An Object in Motion...

Posted on Tue Feb 16th, 2010 @ 1:00am by Lieutenant Commander Mark Anderson & Captain Benjamin Byrne

Mission: Metronian Diplomacy
Location: Main Engineering, USS Endeavour
Timeline: MD10 1409hrs

"Lieutenant Au'Beck!" called out the young ensign, as he darted across the floor of engineering with PADD in hand as the chief engineer exited her office.

"That's Lieutenant Kinu," Au'Beck (NPC) replied. "I'm Bajoran." She'd had to put up with young ensigns and crewmen who were ignorant of the Bajoran naming conventions for years, but they were still as tiresome as they were when she joined Starfleet. "What have you got for me, Jones?" she asked, noticing the combination of dismay, confusion and worry on the young officer's face, and not wanting to have to play counsellor to the man's confidence after him calling his superior the wrong name.

"Warp drive efficiency results, sir!" Jones (NPC) said, thrusting the PADD towards her.

"Thanks," Kinu replied, taking the PADD off of the young engineer with a bemused expression on her face. Giving it a quick look over, she nodded, satisfied. "Good, let's keep intermix chamber levels here for now." She handed the PADD back. "And loosen up a bit, before you strain something and make me call sickbay."

The double doors leading to the cavernous room that housed the ship's warp core hissed open, allowing James (NPC) to enter. Although he had seen the room when he toured the ship with his father, its size always seemed to amaze him. He tilted his head back to gaze at the ceiling above, noting the intricate circuitry and conduits there. Being careful not to run into anyone or anything as he moved toward the "pool table", James continued to look around in awe.

"Are you lost?" Kinu asked as she walked past the young man, and accessed one of the terminals nearby. She didn't appreciate having civilians on the ship, and certainly didn't approve of them being allowed to wander aimlessly into her realm of engineering.

"No, ma'am," James replied. Even though he'd spent most of his life aboard starship, his father had been the one to encourage his education by members of the different shipboard departments. As part of that, he'd learned that the best way to convince the officers he wasn't just an ignorant civilian was to be respectful.

"Then I assume you have a reason for being here?" Kinu asked, as she moved over to work on the pool table.

"My lesson, ma'am," James replied, hoping that the engineering staff had not forgotten already. He knew that things could get a little hectic aboard ship sometimes and that one of the finer points of his "program" was that it was subject to the conditions of the various departments. It was clear that, should the ship be involved in combat, James would not be participating in a lesson.

"You must be the XO's boy then," Kinu said, stopping to pay attention to the young man now that she knew he was actually meant to be here.

"Yes, ma'am," the young man replied sharply.

"How much do you know of engineering and starfleet systems then, James?" the engineer asked, as she led him over towards the warp core with a PADD in her hand. Hopefully the boy would let her know what base she had to work off with him.

James thought for a moment before answering, "I've read quite a bit during my lessons from schematics and such. My father's explained a lot of it to me and I got to see some of the systems on the Houston, but she was an Intrepid-class."

Silently pleased at the statement, with her own last ship being an Intrepid-class too, Kinu began to explain the differences between the two, from an engineering standpoint. "As you can see, the Sovereign class warp drive is a lot bigger than the Intrepid's. She was designed to counter the Borg threat, and as such has a lot of power going into offensive and defensive systems. The regenerative shielding alone required the complete redesign of the original warp core specifications to account for the power consumption of the system. The shielding was nearly scrapped until it was proven on the USS Prometheus," she explained. As they walked around towards the rear of the core, she pointed out the large rectangular power transfer conduits. "Power is fed directly to the warp nacelles through these, so that the power for the nacelles doesn't get filtered through any other systems beforehand. This means that these conduits have to be thoroughly serviced regularly - if just one of them fails, the whole warp bubble would collapse."

Nodding to show that he understood, James made a few notes on his PADD as he listened to the chief engineer explain the Sovereign engine design. "So...what sort of containment systems do they have on the Sovereign that are different than the Intrepid," he asked, looking up at the Bajoran engineer.

"The antimatter containment system has ten individual computer safety locks to prevent containment from being breached. The containment field can fall to a minimum of 8.5% before the reaction will become unstable. We also have a high strength forcefield which activates around the warp core during battle; giving us an extra layer of protection against a warp core breach. It won't stop the explosion, but it should prevent it from destroying all of the ship," Kinu explained, rattling off the specifications straight from her head.

James made a few more notes on his PADD based on her response. A bigger ship meant a bigger power requirement, which meant a larger intermix chamber. Despite these differences, the familiar pulsing of the warp core wasn't all that dissimilar from the one James had felt aboard the Houston.

"What do you know about realigning an EPS conduit?" Kinu suddenly asked, as she started to climb the ladder up the wall of Engineering towards the upper level, clearly wanting James to follow.

"I once watched an engineer aboard the Houston do it," James replied, tucking the PADD under his arm and starting up the ladder behind the woman, "It didn't really seem all that difficult to do." He stepped off to one side when he reached the top and took the PADD out from under his arm again, ready to take notes.

"Then grab that tool kit and come with me," Kinu said, pointing at a small black case before crawling into one of the jeffries tubes leading off the upper level of Engineering. She didn't like giving theoretical lessons, and would rather hand that sort of thing off to one of the chief petty officers. While she was with the kid though, she figured she might as well teach him something practical and useful.

As instructed, James grabbed the small kit and followed the chief engineer into the jeffries tube. Every time he would crawl through one of the numerous access-ways that criss-crossed every Federation starship, he noticed how much smaller they seemed. It wasn't that the jeffries tubes were getting smaller, though many claimed that they were, but that he was getting bigger. The first time he'd stumbled into one of the jeffries tubes, he had no trouble crawling through it. Now, he had to half-crawl/half-shuffle down the tube, PADD in one hand, toolkit in the other.

"You'll get used to it," Kinu said, hearing the odd rythym of the PADD and toolkit knocking along the floor and sides of the tube as James crawled. She herself, having spent what amounted to years of her life inside jeffries tubes, had developed the special kind of crawl favoured by those who visited these areas frequently, and was able to move along the narrow passage much more easily.

The pair passed through three junctions, before coming to one that Kinu led them both down the ladder through the floor. The junctions were much more spacious than the tubes to which they connected, and had enough room for ten to fifteen people to stand - albeit packed like sardines. Kinu promptly moved to and removed a panel on one of the walls to expose the EPS conduit behind it, pulsing a steady blue.

"Alright, so what's first," James asked, looking over at the chief engineer. Even though he'd seen the procedure once and read about it, he still wanted to make sure he was doing things the way she wanted them done. Every system could look the same, but different engineers wanted things done different ways.

"First, take the optronic coupler, and apply it here," Kinu responded, pointing to a fat cylindrical shaped component of the conduit, near the top. "And then here," she pointed at an identical component towards the bottom of the component. "Then the phase decompiler here," he pointed to a small cone-shaped component slightly behind the larger components, and to the right.

Carefully, James lifted the tools from the kit and began to work on the conduit, making sure to follow the chief engineer's instructions as best as he could. He did not talk or focus on anything but following the steps that she had just outlined. Once he was certain that he had everything completed to satisfaction, he said, "Like that?"

"That's it. Now take the coil spanner and adjust this here until it's at optimal alignment," Kinu said, indicating a component at the very top of the conduit. "Once that is done, then we can pack up and go."

Making the adjustment as the engineer had directed, James was surprised that the procedure had been so simple. He placed the tools back into the kit and snapped the lid shut. Glancing over at the engineer, he asked, "Is that all?"

Kinu took out a tricorder from the toolkit and ran a check of the conduit to confirm that it had been realigned correctly. "Yep, that's it. If we'd have left the job for a while though, it would have gotten more complex - the earlier you realign a bad conduit, the easier the job is."

Replacing the tools into their appropriate slots in the kit box, she closed it up and led the way through one of the jeffries tubes, which exited out directly into one of the ship's corridors, a deck away from main engineering.

As she waited for James to exit the tube himself, Kinu checked the time on the nearby wall panel. 14:39. "That'll have to do for today, Mister Anderson," the Bajoran said. "I have a meeting with one of the engineering teams in a few minutes."

"Yes ma'am," James replied, crawling out of the tube. Holding the toolkit and PADD under one arm, he used his free hand to brush off the knees of his pants. He looked over at the engineer and smiled. It had been a productive lesson, as far as he was concerned. She had told him about some of the unique features of the Sovereign-class, shown him main engineering, and taught him how to make basic repairs. "Thank you," he added appreciatively.

--------------------
Lieutenant Kinu Au'Beck (NPC)
Chief Engineering Officer
Played by: Benjamin Byrne

James Anderson (NPC)
XO's Son
Played by: Mark Anderson