Houston, We Have a Problem

Posted on Tue Feb 27th, 2024 @ 2:53pm by Lieutenant Xavier Leiko & Lieutenant Commander Finnley Keating VII

Mission: The Trojan Horse
Location: Main Engineering
984 words - 2 OF Standard Post Measure

The sound of an engine shutting down on a three core vessel wouldn't be enough to make anyone take a second glance, unless you happened to Finnley Quinn Keating the seventh. The moment that sweet hum of the third core went silent, the hairs on the back of her neck stood up. "Computer, pull up a diagnostic of all three warp cores and send it to my office," her words were immediate and Finn switched directions. "Lieutenant Leiko," her next call went through the combadge. "Can you meet me in my office please?"

"On my way," Xavier said from his position on the bridge. He logged out of his terminal, gave the briefest of nods to the Commodore and headed for the turbolift. There wasn't much that could rattle Finn, but she definitely sounded rattled on the call, he thought as the lift glided through the decks of the Athena. Just before the call, the ship had dropped out of warp. That, paired with Finn's summons, made the Betazoid feel anxious.

"Commander," Xavier said as he stepped into Finn's office. "You wanted to see me?"

"We have a problem," Finn looked up at her operations counter part. "Remember all that fancy rerouting we did to make this stealth thing work? Well, it's not working." She smiled with a mix of both sarcasm and frustration. "I'm running diagnostics now but it looks like a power feedback loop was injected into the system, which obviously caused the safeties to kick in and shut down the system, but I haven't fully been about to trace the problem back to it's root yet."

"Damn," Xavier replied, seeing the full picture of the issue. He moved over to the master systems display that was mounted on the wall of Finn's office, typical engineer he mused silently. "Is this affecting all three cores?" He asked as he studied the cutaway diagram of the Athena.

"Doesn't look like it. Yet," Finn replied. "We'll need to fix the feedback loop and put some protections in place to keep it from happening again. See if you can help me root out where the feedback loop came from." She pointed to a section of the power configuration laid out in a map on the console. "I'm going to stabilize the rest of the system before it takes out another core."

Xavier hit the console with his fist. The motion made a 'thud' sound that reverberated around the room that was normally filled with the pulsing of the main warp core. It had been 20 minutes or so since he had joined Finn in engineering and the pair had desperately tried to figure out the feedback loop issue. "I think I have an explanation," he said looking up at the blonde engineer. "The power we rerouted was meant to feed into the shields but instead the main deflector dish has been greedily drinking it up. That caused it to overload and the safeties kicked in. A first-year cadet wouldn't have made that mistake," he said shaking his head, disappointed in himself.

"A first year cadet would've missed that. A fourth year might have caught it," Finn flashed a sarcastic yet understanding smile. "It passed my notice too so don't beat yourself up too hard. At least there's no permanent damage." She looked over the situation that Xav pointed out and racked her brain on the best course of action. "In fact, I don't think the repair would be terribly difficult, but it will require a space walk...a quick repair to the lines that cross between the shield and deflector power. Plus we'll want to put in a shunt so that this doesn't happen again. What do you think?"

Xavier gave Finn a half smile in recognition of her joke but was still beating himself up over his mistake. She was right, she hadn't caught it either, but this was meant to be his specialist area. Hard to call yourself chief of operations when you can't work out basic starship operations. "Agreed," he said as he looked over the schematics of the ship, enlarging the area that showed the ship's main deflector dish. "If we shut down these two sections here," he pointed at the schematic, "and repair this section I think that should do it."

"You know I'm not one to shirk work and I do enjoy a good space walk, but..." Finn put her hand on her chin, "this seems like a good opportunity to throw to some of the more capable juniors. A chance to spread their wings without unnecessary danger..."

Xavier's half smile turned into a full one. The last time he had taken a spacewalk he nearly died, not an experience he was too keen to repeat anytime soon. "Well I do have a very eager assistant chief, I'm sure she will happily volunteer for this little side quest. Hell, I'll even chuck in Henry too."

"I have a new guy that I think might do well, Ensign O'Connor. I'd throw in O'Connell but comms with an O'Connor and an O'Connell seems like an accident waiting to happen," Finn chuckled. "So I'll throw in Pax instead. Which means your department is in charge. You send your assistant chief the details and I'll give O'Connor and Pax a heads up? Then what do you say we monitor their progress from the bar?" Finn held a hand up before any objections could be had. "There will be a decent view of the space walk from the window there and synthehol only, just in case," she smiled.

"Fine," Xavier replied, as though he had a choice. In truth, he was looking forward to taking it easy while the junior officers made themselves useful. "The first round is on you," he said as he tapped his combadge. "Leiko to Kyan, I have an assignment for you Lieutenant."