Engineering Away Team

Posted on Tue Nov 22nd, 2022 @ 12:11pm by Lieutenant Kevan Dash & Lieutenant Commander Finnley Keating VII & Lieutenant Myra Sh'rillil & Lieutenant Xavier Leiko

Mission: Scylla and Charybdis
Location: USS Avalon
Timeline: MD-04
1549 words - 3.1 OF Standard Post Measure

The quartet materialised in the lower mid-section of the Avalon's main engineering section. It was dark. The normally thrumming warp core was completely silent and lifeless; in shut-down mode. The air was still.

"Huh." Kevan was the first to make a noise as he trained a hand-lamp around the open space. "No bodies," he explained, looking back to the others.

"I guess that's better than the opposite. Though it doesn't exactly make this room any less creepy with all the lights out," Finn noted as she surveyed the area for a power module that might allow them to restore some limited functionality in the room. "I wonder what happened to them."

"You scared Commander?" Xavier asked with a smirk from behind the transparent window of the EV suit. He looked around the dark room as he flipped open his tricorder and started taking scans. "Looks like primary and secondary power is out. Tertiary power is maintaining secondary systems like environmental controls and artificial gravity."

"Is that enough for lights?" Kevan asked. "I hate the dark. Reminds of that damned nightmare space we fell into."

"It'll have to do for now until we can get primary and secondary power back online," Finn shrugged. "Though it doesn't look like that will be an easy task. Have you seen these radiation readings? It's interfering with power stability and causing systems to fry. We need to figure out a way to counteract that before we start messing around too much." Finn stated, sounding fair but perhaps a bit uncharacteristically cautious.

Xavier wondered what Kevan had witnessed in the nightmare space, maybe it had something to do with Mason chasing him around the ship. He smiled softly to himself, knowing that if Teyo had been here, he would have vocalised that particular thought. Xavier knew better, besides, that whole ordeal was a rough time for Xavier; he knew better than to make light of it.

"Great just what we need, a security officer who's afraid of the dark," Xavier said with clear humour in his voice. It was all he could do to push the thought of Chief Daniels, the previous chief of operations, killing himself with a phaser, out of his mind. Damn Dash for bringing up nightmare space now he thought with an overwhelming sense of grief. "What's the plan Sir," he said to Finn, putting all of his focus on his job.

Myra watched the lot curiously. She wasn’t used to this kind of banter, especially from her superior officers. She shook her head and grinned at her silliness. Only one of them was her superior here, and they seemed to have a very relaxed attitude towards his rank. An interesting difference from her experiences so far. She liked it. Following Xavier’s example, she took out her tricorder and let it gather information on the area. She half looked at it, half looked around, wondering what exactly had happened here. Hopefully there would be logs of some kind.

"Do you think you guys can get the environmental systems fully working? If we get those operational we can saturate engineering with anti-radiation ions before we start restoring large power generators. Though I'm open to suggestions if someone has a better idea," Finn said plainly. Her focus remained mostly on her job, but she couldn't help the feeling of dread that was slowly creeping in through the dark.

"Yeah we can work on that," Xavier said as he nodded towards his young ward. "Hopefully it should be pretty-" but before he could finish his sentence the main lights came back online, causing the Betazoid to blink uncontrollably until the visor in his suit reacted and upped the UV filter. He moved over to a console and took some readings, "looks like someone on the bridge was able to get power back to the lights, just in time too," he said as he shot a look at Kevan.

"Hopefully that's our people," the security officer said. "I'll secure the adjacent compartments. Let me know if anything big and monstrous decides to jump out and scare you. Or if someone decides we need to dump a warp core..." he added, flashing a grin at Finn.

Xavier chuckled, remembering his first encounter with Finn and her mission to dump all three cores from the ship. He subconsciously rubbed the front of his EV suit, on the very spot she had booted him, believing him to be a Breen soldier, or was it a Borg drone? She was a different person back then, in fact they all were. He momentarily closed his eyes and refocused on his job. This was the second time Kevan had reminded him of that nightmare space adventure; Xavier couldn't help but wonder if that was some kind of omen.

"Ha, ha," Finn sarcastically responded, though she had to admit it was a good jab. "Keep in contact, let us know if you find anything interesting." She turned to Xavier and for a moment she thought he might have been rubbing the spot where she had kicked him during their incursion in nightmare space. Good times,, the engineer chuckled internally. "I'm going to start some diagnostics on the propulsion systems. Once you've got the environmental controls back, we'll seal the doors and saturate the area with anti-radiation ions. By that time the diagnostics should be done and we'll know what we're in for to get propulsion systems back online, if that's even possible."

"You doubting yourself Finn?" Xavier asked in mirth. "Don't worry we got this," he added as he turned to face Myra. "Head over to environmental controls," he said as he pointed to a workstation on the other side of the room, "and tell me the exact radiation readings per cubic metre."

With a nod and a smile, the Andorian made her way to the console. Looking over the readings she mumbled something to herself. “That’ll be thirty four mega becquerels per cubic meter.” She looked back towards Finn. “Once life support is properly back online, it should get better quickly though.” She looked back between him and the console.

"Ah," Xavier said as he tried to scratch his face, forgetting the helmet that was currently protecting him from the very radiation they were discussing. "That explains why the environmental controls are going haywire, they're trying to filter the radiation but ignoring their primary focus. Okay, I'm going to transfer auxiliary power to the nacelles, particularly the ramscoops. We're going to use them as filters for the ship, forcing the radiation away. Can you handle that?" He asked the Andorian.

Myra nodded and offered an affirmative grunt. This was exactly the kind of situations people like her joined the fleet. An opportunity to do things when it matters. "I've never done this specifically, but I understand the theory behind it." She offered the console a few presses, bringing up the relevant options to the dimly lit screen. "Whenever you're ready sir." She flashed him a quick smile before returning her attention to the readings presented.

"Okay, let's give this a go," Xavier said encouragingly. "I'll monitor the power output, you watch the radiation levels. Once they drop to a more tolerable level, the environmental systems should kick in and do their job correctly, and then Finn should be able to disperse the rest with anti-radiation ions. Transferring the power now, I'll ramp it up slowly so we don't destroy the nacelle coils, that's the last thing we need. How's it looking on your end?" He asked the ensign as the monitor he was studying lit up like a borg alcove.

The Andorian grinned and stared at her own screen, pushing a button here or there, bringing relevant information to the forefront as she made minute adjustments. "Seems good on this end. No abnormal spikes or interference." She glanced back up at the others for a brief moment before looking back down at her screen.

Finn heard the exchanged and watched for the environmental systems to kick in, which occurred only a moment or two later. Her hands worked in unison to quickly deploy the anti-radiation ions right after and before you could recite the standard warp equation, the radiation was cleared to safe levels.

"Okay!" Finn turned to look at the others. "Now let's see if we can get these engines back on..."

"Zora to away teams," her voice boomed through their speakers, "the Romulans are boarding the Avalon, evacuate immediately. Engineering team, we need to dock with the Alpha module of the Athena right away and we can't do that from the bridge right now. Once the ships have been docked, disembark."

No sooner had the comline been cut off, the ship rocked violently causing Xavier to stumble and hit his head on one of the upper consoles. Thank God for EV suits he thought to himself as he checked his HUD for damage. "That's can't be good," he said to the others.

Peeking back into the room, Kevan piped-up. "You all heard that, then. Let's get going!"

Myra grimaced and hung to her console, preventing herself the same fate as Leiko. With one last quick glance at the console, she straightened herself and made her way to Dash.