Posted Jan. 23, 2020, 11:28 a.m. by Lieutenant Scott Woods (Engineer) (Geoff Joosten)
Snip
“We’re not out of the mess yet Ensign. Though I appreciate the readiness.” Mark approached a console. =Computer; display readout of all systems as we entered the subspace pocket.=
-Lt(j.g.) Mark Pierce, CE
M’Nalie flicked an ear in resonce and continued preparations.
Ensign M’Nalie Eshenti. Engineer.
BUMP
Woods blinked a couple of times at Pierce before he took over one of the duty stations and started to tap a few commands, grunting as he went. “Pulling up status on all the internal systems now, sir. I might suggest rerouting energy from the other powered systems to the deflector and shields.” He held up his hands and made a wedge shape, “Snow plow.”
Lt. Woods
Engineering“Good idea. Make it happen. Then find out if anyone was running ‘Starbase Hospital.’ I’ll explain later.”
-Lt(j.g.) Mark Pierce, CE
McNalie said nothing and concentrated on regulating the power going to the shield generators keeping them from overheating.
Ensign McNalie Eshenti. Engineering.
The results popped up on the screen and at first it wouldn’t reveal more than they initially knew after entry into the subspace bubble. But a subsequent pass through would reveal that there was a blip in the sensors’ time counter. They seemed to be missing a few microseconds of data in the logs but given that they had no idea how time passed within the subspace bubble, they also had no way of knowing for sure how much that small blip might be in real time back in their own space.
As they move closer to the edge, the shields were holding, but it was clear that without being able to go to warp, they couldn’t go much closer to the distortions without having them rip the ship apart. If they tried to exit at faster speeds, it was possible they could get through by punching a hole, but the best case scenario was finding or creating a hole and bashing their way through that.
~Mischief Maker
=/\=Pierce to bridge. I’m not going to be able to hold the ship together if we punch through the barrier of subspace. We need to find an existing gap.=/\=
-Lt(j.g.) Mark Pierce, CE
M’nalie perked an ear. Frowned. Looked at the readings again “we have been calling this a bubble but is this really a sphere? Most effects form a sphere, gravity, airpreasure matter escaping from a white hole. All create a bubble. But what if the event came from multiple sources. We are between systems the region could be like a Nebula unevenly expanding as the matter escapse the source or sources with variable force. If so the effect that keeps our warp bubble from forming might be using the ort cloud of the nebula as a carrior wave. It’ld be confined to the gas cloud.. so if we configure our deflector screens to keep out the gas we might create our own bubble where the dampining effect will not effect us. Sir.” M’Nalie rumbled, “We might have a different option than ramming the wall. If we cozy up to the edge perhaps we could create a hole in the wall using the forcefield. Do you think it is worth a try sir?” And M’Nalie looked over at the CE to gage his responce.
Ensign M’Nalie Eshenti. Engineer.
“If you can find anything other than subspace phenomena, do what you can to keep it out.”
-Lt(j.g.) Mark Pierce, CE
Woods blinked a few times at the request for Starbase Hospital then tapped a few controls to route those results to another screen while he continued to work on identifying and isolating systems that were operating above demands. “Have we considered using the deflector array to emit an inverse tachyon pulse to scan outside of the barrier? It worked in other situations before with an anti-time eruption.” He paused again, “for that matter we could maybe use the deflector to create a graviton pulse to act like a battering ram.”
Lt. Woods.
Engineering“Great. I’ll work with you. Let’s make ourselves a battering ram.” And with that, he set to work.
-Lt(j.g.) Mark Pierce
Woods side-eyed Pierce. “I mean I was just throwing around ideas. If you think it is a good one,” he said, his voice trailing off at the end before looking at Eshenti. “I mean, Sir, we can only really try one of the two ideas regarding the deflector. We can’t try both at the same time and if we choose poorly…” He shrugged at the end of his sentence before deflecting to the ensign, “Her idea might be worth a shot.”
Lt. Woods
EngineeringM’Nalie returned Woods look. “It is acceptable to accept praise for your ideas. A crisis is a bad time to indulge in self efacing male modesty, no matter how attractive such a trait would make you were you Caitan and not a Human.”, and her claw tips fairly danced over the controls as she set up things for the chosen plan in concert with the others. Her tail danced in amusement though as unlike Caitan’s Humans didn’t practice matriarchical thinking so her simple statement of endearing male traits ended up being to her mind great bit of humor. As for her ego. It was intact as she recognised that while she was capable, her application of solutions to the unknown wasn’t the best. She much prefered to refer to precident and traditional methodology. The bias of those born into the ruling caste she thought with a mental sigh.
Ensign M’Nalie Eshenti. Engineer.
“Counselling notes later, fix the ship now.” Mark whispered to Woods “She’s right though. Take a compliment, take the initiative, you might be running this place someday. You do, technically, outrank me.” Mark hoped that upstairs, Nav had found a gap to go through. But this battering ram would make a decent plan b.
-Lt(j.g.) Mark Pierce, CE
“That means that I…” Woods started to say, going on the defense for a moment before looking back down on the console and tapping a few more commands. Adjusting some of the sliders and then looking up he nodded to his cohorts. “Alright. At your command we will push a load of tachyon particles ahead of us acting something like a battering ram.”
He gulped, “I mean if this doesn’t work we could blow out all the circuits between the dish and the power plant, and if the resisting relays don’t get overloaded it could take out other linked systems.” He paused, “That’s the worst case.”
Lt. Woods
EngineeringWhispers didn’t stop M’Nalie from overhearing. People always forgot just how sensative a Caitan’s hearing was. But that they were whispering ment it would be impolite to indicate she had ovterheard. They had been fine tuning this till it could not be improved upon. “The entry to this space was rough. We will have several weeks of very busy time ahead. It is good to keep busy so we will have pleasent times and a great deal of activuty. M’Nalie spotted NE. Lipscotte gossiping in a corner and bellowed, “Lipscotte stow your tongue and brace for impact or you might bite it off.”, it was the first thing she had said to Lipscotte since she had returned to duty and her tone couldn’t hide her distaste for the gossip spewing woman. Of course if Lipscotte did bite her own tongue off M’Nalie thought to herself the ambient noise in engineering would drop drastically. And anything might happen to that tongue between here and sickbay. But she sighed, and muttered, “Center the thoughts on the job.”, to herself.
Ensign M’Nalie Eshenti. Engineer..
Mark glared for a moment before saying “It’s a risk we’ll have to take. Woods. You have the compartment. I’ll be operating this thing from ops on the bridge. I want you ready to transfer control as soon as I get there, and keep the deflector running and ready.” A smile curled on his face. “You two, you ever read about Jonathan Archer, the NX-01? They used to use electromagnetic fields to polarise the hull plating. Hardens the hull of the ship. Even if we had shields, we wouldn’t have enough. Electromagnetic field or current. Get to work.”
-Lt(j.g.) Mark Pierce, CE
M’Nalie blinked at Lt. Pierce. “Structural intergity fields are already at maximum output. They changed the name but we still use the same technology it’s just that in Captain Archers time weapons in use were that much weaker that polorizing the hull could defect enough of it to keep the ship intact.”, M’Nalie looked over the technology in use then versus what was now in use and noted there were some minor differences. But overall modern versions were more power effecient, “Actually there was a change that was incorperated that limits total field strength to reduce the chance of overloading the system. So while our field is stroner than what they ever had we could sneak another 10 percent for roughly a mi ute before we lost the field completely.”, she said redoing the math in her head and not liking the numbers. “We will after that have the reactors shut down and be at minimal life support for a hour or six sir. Till we can replace every power coupling on the ship.”, and she looked up at the CE and Woods and awaited their input.
Ensign M’Nalie Eshenti. Engineer.
(Bump)
Mark stared at M’Nalie with clear contempt. “Ensign. Would you care to share how you came to all of these conclusions? And also consider that it might be on my mind that an EM field would be more power and labour efficient with similar effect. We are about to try to punch our way out of a subspace pocket. Unless I’m mistaken, we will need every bit of reinforcement we can get. Considerations must be made for circumstances. Use power efficiently and only when necessary. And instead of blowing out relays, maybe you test out an idea. Or pretend to until I get into the turbolift. You want to give me simulated scenarios, use the computer, not your brain. Am I clearly understood?” Mark didn’t enjoy being this way, but his inner Marine Sergeant came out sometimes.
-Lt(j.g.) Mark Pierce, CE
Woods watched the exchange with a look on his face of something between shock and embarrassment. He turned his attention back towards his work and did a few taps on the console to fire up ye old simulator to see what would happen in the scenarios described. “Computer,” he started, “show me what would happen at various power levels using the EM field and the tachyon burst. Run three variations accounting for resistance from the bubble and subsequent power draws. Further, run it with a mapping of what systems would be best to take off line to divert power to.”
He looked up at the other two engineers not wanting to interject and finally adding, “And display a map of which resisting coils should be left open to maximize absorbtion of the blowback.”
Lt. Woods
Engineering
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