Engineering - Day 35 - Open
Of all the sounds you wanted to hear on the first day of a new mission, screaming sirens were not one of them.
Within moments of the cacophony starting Scotty was skidding into ops at a dead run, flushed and breathless. "Talk t'me," he said, heading straight for the station at the centre of the chaos; it was being manned by one of their new transfers, a lieutenant named Miller. "What's goin' on?"
"Pressure spike in the primary coolant pipeline," Miller replied, fingers flying across the screen as he attempted to get the problem under control. "The automatic safety release valves haven't kicked in and I can't work out why."
"Tried doin' it manually?"
"I have, there's nothing-" He smacked the console in frustration. "It won't let me do it from here."
"Looks like we're doin' it th'old fashioned way," Scotty said. He clapped Miller on the shoulder. "'Mon, let's go. Frost, take over his station."
They pelted through the engineering decks at top speed, dodging around groaning machinery and panicked ensigns, taking flights of stairs four steps at a time. It was running an obstacle course, and one with no prize for coming in second.
The coolant system was clearly in distress when they reached it, even without looking at the bright red flashing warnings on the local console. The pipes were creaking alarmingly, strangely oily steam hissing from popped seals. Without a word they set to work; even working as fast as possible the process of manually releasing the pressure valves was painfully slow. They were perhaps a third of the way around when the comm started beeping frantically.
"What?" Scotty snapped.
"Chief!" Frost's panicked voice filtered through, near drowned out by wailing sirens and shouted arguments; "It's gone critical, you need to-"
And then there was nothing but light.
Within moments of the cacophony starting Scotty was skidding into ops at a dead run, flushed and breathless. "Talk t'me," he said, heading straight for the station at the centre of the chaos; it was being manned by one of their new transfers, a lieutenant named Miller. "What's goin' on?"
"Pressure spike in the primary coolant pipeline," Miller replied, fingers flying across the screen as he attempted to get the problem under control. "The automatic safety release valves haven't kicked in and I can't work out why."
"Tried doin' it manually?"
"I have, there's nothing-" He smacked the console in frustration. "It won't let me do it from here."
"Looks like we're doin' it th'old fashioned way," Scotty said. He clapped Miller on the shoulder. "'Mon, let's go. Frost, take over his station."
They pelted through the engineering decks at top speed, dodging around groaning machinery and panicked ensigns, taking flights of stairs four steps at a time. It was running an obstacle course, and one with no prize for coming in second.
The coolant system was clearly in distress when they reached it, even without looking at the bright red flashing warnings on the local console. The pipes were creaking alarmingly, strangely oily steam hissing from popped seals. Without a word they set to work; even working as fast as possible the process of manually releasing the pressure valves was painfully slow. They were perhaps a third of the way around when the comm started beeping frantically.
"What?" Scotty snapped.
"Chief!" Frost's panicked voice filtered through, near drowned out by wailing sirens and shouted arguments; "It's gone critical, you need to-"
And then there was nothing but light.