Wrench ... Hammer ... Bigger Hammer

Posted on Sun Feb 4th, 2024 @ 4:55am by Lieutenant Commander Peter Carter Jr & Captain Mikoto Misaka & Lieutenant JG Kromal Ezazzan & Ensign Wendy Marvell

1,632 words; about a 8 minute read

Mission: The Search

Kromal Ezazzan and Peter Carter left the conference room. =A= Carter to Quincannon =A=

=A= Yes Pete? Spanner ... Tricorder =A= Quincannon said not stopping what she was doing to talk.

=A= The blackout?! =A= Pete asked stopping at the doors to the aft lift. He had a pretty good idea what happened but wanted to be sure.

=A= The manifold was all but fused. We had to cut it out of the bulkhead, I wasn't sure if the bridge was going to hold or not with that much voltage involved. We'll have the new manifold installed shortly, well have to recalibrate it once all the relays are fixed. SLOWLY, increase the flow ... another 5% ... lock it down. =A= Quincannon said, as she spoke the lights became just a touch brighter. =A= Pencil that off the list boss. I'm heading back to Engineering. Quincannon out. =A=

Pete let out a deep sigh of relief as the lift arrived. "I can trust Tina to keep things moving. Let's get some tools and get to the computer control. You said you've seen something like this before. How bad was it?"

"On the USS Gandhi we installed a new set of junction circuits that connected the bridge with engineering," Kromal said as he moved to follow Peter closely. "When we turned it on, the entire ship went haywire, then exactly what happened here with the relays transpired there. Turned out a power surge had erupted from excess output from the warp core and it fried a few sectors of the computer core. It was a quick fix, but was heavily recorded and sent off to Starfleet for review."

As he finished, Kromal quickly tapped his combadge.

=A= Kromal to Operations, maintain damage control until further notice. Out =A=

When he was done, he side-glanced down with one eye to Peter. "I believe a power surge was caused, either by shield displacement or energy output, and it fried the relays which resulted in a direct strike to the core. If this is the case, I know how to fix it. At least, I hope I do, if your core operates similarly to an Ambassador-class - which it should since Project Galaxy was based off much from that class."

"Christ." Pete said. "They are based upon the Ambassadors yes, but there have been countless updates since then. Both technological and programming. The only thing we can do is get in there are see what we find." They exited the lift across from Engineering 10 minutes passed and Kromal and Peter were in the primary core maintenance room on deck 18. Pete cracked his knuckles as they set to work.

=A= Carter to Marvell ... =A=

=A= Yes Chief? =A= the young voice of Ensign Wendy Marvell replied quickly.

=A= Wendy I need a level 3 diagnostic on computer processing units A250 to A500, and G390 to G440. Also can you bring up a portable isolinier chip scanner. I'm in the primary core access room on 18 port side. Thanks. =A=

=A= Yes Chief. I'll ask Petty Officer Vallejo to run the diagnostic. He's a diagnostic engineer so he's best suited. I'll bring up the scanner now and lend a hand... if you want?=A= she replied her voice sounding enthusiastic and excited to be called upon.

As Pete was on his communications, Kromal produced a sonic screwdriver from his small toolkit on his belt with one hand and grabbed his tricorder with the other. Opening the tricorder, the Gorn moved to a service hatch near the core and began to pop open isolinier chip bays. He set the tricorder to the proper function and scanned, grunting.

"Yep," the Chief Operations Officer confirmed, "I detect the residue of an energy cascade here. We're going to have to check each bay for bad chips. I think I was right about my hypothesis."

=A= You heard the overgrown lizard Wendy. This is a bigger job than we thought. Get up here as quick as you can. Out. =A=

A few moments later, the young Ensign arrived carrying a box with the scanner in. In her other hand she had brought an Engineering toolkit. "I'm here Chief," she said as she held out the scanner for him.

"Thanks. Check these over." Pete said handing Wendy a fist full of chips. "Did Vallejo give you an idea on how long for that analysis?"

Wendy took the chips. "He said about two hours. There's a lot for the computer to run through," she replied. She clicked open the scanner box and set it up on the floor. She began to run the chips under the scanner. "Some of these are coming back as burnt out and corrupted," she said.

"Kromal, it seems your theory is holding water." Pete said pulling another access panel to view another bank of isolinier chips. "Another dozen atleast." He sighed. "I'll go get a tray of replacement chips." Pete said handing Wendy another handful of chips before stepping out of the room.

Two piles were forming next to the scanner. One of them was a pile of burnt out or corrupted chips, the other was of perfectly operational ones. The pile of 'bad' chips seemed to be growing larger than the other as Wendy continued to scan.

The Gorn was busy adding to the pile as he worked his own bay. He was now on the third bay, grabbing replacements as necessary and using his own scanner to find corrupted chips. It was an extremely tedius task - but a necessary one.

"We are extremely lucky," remarked Kromal softly as he continued his work. "Had the surge fried the entire computer, there would have been nothing stopping a warp core meltdown. We'd all be dead right now."

"Maybe." Wendy replied not looking up from the chip scanner as she continued the job. "The containment fields do have redundancies built in. I'm not sure about Ambassador Class ships, but the secondary computer core in the Engineering hull can take over most functions. It does that when we separate the saucer," she said. She then looked up at the Gorn. "Sorry, I didn't mean to come across as a know it all..."

"Your not. You're thinking out loud, and we need that at the moment." Pete said carrying in two trays of replacement isolinier chips. "I hope I brought enough." Pete said under his breath.

"Ah! I was running out," Kromal said, grabbing the necessary replacements as he went back to work. "And no, Ensign, you did not offend me. If I were offended by advice or opinion, I'd not be a good leader."

Time passed slowly. They were working in almost silence when Carters commbadge chirped =A= Vallejo to Carter, I finished the analysis you asked for. It's not good sir. Almost half of those processors are damaged, and a third are totally dead. I'd suggest all of them be replaced the next time we reach a Starbase. I'm sorry sir, I know that's not the response you were hoping for. =A=

=A= It's okay Dominic, you just confirmed my suspicions is all.=A= Pete said looking at Kromal who nodded in agreement. =A= Shift what you can to the secondary computer core. What is handled by those processors units? =A=

=A= Aye Chief. It'll take a while to route some of the ODN pathways. Luckily it wasn't any of the major systems in those banks however the secondary core can handle most of the functions for now. Just dont be expecting holodecks to be working. It'll take an hour to transfer things over. =A= Vallejo replied.

Pete laughed. =A= No worries Dominic. Get on it. Let me know when you're finished. Thanks. =A=

=A= Carter to Quincannon ... Tina talk to me. Where do things stand? =A=

=A= At the moment, the damage could be worse. We've got the starboard nacelle back online the portside will need more attention. We can't access the plasma injector until the radiation is vented though. As far as everything else is concerned, we can have most of the primary systems online within the next day. =A= Tina's voice replied quickly. She sounded tired or stressed, it was hard to tell over the comm.

=A= How is the main sensor array? =A=

As Pete and the rest communicated over commbadge, Kromal continued his tedious yet fulfilling efforts of replacing bad chips. he was halfway done as the request for information on the sensor array went through. He minded his business as he kept trudging along, tail lazily sliding across the floor as he practically laid on it to manage the height necessary to work on the slots he was near.

=A= Main sensory array is offline. Commander Sonak launches several sensor probes to provide a 'net' so we at least have some sort of eyes. At least until we can get the main array back online. =A= came the response from Tina. =A= Quite the imaginative suggestion from a Vulcan...=A=

The Gorn huffed as he finished four sections, moving to the fifth. He grumbled something about "tedious work" but otherwise remained quiet.

A few more hours passed, chips were checked, chips were replaced, and other repairs were made. Pete yawned heavily and all of a sudden the lights brightened in the control room. "Somebody hit the right button ... "

=A= Quincannon to Carter ... I don't know what you did but the mains are back online. On backup power, but online. =A= Pete looked around at Wendy and Kromal both shrugged. =A= Us either but we're not going to knock it. Start a shipwide level 2 diagnostic. I'll be down as soon as we confirm things here. =A=

=A= Roger that boss. Quincannon out. =A= the comm closed. Another hour and everything checked out in the control room.

To be continued....

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