Matter Stream Sandwich Converter

Posted on 19 Apr 2022 @ 4:32pm by Chief Warrant Officer 3 Lamar Darius & Lieutenant JG Tris Shizn & Chief Petty Officer Afthinam Naime & Senior Chief Petty Officer Goldie Brown & Petty Officer 3rd Class Constantin Vansen

2,617 words; about a 13 minute read

Mission: Episode 18 - Cold Station 31
Location: USS Galileo-A - Deck 5, Shuttlecraft Maintenance Bay
Timeline: MD 10, 0230 hrs

[ON]

It was as some humans called it, ‘Wee into the morning’. Tris Shizn closed his eyes momentarily, mostly to focus on the next task at hand. He had tried, but had never used raktajino on a regular basis to help stay awake, but he had to admit to himself, that he was feeling tired and could truly use a stimulant right about now.

Looking at the LCARS display once more in the shuttle, Shizn tracked the flow of energy from the warp core through the required systems and to the newly installed transporter. There had been some buffering issues, but those had been worked out. Yet, right now they were not getting enough power through the system, in this simulation, to transport more that his pet Tautnia. Tris smiled to himself remembering the small sea creature. One of his human friends at the Academy called it a small Sea-lion. Refocusing his mind back onto the job, Shizn spoke aloud, “This is just not going to work. We are missing something.”

Vansen had just reached for his hypo, looking at Shizn before injecting himself. Sleep was not something that was happening lately, so he had upped his medication to compensate. It did work, but he knew he'd pay for it eventually. "Okay, maybe we are overthinking it," he finally said and moved close to Shizn, to look. "If we were desperate enough, we'd cut through some of the power relays, pull the main power more that way. Shorter journey for it, if that makes sense. It's not...exactly best practice though, Sir," he added the last carefully.

Tris shook his head slowly to the negative as he thought through the suggested approach. “No,” he began slowly. Then turning to look at Petty Officer, “I do not think so. That is eliminating too many safeguards. There has to he another reason for this issue. Let’s go through the system again. Check all the subroutines to see which might be blocking or triggering our energy issue.”

"Yes Sir," Vansen said, giving a small movement with his hands, a shrug, as he pulled back. "I'll start on that." He moved to sit down, rubbing his forehead before he started checking the subroutines, starting yet again from the top.

Goldie walked in, carrying a tray of sandwiches and snacks from the mess. "Better than replicated,"she said cheerfully. "Protein for the brain, too." She set the tray on a table and turned to the others. "So, any progress?"

Vansen looked at her, and made a face that was summarising the progress he felt they had made. "Checking subroutines again," he said, eyes going back to it. "Follow the code..."

The sole other red-collared person in the room aside from the Andorian lieutenant was also inside of the Type 6 personnel shuttle, sitting next to his boss. Chief Warrant Officer 3 Lamar Darius did his best to re-align the operations matrix with the new components. However, the spikes in power draw were making it hard to maintain a steady systems balance. Then he smelled something magical.

Lamar temporarily abandoned his post and walked out of the rear shuttle's hatch just in time to see a familiar blonde Ops officer passing around a tray of food. Sandwiches?! His eyes widened with delight. "Right here, petty officer!" he half yelled. "You read my mind."

"Everyone works better with food," Goldie said, laughing. She put a sandwich on a napkin and took it over to him. "Here you go."

He graciously accepted her offering then gave the yellow-collared woman a mock salute to show his gratitude. "I'll have to start hanging out with Ops more often," winked Lamar. "The only cold cuts we get in Command are new orders," he added with jest.

"I've heard differently," Goldie teased. "But you're always welcome to hang out with us. Third shift gets the best snacks."

News travels quickly on the lower decks, especially when sandwiches are involved, and as soon as Naime heard that this sandwich-involving event was related to the installation of a transporter she simply had to come and take a look. From her first glance as she entered the hanger she was somewhat amazed and also alarmed at the hack job that was being undertaken. "Morning Brown." she said with a nod and a smile as she picked up a sandwich and took a bite. "So this is the transporter on a shuttle project?" She mused to herself, gazing up at the array mounted on top of the craft, the turning to the officer on scene "Need any engineering assistance Lieutenant?"

Shizn walked down the rear ramp and smiled at Naime. “Thank you Chief. The more the merrier, as humans say,” the Andorian said as he picked up a sandwich. “And Brown, thank you for the nourishment. We may need it, but we don’t have too much time left.” Turning back to look at the make-shift installation. “It doesn’t look pretty, but I think it will be helpful when we get there.”

Shizn looked directly at Brown, “Would you care to take a look at the power flow? Something isn’t right, yet.”

Goldie nodded. "Aye, aye." She popped the rest of her sandwich in her mouth and picked up her tricorder. She could do power flow. She began with a scan of the problem, then began a diagnostic. "I think I found something. There are two conflicting processes in one of the subroutines."

Shizn nodded his head slowly in understanding. Thinking to himself, That actually makes perfect sense. With instruction he said, “Proceed with the diagnosis and run a simulation.”

Goldie nodded and went to work. It took her more time than expected to straighten out the conflicting orders because she had to make sure that she wasn't causing another conflict in the process. Twice she tested it, and twice it failed. Finally, though, she found the right combination and ran the simulation. "Woo hoo!"

Shizn looked up from the flight control panel when he heard the rather ‘unusual cheer’ and looked to find Brown quite pleased with herself. “Well Petty Officer, what are we very cheerful about?”

"Everything is finally lining up on my end," Goldie replied, grinning. "Sub-routines and power allocation looks good from here. That's one hurdle crossed."

Naime grabbed hold of a nearby step ladder and pulled it up to the side of the shuttle, eager to get a look at what was mounted on top of the shuttle. You could run all the diagnostics you wanted, but in Naime's experience sometimes what you needed was a pair of eyes on the nasty internal bits. She gripped the sandwich in her mouth as she pulled herself up the steps and upon reaching the top took it out with a bite and glanced at the construction. "These are really good Brown, top quality work." Then glancing down at the flight officers "Which of you installed this?"

Like a deer caught in a hovercar's headlights, Lamar stopped chewing and lowered his sandwich from his mouth to his waist. He shook his head and simply pointed to the Andorian lieutenant.

Shizn glanced about, eyeing all those present before replying, “We all had a part in it. We had to under the time constraints.”

"Would you mind if I were to take a look sir?" the chief replied, with sufficient deference to hide the fact she was slightly annoyed that no one in her department had been brought in "Might help, only so much your simulations can do. Sometimes a pair of eyes can be just as good."

Shizn looked toward the Engineer, “I of course would appreciate any assistance. Proceed,” he said encouragingly.

With a grateful nod Naime turned her attention back to the monstrosity that had been bolted to the top of the shuttle. "Always happy to help out our colleagues in flight control." She knew she'd have to be meticulous here if they had put anything out of place then it could mean deaths and nothing about how it looked, or the expressions on the faces of the other crew working on it, was reassuring to her.

Goldie let the engineer look over the setup. It would give her time to continue examining power allocation and subroutines. She still wasn't satisfied that she'd fixed everything.

"Anyone got a manual?" Lamar chimed in, still chewing and finishing his snack. He casually waved the last of his sandwich at the team. "It's supposed to be a 'portable' transporter array, right? Shouldn't be too hard to figure out," he shrugged, then took another bite.

"There should be one in the main computer," Goldie said, looking up from her work. "They were installed in case there's a need. Like now." She was surprised no one bothered to look. She'd searched the database on more than one occasion. Or maybe she was less confident in her own work than the others.

After a many minutes of searching the ship’s database, Shizn walked to the group excitedly with PADD in hand, “I found it. I found it! “ Looking again intently at his screen, he spoke to everyone or at least anyone that could hear as he stood on the end of the ramp, “The data on this accessory transporter install was categorised under secondary use of site-to-site transporter, slash, vehicle.” The Andorian looked up at the faces present, “It is highly unusual for this to be filed is such a way.” Now curiously looking at the others.

"Seriously?" Goldie sat back and shook her head. "Well, if that fixes the problem, let's call this a day and get out of here."

"I'll bring it up on my console." Darius finished the final bite of his sandwich and wiped his hands on his pants before returning inside the shuttle to its operations terminal. There, he started a short deep dive into procedural files and found the described process just as the lieutenant described. Let's see what this says...

Tris followed Lamar into the shuttle and stood behind him, watching, not saying a word. They only had a very short time left to complete this project.

After a few minutes of reading and re-reading the scrolling text on the LCARS terminal, Lamar started to make some adjustments. There was no pressure...aside from his sub-department's lieutenant hovering behind him and observing his work. "Alright. I'm taking the SIF and inertial damping generators offline." He tapped at the screen's buttons to input his commands, "and I'm re-initializing the EPS power distribution. Going to power down the auxiliary generators until the rest of the systems come back online..."

While Lamar and Tris worked, Goldie kept an eye on power allocation to make sure nothing else went wrong.

Vansen finished going through all the subroutines as ordered, wiping his forehead tiredly. He went back to check, after the changes that had been made.

"Everything is green on my end," Goldie replied, giving them a tired smile. "No conflicting subroutines and power allocation is good."

The status calls from the Ops officers came across Darius' commbadge. His started to tap at the shuttle's systems management console. "Bringing SIF and IDF generators back to idle." There was a momentary pause while he confirmed the EPS flow regulators were operating within parameters. "Activating auxiliary generators..."

An undignified eek sounded from outside the shuttle followed by a clatter and a thud. "I was not expecting that." came the bewildered voice of the Farian engineer. A moment later she poked her head round the hatch of the shuttlecraft. "Guess that means it works though? That thing definitely has power in it."

"The transporter primaries and backups appear...online!" Darius called back over his shoulder. A small smile of satisfaction hid the relief he was feeling. He wasn't the most technically-minded crew member so the thought of resetting the shuttle's systems for a second time had been a lingering source of anxiety. "I'll start a Level 3 diagnostic to verify. Should be complete in five minutes." He input the procedural command then stood and walked out of the shuttle to obtain another sandwich.

"If this works, I'll buy the first round," Goldie announced. After all the work they'd done, they deserved it.

Lamar grinned then suddenly remembered the ship's recent alcohol restriction. Stormin' Tarin doesn't want us drinking. "You got the sandwiches, I'll take care of the drinks," he winked.

Goldie nodded. "Done." At this point, she didn't care if it was real alcohol or synthehol. They were all in need of a celebration--as long as the diagnostics came back green.

"Diagnostics have finished," Vansen said after the minutes had passed.

After clambering back up the outside of the shuttle, this time a bit more cautiously, Naime made a close inspection of the internals as the diagnostics proceeded. She couldn't help but keep looking at the attachment struts, symptoms of the imprecision of flight staff when it came to modifying their own vehicles. If they had time she'd want to take the whole thing apart again, make sure ever last piece was working properly to engineering standards. But time wasn't something they had in abundance and it seemed to be working just fine.

Naime made her way to where the Lieutenant and the others were gathered around the diagnostic readouts "Look, just don't crash this into anything Lieutenant and it should hold together." The engineer concluded, "It all looks fine, but it will be fragile. If you get into any bumps or scrapes and I'd advise you not to consider this safe for use. Avoid too much atmospheric flight, things like that." She brushed off her hands and shrugged, "If we had time I'm sure we could make things safer, but we don't. It'll be fine, I'm sure."

Shizn stood at the center of the shuttle with hands on hips and a confident grin on his face replied, “I think you’re right. This is the best we can do in the time allotted.” He slowly looked about taking in the faces one by one, giving to each a slight nod or a wink in an attempt to show his appreciation. With a more serious tone he added a little quieter, “This effort truly took a team.” He had a difficulty with saying ‘Thank you’ as most humans might. “The transporter was never a necessity, but I’m glad it’s going to be there . . just in case.” After a healthy sigh and a more earnest smile the Andorian added, “I think I could go for a bite to eat now. Anyone interested?”

"Count me out," Goldie said, stretching. "Not me this time. If I'm lucky, I can catch a few hours' sleep before I have to go back on duty. No rest for the wicked."

Naime was off at a quick pace already "Engineering needs me, but if this thing makes it back in once piece I'll happily break bread!" She shot a glance over her shoulder at the assemblage on top of the shuttle. It didn't look all that secure and with all the trouble they'd had getting it working she couldn't help but feel anxious about it. The chief wasn't sure what the shuttles would be sailing into but she dearly hoped they had done enough.

[OFF]

--

CWO3 Lamar Darius
Conn Officer
USS Galileo-A
[PNPC Saalm]

LTJG Tris Shizn
Senior Conn Officer
USS Galileo-A

PO3 Constantin Vansen
Operations Officer
USS Galileo-A
[PNPC Rice]

CPO Afthinam Naime
Engineering Officer
USS Galileo-A
[PNPC Ullswater]

PO1 Goldie Brown
Operations Officer
USS Galileo-A
[PNPC Sandoval]

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