Down into the dark

Posted on Tue Sep 14th, 2021 @ 2:46pm by Ensign L'johk Adams & Senior Chief Petty Officer Jonathan Stoun

1,548 words; about a 8 minute read

Mission: Episode 3 - Fear Is Fear Itself
Location: USS Yosemite
Timeline: Mission Day 4 @ 1646 Hours

ON

"Only two more decks to go." Jon landed heavily at the bottom of one of the service tunnels that led to engineering. "Been a hot minute since I had to crawl around in one of these old buckets. Pain in the ass too, nothing's connected, some corridors have things you need." He breathed heavy in the eva suit. "These suits don't make it much easier."

"With luck chief we can get emergency power back online and power up Environmental health and the forcefield grid to plug the holes in the hull!"
Adams dropped down from the level above, finding manoeuvring in his EVA suit given his frame was not a graceful prospect and he had found himself wedged in the first time. To that end he had given up and was just dropping right through the hatch's.

Jon watched as Adams landed and helped to steady him when he landed. He spied an access panel and studied the location."We can go out into this corridor, thirty meters, aft, and then we one more crawl, and that should be right next to engineering. I'm just afraid that when we power this thing up, we are going to draw the attention of whatever is over on that station."

Adams turned after landing and caught the engineering kit Bain handed down to him before slinging it over his shoulder ready to move.
"Do you think we will be able to get this old bird moving again Chief?"

Brodie spoke up. " There is only two types of responses the station could give us. The first is to ignore us as it doesn't deem us as a threat. The second is to fire upon us and eliminate the ship, If that happens we won't feel a thing. I prefer the first option myself. "

"I guess we will only know when we get this old bird working again!"
Adams offered with as much of a smile as he could muster, the loss of his crew mates again tearing his in half. His Klingon side wanting to dive into glorious battle to avenge them while his Human half just felt broken.

Jon hit the override on the last hatch before engineering. It didn't do anything. He reached into his kit at grabbed a small crowbar, jammed it into the door hatch, then wrenched it open, revealing the open expanse of engineering. "Yeah, we'll see, there may be some life in the old bucket. Who knows. These ships are pretty tough." Stoun crawled through the hole into the dark. The light from his flashlight illuminated the dark of the space.

Brodie used the flashlight built into the arm of his EVA suit and began checking the area for hidden dangers or survivors, He wasn't sure how long the ship had been here, but he checked anyway. He found an office near the outer hull and tried the door, he tried the door but it was stuck so he pried it open only to be met with the shimmer of an emergency force field. There must be a microleak in the hull. He thought to him self as he checked the room for damage with his light.

He Damn near jumped out of his skin as a perfectly frozen preserved corpse bumped into the force field. " Saints preserve us!! " He exclaimed and then uttered a quiet prayer that this poor soul would find peace and comfort, before moving on and making his sweep of the area and returning to the main area. " I found one poor soul who was trapped behind a force field, may he rest in peace. But I also found a few active panels with power going to them. " He pat his hand against the wall. " This lady here might be down, but she's not out. There maybe some life left in her yet. I hope you've got some good news as well, we could use it. "

The chief cleared off one of the engineering consoles and looked it over, the occasional flicker let him know there was something. He synced the console up to his tricorder and let it interface. "Fusion reactors are online at fifty percent but in safe mode, plenty of fuel left in them. Power conduits are a mess, relays are shot, internal systems mostly intact." Jon looked down the list of damage reports. "We could probably get the fusion reactors back to full to restore partial power to the ship and run it on that. I don't know that I want to mess with the warp core."

Brodie spoke up. " Chief I've got some basic skill in electronics, I can do things like run fiber optics or repair relays. You know, the simple stuff. So where do you want me to help out at? " He shrugged his shoulders. " I know I'm green compared to the rest of you, but I'm willing to pitch in where I can. "

"Chief, it looks like the emergency battery supply these old twenty third century design ships have is actually still fully charged... We could have life support, basic system functions and forcefields back in minutes... As for the wider array of damage like warp core and impulse reactors... they may take longer, and a fully equipped spacedock!"
Adams had found the only working console in engineering and had started to investigate. Do you want me to bring lifesupport back online?"

Brodie walked over and removed an engineer's tool kit from off of the storage rack, he then turned his head towards Adams. " If life support can be brought online safely without any damage to the systems then go for it. " He started looking for items to repair within his ability. " It would be easier for us to work without these EVA suits and make our task easier to do. "

"I agree, let's get that going. I have an itch on my nose that I haven't been able to get since we have gotten over here. Theoretically everything should be good to go, nothing looks too beat up internally except for the hall." Jon looked at everyone. "Let's hit it."

The burly hybrid tapped the commlink open on his wrist console imbedded in the EV suit knowing that the rest of the away team would need to know should they be in a position before the emergency forcefields had chance to snap into place to seal the breaches.
"Commander, standby. Emergency power is about to be restored!"

"Alright standing by. Adams, would there be enough power to use the transporters?"

Brodie busied himself mending broken relays and replacing dislodged circut chips into their proper places. He had similar task like this in security. He knew if he could take care of the small items now which would free up those with more experience to take care of the larger items , and putting them that much ahead of the game. He would continue the task until called away to assist with some other work.

Brodie worked diligently in the power conduit panel when he discovered something that appeared odd. " Hey Chief Stoun! " he called across the room as he held up a Bio Neural gel pack from the panel. This one seems odd and distorted compared to the rest of them. What do you make of it? " He asked. It's in a minor power relay that leads into the main. Could it be effecting or disrupting the power flow? Your the expert in that area, not me. "

"Could be." The chief walked over towards the Brodie. "Yeah... that is odd. Here We'll bypass it for now" Jon looked around on the ground for a piece of metal, wrench, fallen beam, anything that could be used as a bridge. He spied what used to be a structural support. "Good thing the EVA suits are insulated huh?" Jon smiled and grabbed the support and shoved it into the space that the gel pack had been. "Hand on to that."

Jon listened to Holt come across. "We are going to have to play whackamole with power here and there until we either get the core up, or the fusion reactors can get back to one hundred percent, but we can probably do it."

"Yes sir I believe so!" the hybrid then said to the Commander.

"I was going to use the tractor beam, instead lock on those in the escape pod, and beam them directly to sick bay once the life support is up and running, Mel and I and the others will meet them there shortly."

"Second thought, going to be using the transporter."

The Commander closed the line leaving Adams, Stoun and Bain one less task on their rather extensive list.
"What next Chief?"

"Pray this isn't the shortest away mission of your career." The engineer went to the mains, interfaced his tricroder, then looked back at the two. "See you on the other side." Jon hit the button on the tricorder.

The lights in engineering came back up, the core started to glow blue as the power sequences started back up. The ship was alive, and so were they.

"Huh... well." He looked at the other two. "Hang on to that gelpack, we got work to do."

" Aye Sir! " Said Brodie with a smile as he got back to work.

END

 

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