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Been a while but I'm back at it, somewhat. I'm on vacation at the moment but I had a muse and Jack had class so the result was some writing. I'm not completely satisfied with it but then again I'm never completely satisfied with most that I do.
Warning: STAR TREK. Has NOTHING to do with the new movie, which by the way was fuckin' spectacular and awesome and I loved it.
For any fans who'd like to know this is set in 2367 at the battle of Wolf 359. And don't tell me that the massacre left no one but the Enterprise alive because that means you've never seen Deep Space 9. Hello, Sisko and Jake? Not to mention everyone else who managed to get into escape pods and make it out alive. Sorry, but some twit who thinks he knows it all told me no one else survived this battle and he's just dead WRONG. I like being right. Feels great.
“Engineering!” the captain's voice pierced the thick air of main engineering over the bustling officers scurrying about like ants trying to repair their hopelessly damaged hill. “Status report,” he demanded.
If I had anything new to tell you I would have already, Lieutenant Narib thought to himself but slapped his right hand to his left shoulder to respond all the same. His voice was considerably less aggravated than his thoughts, though his stress echoed through every syllable. “I'm losing the electromagnetic stability of the warp core's magnetic field, the generators just don't have enough reserve power to maintain the shields and the core's field, Captain. At the rate it's falling we'll need to evacuate the ship in fifteen minutes.”
“Unacceptable, the Borg cube is already powering up for warp and the Enterprise can't take it alone. I need those engines operational.”
Operational? Narib's mind spat the word like a curse, the damn engines are barely functional much less operational. “I understand that but if we lose containment it won't be a matter of getting the engines operational, it'll be a matter of getting the core ejected.” Come to think of it he wasn't even sure if it was possible to eject the core now that they'd sustained further damage from the escaping Borg cube.
With the comlink still engaged Narib could hear the sigh and the subsequent defeat in his captain's voice. “Power down the engines and fix that damn field.”
I could have told you that in the first place, Narib muttered internally with a scowl to the main control panel in front of him. Trained eyes scanned over the multicolored LCAR display tracing the flow speed of both the matter and antimatter streams into the warp core. Tapping the control pad he brought up the command prompts to shut the core down but was halted by the angry sounding error bleep.
The lieutenant's eyes widened as he read the display readouts and before he could do anything else his hand was slapping at the badge on his left shoulder. “Captain! We need to eject the core now!”
“Engineering? What's going on?”
I don't have time for this! “Captain the magnetic constrictors were damaged, they're injecting the core with matter and antimatter too quickly for the containment fields to keep up with, we're looking at a complete warp core breach in under fiver minutes and I can't shut it down.”
“Warning, warp core breach imminent.” The computer's unnervingly calm voice announced right on cue.
An eerie red glow lit up the right side of the Bajoran's face in a rhythmic fashion from the panel running alongside the wall displaying the status of Red Alert. For a handful of heartbeats he waited for the captain to make up his mind, a struggle that seemed to be consuming his commanding officer ever since they entered the Wolf system and the battle raging there. Fingers raced over the control panel in an effort to at least stem the flow of the twin fuel sources that were gushing into the core and hurling the Galaxy class starship into very treacherous waters.
“Eject the core, Lieutenant,” he could hear the com system switch over to full broadcast, “this is the captain speaking, all hands brace for impact and prepare to evacuate.” Again the com switched, this time back over to the lieutenant's channel. “Prepare to divert all power to the shields, Lieutenant, I doubt we'll escape the blast radi--”
“Captain, I can't activate the ejection sequence,” Narib interrupted with the discouraging news, “the system is too badly damaged.” For a long moment the engineer stared at the angrily flashing warning on the display panel in front of him, listening to the rhythmic blaring of alarms and the calm warning that their ship was about to blow itself to pieces. His mind, however, was far from idle. Every mechanical spec of the ship were running through his mind as fast as he could recall them, searching for some way to stall the inevitable if only for long enough to get most of the crew to the escape pods. His captain was already ahead of him in that regard.
“--and meet at the rendezvous point. I repeat, all hands to the escape pods, scatter yourselves and meet at the rendezvous point.”
The forward chamber holding the warp core was all but blocked from view by vented gas and the computer once again chimed in to warn them of the theta radiation danger they faced, not to mention the impending explosion once the field dropped to below fifteen percent. It was a short jog over to the blast door control panel, his voice carried as far as he could project it ordering all of his engineering staff out and to their escape pods located in the adjacent corridor. A smudged faced crewman paused to acknowledge he was the last one out.
“Lieutenant?”
“Go on, I'm going to buy us some time. I'll be right behind you.” The Bajoran could see he wasn't convincing the younger officer who then looked reluctant to leave.
“You won't last in there, sir. Not alone, anyway. What's the plan?”
Narib's brows furrowed above an equally crinkled nose but the crewman was right he couldn't do this alone. “We'll siphon off the containment field from the storage pods, it won't last but it'll at least buy us enough time to get those pods out of range.” His crewman nodded.
The pair of them entered the sweltering warp core chamber and he could immediately feel the effects of intense theta radiation. His crewman cocked his head to the side as they split out around the core. “You do know this is entirely against Starfleet regulations, right?”
The lieutenant had to give a lopsided smile at that before his fingers raced over the control panel. “I'll let them lecture me on it later. Be prepared to drain your pod's containment field on my mark, this has to be done simultaneously for it to work.”
“Warning, warp core breach imminent. Theta radiation levels approaching fatal limits.”
A shaking hand reached up to brush aside sweat from his brow in mild irritation as radiation sickness started to set in. “Computer,” Narib barked, “shut that damn thing off!” He didn't need to be reminded of the danger they were in, it was painfully obvious enough. “Yvers, isn't it?”
“Yes sir. Brandon sir.” The pair of them exchanged glances before cutting their eyes away to their respective control panels. No time to get better acquainted.
“Decrease containment at five percent increments starting at my mark and every two seconds after that until you reach twenty five percent capacity. That should hold both the core and the pods for ten minutes at the most.” He was being overly optimistic but at a time like this they could use some optimism. “Mark.”
Dialing back the antimatter containment fields around their storage pods was against regulations for a reason and it was a damn good one too. If the antimatter contained inside touched the canister itself the blast from the energy released during complete annihilation of both particles would be catastrophic. The storage pods themselves were designed with separate containment fields and generators for those fields as a precaution if the ship were to be destroyed the antimatter would be safely contained. To tamper with the fields was no small offense on a starship, however when that ship was facing a warp core breach suddenly the regulations didn't seem so absolute.
A fluctuation in the twin pod's magnetic containment field caught his attention and when he looked over he saw Crewman Yvers gripping the panel in front of him as if it were the only thing keeping him standing. “Yvers! Don't fall behind, this has to be simultaneous or we'll blow the ship right now.” He could understand how the man felt, however, with his own vision starting to swirl the control's colors together into shimmering patterns. Hallucinations were just the start of radiation sickness, but at the rate they were being exposed it was the least of their worries.
“Y-yes sir! Sorry sir, I don't know what came over me.” Yvers blinked the fuzzy vision out of his own eyes and keyed in the right sequence to match his containment field's strength with Lieutenant Narib's. “You know, sir, it's been an honor. You weren't anything like I was expecting.”
Good, keep him talking. “Oh? And what was that?”
“I dunno, more of a tight ass like the professors at the academy.” Immediately Yvers stiffened and looked like he'd been caught out of uniform on the job. “I'm sorry sir, that was inappropriate.”
Vadi smiled as he punched in the next round of instructions to the panel. “Brandon, we're soaked in sweat and theta radiation, as long as you keep decreasing that field I don't give a damn what kind of language you use. Hell, I'm about to get pretty colorful myself.”
Brandon chuckled and punched in the orders to decrease field strength on cue. “I thought the Bajoran prophets frowned on that sort of thing, if you don't mind my curiosity.”
“They probably do, but they aren't here and they'll have to get in line with Starfleet and take it up with me later.”
“Yeah, if we make it out of here,” Brandon muttered, looking as if he was about to lose his footing again.
“We will. This is going to work, we've already boosted the internal warp core field by ten percent.” It wasn't much and it certainly wasn't enough to save the ship but it was more than enough to keep it from breaching just yet. “We're almost at twenty five percent storage pod capacity, be prepared to get the hell out of here once we reach it.” I have no idea how long it'll hold, Narib thought to himself, there was no need to verbalize what they both were thinking.
“Engineering?”
The voice was disembodied and startling enough that the lieutenant forgot to hit his combadge to respond at first. “Captain?”
“The hell are you doing on this ship still? I'm getting fluctuating readings from engineering, is that you?”
“Yes sir, I've stabilized the warp core's containment field but it won't hold for much longer and it's going to take the antimatter storage pods with it.” He didn't need to ask why the captain was still on the ship. It was an old Earth custom he had read about in one of his various data books on old Earth sailing technology. Captains tended to go down with their ships and just because the venue had changed didn't mean the mindset followed course.
“Good job, but get the hell out of there. You've done enough.”
“On my way out already, sir. And...” it was against protocol but he'd say it anyway, “you should be too.”
Warning: STAR TREK. Has NOTHING to do with the new movie, which by the way was fuckin' spectacular and awesome and I loved it.
For any fans who'd like to know this is set in 2367 at the battle of Wolf 359. And don't tell me that the massacre left no one but the Enterprise alive because that means you've never seen Deep Space 9. Hello, Sisko and Jake? Not to mention everyone else who managed to get into escape pods and make it out alive. Sorry, but some twit who thinks he knows it all told me no one else survived this battle and he's just dead WRONG. I like being right. Feels great.
“Engineering!” the captain's voice pierced the thick air of main engineering over the bustling officers scurrying about like ants trying to repair their hopelessly damaged hill. “Status report,” he demanded.
If I had anything new to tell you I would have already, Lieutenant Narib thought to himself but slapped his right hand to his left shoulder to respond all the same. His voice was considerably less aggravated than his thoughts, though his stress echoed through every syllable. “I'm losing the electromagnetic stability of the warp core's magnetic field, the generators just don't have enough reserve power to maintain the shields and the core's field, Captain. At the rate it's falling we'll need to evacuate the ship in fifteen minutes.”
“Unacceptable, the Borg cube is already powering up for warp and the Enterprise can't take it alone. I need those engines operational.”
Operational? Narib's mind spat the word like a curse, the damn engines are barely functional much less operational. “I understand that but if we lose containment it won't be a matter of getting the engines operational, it'll be a matter of getting the core ejected.” Come to think of it he wasn't even sure if it was possible to eject the core now that they'd sustained further damage from the escaping Borg cube.
With the comlink still engaged Narib could hear the sigh and the subsequent defeat in his captain's voice. “Power down the engines and fix that damn field.”
I could have told you that in the first place, Narib muttered internally with a scowl to the main control panel in front of him. Trained eyes scanned over the multicolored LCAR display tracing the flow speed of both the matter and antimatter streams into the warp core. Tapping the control pad he brought up the command prompts to shut the core down but was halted by the angry sounding error bleep.
The lieutenant's eyes widened as he read the display readouts and before he could do anything else his hand was slapping at the badge on his left shoulder. “Captain! We need to eject the core now!”
“Engineering? What's going on?”
I don't have time for this! “Captain the magnetic constrictors were damaged, they're injecting the core with matter and antimatter too quickly for the containment fields to keep up with, we're looking at a complete warp core breach in under fiver minutes and I can't shut it down.”
“Warning, warp core breach imminent.” The computer's unnervingly calm voice announced right on cue.
An eerie red glow lit up the right side of the Bajoran's face in a rhythmic fashion from the panel running alongside the wall displaying the status of Red Alert. For a handful of heartbeats he waited for the captain to make up his mind, a struggle that seemed to be consuming his commanding officer ever since they entered the Wolf system and the battle raging there. Fingers raced over the control panel in an effort to at least stem the flow of the twin fuel sources that were gushing into the core and hurling the Galaxy class starship into very treacherous waters.
“Eject the core, Lieutenant,” he could hear the com system switch over to full broadcast, “this is the captain speaking, all hands brace for impact and prepare to evacuate.” Again the com switched, this time back over to the lieutenant's channel. “Prepare to divert all power to the shields, Lieutenant, I doubt we'll escape the blast radi--”
“Captain, I can't activate the ejection sequence,” Narib interrupted with the discouraging news, “the system is too badly damaged.” For a long moment the engineer stared at the angrily flashing warning on the display panel in front of him, listening to the rhythmic blaring of alarms and the calm warning that their ship was about to blow itself to pieces. His mind, however, was far from idle. Every mechanical spec of the ship were running through his mind as fast as he could recall them, searching for some way to stall the inevitable if only for long enough to get most of the crew to the escape pods. His captain was already ahead of him in that regard.
“--and meet at the rendezvous point. I repeat, all hands to the escape pods, scatter yourselves and meet at the rendezvous point.”
The forward chamber holding the warp core was all but blocked from view by vented gas and the computer once again chimed in to warn them of the theta radiation danger they faced, not to mention the impending explosion once the field dropped to below fifteen percent. It was a short jog over to the blast door control panel, his voice carried as far as he could project it ordering all of his engineering staff out and to their escape pods located in the adjacent corridor. A smudged faced crewman paused to acknowledge he was the last one out.
“Lieutenant?”
“Go on, I'm going to buy us some time. I'll be right behind you.” The Bajoran could see he wasn't convincing the younger officer who then looked reluctant to leave.
“You won't last in there, sir. Not alone, anyway. What's the plan?”
Narib's brows furrowed above an equally crinkled nose but the crewman was right he couldn't do this alone. “We'll siphon off the containment field from the storage pods, it won't last but it'll at least buy us enough time to get those pods out of range.” His crewman nodded.
The pair of them entered the sweltering warp core chamber and he could immediately feel the effects of intense theta radiation. His crewman cocked his head to the side as they split out around the core. “You do know this is entirely against Starfleet regulations, right?”
The lieutenant had to give a lopsided smile at that before his fingers raced over the control panel. “I'll let them lecture me on it later. Be prepared to drain your pod's containment field on my mark, this has to be done simultaneously for it to work.”
“Warning, warp core breach imminent. Theta radiation levels approaching fatal limits.”
A shaking hand reached up to brush aside sweat from his brow in mild irritation as radiation sickness started to set in. “Computer,” Narib barked, “shut that damn thing off!” He didn't need to be reminded of the danger they were in, it was painfully obvious enough. “Yvers, isn't it?”
“Yes sir. Brandon sir.” The pair of them exchanged glances before cutting their eyes away to their respective control panels. No time to get better acquainted.
“Decrease containment at five percent increments starting at my mark and every two seconds after that until you reach twenty five percent capacity. That should hold both the core and the pods for ten minutes at the most.” He was being overly optimistic but at a time like this they could use some optimism. “Mark.”
Dialing back the antimatter containment fields around their storage pods was against regulations for a reason and it was a damn good one too. If the antimatter contained inside touched the canister itself the blast from the energy released during complete annihilation of both particles would be catastrophic. The storage pods themselves were designed with separate containment fields and generators for those fields as a precaution if the ship were to be destroyed the antimatter would be safely contained. To tamper with the fields was no small offense on a starship, however when that ship was facing a warp core breach suddenly the regulations didn't seem so absolute.
A fluctuation in the twin pod's magnetic containment field caught his attention and when he looked over he saw Crewman Yvers gripping the panel in front of him as if it were the only thing keeping him standing. “Yvers! Don't fall behind, this has to be simultaneous or we'll blow the ship right now.” He could understand how the man felt, however, with his own vision starting to swirl the control's colors together into shimmering patterns. Hallucinations were just the start of radiation sickness, but at the rate they were being exposed it was the least of their worries.
“Y-yes sir! Sorry sir, I don't know what came over me.” Yvers blinked the fuzzy vision out of his own eyes and keyed in the right sequence to match his containment field's strength with Lieutenant Narib's. “You know, sir, it's been an honor. You weren't anything like I was expecting.”
Good, keep him talking. “Oh? And what was that?”
“I dunno, more of a tight ass like the professors at the academy.” Immediately Yvers stiffened and looked like he'd been caught out of uniform on the job. “I'm sorry sir, that was inappropriate.”
Vadi smiled as he punched in the next round of instructions to the panel. “Brandon, we're soaked in sweat and theta radiation, as long as you keep decreasing that field I don't give a damn what kind of language you use. Hell, I'm about to get pretty colorful myself.”
Brandon chuckled and punched in the orders to decrease field strength on cue. “I thought the Bajoran prophets frowned on that sort of thing, if you don't mind my curiosity.”
“They probably do, but they aren't here and they'll have to get in line with Starfleet and take it up with me later.”
“Yeah, if we make it out of here,” Brandon muttered, looking as if he was about to lose his footing again.
“We will. This is going to work, we've already boosted the internal warp core field by ten percent.” It wasn't much and it certainly wasn't enough to save the ship but it was more than enough to keep it from breaching just yet. “We're almost at twenty five percent storage pod capacity, be prepared to get the hell out of here once we reach it.” I have no idea how long it'll hold, Narib thought to himself, there was no need to verbalize what they both were thinking.
“Engineering?”
The voice was disembodied and startling enough that the lieutenant forgot to hit his combadge to respond at first. “Captain?”
“The hell are you doing on this ship still? I'm getting fluctuating readings from engineering, is that you?”
“Yes sir, I've stabilized the warp core's containment field but it won't hold for much longer and it's going to take the antimatter storage pods with it.” He didn't need to ask why the captain was still on the ship. It was an old Earth custom he had read about in one of his various data books on old Earth sailing technology. Captains tended to go down with their ships and just because the venue had changed didn't mean the mindset followed course.
“Good job, but get the hell out of there. You've done enough.”
“On my way out already, sir. And...” it was against protocol but he'd say it anyway, “you should be too.”