Pod Bay Doors

Posted on 17 Dec 2017 @ 9:10am by Ensign Quinn Mackie & Lieutenant JG Dean Winchester & Lieutenant JG Catherine Cooper

2,262 words; about a 11 minute read

Mission: Crossing Over
Location: Deck Twenty-Three
Timeline: MD4 || 1000 hours

Again with the crazy assignments. Quinn stared at his PADD in disbelief. "Escape pods?" he muttered. Why did they have to check the escape pods. The ship was only a month old and the command team wanted the Escape Pods checked? Not only that, he had two members of security paired to him for this assignment, having to check all of the escape pods on Deck 23. Sighing, Quinn tapped his badge. "Ensign Mackie to Lieutenants Cooper and Winchester. Please meet me on Deck 23, in Section 4."

Winchester, hearing the page, started to walking to make his way to deck 23. Along the way, he tapped his nadge and said, "Winchester to Quinn, whats this all about?"

Quinn tapped his badge, replying, "Looks like we've been assigned inspection duty," he replied to the Lieutenant.

Cooper caught the call and made her way to Quinn, "Cooper to Quinn acknowledged, what's going on?"
She wondered, it couldn't be anything serious elsewise there'd been an alarm of some sort. At least usually there was.

The ensign tapped his badge again, having just closed the channel to Winchester. "Inspection duty, ma'am," he replied to the Lieutenant. He felt very odd giving two lieutenants orders, but he'd been ordered to work with them. It was just his job to get them to Deck 23, and then just make sure it got done. Hopefully the three could just work as a team without anyone pulling unnecessary rank.

Cooper did a mental sigh, it wasn't her favorite thing but at least no one was on fire, "Understood, on my way. Cooper out."

Arriving at his destination, Winchester, irritated, said, "What do you Need"?

Cooper arrived a few moments later, nodding a greeting to Winchester she then rubbed her hands together briefly, "Right, you got the ball rolling so what's the plan?" She looked at the Ensign from Operations, her voice kind and then waited. She didn't know him well but while she tended to be careful about assuming what Ensigns knew she also didn't assume they were stupid either. She remembered being an Ensign all to clearly, though that might be a bad example since she recalled a great more mistakes than she'd seen the ones on the Black Hawk commit.

Quinn possessed only a single PADD with orders, so he held it out for Lieutenant Cooper to view. "Seems our senior officers have assigned us to inspect the escape pods on this deck. I know all three of us were on the previous Black Hawk, and there were three pods that apparently were inoperable that day due to faulty maintenance. Seems the Captain wants us to be ready for anything." Including the loss of another Black Hawk.

Cooper bent to look and listened as the Ensign informed her as to details. "Fair enough, so what you thinking?" She smiled at quinn and waited. She knew what she would do. She'd divide each section so each of them had so many to check then when they were done flip them around for a double check. Though she never passed on a learning opportunity for an Ensign and he may come up with a better plan so she waited.

"There's thirteen pods on this deck," Quinn answered. "Two clusters of four, and one cluster of three. Regulations state that inspections must be done with a minimum of two people, in order to confirm that the inspection is correct. So, we might as well stick together. We can, however, divide up tasks. One person to run diagnostics on the on-board computer, another to check the supplies, the other to check the integrity of the seats."

Cooper nodded, it was well reasoned, "If we have the time I'd like a buddy check as well. Still divide up the tasks but when done change up and have someone else do a quick double check before moving to the next cluster. It'll slow things down a bit but then we'd be very sure there won't be any preventable issues." She remembered the chaos of the evac all to clearly, as boring as this was it was vital. After all it was one of those things that you didn't need...until you did and when you did it was major. Her tone was of a colleague offering a suggestion and she waited to see what the others thought. It was rather nice being able to make a plan while not being shot at or dealing with being shot at.

"Of course," Ensign Mackie confirmed. "These are all simple checks really. No task should take more than five or ten minutes per pod."

Catherine smiled, her mind always working she had a suggestion ready, "Sounds like a plan, You want every first system, I'll take second and Winchester third? Unless you've got something more efficient from your secret bag of ops tricks?" She asked, joking gently but meant the question honestly, her suggestion was more to give them a way to start than because she was wedded to the plan. Could be Ops had a better idea, whatever was fine. She was eager to get moving once they had a plan though, she was doing her usual trick of playing complicated music in her head to help slow her down but that still didn't mean she was fond of standing around once there was a path to follow.

Quinn had brought a toolkit with him, which he set next to one of the hatch covers. He opened it and withdrew a tool that looked like a clamp on a wand. "This is a torque sensor. Just attach it to a belt ring and pull. Keep an eye on the gauge. Anything under three hundred means that the belt will have to be replaced. As for the supply checks," Quinn pulled out a tricorder. "This tricorder has already been preloaded with a supply checklist. It covers thruster fuel, air, rations and electrical systems. A simple sync with the pod's computer system will provide gauge readings, but a localized scan will reveal if the gauges are incorrect."

Cooper nodded, "Right straight forward enough, do you want to torque or check list then?" She said holding out a hand for either one, it actually didn't matter to her which one she got. It all had to be done.

"I'll start with the computer diagnostics," Quinn said, surprised that the lieutenant had forgotten about the reason why there were three people assigned to this task. "Unless you'd rather do the diagnostics, in which case, I'll handle the torque."

"I can take the torque, let's get through round one and then we can do the double check." She smiled and took the torque sensor, preparing it for use.

Quinn then handed the tricorder to Winchester before moving over to the computer interface to begin the diagnostic.

Cooper hooked the torque sensor to the nearest ring and began to pull, "You know this could make a great workout, improve your biceps and make the ship safer." She pulled steadily watching the gauge, making a mental note to add more resistance training to her workout regime.

"Unless you develop superhuman strength and yank out the restraints," Quinn remarked, watching the small screen, and confirming prompts as he saw them.

"That would sort of epic" Cooper replied, stifling a grin as an image of her going 'hulk' and running amok. The first ring passed so she moved on to the second, "Hows Ops feel about the New Hawk?" She asked conversationally as ahe pulled on the sensor checking the read on the screen.

"She's newer," Quinn answered. "Daily maintenance isn't nearly as much as the old girl, but i never expected there to be this much work outside of a shakedown. We're still fine tuning all of the little things, even the height of the carpet on some of the decks."

Cooper glanced over, "Really? Carpet height?..." Then she thought about it, "Well we did get her brand new I suppose. Still, and I mean this sincerely, I am glad carpet trimming and all those details are done by those who are good at it and not me...". Another ring passes the check so she continues to move from one ring to another, "Still I guess you get to sort it how you want it, seems like that'd be handy..." Mutters something, as she gets to a ring that doesn't pass the test, "This ring isn't holding up." She noted.

"That's where the tool kit comes in," Quinn said, handing her the portable chest. "There's a few spare rings inside, as well as a couple wrenches and spanners. Should be enough to take care of it."

"For me? You shouldn't have." She joked, "So easy a tact can do it, Federation Do It Yourself repair kits...". She took it from him with one hand and put down the sensor before rifling through the kit for the parts she needed, "These rings remind me of this game my Gran liked to play with us..." She said first setting some kind of screwdriver against the defunct ring to work at unscrew the bolts. "You had to toss these rings onto a stick she put in the yard. No electric parts or anything, was weird but fun...."

"Like horseshoes?" Quinn asked, looking back to the computer and adjusting the parameters of the diagnostic. "Mind if I ask you where you grew up, Lieutenant?"

"I think it was kinda like that, it seemed to be a larger version of this game where you threw little rings over small bottles at faires and such." She said giving a little grunt of effort as she secured the new ring and checked it before moving on, "And no not a problem, grew up in a cabin in Oregon in North America, Earth. We'd go into town to visit and get whatever we needed but we had acres of woods as our backyard, along with a few other families who liked a bit of space." She smiled at the memory, "Great running room as it were, yourself Ensign?" She asked genuinely interested in others.

"Grew up on Earth," Quinn said to the Lieutenant, not wanting to go too much into the specifics. "I really enjoyed camping, hiking, kayaking. Most people thought I was crazy, trading the outdoors for spaceships. For me, I just enjoyed the idea of an adventure, not knowing where I'm going."

Cooper nodded as she moved to another section of rings, "Fair enough. Same here, nature was something I took to. It was quite a change to stick myself in a bottle..." She paused remembering how hard it had been and her general nature had made it even more difficult. Some she knew were amazed she'd lasted as long as she had in a ship in Starfleet. She gave a mental shake, "I wanted to serve and to protect but I wanted to be interesting about it..." she joked but she'd been determined and so focused her energy to that end. She tossed a grin over her shoulder before returning her attention to the work. "A bunch of us got a nature club going, we go for hikes, learn about alien landscapes, plants etc. You should pop in if you've an interest. We plan time on the holodeck and such, can help take the edge off."

Quinn smiled in reply. Despite the monotony of this task, he was enjoying getting to know the crew of the Black Hawk. That knowledge was going to come in handy in the future, but that was for another time. "We should do that."

"Dates are in the ship calendar...." She replied in her usual friendly fashion as they continued to work through the vital but boring task of ensuring safe escape pods.

Quinn smiled as a reply just as the computer announced a three-tone chime. "Diagnostic's done," Quinn announced. "Looks like this pod's in good shape. You done there?"

Cooper nodded, "All set. Second verse same as the first..." She quipped, "So we'll finish this set and flip before heading to the next section." She rubbed her eyes, putting the equipment down a moment to stretch out the kink in her shoulders from pulling and repeating with the torque device. "I don't do this I'll end up like Quasimodo..."

"How about we trade?" Quinn offered. "I'll do the rings on the next pod. You do the diagnostics. Deal?"

"Fair enough, it's a good work out. Not sure how much you Ops boys get..." She said in gentle humor handing him the torque device.

"There's a reason why you don't see us," Quinn said, exiting the escape pod and moving onto the next. "We're always in a Jefferies Tube tweaking something. Nothing builds your upper body strength like laying on your back and holding tools and EPS relays over your head for an hour."

Catherine paused in what she was doing briefly and looked at him looking thoughtful a moment, "Suppose that's true enough. I sense a cross departmental iron being competition, just for fun you understand..." she said lightly with a smile before turning back to the diagnostics. She had a small competitive streak and always loved challenges besides she always was happy to try to figure out how to make routine...well less so. Hence the Nature Club for example.

Such a competition sounded interesting, alas, duty came first. The work continued into the next pod. Given the small amount of pods on this deck, it was safe to say the three officers would be working into the lunch hour before finally finishing up.

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