From: Leigh Rachal (cochranestephens_at_yahoo.com)
Date: Tue May 01 2007 - 07:27:33 PDT
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“Crunch Time”
Cont’d from "Countdown"
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Cochrane swiftly tapped buttons trying to re-route power away from the core.
**She is insane going up there. If that junction blows it will be the shortest career in Starfleet history,** he thought as he continued to shut down antimatter injectors.
“Hey, get out of there that junction is running too hot!”
“I almost got it,” Ginny replied as she used a magnetic joint wrench to will the joint closed.
[[Power flow will exceed maximum tolerance in two minutes.]]
Cochrane ripped off a panel near the station he was working at and used a laser cutter to fuse the flow regulator shut.
[[Power flow level reduced by 25 percent.]]
“Keep it up!” Cochrane yelled up to Ginny.
“Understood. You too.”
She strained and felt muscles she never new existed burn from the pressure. As the joint gave way, she tightened it and moved to the next one. Cochrane made his way to the other side to the warp core, located the other antimatter flow regulator, and repeated the procedure.
[[Power flow level reduced by 50 percent.]]
Ginny wiped her forehead on her sleeve and made her way down the ladder.
“Start cutting power to unnecessary systems,” she said as she descended the ladder.
“All ready on it,” Cochrane said moving to a console. He quickly scanned the ship to make sure there were no life signs anywhere but engineering. Once he determined the engineering team were the only life signs, he shut down all life support accept in engineering. Then he disabled the torpedo tubes, replicators, and holodecks. Gradually the power level stabilized as the demands lessened.
[[Power flow level with in acceptable parameters.]]
Cochrane leaned against the console and let him-self take a deep breath for the first time since the alert sounded.
“No sleeping on the job,” Ginny said coming up behind him. “We still have to get the door open so we can get out of here.”
“Yes ma’am,” he said giving a half-hearted salute. “I shut down all unnecessary systems to minimize the power demands on the core until we can make repairs. You scan the control panel on that side,” he said motioning the left side of the door.
“No problem,” she said taking a tricorder from her belt. “It appears the control circuits are fried.”
“Is that a technical term,” Cochrane smirked. “Same here,” he said closing his tricorder. Removing the cover he inspected the circuit board to see what kind he was dealing with. Then he went back through the piles of debris looking for broken circuit boards from other equipment.
“What are you looking for?” Ginny inquired.
“See if you can find something comparable to this,” he said handing her the fused circuit board. “If we find even a partial board, maybe we can patch the control panel and manually open the doors.”
Ginny joined in the search and after a few minutes that seemed hours, Ginny found part of a board from what was engineering station two. She quickly returned to her panel and used the laser to remove the damaged section and patch the gap left with the partial board. Then she used her tricorder to power the control panel.
“It appears to be working,” she said over her shoulder.
Cochrane quickly rummaged through the pile where Ginny found the circuit board and found a smaller but what he thought was functional piece and performed the “surgery” on his panel.
“I’ve got power,’ he said. “Inputting standard Starfleet emergency override codes.”
“Same here.”
After several tries, the door did release but they had to use the manual door release handles to begin to move separate the door.
“It’s not going to open all the way,” Ginny said a little annoyed and disappointed.
“Here,” Cochrane said grabbing a piece of deck railing from a pile of debris, “help me pry the door open.”
With the rail securely in place the two hopeful officers put all their weight on the end and willed the blast doors open. After several heaves, curses, and choreographed jumps, the blast doors strained open. The two ACT cadets stumbled out and rested up against the wall breathless and drained followed closely by the two instructors who had barely broken a sweat.
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Leigh Rachal
Cadet Cochrane Stephens
ACT Candidate
Class 0703
Starfleet Academy
---------------------------------
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Leigh Rachal
Cadet Cochrane Stephens
ACT Candidate
Class 0703
Starfleet Academy
---------------------------------
Ahhh...imagining that irresistible "new car" smell?
Check outnew cars at Yahoo! Autos.
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