...Then It ALL Hit The Fan [Backpost]

Posted on Wed Oct 29th, 2025 @ 12:15am by Ensign Kateyo Fenn & Petty Officer 2nd Class Henry Washington & Lieutenant Commander Finnley Keating VII

Mission: Aeon's End
Location: USS Athena - Main Engineering
Timeline: MD01 - Before "Taking Stock"
1786 words - 3.6 OF Standard Post Measure

"Get up, Commander, this is no time for a nap," Teyo said, his arm outstretched for her to take.

They were standing in the middle of the main engineering area, where every alarm and alert was going off at once. Everyone on duty was either pulling themselves off the floor or moving from console to console to try to work out what had happened. "Before you ask, I don't know," Teyo said, anticipating Keating's question. "But main power is offline, including sensors, communication, shields, weapons, and warp drive." He gestured towards the warp core cylinder; its usual pulsing blue light was now eerily dark and very silent. "And yes, all three cores are offline and the QSP too."

Finn groaned as she rolled onto her side, immediately regretting it when the motion made her vision swim and a pain shot through her ribs. Cracked rib? Maybe. Last she remembered she was about five meters from where she currently lay on the floor. But Teyo's hand was there, and the alarms were screaming which meant the ship's systems were more important than her own internal systems check.

"Appreciate the wake up call," she muttered, grabbing Teyo's hand and dragging herself upright with a wince. "Remind me to install seatbelts in engineering." She said before walking over to the nearest working console to start a diagnostic. “Alright, let’s figure out what kind of cosmic tantrum we walked into..." She turned toward the main room, where her assistant chief would normally be, already started to think about who she needed to send where. “Sturgis!” The name came out before she remembered. Her mouth was still open when the silence answered.

Right. Damn it.

The moment hit her like a shockwave. Fast, silent, and deep. She stood there for half a heartbeat, just long enough for the pain in her ribs to be overshadowed by the one in her chest, but there wasn’t time to dwell on the loss that still lingered. She pushed it down and shifted. "Paxton, check the coolant lines for leaks. Kimeron, check the integrity of the intermix chamber. If it cracked during the jump, I want to know. And someone get eyes on the emergency back up systems. I don’t care if you have to crawl, limp, or drag a damn tricorder with your teeth.”

Then her eyes landed on Ensign Fenn. Someone she wouldn’t have picked as a partner a few weeks ago, but after their last interaction, she was starting to reconsider. “Fenn, you’re with me on primary systems. We need to check the antimatter injector coils, deuterium flow regulators, and magnetic containment fields.” She gave him a smirk. “Think you can keep up?”

"Erm... yes, Ma'am," Teyo replied, pushing down his initial instinct to be a smartass. He chose to ignore her accidentally calling out for O'Connell, knowing now wasn't the time or the place to try and get her to open up. Not that there was a correct time and place with Keating. In reality, the man had only been officially declared MIA less than a day before the current disaster they now faced. It didn't take Savin's intellect to know a wound like that was still very much fresh.

He moved over to one of the wall-mounted supply cases and pulled out a couple of tricorders and torches. Handing Keating her equipment, he couldn't help but notice her wince as she moved to take them from him and load up her holsters. He sighed heavily. She wasn't going to thank him for this. "Do you need to go to sickbay, Commander?"

Finn shot him a look with one brow raised. “No, I don’t need to go to sickbay. Do you?” she countered. “Because unless you’ve got a concussion or an arm hanging off, you’re just as banged up as the rest of us after that attempt to destroy that device threw us into this fresh hell. If I needed to go, so would half the department.” She turned away before he could say anything else, already tapping into the tricorder. “Besides, you think I’m letting someone else check my injectors while I sit around in a biobed? Not happening.” She glanced back at him with a smirk. “Let’s move.”

"Aye," Teyo replied simply. He thought that he got off lightly; Keating's hatred of sickbay, and by association doctors, was legendary around engineering. He flipped open his tricorder as he followed the chief. "I think we should start with the magnetic containment field; the last thing we want is the potential of a warp-core breach on top of everything else."

Finn nodded. "Good call," she said, already moving toward the access panel. She popped the manual release, slid the panel aside and crouched beside the open access with her tricorder. “You start with the magnetic resonance diagnostic, I'll run the containment check. If you see anything dipping into the danger zone, yell...loudly. Preferably before it hits critical. I don't want to test out your emergency beam out protocols just yet."

"Yeah, it probably wouldn't work if there's no ship to beam back onto. Besides, I think the transporters are offline too," Teyo added as he moved over to the diagnostic console. The screen flickered on and off as he attempted to pull up the warp core schematics. He bashed the screen with his fist, knowing there was a fifty-fifty chance he was going to cause more damage, but he was feeling lucky. The screen stayed on, allowing him to check over the systems as requested. "Looking good on this end," he reported. "Not perfect, but we're in no immediate danger. How's the containment?"

"It'll need some minor repairs, but...it'll hold." She made a note of the repairs that would eventually be needed in the engineering logs and moved towards the antimatter injectors. "Can you start a diagnostic on the deuterium injectors while I run through the antimatter system?"

"Running," Teyo replied. He hated seeing the ship so banged up but knew that repairs of this nature were likely to keep him busy for the foreseeable future. He already felt tired thinking of all the double shifts he was going to be doing, if they survived the whole experience. "They're pretty screwed up," he reported once the computer had finished its diagnostics. "We're going to have to replace them, I'm pretty sure we have replacements in the cargo bay."

"Antimatter system is pretty messed up too, but I think it's repairable without new parts." Finn said "You go get the parts you need for the deuterium injectors in the cargo bay. Grab someone if you need help. I'm going to work on this until you get back. With any luck the antimatter injectors will be back online by the time you get back and then I can help you with the deuterium section."

"Aye," Teyo replied. He was logging out of his console when a new alarm sounded. "Oh no," he mumbled to himself, but loud enough to be heard. "I'm detecting issues with the plasma injectors connected to the secondary warp core in tertiary engineering," he reported to the Commander. "According to sensors, Lieutenant Leiko and Crewman Washington are down there." Without being ordered to, and before Keating could reply, he tapped his combadge. "Fenn to Leiko, we're detecting a major plasma buildup down there. Please tell me you're doing something?"

"Stand by," Xavier said over the comline. He sounded frantic and hurried, which wasn't surprising given the situation. Teyo turned to look at Keating, whose expression mirrored his own.

The comline came back on, but this time it was Henry who spoke. "Engineering, Lieutenant Leiko is preparing to manually redirect the warp plasma in an attempt to break the feedback loop. If that fails, we'll need to eject the secondary core."

"What?! Xav, that's risky. Are you sure it's the only option?" Finn knew he would have tried other option available. Xavier was the best operations officer she'd ever served with, but she had to ask anyway. "Maybe I can reroute it from here instead."

"All automated systems are offline," Henry replied. "We've got this. Lieutenant, the warp core pressure is at 36 megapascals and rising," they heard him report.

Teyo shot Keating another look. "If it goes above 40 megapascals, the dilithium matrix will start to form microfractures, and above 50, then we're in real trouble," he said worryingly.

"Thanks," Henry replied. Teyo could hear the sarcasm in his voice.

"Don't worry," Xavier said, "I'm nearly there."

"...39 megapascals," Henry said.

Teyo watched the readings closely. The pressure was pushing 40 megapascals and he was about to say as much when they started to fall rapidly. "He did it," he reported to Keating, a wave of relief washing over him. Before he could enjoy this new feeling, his console lit up again.

"I'm reading a massive EPS..." Henry shouted, but before he could finish his sentence, there was a bang and then silence. It was eventually broken, but the words Henry shouted sent floods of panic through the engineering officers listening in. "Medical emergency in Tertiary Engineering."

For a split second Keating didn't move. Even though she wasn't physically with the ops officers, the bang heard over the comm line felt deafening all the same. Then she snapped back into action and sprinted. "Washington, what the hell happened?!" She shouted through her comm badge as she ran, not even looking to see if Teyo was following suit.

"Finn, wait!" Teyo yelled, momentarily forgetting all about protocol. There was a heavy lump in his chest where his heart usually sat and he was trying his best to keep his composure, even if he was dying inside. "The comline has gone dead, and that entire section of the ship has lost power. Whatever happened, they did it; he saved the warp core."

Finn didn't even look back. Whatever sense of relief she might have felt over the warp core being saved was overpowered by the knowledge that something bad happened on the other end of that comline. Something that involved her best friend, and she wasn't going to wait around wondering whether or not he was ok.

Teyo hesitated. For the briefest of nanoseconds, he considered staying here, staying in the unknown. Here, in main engineering, he wouldn't have to face reality; Xavier was alive and uninjured, everything was fine. But he knew that wasn't true. At best, he was alive and he was dead, like Schrödinger's cat. There was only one way to know for sure and it sure as hell wasn't waiting here, waiting for the call. So he chased after Keating, he chased and he prayed.