From: Katie T (kayteese_at_gmail.com)
Date: Fri Apr 20 2007 - 07:48:24 PDT
=/\= "Let's Get to Work" (Continued from Ranjani's "Opening of the Curtain") =/\= Location: SFA Stardate: 2.70420.1456 Scene: Holodeck (Engineering section) The EVA suit was confining. Especially the big, bulky gloves made working difficult because you could never be sure that you would actually touch the spot you were aiming for. Despite this difficulty, Cadet Eugenie LaGrande had managed to coax her tricorder into cooperation. The scan results were only partially encouraging: no atmosphere, hardly any energy reading, no life signs. Luckily no *hostile* life signs, either. Just a dark hulk of metal floating in space, awaiting the verdict whether it would merit the designation "ship" once again or be downgraded to "debris". Ginny and her class mate, Cadet Cochrane Stephens, had each taken up position at one of the dark consoles. After a quick check they had popped open access panels underneath and spent a couple of moments crossing various wires. Sparks erupted from between Ginny's hands and scorched her EVA suit. She cursed lightly just as Cochrane let out a satisfied cry. "I've got power!" In his excitement he straightened too quickly, and the momentum lifted his body several inches off the floor. "Don't get all light-headed," Ginny laughed and pulled him back down to her side. The console glowed faintly but clearly didn't have enough power yet to start up fully. Cochrane dove back down amidst the wires. Now that he knew which were the right ones, he hooked up his tricorder and transferred power from the instrument's energy cell until the console finally came to life. Her earlier first quick look around her surroundings had made Ginny think that they were aboard an old Vulcan vessel, but the panel in front of her now showed Ferengi characters. That was quickly changed by the touch of a few buttons, but while she made the adjustments the colors already started to dim again, as if the energy was bleeding away too quickly. Ginny used her own tricorder to monitor the energy flow. "The main power grid was severely damaged," she said thoughtfully. "Looks like it was fried during a system overload. But there's an auxiliary grid that should be in better shape." "Hang on," came Cochrane's muffled reply as he dove deeper into the mesh of wires. A moment later, several consoles to their left and right lit up. The male cadet stood up, slower this time. "There, that should do it for now." "Perfect," Ginny nodded. Together they tapped the auxiliary power supply and found it sufficiently stable to be able to activate life support. A faintly hissing sound could be heard as atmosphere started to fill the room. Lieutenants Halois and Sevlock watched from a small distance, the latter smiling to herself while the former kept an entirely neutral expression. "Well done," Halois commented and reached for the fastening of her EVA helmet. "I'll be very glad to get out of this suit." "Me too," Ginny sighed and reached for her own helmet. Her left ear had started itching several minutes ago and she longed to be able to scratch it. Suddenly Cochrane frowned. "Wait!" he commanded, quickly tapping away at the console. LaGrande shot him a questioning look. "That was too easy," her class mate replied in a whisper, forgetting for a moment that the suits' comm system would carry his words to all three officers, no matter their physical distance. "There," he said a moment later. "I got partial internal sensors going, and there's a hull breach on this deck, right outside those doors." He pointed into the darkness. Everyone turned the way Stephens indicated, and their combined helmet lights showed a set of large double doors which were partially open. Behind them, one could just make out a ragged edge of metal, and the dark expanse of endless space beyond. A lone star twinkled in the blackness. "Wonderful," Ginny muttered, then turned back to Stephens. "Are there more hull breaches or just this one?" He shrugged. "I think it's only the one, but I only have partial sensors, so I can't be sure." "Can we erect a force field?" "We don't have enough power for that." "What if we just close the door?" "You want to take responsibility for that it *stays* close and sealed?" Mutely, Ginny shook her head no. They started at each other, racking their brains for options. Then they both came up with the same solution. "Portable generators!" Methodically, they began to search the room, Ginny moving in one direction and Cochrane in the other. They opened every panel and looked into every nook and cranny. They found a vast assortment of tools, from hyperspanners and isometric valve replacers to old-fashioned hammers and screwdrivers. Most of it looked like it had been searched, been taken out and tossed back in as worthless. In Ginny's opinion this corroborated her impression of the old Vulcan vessel having been "appropriated" by Ferengi. The cunning merchants were not known to have a passion for engineering, so when the ship was damaged by whatever force and seemed beyond repair, they had probably packed up everything that seemed of value and simply abandoned the now useless vessel. After much searching they finally found a small portable force field generator which looked to be in working order. A cautious closer inspection of the hull breach revealed that the generator would not be able to create a force field big enough to cover the breach, so they decided to use it to protect the door to engineering instead. Once they had more systems up and running and a stable power supply, they could see about actually sealing the breach and any other ones which might be discovered later. Eighty minutes after they first set foot on the ship, the cadets finally deemed it safe to remove their helmets and peel off the confining EVA suits. Ginny stumbled when she removed the second pant leg and braced herself for the fall, but instead suddenly found herself floating horizontally. "Right," she grinned, trying to propel herself over to a laughing Cochrane to elbow him in the ribs. "Should we make gravity another priority or will it be more fun to *fly* around while we take care of lights and all the other essentials?" =/\= NRPG: Hi everyone, I'm thrilled to be back in the FRPG! My Trek writing is a bit rusty but should improve as I get more practise again. I tried not to make things too complicated, but not too easy, either. Leigh, I hope I left you enough to work with! =/\= Katie T. Cadet Eugenie LaGrande ACT Candidate Class 0703 Starfleet Academy From HyperNews_at_youth.net
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