Repairing the Freighter - Part 3

Posted on 08 Jun 2024 @ 1:56pm by Lieutenant JG Christina Hartley & Captain Bane Plase

1,232 words; about a 6 minute read

Mission: Enigma Variations
Location: Freighter

With the problem of the self-destruct sequence now fixed, Christina led the way back to the main engine room. A part of her wanted to shoot Lisald Vaat for messing around with a computer system when he wasn’t focused on his work, but that didn’t matter right now. She’d speak to him later.

She understood his feelings; she still blamed herself for the Antioch mission, and of course, she still blamed herself for the lives she had taken during the brief period when she was assimilated by the Borg, during the Federation Day events.

Still, now comms were restored, she had a duty to perform, and that was to repair the ship. Soon as communications had been restored, she’d gotten back in contact with Lucas and Melissa, who had been panicking at the loss of contact.

As Christina entered the engine room, she looked at the gathered team. “Alright people, one emergency resolved, now we have a second to sort out. We’ve got to finish the repairs, and we’re about ready. Adam, have you finished your scans on the EPS relays, so we know what they’re supposed to look like and how they work?” Christina asked.

“Yeah, I managed to deal with that not long after you left,” Adam replied. “Is Frank gonna be okay?”

“Sickbay messaged me a couple of minutes ago; he’ll be needing some rest, but he’ll be fine,” Christina replied.

“What the hell happened?” Amy asked.

“I’ll let you all know later. Right now, let’s focus on this task, shall we?” Christina suggested. “I think we’re about ready to go, right?”

“Yeah, we’re ready,” Erin confirmed. “I’ve got the transporter enhancers set up in the entire area, and Lucas and Melissa have confirmed they’re ready to get a lock on.”

“Alright then, well, let’s hope our daring rescue quota isn’t limited to one a day,” Christina said. “Hartley to Michaels; we’re ready here,” Christina said.

=/\=Activating transporter replication system=/\= Lucas said. =/\=Beginning lock on for the first EPS relay. You have the power system rerouted?=/\=

“No, I thought we’d leave the power flowing so we all die,” Christina remarked, rolling her eyes. “Let’s get this started.”

=/\=Alright, locking onto the first system,=/\= Lucas said.

“Signal lock confirmed on this end,” Erin reported. “Detecting the activation code going through the transporter relays.”

=/\=Locking onto relay, waiting for confirmation of accurate lock,=/\= Lucas reported from the Cygnus, before starting a five second countdown. =/\=System lock confirmed, energising transporter.=/\=

=/\=Activating replicator system,=/\= Melissa said. Christina watched as the EPS relay was bathed in what looked like transporter energy, but to the naked eye, that’s all that happened. The sensors showed a different story, however. They showed the old part being removed and replaced with a new piece at the same time, with the replicator system also using the transporter to fuse the new part to the old.

“It’s working,” Christina said, grinning as the energy pattern moved swiftly down the EPS relay junction, one section after the other.

“It’s a thing of beauty, Chief,” Amy complimented, as the engineers were embracing one another in hugs around the engine room, as the EPS power relays and junctions were being replaced instantly.

It took them just under three hours to replace every EPS junction, relay, and conduit on the ship with the new device, though as they finished, Christina was sent a report by Lucas.

“Okay, so we have a problem; we’re going to need to completely replace the transporter pad, and the transporter circuits for the cargo transporter pads,” Lucas said, having beamed over to the freighter. “We’ve also got to replace the power coil for the cargo transporter. I don’t think we’ll be able to do this on a regular basis.”

“We can’t, but we can send this to the Daystrom Institute. Fairly certain they’ll make it work for Utopia Planetia Shipyards,” Marcus said.

“They’ll call it the Christina Hartley Construction System,” Amy teased.

“Come off it, I do not need anything like that,” Christina replied, rolling her eyes as Melissa arrived, with a case of soft drinks. When the engineering team had succeeded at something big, they liked to celebrate a little.

“You deserve it though. This whole thing only worked because of you,” Melissa said.

“That’s bull, and you know it. It was your idea Melissa,” Christina pointed out, taking her glass bottle of soda. “And Lucas was the artist who made it work.”

“Yeah, but you designed the main power system, without any real prep time,” Lucas said.

“Not really; I mean, the design idea was something I’ve been working on for a while, but you’ve all been chipping in. It was based on the design we’ve got in the engineering meeting room,” Christina said.

“So, I will submit these results to the Daystrom Institute, but this isn’t my victory. It’s ours. The engineers of the USS Cygnus pulled this off together,” Christina said. “To the Cygnus Engineers!”

“The Cygnus Engineers!” the cheer repeated around the room, just as Christina tapped her comm. Badge. “Hartley to Bane,” she said.

From the bridge of the USS Cygnus, Captain Bane tapped a control on his armrest of the Captain's Chair. "Go ahead, Lieutenant." He said it a bit more curtly than he intended, but the ship was about to go to warp with this freighter in tow, and half the systems on his ship, and almost all of the systems on the Freighter, were fried. Add into the fact they could only engage at low warp, caused Bane to be a bit more frazzled than he cared to admit.

"You'll be pleased to know, sir, that the Freighter's entire EPS relays and manifolds have been completely replaced. Once we've finished shoring up the warp core, the ship will be able to maintain its own structural support field," Christina replied.

The Captain was surprised. He knew Christina had been working on something on the Freighter, and knew it required considerable power. However, how she managed to replace a huge vessels entire EPS relay system and the manifolds stunned him. As an Engineer himself, he had done some back-of-the-napkin math and figured it would take months to do that, at a shipyard, no less. Christina and her team had managed to do it in hours in deep space. "I look forward to the debrief on this mission, Lieutenant. You have a complete workup for the work you did and how you did it?"

"Yes sir, I do. To cut it short, we were able to join the transporter and replicator, and used that to beam out the old and replicate the new in the same place," Christina replied. "It's gonna take some time to refine the system better, but it worked."

Plase nodded. "Good work, Lieutenant. Bane out."

Christina smiled at the engineers as the channel closed. "Alright, let's finish these sodas, shore up the warp core, and get back to the Cygnus," Christina said, taking a sip of her drink.

Damn, it felt good to do something right.


A concluding JP by

Lt. JG Christina Hartley
Chief Engineer
USS Cygnus

&

Captain Bane Plase
Commanding Officer
USS Cygnus

&

Engineering Miracle Workers
As played by Christina Hartley

 

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