STF

Engineering NE Frost

Posted Nov. 24, 2022, 3:16 a.m. by Crewman George Lee Sherridan (Engineer) (David Fergusson)

[snip]

The young crewman in engineering was in a dither. This was only his second time out of port and here he was being left alone in engineering. At first, he had been on the edge of hysteria when there was an alert. Checking the boards though it had been a circuit in the replicator that could be remotely reset and replaced later. He had heaved a mighty sigh. and finally relaxed a bit. It wasn’t that Frost didn’t know or remember his training. It was just that his confidence was the consistency of jelly.

He had survived his first crisis, made a notation to fix the replicator later as was protocol and had sat down to eat a ham and cheese sandwich when a low-level reminder came on. The reminder was for a level one diagnostic for the impulse engines. He did know that a level one diagnostic would involve shutting down the impulse engines to have them checked. Now he once again tensed up as he realized that there was some alien ship coming toward them. He also wasn’t aware whether he had the power to have whoever was in charge shut down the impulse engines. Well, the systems weren’t telling him that the check was overdue yet at least. That too could wait. As he reached over to reset the alarm however it switched to red, and the alert said clearly ‘Impulse Engine Check Overdue. Engineering senior staff only may override alert!

So thus, it was that NE Frost sat with his eyes as big as saucers and his mouth hanging open as he wondered desperately what to do next.

John entered the room. ‘You need some help?’ John Asked. He checked the systems sees the diagnostic planned and noticed the alien ship that is approaching John opened [the] communicator =^= Engineering to Bridge, there is an level one diagnostic planned for the impulse engines but I noticed an alien ship approaching do I need to delay or can it start?=^=

=/\= Bridge to Engineering. That ship won’t be here for another two days. Go ahead with the diagnostic. =/\= Kahuna replied from the Bridge, wondering why everyone was so worried about the Sybl ship. He, himself, was worried about the mysterious subspace aliens, who appeared and attacked without warning, when Dr Cross had been given command of the Bridge.

John went to the systems and initiated the diagnostic. John looked at NE Frost and asked. ‘How is it with the replicators have you fixed it?’

NE Frost looked at the Lieutenant and replied, “No sir I put in on the to-do list for the moment. I was the only one here. I manually reset the faulty circuit but that will probably only last for another shift. Were you wanting me to go up and replace the circuit now sir?”

‘Yes Mr Frost, i will stay here see if we get any problems.’ John said. John sat down and waited for something to do.

NE Frost snapped to and replied, “Yessir I’m on it!” He then turned on his heel and started walking toward the door. Then though he turned and said to the Lieutenant. “Sir? You might want to keep an eye on the readouts from the diagnostic. We sometimes get low coolant messages on the reactors. You never know when one might be a serious message. ” Then Frost left the main engineering area grabbed some spare parts for the replicator and tools and headed out the door whistling.

‘I will do that.’ John said just before NE Frost left. John sits down waiting for something to happen.’

John would find that when, ‘waiting for Godot’ or waiting for something to happen, then it probably never will. He needed to seize opportunities in life, he could begin by showing the CE how good an engineer he really was.

While waiting for something to happen, John checked every system to see if they are in optimal condition.

On a ship of the age of the Merrimack, optimal condition usually meant, ‘working at the basic parameter levels’. Take that replicator: Not only had that faulty circuit been replaced half a dozen times, but the push button panel, the Z-axis travel displays, the nanomaterials dispensing shelf, the extruders, hot ends, slicer, and the filament itself had al; been replaced. There was nothing original left.

George Sherridan walked into Engineering with the diagnostic results on a PaDD. “Are y’all the engineuurr that there done asked faw ayy diagnostik on the impulse engine? These here results, just done came bak!” he said, handing over the PaDD. “Sawry ta interrupt y’all’s lunch!”

John looked at the results and said.’Sorry the last part i did not understand what you mean.’

“Ay done said, ay apologise faw ya nahwt finisihing y’all’s meal,” replied George.

‘One of the reactor is too hot by 5.7 degrees im gonna check it out.’ John walked to the console and checked why it is too hot.

(It will show a coolant leak on reactor 3 in the area of infeed pump valve.)

‘There is a coolant leak on reactor 3, someone needs to fix it. ‘John said to George.

George had expected John to fix it. It was a simple job. However, he thought he had time to fix it and still get to the Bridge. He had been asked to provide some engineering related answers if the SYbyl or Habitat asked any during the Interview Broadcasts. “Ay’ll fix it raheet away,” George said, then left to do so.

‘Alright if you can tell me when you are done.’ John replied.

Joe walked into Engineering. He hadn’t yet met the new Engineer. It was his job to do so but he had been busy. He saw La Marr standing by the console and called out to him as he approached. ” Ah, you must be Lieutenant LaMarr. Hello I’m the XO Joe Milligan.”

Joe took a second look at the Lieutenant and chuckled as he said, “Yès, I’ve met you shortly earlier, didn’t I? Well good I can get the niceties out of the way then. Is there a reason why we’ve had a reactor running hot for hours? If you’re having problems getting your people to do their jobs let me know. But right now, that thing needs fixed. I would suggest that you get down there and see what’s going on. You and I both need to get this done before the captain gets over his headache.”

‘Sir i just found out about it but someone is already fixing it.’ John said.

” Lieutenant this is an easy fix. It’s more likely a coupling or a pump that needs replaced. ” Joe said. ” I would definitely check on your someone pretty soon if it’s not repaired soon. ” Joe then looked around engineering, looked back to LaMarr and spoke as he turned to leave,” Make that soon Lieutenant. I don’t want to have to go down there and do it myself. The CO may wake up at any time!”

‘Yes sir.’ John replied. He walked to the reactor to check on the officer working on it.

George had just finished. He had reversed the direction of coolant flow through reactor three, and then switched the infeed pump valve to a redundant, parallel spare. “There! Yawls done!” he said.

‘Alright good job.’ John said, he opened his comunicator =^= Lt LaMarr to Commander Miligan the coolant leak is fixed.=^=

Joe was looking over some reports from security regarding training exercises as he walked down the hall that when he got the message from engineering he nearly walked into a wall. Frowning a bit and cursing himself under his breath he tapped his comm badge and spoke saying =^=Thank you Lieutenant. Good job. We’ll have to have all those pumps and lines checked when next we put into a base. Once again good job! =^=

Unfortunately, it was a only a little longer when NE Frost made another call to the Bridge, indicating that the problem had not been so easily fixed. =/\= Sorry to interrupt Captain, but we are getting some error logs down here in engineering, some of the water processing valves on deck 10 near the botanical lab are showing clogging errors. Could we request Lt Mullins presence? Also we’re trying to find Ensign LaMarr but they are not answering their comms at the moment. =/\=

=/\= I’m sending Lt Mullins down to get this sorted out, ASAP! Thank you! =/\= replied Captain Glen.

Lt Mullins heard the response from the captain and knew he needed to go take care of the issue. He then got up from his station on the bridge and walked onto the turbolift. After a few minutes of riding on the turbolift and walking down a corridor, he arrived at Main Engineering. He walked in and looked for NE Frost. He saw the Ensign and walked over to Mr Frost. He then said to the Ensign, “Ensign, I am Lt Mullins. I am here to assist you. Is there something else occurring other than the issue with the water pumps in the Garden?” He then waited for a response.

NE Frost looked over at the officer and shook his head with an exasperated look. “Sir as far as I’m concerned, we ought to stop the ship right here and start rebuilding the poor old girl from the beam on up. But no sir as far as I’m aware of all we got is that silly pump in the garden. “

Max responded with, “Has anyone gone down there to confirm what might be going on? I am going to take a look at the computer and see what is going on.” He then walked up to a station and started to see what the computer was reporting back about the pumps in the gardens. He also wanted to see the status of everything else on the ship. Max wanted to make sure everything was running in tip top shape. “Mr. Frost, we will get through this and get the old girl back in working tip top shape.” He said to the Ensign. Max could not believe everything on the ship was in bad condition because the ship was still flying and nothing seemed to be on fire and nothing major failing.

Frost chuckled and shook his head as he said Lieutenant sir if you can do that, I’ll name my fist two children after you! I’m sure that we have a leak on that pump so if oyu want I could go get that unless you’d rather get it yourself. We seem to have a lot of pump problems as of late!”

John entered engineering ‘My communicator did not work but what is going on and can I help?’ John aksed.

Max noticed John enter engineering when he ask about helping. Max then responded, “Can you run a computer diagnostic to determine the cause of the number of water processing valves failing? It seems there might be something going on to cause them to fail. Could be they are just old and it might be work replacing them ahead of time, instead of waiting for the to fail. Please let me know what the computer indicates i going on.” Max then said to Mr Frost, “Can you go ahead and go down to the botanical lab and replace the failed valve please?” He was curious if it was just due to them being old and needing to be replaced or if something more was going on. He then decided to run his own check at a higher level of systems. He then said to the computer, “Computer, can you please run a level 5 diagnostic on the entire water system, just not on the values on the ship please? I would like a status of everything. It might help track down if there is a large problem in place.” He then waited for the response from the computer.

Frost replied quickly, “Aye sir. He first stopped at a computer screen to make sure he would grab the right parts before he grabbed parts, and tools before heading out to fix the leak.

As the Ensign was gathering his gear, Max waited for the computer to complete the diagnostic. He thought to himself, ‘There has to be something else going on to cause this many of the values to fail in this short period of time.’ He hoped the computer could give more details and he wondered how old the values were and if they were all replaced around the same time? He then said to the computer, “While you are running that diagnostic, can you please provide a list of the values and their replacement date, if there is one since they were installed on the ship?” He then waited for both the diagnostic along with the data on the valve install date of all the valves.

George arrived back from the Bridge. “Suurr, repawting bak faw duty, Suurr!” It looked like the entire engineering team was here, watching a running diagnostic. When he saw the diagnostic was running checking the valves again, he was puzzled. He’d changed two of the darn things himself, and they had been forced to take on extra spares at their last visit to DS-K5. There was something up with the coolant system. Maybe only a drain down and refill would solve it. “Suurr, are thay …err valves still causing problems?”

-George, Engineer


Posts on USS Merrimack

In topic

Posted since


© 1991-2024 STF. Terms of Service

Version 1.15.9