Torpedos, damn them

Posted on Sat Oct 11th, 2025 @ 12:09am by Lieutenant JG Astrja Kyan & Lieutenant Bharani Gupta & Senior Chief Petty Officer Mason Malone & Senior Chief Petty Officer Thral Skrit

Mission: Aeon's End
Location: Forward lauch assembly
Timeline: MD1 late
1744 words - 3.5 OF Standard Post Measure

Astrja made her way forward to the forward launch assembly, noting the carbon scoring. This area had obviously been hard hit by their jaunt through time. She did not notice anything immediately dangerous or even seriously damaged, so that was a relief.

She heard voices ahead and called out. "Lieutenant Kyan from Operations here, just checking to see if you needed any help." She moved forward.

"I'm no engineer, but I'm sure this could do with repairs," Mason called out, grunting as he was trying to move one of the torpedo casings out of the way. Their tumultous travel had strewn them across the bay, and they weren't easy to move for a single person.

Astrja dug into her satchel and flipped out a contragrav carrier. She unfolded it and handed it to Mason. "This should make things easier, just make sure the contragrav attachment points do not contact the casing's power connections."

Thral rather dismayed that he had been roused from what had been a perfectly splendid nap, tucked away in the corner of the fore launch area which - he grumpily reminded himself as he pulled his aching body up the wall - was not due for repair until the morning, poked his head around the only remaining casing stack still upright. "Kinell aint that right" he agreed, rubbing his forehead as he stepped towards the others, well aware that even without a warhead the propulsion system alone could would give them all a very bad day if that overloaded, and who knew that status of the weapon safeties after all that happened. "Pushin' our friar tuck as it is, don't need nuffin else goin' nagus rom do we?". He cleared his throat and shuffled his thick white hair, trying to dissipate the final remnants of that bloody good sleep.

"Your universal translator appears to be malfunctioning," Bharani said to the Andorian. She was sitting by an open panel, trying to realign the targeting relays. She felt very much out of her comfort zone; ship repairs were not her forte. She was pretty much dragged out of Stellar Cartographer, and she was itching to return to the safety of her sensors and stellar bodies.

Astrja stared at Thral as though he had grown a second head. "Isi, that is no dialect of Andorian that I have ever heard before." She looked at Bharani, "I can check the UT if you want."

Mason listened for a moment, then laughed. "I don't think anything is wrong with the UT," he said, then waved at the male Andorian. "You're right though ..we don't need anything else to go wrong. Wanna help me restack these and make sure they don't go anywhere?"

Astrja's antennae made a gesture that was, more or less, the Andoria equivalent of a shrug. "As long as you can understand him, I think we are good. You two work on the physical organization. I will help the Lieutenant here with the electronics."

She moved over to do just that, her tricorder in hand, "Well, there does not seem to be any damage, just that everything has been decoupled. It should not take long to reconnect and realign everything." She started pulling tools out of her satchel.

Thral's antennae twitched a few seconds before his nose caught up with the sensory input and he looked over to one of the small, vaguely torpedo shaped hatches on the fore wall. " 'ere muckas...wozzat smell then eh?" he queried, walking slowly over to the hatch. "Got a trike anyone?" he asked, curious and somewhat morbidly resigned to the notion that a faint burning smell from the inside of a torpedo tube was probably going to end up with his atomised remains blown across space.

"I understood most of that," said Astrja, pulling a spare tricorder out of her satchel and tossing it to Thral. "And burning is almost never good on a starship."

"I'd argue that burning is rarely good in any situation," Bharani said. She closed the hatch that she had been working on, got up and moved over to where the others were standing. The male Andorian had been right; the smell was overwhelming. "What is causing that?" She asked, her view obstructed by four different antennas.

Thral shook his head and squinted at the tricorder readout; it was highly inconclusive. The readings were all over the place and 'oh' he noticed, he'd had his finger over the scanning diode.

Astrja ran a scan with her tricorder. "Drok! There is a torpedo in the tube and its launch rings are discharging and generating a feedback loop burning the casing."

"Should we eject it?" Mason asked, wrinkling his nose at the acrid smell. "Or shall we open the case and try to dismantle it? I'm not engineer nor am I an explosions specialist but surely between us we have the knowledge?"

Astrja paused for a half second. "Lieutenant, check to see if the tube is clear in front of the torpedo," she said. "Petty officers, open the hatch and see if anything is jamming the torpedo and would prevent it from being moved." She then tapped her combadge, "Yellow alert, we have a jammed torpedo in a launch tube. Recommend evacuation of the surrounding decks."

" 'ere Guv it's Chief actually" Thral corrected the fellow blue beauty, dropping the tricorder to the floor and pressing the emergency release for the tube hatch. The panel whirred and chirped but the hatch remained closed shut, he tried again, and again, but it made no difference. "Errrrr...." he remarked with an exaggerated shrug, turning to look at the others whilst intermittently side-eyeing the stuck hatch.

"Sorry, Chief," said Astrja. "Hardtech is not my side of the house. What is the best path forward? Hammers? Cutting tools?"

Bharani moved over to one of the consoles and performed the required diagnostics. "There is nothing in the launch tube in front of the torpedo," she announced, a relief washing over her. One torpedo was bad enough to deal with, never mind having multiple ones armed and stuck in the belly of the ship. However, the feeling wasn't long-lasting. "I can't get the launch doors open on the other end," she said to the Operations officer. "There's no way to fire it out into space."

"Not just snow but a blizzard," Astrja said. "Does it seem to be a power issue or is something blocking the launch door? We can send a worker bee to see about opening it manually," she said, pulling down options on her datapad.

"Surely we have something suitable to pry that hatch open, or a lascutter or something to cut it away?" Mason asked, "if need be we gotta be creative right?" He moved to a nearby toolbox and rummaged around before triumphantly Holding up a desired tool. The only downside was that he couldn't find the protective gear to use it. "The worker bee sounds like a good idea, and if they're not available we can always spacewalk and do it ourselves."

He handed a piece of equipment to Thrall. "I'll cut, you pry the hatch away. Unless you'd rather do it. Then I'll pry the hatch where you've cut it open."

"I have a Laserson Probe if you need a cutting tool, Chief," said Astrja, not looking up from the datapad.

"Wouldn't that be dangerous with a potentially live torpedo in there?" Mason asked, "we don't want sparks from the Laseron to possibly ignite anything right?"

"As you think best," sais Astrja. "It is available as needed."

Mason nodded. "I think though, that we had best just work on it from the outside because it's the outside one too that's stuck. Right? I'm happy to take a spacewalk, but I'll need a buddy."

"I'll go," says Astrja, "the worker bees are all busy but we can call one if it looks serious. Anyone else want to come along? The view will be amazing."

"Are we forgetting the slight issue of the torpedo stuck in the launch tube?" Bharani asked. She didn't want to tell people how to do their job, but clearly someone had to tell people how to do their jobs. "Do we have a plan for getting that out yet?"

"Not yet, but we will," says Astrja. "There is nothing preventing us from working on both tasks simultaneously. You," she says to Bharani, "and the chief here," she nods to Skrit, "can handle the freeing of the torpedo. While Chief Malone and I go and open the launch door in case the torpedo needs to be ejected."

Thral nodded, having been slowly tapping the launcher hatch and listening with his antennae for the thud on the other side whilst the others nattered on. "I fink we might need to recompress the tube Guv...only fing is, might dislodge the torp' when we do..." he clicked his tongue as he thought about it a moment. "Right 'ang on, reckon we's best getting the launch door open first right...then we can do the 'atch this eggy fried and the compression should just wing it aat like firin'...ya follow?".

Astrja nods slowly. "I think so," she says. "We will be in communication at all times, so keep us updated and we will do the same for you." She looks to Mason. "Shall we go? No time to waste."

"Yes ma'am," Mason answered, "and I recommend we eject it regardless. No use keeping a damaged torpedo, is there? Unless you want to take it apart for parts." He grinned. "Keep us up to date on the torpedo status, chief?"

"Anything we can salvage, we probably should," says Astrja. "As we have no idea when we will be able to resupply." She heads for the nearest air lock and EVA locker.

"Okay," Mason answered, though he wasn't convinced. He followed her to get suited up as well. "Recommend we keep open comm at all times, just in case."

"Safety first, so if we have to eject it, we do," said Astrja. "But if we can save parts, also good." She popped the locker and started to pull out EVA gear, looking for one of the smaller-sized suits for herself.

"I'll alert the bridge that we're planning a spacewalk, and then we can get to work," Bharani said, turning to the male Andorian.

"Probably a good idea," replied Astrja through the comm. Having found a suit of the proper size at last, she started to suit up.