds after Lieutenant Woodhouse's call, the EMH materialized in main engineering.

"Please state the nature of your medical emergency," he said, scanning the area. Without waiting for a reply he turned and moved to a nearby supply cabinet and removed the medical pack within.

The EMH would have to figure out the emergency himself. Gantt had no time to spare or those flying around space would have a great view of half the base exploding.

"Shunting all power to shielding systems. Getting major feedback from life support; shutting down relays on all non-essential areas." Gantt's fingers moved by pure muscle memory; he was locked on the readout screen. He prayed the Prophets kept his crew out of areas he'd just shut down when the power meters popped up to green. "Containment fields are holding. All auxiliary and parked power flows are,... adequate. If everything holds--absolutely everything--we have a little more power than we need at the moment."

"Antimatter containment fields restored. Main power is offline. Auxiliary power systems rebooting. Umbilical power input is minimal."

"Doctor," Owen pointed to the figure crumpled on the floor beneath the jellyfish hanging out above them and hoped the hologram could read enough context clues.

The Operations Chief breathed with a little bit of relief at Gantt's report. It did not mean they were out of the woods yet because life support would likely fail next in a few minutes, but he was relieved that Gantt had come through on a Hail Mary play. "Good work, Lieutenant. Keep rationing as best you can. With any luck once the auxiliary reboot is complete, we'll be stable enough to start on larger repairs."

The EMH moved to the fallen person and knelt down. He pulled the medical tricorder from the medkit and moved it over the prone figure.

"Fascinating," The EMH said. "This person..."

Gleason, eyes locked onto the aliens hovering above them, called out. "Chief Harlan."

The EMH locked a scathing glare onto the security officer but it went unnoticed and he sighed.

"Chief Harlan, is showing cellular regeneration on a scale I unmatched in all of my databases. His DNA is actually changing."

"You do not understand," one of the aliens said and flicked a tendril at the EMH, which did nothing. The doctor stood up, waving the tricorder over the aliens.

"I believe I do understand," the EMH said. "You are not single beings but, rather, a multitude of collected micro-organisms." He pulled a hypospray from his belt and adjusted the settings with deft fingers. Then he held it up and pressed down with a finger. A spray of fine mist hissed from the hypospray, washing over the jelly-fish like aliens. They shuddered and their tendrils closest to the mist turned black and shriveled. They floated upward, disappearing into the dark.

The EMH nodded to himself. "That's the power of science for you."

Harlan slowly felt consciousness returning. His eyes struggled to open and he felt odd. "Whuhhh..." was his first internal thought. "What is going on?" He felt energy that he hadn't felt in years. It had been ages since his bodies didn't have random aches and pains. What put him out that also made him feel awesome? Was he dead?

He eventually wrenched his eyes open and forced himself into a sitting position.

The EMH was there along with the others. Harlan's gaze focused on the medical hologram and Gantt. "You two, report. What is our status?"

"Well, chief, the we're not going to die in a core meltdown." Gantt was having some trouble matching the voice, which hadn't changed much, to the suddenly youthful face. "I've patched together a mess of power systems that shouldn't work but the containment shields are holding with a bit of wiggle room. The rest... this is your job to explain," said Gannt to the EMH. He continued staring, scratching an itch on his head with the corner of a PADD.

The EMH sniffed. "Well, I don't need an engineer to tell me how to practice medicine. Obviously, I am the expert and should take charge of this young man," the EMH said, gesturing to Harlan. He tapped his combadge.

"EMH to Main Sickbay," one patient to beam over." Harlan disappeared a moment later in a column of light. "And please, do me a favor and try to get this alien infestation under control. It makes practicing medicine hard," The EMH said and then vanished, leaving the remaining members of the Engineering Crew behind.

[OFF]

Lieutenant Owen Woodhouse
Chief Operations Officer
USS Firebird NCC-88298

Lieutenant Soto Gantt (NPC by Leed)
Assistant Chief Engineering Officer
USS Firebird NCC-88298

Warrant Officer Arlan Harlan
Chief Engineering Officer
USS Firebird NCC-88298

Ensign Barek Gleason(NPC by Llwyedd)
Security Officer
USS Firebird NCC-88298

 

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