All things being equal

Posted on Thu Apr 1, 2021 @ 11:48am by Staff Warrant Officer Jax Grenhorn & Lieutenant Commander Ethan Brash

Mission: Episode 3: Dark Tides
Location: Main Engineering
748 words - 1.5 OF Standard Post Measure

Jax was calm, battle was nothing new to her and there was no point in being jittery. So she was sat on a tall stall at the Master Systems table having prepared everything she could. She had set up a number of short cuts so she could bypass damaged systems quickly, she had also worked out ways that they could reinforce the shields without shutting them down. Dotted around the engine room were clusters of high capacity energy storage bottles ready to be plugged in. Although the combined store or energy was around 20% of the shields current output it could mean the difference between the shields failing and lasting. It was better than not having them.

She glanced over at Brash, with the Chief out of action he had offered to come and run engineering, Jax didn't have an issue with this, he was easy on the eyes and he knew what he was doing, and the staff respected and liked him. Plus having the second officer down here could help streamline a great deal.

"No, no, no!" Ethan pointed towards one of his Operations officers before they plugged in a console mod, "the other way! I need to see the status screen from over here." She stopped for a moment, turning the mod around to plug it in the opposite orientation, "Yes, yes, yes! Good, good!" Ethan exclaimed with a thumbs-up as he turned away from her.

With a hop onto a side rail, Ethan slid down a walkway to avoid the Engineer traffic, waving to everyone as he transitioned to a fast-paced walk as he hit the ground in motion. "Ms. Genhorn! A pleasure to see you, again!" He popped off as he approached her, stopping to stand just within arm's reach. A crimson red pair of index and thumb framed his jaw as he offhandedly noted under his breath, "if only it were under better circumstances." His hand brushed off his chin and rose into the air, "Oh, well! What can you do?"

"Sir!" the previously mentioned Operations officer approached at full walking speed and, without missing a step, she held a PADD up to head-height, letting it pass right into Ethan's already uplifted hand as she walked by. "Looks like it's PD-Day, again." She commented to him as she kept walking.

"Indeed it is!" Ethan replied, looking down at the PADD and its' contents. He stated quietly to no one in particular, "Happy PD-Day for everyone." He fingered through a page or two of the PADD's information, "Woohoo, and whatnot."

Jax smiled, Ethan was a pleasure to work with. The bridge indicated they were taking the Eagle to warp, she brought up the power readings, unlike old Earth ocean ships they really didn't need to transfer power or, well do anything really. But she monitored just in case. "Here goes" she said glancing up.

The console showed a spike in power demand as the ship raised shields, went to warp and in turn full impulse. She routed some power around giving excess to the weapons, shields and engines. "Ethan" she said frowning "There is a power drain from the main grid down conduit Alpha nine. Its not a lot but if the port shields go below 50%, that leak is going to be a waterfall"

"I see it," Ethan replied from the midst of his newly arranged 'Operations' center near the Warp core. All the display modifications were showing different parts of the power distribution as well as different vital ship functions and their various veins of throughput. He pointed to a pair of officers, raising his voice as he ordered, "Repurpose junctions J-11 through J-47 and get ready to contain and recycle through the secondary systems. Expand the threshold for heat waste by twelve percent, and let any of the extra flow back into the plasma scrubbers. They can handle it."

The Operations Chief waved to everyone, "Go, go, go!"

Repairs started, but it was too late. The port shield buckled allowing some energy wash through. The armour took the brunt of it but it was enough to overload the conduit, it blow out with a shower of sparks and shrapnel. Someone must have been looking out for them, no one had been hurt. The chorus of alarms was proof of the problems, the main EPS conduit on the port side had just failed. "Well" Jax muttered as she tried to bring the shields back online. "Ethan, any chance you can reroute that power?"