Posted by Captain Rende Asam (Captain) in Main Sim [Engineering]: Seeking Prometheus

Posted by Ensign Caelian Weir (Engineering Officer) in Main Sim [Engineering]: Seeking Prometheus

“We’ve dropped out of warp,” he breathed.

Spinning about quickly, Caelian darted over to the nearest workstation and began to type furiously on the screen. Data cascaded down the left side while graphs appeared to mimic the information in visual fashion on the right. The result was exactly what his keen ear had detected seconds earlier: they’d come to a complete stop and were changing course. A moment later, a second alert chirped for his attention and he blinked.

“No,” he whispered to himself, then repeated louder and louder. “No. No. Nononooo!”

Ensign Brown rushed to his side, glancing between him and the screen with alarm. “What? Did you forget to reengage the flow regulators to the antimatter containment units?”

Caelian turned and let frustrated fingers play over the wall display showing the continual scans of the alien ship he’d been running since the Viking had taken it in-tow. A line of red text flashed a warning at him, showing that they’d disengaged the tractor beam. Not only that, the distance between the two ships was growing! Worried, he ran a quick diagnostic to ensure there hadn’t been some kind of mechanical failure. The engineer breathed a sigh of relief when the computer reported that all was happening as-instructed from the bridge.

Why, then, were they setting the alien vessel adrift again? Had it been repaired? And… why was the Viking raising its shields? It wasn’t until Caelian turned to ask his colleague that he noticed they’d gone to yellow alert. What was going on?

“Contaminant protocols?” he heard Brown murmur. “But I was supposed to have dinner with Lynch and Peters later, argh!”

Caelian shook his head and began to pour over the data they’d compiled from the scans of the alien ship. He was particularly interested in learning why their sensors were having such a rough time penetrating the hull and mapping the damage. He wasn’t sure how Captain Rende intended them to render aid to the aliens if they didn’t know what they were walking into. He’d rather spend time in the brig than end up on some death trap because they couldn’t see what was going on.
—Caelian Weir, Engineer—

There wasn’t significant difficulty scanning and mapping the ship. Nor was there any significant damage. The ship had been in space for centuries, and there was ‘normal’ wear and tear from that. The problem with the ship, was a lack of power. They have drained their anti-matter reserves and require a refill. I don’t know exactly what you are looking for in a map.

GM

[It’s been inferred that the Viking has been unable to scan much definitively outside of the initial “pod room” where the away team found Hab’rabi, so I’m trying to find out if there’s a direct reason the sensors can’t penetrate… or if there’s been a misunderstanding and it’s more a “big ship with lots of empty rooms” kinda deal where there’s nothing to scan.]

OOC: I think the confusion was the detail level. The ship scans were not more detailed than the tricorder scans of the away team.

Caelian motioned to another engineer, then pointed at the display. “Daniels, since we’ve got a lot of time while they sort out… whatever needs sorting, take a look at this. According to our sensors, there’s nothing going on outside this room where they found the aliens. Thing is, the ship soaked up our power transfer so it had to go somewhere. I think our first task once we’re aboard will be to make sure there isn’t some kind of connectivity issue between the collection systems and the rest of the ship. I’m going to be very upset if we get hung up on a flipped breaker or blown fuse in whatever they have that counts for an EPS grid.”
—Caelian Weir, Engineer—

The power system seemed to be fine… just not powered. Space-wise, there are a lot of empty rooms. A significant portion was habitation components, bedrooms, medical, gyms, cafeteria, and the like. Perhaps for about 400 crew members… there are a number of pods that could hold 1000 individuals in cryogenic sleep. There were several cargo holds full of machinery and frames that after an analysis would create housing and power generation on the planet.

The most curious part was there was a deep internal section that was a completely packed and in sub zero temps with no easy access. It seemed to be designed with the express purpose of never being opened.

GM

=/\=Rende to Woods and Asam. I want those things trapped and I want it 10 minutes ago. Where are you with it?=/\=

Rende, CO

A voice popped up in engineering behind Caelin out of sight. =^=Engineering to bridge, this is O’Larria. No idea where the Chief is but I think I can use the ship security fields to section up the halls. Then perhaps use an energy sweep to sweep down the halls and push the entities towards containment areas on each deck. But that’s only if they are floating about and not actually ‘in’ a wall or jeffries tube, somewhere. Haven’t figured that one out, yet.=^= She bit her lip wondering if the idea was gonna work. They would have to find a few of the orbs and make sure the energy walls were enough to deter and stop them.

Kristi
Engineer

They didn’t know where Eldorin was? There was no way Eldorin wasn’t on top of this situation. That wasn’t like him. Not. At. All. =/\=Thank you En. Get started on that, but we need a solid way to catch and contain these things. Keep me apprised. Rende Out.=/\=

Caelian turned at the call across the comm, then back once he realized it had been handled. He squinted at the scan of the massive alien ship, face pensive and eyes scanning along every corridor and junction. Whomever had designed it had been some kind of genius; the behemoth had taken quite the beating in all her time in space, but she was still pushing along. He silently hoped he’d get the chance to study her up-close and at-length. Maybe there was something they could learn from the alien technology. After all, wasn’t that the point?

“So she was meant to be a colony ship,” he murmured thoughtfully.

Brown pointed to the ship’s drive section. “It looks like there’s a leak in their warp core. The radiation is probably what’s been obscuring our sensors. Probably want to get that under control as a priority.”

Caelian nodded, swiping his hand across the monitor to move the image to the next section of the ship. “Looks like she’s got a tough candy center amongst all that delicious cargo space,” he chuckled, indicating the cooler, sealed interior. He frowned then, tapping in a few commands to pull up a zoom and a thermal overlay.

The other ensign whistled, pointed at several sections along a run of bulkheads leading from the stasis chamber towards the midline of the ship. “Wonder what hit her to make those.”

“Could be a few things, I suppose,” Caelian shrugged. “Could have been a discharge or overload when their warp core started leaking. Some kind of cosmic anomaly like a subspace filament, or a stellar burst. Either way, we’ll take a look once we get her back under tow and cleared of radiation. I think I can tweak the sensor’s filters, get a better look at her. Might take an hour or so. Wonder what the chief would think?”

Brown shrugged. “I think he got called away, or maybe he’s grabbing some lunch. Not much else we can do til they lift the containment but sit tight and tinker with our toys.”

Caelian could only nod, but something niggled at him about the dorsal section. If it weren’t so deep into the ship, I’d almost think it was a directed energy discharge. Lots of them.
—Caelian Weir, Engineer—

Rende, CO

A few minutes later, another ensign jogged up to them with a smirk on her face. “We found the chief!”

Caelian blinked at Ensign Brown before turning his attention toward the newcomer. The young woman had her hands clasped behind her back, rocking on her heels and almost vibrating with the urge to blurt out her thoughts. Only her puffed cheeks and her impish grin kept that impulse in-check. Rolling his eyes, Caelian raised his eyebrows expectantly at her. When she didn’t respond to his non-verbal query, he sighed.

“And?” he groused. “Where is he? The captain’s breathing down our neck about these energy pulses, and no one seems to know what to do!”

The woman leaned forward, tucked her hands between her knees, and whispered in a conspiratorial voice, “He’s in the jefferies tube! Apparently the panel he was working on malfunctioned and sealed the bulkheads.”

Brown blinked. “That’s not funny! Is he okay?”

“Oh, he’s fine,” she huffed, fanning his protest aside with a hand. “Said so himself! Assuming, that is, I… understood his accent. Now, you two have fun. I’m off to tell the rest of the team.”

And with that, the ensign scampered off leaving Weir and Brown staring bewildered at each other. Brown grumbled and stared back down at the large central monitor between them and the alien ship displayed there. Suddenly, the panel flashed and a new display appeared. Data began to flow like a cascade down the side, many of the indicators flashing an angry red or sullen amber.

“Uh oh.”

Caelian frowned. “What do you mean, ‘uh oh’?”

“I mean,” Brown growled, gesturing to the display, “that the chief isn’t the only one with problems. We’re getting reports of failures all over the ship! Deck Eleven just lost artificial gravity; Deck Fifteen is reporting an increase in gravity. The transporters are down. Replicators on Decks Three through Thirteen are only serving gagh; the rest are locked out to Starfleet field rations. The environmental controls on Decks Twenty-Five and Twenty-Six are screwy. It’s… it’s chaos!”

Hands flying across the console, Caelian pulled up the ship’s diagnostics and frowned at the systems flashing their panic at him. “It… looks like there was an EPS overload in one of the gelpack junctions. Must have happened when the bridge ordered the switch-over to auxiliary systems. Check the maintenance log for me, yeah?”

“It looks like Ensign Fairweather was supposed to be monitoring that junction,” Brown noted. “Computer shows him in Sickbay. Maybe something happened?”

Caelian could only nod. “All right, well, let’s get repair teams dispatched to those areas. Coordinate with the duty officer, try to focus putting members who live on those decks out first. That way, they can at least go home when they’re done assessing the problems. The rest will just have to bunk up, I guess. Once we know what we’re dealing with, we’ll notify the captain. Maybe by then, the chief will have gotten himself loose.”

Silence greeted him as he continued to pour over the information coming in from across the ship. What was going on? Finally he looked up, found Brown starting at him with a wistful expression.

“What?”

Brown coughed a laugh, then shook his head apologetically. “Maybe you weren’t blowing smoke after all.”
—Caelian Weir, Engineer—