Fixing the Air Conditioning

Posted on 05 Dec 2024 @ 6:34pm by Captain Bane Plase & Lieutenant JG Kaelyth Solmarr
Edited on on 05 Dec 2024 @ 6:34pm

5,575 words; about a 28 minute read

Mission: Stranded

ON:

Impulse Reactor Control
USS Cygnus

Pain. It was the only sensation for a very long time. Burning agony that twisted through every part of his body. This pain was a known quantity. The Unraveling. He had burned out too much of the Shaelyth in his attempt to help Stovek repair the valves. Of course, he had known this would be the result when he had volunteered, but he also knew that he had to do it.

This all brought him to the secondary sensation of pain. This was also a burning sensation, but different. This was localized to the arm which had held the plasma torch in the crawlspace. While he had indeed absorbed a good bit of the heat from the torch, that had not saved him from damage completely. He had also known that this would be the outcome.

Using the undamaged prosthetic arm, Kaelyth pushed himself upright, realizing now that he had been moved. He was no longer laid out above the crawlspace where he had collapsed after the task had been completed. Apparently, at one point, he had indeed been unconscious, and someone had moved him to a corner where he had been leaned.

"Please remain still, Lieutenant," a soft, female voice coaxed.

Wait, there had been only three here, all male. He opened his eyes to assess the current situation as much as he could through the searing pain. It was difficult, but he focused on the woman knelt before him. He did not recognize her, but she wore medical blue; and he could hear a tricorder humming. "Where... is... Stovek...?" he managed to ask through the waves of pain that flowed through his body.

Nadia DeVayne looked up at the lieutenant. She was amazed that he was not more badly damaged than he was. Ice blue colored eyes with tiny ribbons of gold-and-silver looked back at her, and she could see pain etched deeply into the features and shining in the eyes. She frowned slightly. "He was taken to Sickbay, Lieutenant. Now please be still."

Kaelyth nodded, not having the strength to fight her and to fight the pain. He, therefore, chose to fight the latter. Besides, Stovek was now in good hands. And McConnor had not been near enough to have been harmed, so he had likely gone off to help elsewhere. In fact, Kaelyth reflected belatedly, McConnor was likely the one who had moved him. He would have to remember to thank the man later.

The arm had very bad burns, and Nadia had to run the tissue regenerator for several long minutes before she could even begin with the dermal regenerator. Finally, she looked up at Kaelyth. "Your arm is healed, but you still don't look well. I don't have access to your file, so--"

He took a breath and cut her off gently. "The rest... will be re... remedied by... infusion," he told her through more pain. Lifting the undamaged prosthetic arm, he took the injector and clips from his jacket pocket. This was the supply he always carried just in case of such emergencies. Of course, he never could have expected this level of emergency, but he had learned long ago to be prepared. The unfortunate part was that he carried only enough for one full infusion. Once she used this, that was it until he could retrieve more from either his quarters or one of the silver cases he had stashed throughout the ship.

Nadia looked at the alien device and the tubes filled with gold-and-silver liquid. The device vaguely resembled a hypospray, and the tubes could be likened to clips for one. She took them from his grip. "Infusion?" she asked

Kaelyth nodded painfully. "Yes. That..." he indicated the Shaelyth in the tubes, "needs to be... injected."

Nadia frowned again. Normally it was she who told the patient what needed doing, not the other way 'round. "All of them?" she asked with some shock. If this was medication, it was a lot of it!

Again, Kaelyth nodded slightly. "Yes... please..."

Nadia hesitated for a second then inserted the first clip and pressed the device against his upper arm (the arm she had just finished repairing). Within seconds, he seemed to relax just a tiny bit. And the eyes... she noted that there was now more of the gold-and-silver ribbons in them. Was that normal for him? She would need to look up his file when this was all over.

She continued through the other four tubes. With each injection, he became more relaxed and looked less pained, and his eyes took on more and more of the gold-and-silver until they were entirely the color of the liquid she had injected into him. None of the ice blue remained. This was definitely something completely new to her, and she would not only be looking up his file but having a very long chat with him... after this mess was over... if they survived it.

Now fully infused, Kaelyth felt his muscles relax, not having to fight against the agony any longer. His strength was returning, but that would take a bit longer. Burning out the Shaelyth and having it restored was always draining; he was exhausted. But he knew that others needed him. There would be time for rest later.

Smiling down at the doctor, he took the Injector and Clips from her hands. "Thank you, Doctor," he said, his voice now returned to its normal warmth. "I will be fine now. There are others who need you, and I must return to my duties."

He started to stand, but Nadia held out a hand to stop him. "I'll let you go, but only on one condition."

Kaelyth knew, or he suspected that he knew what that was, but he nodded. "Yes?"

"When we get main systems up, you come to Sickbay for a full check."

Kaelyth took a breath. Yes, he had been correct. "When my duties permit, I will come to Sickbay, Doctor," he promised.

Nadia wanted to force the promise, but she was Starfleet too. She knew this was the best she could truly ask of him. She nodded. "Fair enough."

Both stood and made their way from Impulse Control. Nadia made her way to the nearest Safety Zone to check on who might need help, and Kaelyth began making his way back to Main Engineering to both check on the chief and see where he was next needed.

Main Engineering
USS Cyngus


Ensign Monrel-Jet Orgbias murmured under his breath, frustrated, hot, tired and sticky with sweat. It wasn't widely known that Grazerites, when they sweat, it was sticky, thanks to a rather stupid evolutionary process from the homeworld. He wasn't swearing about the sweat, or being hot or tired, but rather how truly messed up the Cygnus was. Currently, he was repairing the central processing component of the oxygen reclaimator in Environmental Engineering. Lieutenant Ahmad had assigned him this task. Normally, it was a task that would be done at a repair yard for damage this extensive, but the Chief Engineer had explained to him (through slurred and slowed speech, no less) that normal operations were a thing of the past, and the Captain was desperately counting on him to get the job done. When asked about getting a hand, since even at the aforementioned yard, it would take a dozen people, the Lieutenant didn't respond back, just blinked at him. He had wondered if she were more hurt than she let on.

After working on it for more than an hour with little to show for his efforts, he decided he really did need help. He needed a whole team of people, but would settle for at least one more person. Climbing back up off his back and into the upright position, he left his tools where they were and made his way to Engineering to look for help. Arriving just a few minutes later, he spotted his immediate boss, Lieutenant Solmarr. "Lieutenant, you busy," he asked.

Kaelyth had finally made it back to Main Engineering and was preparing to go to find Lieutenant Ahmad. He did see her seated on a stool near the main console that most referred to as the Pool Table. She looked better than when he had left, but he was still sure that she needed more aid. He was about to approach and ask what she wanted him to do now when another Engineer approached him and called his attention.

Kaelyth turned to the man. "Not currently," he answered. "I was just going to see what Lieutenant Ahmad needed of me. Do you need assistance with something, Ensign?" he asked.

Ensign Orgbias nodded. "Yes, badly. The Chief Engineer assigned me to the task of repairing the oxygen reclamator down in Environmental. I've tried hard as I can to do it myself, but the task is proving impossible. The work I can do; it is the monitoring and adjusting other parts at the same time that I cannot. I just need more hands and eyes than The Creator gave me," he said, nearly in a whine. "If you are truly not busy, sir, I could really use your help."

Kaelyth felt bad for the young man. Usually such a task would have at least two engineers, but the situation they were currently in had diminished their numbers significantly. That thought brought with it a heavy feeling of sadness and loss, but he forced it back into the deep recesses of his mind so that he could focus on the task at hand.

"I am not busy at the moment," he assured. He was exhausted, but they all likely were by this point. "I will lend assistance. Please lead on."

Orgbias nodded and managed a small smile. "This way," he said, and led him back to the oxygen reclaimator. Upon arriving, Orgbias got down on his back and slid under the giant component where one of the adjustment controls were, the component itself having been slid out from its housing in the bulkhead, leaving about 22 centimeters of space between the deck and the bottom of it. The master control panel was on the top left of the component. Finally, a secondary and tertiary adjustment control panel were at the direct front, and direct back of the component. There was no way one person could adjust and align everything. It would be exceptionally difficult for two people. It would be hard for three. "Ok, Im going to adjust the secondary relay pathway by point nine milicochranes. At the same time, we need to align the master control with the secondary Coriolis Midar. Ready?"

Kaelyth positioned himself in such a way as to be able to reach all three control panels, though it would make reading them a bit more difficult; he would have to lean to see wither of the panels on the front or back of the component. Taking a moment to look at the readings on all three, he nodded unnecessarily. "I am ready," he told the ensign. This whole thing was going to be challenging to say the least with only the two of them, but they would make it work.

"Ok," Orgbias said from under the belly of the component, his voice muffled a bit by the component's blocking the path from his mouth to Kaelyth's ears. "I am going to first reconnect the main pathway directory. You should see some change on panel A," he instructed. "Let me know if there is any change."

Kaelyth almost nodded but caught himself this time. It was one of those gestures that became second-nature when interacting with other sentients, a sign that one was listening and responding to another being. But in a case like this, it was wholly unnecessary. So why did he keep doing it? Because it was an ingrained response, and he was indeed interacting with another sentient, just not face-to-face.

Shaking himself out of that random train of thought, Kaelyth looked down at the panel. Numbers scrolled up its screen from bottom to top as they had been doing before. But now, a couple of them had changed ever so slightly.

There was indeed a change. "Connection is successful. Auxiliary pathways are beginning to register." He studied the data scrolling across the screen.

Although the Assistant Chief Engineer couldn't see it, Orgbias frowned. "That seemed a bit too easy. Are you reading any surges or brownouts? Maybe intermittent powerflow? What is the data telling you?"

The ensign was correct, and Kaelyth agreed with him. It did seem too easy. He frowned at the readings. Granted, he had said that they were starting to register. And that was the key, as it turned out. As each pathway came back online, he noted several flickers in power readings along several of them. The frown deepened.

"They did appear to be working at first," he clarified. "However, as more come online, I am reading fluctuations in a good number of them." As he watched, more and more data told him that parts of the system were not getting the power they needed or were not connecting properly. "I am now seeing fluctuations in pathways alpha-seven through alpha-twelve, delta-three through delta-seven, and..." he continued to read out the pathways that he was seeing issues with as they came online and data came back to this component's control board.

"Yeah, I figured as much," the Ensign reported. "At least we are getting something, a place to start, right? Okay, I am now going to reconnect the secondary ODN interface. That one should be on screen B and D. If it shows up on both, great. If not, well, we will cross that particular field when and if we come to it. Let's hope this works..." he said, his tool coming to life as he trailed off.

"It does, yes," Kaelyth responded to the first statement, though the response was not necessary. The reference to crossing that field when they came to it caught him for a moment. He had heard 'cross that bridge', but not field, but the context told him that it meant the same thing, so he let it go for now and focused on the panels.

As the ensign worked, Panel D lit up, and Kaelyth frowned, reaching over to give Panel B a light tap to, hopefully, coax it into lighting up. Nothing happened. He swore softly in Lessanthi and made a couple of minor adjustments in hopes of remedying something here. Nothing vchanged.

"It registered on Panel D, but not on B," he informed. "I did make some minor adjustments, but they changed nothing."

"Hmmm," came the muffled reply of a man in contemplation. "Could mean one of two things. The ODN conduit is fried or fused with that particular pathway, or that the panel itself is malfunctioning. Would you run a quick diagnostic on it?"

"Indeed," Kaelyth responded, agreeing with the assessment. Shifting his weight slightly, Kaelyth input the command to run a diagnostic of the panel itself. A few moments later, the panel chimed, and he frowned. "The problem would appear to be with the ODN conduit," he informed the poor, overworked ensign. "I have made a mental note to look further into that when we have finished with this component." Normally, he would have sent some other engineer to look into that immediately, but there was a distinct lack of such help, so he merely noted it for now and added it to his list of to-do's.

The Ensign swore a few choice epithets. "If we can't get this system online, everything we are doing will be for naught," he said unhelpfully. "Ok, now we need to test the primary sub-control systems against the secondary and tertiary sub-control systems. If they aren't talking harmoniously, the system will short itself back out." The Ensign then thought about that. "Who knows, maybe that is what caused the whole system to collapse anyways, though having three sub-control groups to go out at the same time as the three primary control groups went out would be, well, one for the record books. You will have to start the process up there, sir. I will have to adjust down here as needed."

Kaelyth was no more pleased than the ensign was. And again, he agreed with the younger officer. The probabilities of that happening were... extremely high against. Moving away from the component, Kaelyth accessed a nearby terminal. Bringing up the sub-control systems on that terminal, he looked the readings over carefully. Currently, there was not much to assess so he began by first running a diagnostic on the primary sub-control system to make sure it was functioning properly, or as properly as anything was just now. Of course, it was not.

"All right, first we need to adjust the primary sub-control system so that it is as close to full functionality as we can make it from here. Then we can test the others. This will give us a stable foundation to test against," he told Orgbias. "The primary needs to be adjusted by .79."

"Aye sir," came the muffled reply. Orgbias left leg pinned down for leverage as his right leg came up so his foot was planted on the deck, and pushed off with it, going deeper under the component. "Point seven nine. Adjusting now," he called out. "Aaaannnddd...pebkak," he cursed. "Hang on, I went to far. Dialing it back. That didn't damage anything, did it," he asked after a moment of silence, where he brought it back down to the prescribed adjustment.

Kaelyth watched the readings on the terminal as Orgbias adjusted the primary sub-control. He noted the over-adjustment at the same moment that the ensign began to compensate for it. Very astute and quick, he noted to himself. "It does not appear to have," Kaelyth answered as the readings came into the correct range. "And... stop," he added to be helpful.

Ensign Orgbias stopped the instant his boss said something, both because he was told to, and because he knew where to stop. Still, it was very helpful. "Thank you. What next," he asked. This job would go a lot faster if they had more people. Still, the Cygnus was in a very bad state, and Orgbias had no way of knowing how many made it out alive, and how many lost their lives this day. He pushed the thought from his mind so he could concentrate on the task at hand.

Kaelyth watched the readings stabilize at least as much as they were going to at this stage. "Good. Now I will test the primary sub-control against the secondary," he informed the ensign. Running the scenario, he watched the readings scroll over the terminal he was still standing before. As he suspected, this too needed adjusting. "If you can do so, the secondary needs to be adjusted by .375." That was not much of a discrepancy, but it would be enough to cause a big problem if they did not get it closer to where it should be.

"Mmhmm," came the response. As the Ensign worked on adjusting the flow regulator, he asked, "Lieutenant, do you think the Cygnus will make it? Can we save her?" It was the first time the Ensign let his guard down.

As the ensign made the adjustment, Kaelyth watched the readings. The question caught him for a moment and mirrored back to him things he had thought privately. Thoughts he had pushed aside for his own mental sake. Now, however, he needed to think about them to answer the question.

But what to say. On one hand, he felt that he should give the truth as not doing so could prove hazardous in the long run. But on the other hand, he felt as though he should give hope as not doing so could prove equally hazardous, and oddly for a very similar reason. If the crew lost hope, then they most definitely would not save the ship. And the ensign very likely already knew the extent of the damage, so pointing it out now would do no good. Still...

"I think that we can keep her going, yes," he answered as a beginning. "Of course, she does need things we do not have out here, but those she can get at a docking facility. And I do think that we can ensure that she makes it to one. So, yes, I think she can be saved."

Although his immediate supervisor could not see it, he grinned big. It made him feel good that his boss thought the ship, and they, would make it back alive. That gave Orgbias a lot of hope, and motivation, to do more. "There you go, Lieutenant. I think that should do it. Would you prime the system and see if it will activate?"

Kaelyth could hear the change in the ensign's voice and smiled to himself, pleased that he had been able to give the man some hope. "I am running the scenario again." He ran the scenario again, primary with secondary sub-control. This time, they performed as they should. "The secondary sub-control seems to be harmonious with the primary. I will now test the tertiary." That test refused to complete. "The tertiary refuses to connect with the primary," he informed. "There may be a burned-out relay or two."

"Great," the ensign exclaimed. "That is something we can trace from here, and I don't have to be under this thing anymore." He tossed his tools out, each of them landing near his thigh, then he squirmed his way out and stood, grabbing his tools as he did so. "Thanks for the help," he said again, as he stepped up to the console that was not being monitored by his Lieutenant. "Hmmm..." he said, looking at his display screen after a moment. "Everything looks good in this junction. Switching to the bypass mainframe junction. Anything over there?"

Kaelyth switched the view on his terminal to the requested view. After a moment, he frowned slightly. "It looks as though we have a burned-out relay in section alpha-2 of that junction. Unfortunately, we will not know if that is the only problem until we replace it."

The ensign nodded. "Ok, I can go there and take care of that. It's terrible internal comms are still down. I will go take care of that, then meet you back here, I guess?"

It was at times like this that Kaelyth wished that he had more than one of the comms that he used from the Iytha Rhaen. Then he could hand the ensign one and they could conduct repairs more efficiently. Alas, he did not; and the Iytha Rhaen was not here. So he merely nodded with a slight sigh. "It is unfortunate, and I am sorry, but that does appear to be the way we need to operate at this point," he answered. He did make a mental note that when they returned to base, he would see about getting a few more of Iytha Rhaen's small comms just in case of such emergencies, though he did hope they would not have more of this severity.

This was Starfleet, however, so it was... likely.

Nothing more was needed to be said. The Ensign gathered up all his tools, placed them in the various pockets and holsters on his duty uniform and headed out. Less than five minutes later, he was at the section, junction and location of where he and Lieutenant Solmarr thought the burned out relay would be. Thankfully the particular junction hadn't been far from where they were; if it had been on the other side of the ship, the trek to and fro could take hours, especially with sections sealed off due to being exposed to hard vacuum, and the turbolifts being down. Ensign Orgbias took off the panel, noting that it had been warped, probably during the moment of impact when whatever hit them caused all this. Once he sat the panel down, he looked at the circuitry and conduits contained therein. Not seeing anything out of the ordinary, which was unusual considering the state of the bent panel, he pulled out his tricorder and scanned it, tapping a few commands in. Thankfully, the ship's computer core was still somewhat functioning, and they had limited auxiliary power going now, so his tricorder was able to not just tell if a system was working, or not working, but also how well it was functioning. Unfortunately, this junction was functioning at peak efficiency, so this was not the issue. It had to be somewhere else. He put his tricorder away, then attempted to put the panel back in place. Unfortunately, it would not secure now that it had been removed. He messed with it for another minute before giving up and leaning it up against the bulkhead directly underneath the now-open panel. He knew if he had done this any other time, he would have gotten his butt chewed out by both Lieutenant Solmarr and Lieutenant Ahmad. Several moments later, he reported back his findings to Lieutenant Solmarr, including the panel left open.

Kaelyth frowned. His terminal had indicated that was likely the junction where the burnt-out relay was. "Good work," he encouraged Orgbias. Normally, leaving a cover panel off like that would be cause for a reprimand, but Orgbias had given the reason, and it was sound given the circumstances they were in. He manipulated his terminal. "Then the fault must be somewhere between there and here. "I will have to test each pathway individually." A pause, and he added, "Perhaps we could make this go faster if we divided them. I will test pathways alpha-1 through mu-10, and you can test nu-1 through zeta-10 on that terminal there." He indicated another nearby panel that appeared to be working well enough for this testing.

Ensign Orgbias looked to where was being indicated, then nodded. "Aye, sir," and got to work. It was tedious, but was needed to be done. He was at pathway tango-4 when he found something. "Sir, I think I have it. Take a look?"

Kaelyth paused, having reached gamma-3. Moving to stand beside Orgbias, he looked over the other man's shoulder at the readings. That did indeed appear to be at least one of the problems. He just hoped this was not another brightly-colored bird as the supposed fault in the junction had been. "I see it. That might indeed be our problem. However, before we take a trip through the ship, test it once more to be certain that it is indeed a fault there and not a fault on this end."

The recommendation was a sound one, and one that Orgbias had not thought of himself. He was ready to make the journey, much farther this time than last, to check it out. He had learned something here, and also understood why Solmarr was the Assistant Chief Engineer. Orgbias ran the check again. Although the readings were different than last time by a substantial margin, it was still showing this was the point of failure. "I think we have our culprit."

Kaelyth nodded. The readings changing meant that there was likely something wrong on this end too, so he decided to check that while Orgbias checked the site in question. "It does indeed seem so," he agreed. "The change in why the computer thinks so, however, indicates that we may have a minor issue here as well. While you check the relay, I will run a diagnostic here."

"Perfect," the junior officer stated, heading out. It was a much longer trip this time. On his way to the probable burned out junction relay, he noticed that bodies were no longer laying in the corridor where his crewmates had fallen for the last time. Blood stains and splatters, sure, but the bodies had been removed. This was a great sign as well, and vastly improved his morale. Having to look at dead bodies was terrible. When he arrived, the panel had been blown off. He could tell from the missing panel, naturally, but also because of the scorch marks, and the massive power fluctuations going on inside the component. As before, he scanned it and found what he was looking for. It was a simple matter of removing it, first by shunting off the power to it, then using his decoupler and sonic screwdriver, then replacing it with a new relay switch, then switching out his tools for a coupler, a phase discriminator and a flux capacitor. Easy stuff.

Meanwhile, Kaelyth ran a diagnostic on the terminal and his own terminal. There did not appear to be any faults in those specifically, but he ran the diagnostic again. Same result. So he opened up the program that was used for the tests that he and Orgbias had been running and examined the code for errors. It was possible that, with all the damage, there might have been damage to the computer and thus corrupted code. Eventually, he found the tiny bit of bad code and fixed it -- it was amazing how much trouble one line of bad code could cause. He then ran the diagnostic of the two panels again. Clean again. He continued to test the other pathways now while he awaited Orgbias' return.

It was a while before Orgbias returned. Just as he stepped into the control room that he and Solmarr had been working on, the lights went brighter. He looked up in confusion, then to Solmarr. "Something you did? Oh, and I replaced that relay. It was fried."

Kaelyth looked up as the lights brightened, and the working consoles in this room all came to life. Smiling at the ensign, he shook his head. "I fear that" he indicated the lights and panels "is nothing to do with me." He turned back to the console and ran the test on tango-4 again. This time, it came up clear. "Good work again," he complimented. "I tested the other pathways, and that appears to be the only fault. Also, there was a faulty bit of code in the testing program, and I fixed that, so the tests should be returning the proper results now."

Orgbias shook his leg wildly, akin to a human doing a fist-pump to exclaim victory. "That is great! So we are able to get the oxygen reclamation system back online, then? Have you tried to reinitialize it just yet," he asked, coming up to the control panel.

Kaelyth's head tilted off to the side at the gesture which was unfamiliar, but he let it be for now. Perhaps later, he would sit down with the ensign and get to know him better, perhaps learn of his people. For now, though, he shook his head. "I have not. Since you have been the one to do much of the heavy work, I thought I would give that honor to you. And yes, it should be fine now. The pathways all tested correctly."

Ensign Orgbias was touched. When his review came up in three months, he would have to be sure to mention in it the thoughtfulness of his closest supervisor. "Thank you, Lieutenant, and I mean that." He smiled at his boss, then focused on reinitializing the system. "Plasma flow initiated," he sounded off, informing the Lieutenant what he was doing. "Power distribution rerouted," he called out. "Main systems pathways initialized.....secondary pathways online....tertiary pathways online..." he called out, each time the pitch in his voice getting higher with excitement. "And......system online! We did it," he exclaimed, both his legs now shaking wildly. "We did it!"

Kaelyth smiled kindly, warmky as was his way. "You are most welcome." He listened to the ensign read out the progress, and his smile grew with each thing that came online correctly. This was excellent! Then the ensign made that same gesture again, this time accompanying what sounded like excitement. Kaelyth understood the gesture now and could not blame Orgbias for it. If he would not have felt completely foolish by looking undignified, he might have made some exuberant gesture himself. As it was, he smiled broadly. "Yes, we did, and in record time, too, I think," he enthused. "Good work, Ensign Orgbias!"

"And to you too, sir. I could not have done this without you, seriously. So....what's next?" The ensign was clearly buoyed by the system coming back online, and the words of affirmation that they would make it out of this alive. He was clearly ready to single-handedly put the ship back together, piece by piece.

The change in the ensign from when he had first approached Kaelyth to now made Kaelyth happy. "We do seem to make a good team," he affirmed, pausing then to think on the question. "Now, we go and see what fthe Chief wants us to do next." Which was what he had been doing when Orgbias had approached him. Interesting, he had now come full circle.

OFF

Lieutenant Junior Grade Kaelyth Solmarr
Assistant Chief Engineer
USS Cygnus

&

Ensign Monrel-Jet Orgbias
Environmental Engineer
USS Cygnus

 

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