Electro-Plasma Galileans

Posted on 24 Feb 2024 @ 5:40pm by Commander Morgan Tarin & Ensign Mimi & Lieutenant JG Vren Vral & Senior Chief Petty Officer Goldie Brown & Petty Officer 3rd Class John Hollenday

2,667 words; about a 13 minute read

Mission: Episode 19 - Tomorrow's Galileo
Location: USS Galileo-B - Deck 6, Primary Deflector Bay Control
Timeline: MD 01, 1821 hrs

[ON]

If any member of the Galileo-B's crew wore the cost of the war on their sleeve, it was Lieutenant Vral. He carried it with him wherever he went, like a grisly shadow. He sought no reprieve. He took no rest. His colleagues had given up trying to save him from himself.

There was a silver lining though. Deep within the bitter, soulless operations officer was a core of determination. A dedication to the matter at hand. He would tackle the task in front of him, and the next, and the next until he was so much dust, or redemption came.

Thus the walk to the deflector array, while technically short, took moments longer than it should. The small repair team matched Vren's even, monotonous pace. Step by step until the doors to their destination slid open.

The room was not a pretty sight.

Debris of all kinds littered the floor, with panels, parts of conduits, cables and other detritus making up a milieu of chaos across the floor.

The once intricate lattice of EPS relays and emitter arrays which connected the dish to the graviton polarity source generators were now almost entirely blackened and warped.

The bulkhead surrounding the interior of the deflector was scorched and buckled, with several areas missing panels, exposing the flickering innards of the Galileo-B.

As the small repair team picked their way to the centre of the room they were met with a bitter rain of sparks cascading down from loose panels two decks above them.

Vren's hacking cough echoed around the room, the air thick with the acrid smell of plasma discharges and ionized particles.

Finally they reached the centre point, surrounded by the wreckage of deflector control consoles, flickering with the last desperate data streams of a failing system.

"You heard me before," Vren said, his voice a dull rasp, "the Admiral has ordered that the deflector be in working order in three days. We are to make this happen."

He looked at the crew from the other ship, "The Galileo-B's engineers will be working on the generators so that leaves us to get the EPS relays online and the emitters properly aligned." His dead eyes slowly shifted to Goldie, "Chief, take Officer Hollenday up to the gantry," he gestured to the walkway above them which surrounded the lattice, "and begin replacing any EPS relays that won't sustain another surge." Silence fell for a few moments and Vren continued his dead stare, "Do you have any questions?"

"Aye, aye, sir. No questions." Goldie replied. She smiled at Hollenday. "We'll probably have to replace half of them, but we can do it."

"More than like more than half, all right, let's get on it."

Vren gestured to a ladder that had been attached to the bulkhead, "The lift is broken so you will have to climb. I believe Officer Xinkas is up there taking stock of the damage. She will assist you."

He slowly turned to Mimi, "Ensign Ash-" His dull voice caught in his throat, and he shook his head. "Ensign Mimi, you and I will work on correcting the alignment of the emitters. There is a precise configuration. We will need to get one of these consoles working and then do a physical inspection."

Mimi's ears twitched and a slight tilt of her head betrayed her confusion at Vren's mistake, she decided she'd ask him who he had mistaken her for after they got underway. "It looks like you took a lot of internal damage in your attempt to bring us here." She asked after surveying the area.

"We were successful," Vren replied in a dry tone, "The damage is more extensive that predicted but we will send you back." His dead eyes focussed on Mimi's. He'd read all of the Galileo-A files. It was clear that she didn't yet know about who awaited her on the B.

His father was due for a similar abrupt shock in the coming days.

He broke her gaze and looked around, identifying a console that showed less signs of damage. "This one," he gestured slowly to it, then glided over to it to tap on the screen, "Its connection to the dish is compromised. Are you able to check the internals and see if you can restore functionality, ensign?"

Mimi pulled off several access panels; some requiring a significant pull as they were charred and disformed then took out her tricorder and began to scan. There was significant damage to the whole deflector system, after a few minutes of scanning and fitting herself into places only her flexible form would let her she stepped back from the console. "This whole Odn hub is going to need replacing."

"They are temperamental," Vren responded, his watery eyes glancing down at the Nekomi, "We may be able to salvage parts from another console," he gestured to the stations around him.

He tapped the fading screen a few more times before it went dark then sighed, "We may have to calibrate the dish by hand if we cannot restore a connection to the Computer." He once again turned his gaze to Mimi, "We had not expected such extensive damage. Your Klingon friends, I suspect, threw off our systems with their torpedoes..."

Mimi's fur bristled. "The Klingons are no friends of mine Lieutenant." She said with a lot more venom in her words than she had intended on.

Vren's eyebrow twitched a little, but his tone remained lifeless, "I have, as you might imagine, had my fair share of run ins with the beasts." He moved to another console and knelt down, taking off a side panel in order to examine the Odn hub, "What is your quarrel with them? We were allied back then."

"Allied to the federation maybe, not to a small group of aliens with control over a very large dilithium mine that they wanted," Mimi replied, beginning the tale she'd told many times. "We offered to trade with them but they decided to take it for themselves and kill anyone who got in the way, they killed everyone." She pulled hard at a section of damaged wiring that quickly came out with a small shower of sparks.

Vren gave a small grunt of affirmation. He had heard such tales often since the start of the war. The Klingons were a feral race, and it was surprising to him that any form of diplomacy had managed to keep them at bay, let alone allied to the Federation for so long.

"You have my sympathies," his usually dry voice had a thread of empathy within it, before taking on a little fury, "A similar fate befell my homeworld. They were relentless in their thirst for destruction and death. They reveled in it," he'd have spat on the floor if it had not been his ship, "Andoria held out for a few years but... nothing can withstand such violence."

He allowed silence to fall for a few moments as he began to disconnect the Odn hub. "Their true nature is there for all to see now. If you succeed in changing history, the Federation will never know how quickly their 'allies' could turn on them."

"One days allies are the next days enemies." Mimi said repeating a vaguely remembered quote she couldn't quite recall who said it. "If we can remove the rest of this damaged wiring we can get a new hub replicated and installed."

Vren tapped his commbadge and requested a new hub be brought down to them, then continued to remove operative connections from the console he knelt by. "Some of these pieces are salvageable. We should be able to reuse these connectors."

Silence fell for some time. After many moments he cleared his throat then glanced over to Mimi, "So,'' his emotionless tone droned, "What do you think of our plan. To send you back?"

"It is..... interesting." Mimi replied. "And it is strange that something as simple as deleting a piece of information has led to a extremely bad war that has nearly wiped out the federation."

An arrogant act, Vren reflected inwardly, believing that ones moral superiority should dictate what would and could be known. The whole house of cards had fallen, and his homeworld, mother, sister and, as much as he loathed the man, father had been crushed beneath it.

He glanced at Mimi then nodded before silently working for a time. He helped to strip out the fried components and install fresh connectors. A hub was delivered and he slotted it into place, testing each branch for power surges before he fused them into place.

The console blinked a couple of times then came to life.

"This will be sufficient," he said softly, "We can assess the extent of damage to the lattice's alignment once the others have replaced enough parts above." He glanced to the gantry.

Mimi smiled as the console finally came back to life.


Upper Walkway, EPS Relay Lattice

The journey up the ladder was not overly long, but the higher one ascended, the clearer perspective of the extensive damage to the deflector one got.

At the top was a walkway normally accessed by a small service lift. It was battered and scarred with plasma burns, but still secure enough. EPS relays wove a great trunk from the bulkhead to the lattice of emitter arrays that formed the innards of the main deflector. It did not look good.

An acrid smell hung in the air from the shorted and blown out relays, and it was immediately clear that many emitters which were attached to the dish itself were crooked and out of line.

"Worse than an Oklahoma tornado in a trailer park," John quipped as he looked over the mess. "Tell you what, I'll start realigning things if you want to replace relays."

Goldie nodded. "That works for me." She pulled out her tricorder and scanned the closest relays and entered a command on her wrist unit to access the data. Then she put the tricorder back on her belt and activated the HUD so she could work with both hands while still identifying the relays that needed to be replaced.

There was a grinding noise on the far side of the lattice, followed by the sound of several pieces of metal falling loudly onto the floor. After a moment a snub nosed, hairy tellarite poked his head around the side of the array then scurried over to the two Petty Officers.

"Chief!" He said to Goldie, straightening out his slightly charred uniform, "I've just finished cutting away... well... the melty bits from the lattice. Should be replacable but..." His eyes drifted over to Hollenday, "Ah!" He exclaimed with a slight snort, "You are from the 'A'!" He blinked a couple of times, a little starstruck, "Officer Xinkas at your service," he gave a little bow by way of salute.

John made a wave of an arm in return. "Nut buster third class John Hollenday."

A wide grin spread across Xinkas' unique features, "Pleasure to have you aboard!"

"Recycle the melty bits, repair the lattice, then join us." Goldie couldn't help smiling at the expression on Xinkas' face. "I'm sure we'll still be around here somewhere."

"Tell you what, let me help you with the lattice. That way we get that out of the way and then you can pitch in helping get things realigned," John said.

Xinkas nodded and moved back to the lattice, his stout frame bobbing as he rushed to position himself.

The one saving grace of this kind of damage was that once you were immersed in the intertwined EPS relays and emitters, the damaged parts stood out like a sore thumb. Operative parts gave an eerie green glow as their pilot lights cast light around them. Dead parts were dark.

Xinkas retrieved his hyperspanner and went about popping dead EPS conduits free, leaving gaps for replacements.

John got to work. He literally tossed the bad pieces out of the way and let them drift off. Then it was getting down to working on the circuits. There could be a few temporary welds that would hold everything for a bit.

Goldie worked with a bit more finesse. But she'd been doing this longer and had adapted her work to her less-agile body. She took advantage of her holographic display to find what had to be cut out and what simply needed a good weld, marking the places that would need something more. It was far easier to get into the groove for this, then come back for what needed larger sections than trying to do it all at once. She began to hum to herself as she worked.


Some time later...

"All right. I think we can give it a test. Should hold if they don't do something really stupid." John looked over the repairs with hands on his hips.

Goldie took her tricorder from her belt and scanned their work, then nodded. "Yep. Looks good to go."

John stretched the best he could in the suit. "Then let's call it good. I got an itch I can't scratch in this thing." He put a hand down the suit. "Xinkas come on. Let's get something to eat and drink."

The Tellarite poked his head around some conduits, "Aye, very good," he gave smile, then tapped his commbadge, "Lieutenant Vral... uhm... we're ready for an alignment test up here.""

"Heard, Xinkas," Vren's dry voice returned, "The repair team are dismissed, leave the lattice promptly so we can complete alignment."

Xinkas glanced at Goldie and Hollenday, gestured his head to the ladder, then scurried towards it.

"Excellent." Goldie was more than ready to call it good. "I think this calls for a celebration in the lounge. Drinks are on me." she said as she headed for the door.

"Ah, thanks, but all in a days work," John replied.


Primary Deflector Bay, Below the Lattice

Vren looked up at the softly blinking pilot lights. The team had done fairly efficient work in replacing the burned out parts. It was impossible to fix them all, of course, but they only needed enough for a sustained burst.

He looked at the console in front of him, then to Mimi, "Would you like to do the honours," his voice cracked like parchment. He would normally not stand on ceremony, but it was something others sometimes enjoyed. Mimi had been a useful assistant and... well he was acquainted with Asha.

"Connection to the dish is good, power flow is stable...." Mimi commented as she checked over the repairs that the team had made, it appeared deflector technology hadn't changed much in 25 years so the repairs had been relatively simple. "Dish alignment looks good."

Vren watched over her shoulder. The alignment was within tolerance, but he'd have to get the scientists down to check that it would work for a temporal shift. His mouth twisted slightly at the idea. He didn't like that type - they'd been the ones who started this mess.

"Indeed. Thank you for your assistance, ensign." He gave Mimi a small nod of acknowledgement, "You have been... efficient. We may need to make some tweaks based on the requirements for your mission but for now you are dismissed."

"Aye Sir." Mimi turned to leave. "If my teams can help anywhere else we are happy to help."

Vren grunted with approval in a manner not unlike his father. He gave Mimi a respectful nod, then went back to examining the finer details of the alignment.

Perhaps now there was a chance of success.

[OFF]

--

LTJG Vren Vral
Operations Officer
USS Galileo-B
[PNPC Vala]

Ensign Mimi
Deputy Operations Manager
USS Galileo-A

PO3 John Hollenday
Engineering Officer
USS Galileo-A
[PNPC Warraquim]

SCPO Goldie Brown
Operations Officer
USS Galileo-B
[PNPC M. Wyatt]

RSS Feed