Car Wash

Posted on 07 May 2019 @ 5:51pm by Lieutenant JG Kemm & Commander Terry Walsh & Lieutenant Commander Gemma Alexander & Ensign Joe Owens & Staff Warrant Officer William Griffin & Ensign Kelly Khan

2,354 words; about a 12 minute read

Mission: The Kalisa Conundrum
Location: Shuttlebay
Timeline: MD1 || 1730 hours

Griffin strode into the shuttle bay having just gotten the authorization he needed from Captain Geisler - the whole engineering staff and most of the fighter maintenance teams, he still thought of them as his boys and girls, were hard at work on a half-dozen shuttles, panels were exposed and equipment spread around - to the untrained eye it looked like chaos, but to Griffin it looked like a well-oiled machine at work.

"Report, Mr. Kemm?" He asked as he walked up.

The crew had only been at work for half an hour or so, but the manpower was certainly making quick work of the modifications. Lieutenant Kemm had been floating from shuttle to shuttle carrying an oversized red padd in his hand upon which he maintained a rather meticulous checklist of what needed to happen over the course of the retrofitting. Having two well-organized and detail-oriented teams certainly was making the job quicker, despite how much the crew was still being affected by the bacteria. A medical team was on standby in the shuttlebay lounge where a triage center had already been set up to provide extra inoculations and treat injuries without having to work against the rest of the crew that already crowded sickbay.

Lieutenant Kemm looked up to see the tall form of the Chief Engineer approach. "We're slightly ahead of schedule, Chief," he reported before gesturing to the three Type-6 shuttles on his left. "The Shatner, Stewart and Brooks will be ready to go in just a few minutes. Their anti-proton beams were easier to install at the front of the nacelles since these don't deal with bussard collectors."

Turning to gesture towards the three Type-8 shuttles, he continued, "The Frakes, Visitor and Nimoy are proving to be a bit more problematic. We had started with an attempt to retrofit the bussard collectors, but we couldn't get the beam generators deployed in a way that wouldn't spell certain death for the shuttle pilot. We are instead mounting a particle generator to the nose of each shuttle, much like the old sensor dishes on the Constitution class."

"Hrm," Griffin mused, "that's not where I would've put it, but it should work." He stepped towards one of the type-8 shuttles, "Could've mounted 'em in the phaser emitter slots, power output's there too." The type-8's had optional phaser emitters mounted in usually covered alcoves to either side of the cockpit. "It'd probably be more work, mind you, an' take twice as long."

Nasek was deep into mounting a particle generator on to the Visitor and so didn't respond to the back and forth, though tried to listen for her name as she checked connections.

Griffin leaned over the ensign, using nothing but his eyes to scan the device mounted to the nose of the shuttle. Of particular interest to the chief were the mounting points, the nose of the shuttle was a crumple-zone, designed to cave in on impact to absorb g-stress. He noted with some satisfaction that the mounting bolts went through the nose into the superstructure below. Half experiment, half ritual, he grabbed the frame of the thing and gave it a good shake. As he had expected, it didn't budge so much as a micron.

"Good work, once these things are hooked up we'll be good to go. I'll get to work on the Frakes."

"Thank you Sir, Yes Sir." the Ensign said pleased her careful work to mount it properly met with her Chief's approval. "I'm almost done here then I can check the Nimoy."

Kemm looked at the shuttle's framework, allowing the Chief's suggestion to filter the Kelpian's previous thought process. "I hadn't thought about the phaser slots," Kemm mused, taking a closer inspection of one of the turret ports. "I have to admit, Chief, shuttles are a bit out of my expertise. I'm used to working with quite complex systems. When this is all over, I should perform a shift or two in the shuttlebay to get back up to speed on these smaller craft."

Interrupting Kemm's thought process was a Benzite Petty Officer. "Chief! Lieutenant!" he said, rushing over to the Chief Engineer. "The Stewart is ready for launch. Who do you want to fly it, Chief?"

"That ain't up to me, mister." Griffin grumbled, "I assume the flight department's got someone lined up to pilot." The chief engineer frowned, deciding that it was probably his responsibility to check up on that and tapping his comm badge.

=/\= "Griffin to Geisler, we're almost ready to go with these shuttles, sir, if you've got people lined up to take 'em out."

"We're still a bit short handed," replied Harvey. "I can spare a couple people, but you may want engineers to accompany the pilots."

"Aye sir," Griffin responded, "I'll assign people to ride along."

Ensign Kelly Khan exited the turbolift into the shuttlebay at a light jog and approached the giant Chief Engineer before she slowed to a stop and craned her neck to look up at him. "Captain Geisler sent me," she said. "Ensign Khan, pilot extraordinaire at your service."

"Thanks, Ensign." Griffin grumbled down at the pilot, "we've got three shuttles to pilot. You'll be taking an engineer along for the ride to help with the technical stuff."

"Can do," Kelly told the behemoth Engineer.

Lt. Alexander walked in wearing her standard flight suit, it had been a bit since she'd flown a shuttle but she could fly anything meant to be flown and maybe a few that shouldn't have been. She had walked in just in time to see and hear Khan talking so she merely nodded to the CEO as she stepped to the side.

Ensign Nasek stood quietly nearby having finished her work as she waited for the next steps.

"Oh, good," the tall and lanky Kelpien Lieutenant Kemm remarked as he saw the pilots arrive. "Our hull is being pitted by cosmozoans, and their waste is that bacteria that's been messing with everyone's minds. We've been outfitting our shuttles with anti-proton generators to scrub these things off of our hull. One pilot and one engineer to each shuttle. Only our Type-6's are ready to go."

Owens wasn't sure if he was needed in the aft shuttlebay but he had finish work on a door control panel that wasn't responding to anything. Afterward he entered the shuttlebay and made his way towards the group of officers, he was quietly listening while they talked.

"Ensign Owens," McCullen called to the young engineer, "you'll ride with Ensign Khan. Ensign Nasek, why don't you ride with Lieutenant Alexander. I'll go with the third shuttle - Lieutenant Kemm, I want you to stay here and keep working on the shuttles, seems to me like you've got everything in hand."

Lieutenant Kemm nodded to the tall Chief Engineer. "Gladly, Chief," he acknowledged before moving over to the Visitor to inspect the work done thus far.

Joe looked over to Ensign Khan, he hadn't spoken to her yet but didn't mind, "Not sure how much help I can be but I'm always ready to take a shuttle for a spin."

"Why, are you a pilot?" Kelly asked the Engineer who had spoken to her.

"I figured I could learn on the job or at least press random buttons and hope I don't wreck us, but I suppose for safety I should leave the flying up to you then." Owen replied.

"That's probably smart," the petite woman said. "You'll be too busy scraping space borne goo beasts off the hull, anyway. I'll handle the shuttle and anything else that flies."

"True, just don't crash us is all I ask for." He said.


Ensign Melvaur, the young Vulcan fighter pilot, came into the shuttlebay and approached the gathering group. "I have been assigned to this detail if there is need for another pilot."

"There is," Griffin replied, approaching the young Vulcan. "You'll be with me, Ensign. We'll take the Stewart."

The chief engineer turned to address the shuttle bay at large, allowing the volume of his voice to rise until it filled the bay. "All right, listen up!" He boomed, his bass voice cutting across all the background noise, "our job is to get the gunk that's eating up the hull off, we'll work up a grid pattern each shuttle is gonna take a section of hull at a time and scrub it clean with the anti-proton generators. When you finish a section and confirm it's clean, move on to the next available grid. The faster we get this done, the better. Questions?"

Melvaur shook his head. "I have no questions and agree that expediency is needed." He looked towards one of the shuttles, eager to get the operation underway.

Lt. Alexander nodded to Ensign Nasek, "Just strap in and making sure the gear is working, I'll thread the needle." She said confidently, as the Ensign looked a little nervous. Nasek calmed and nodded back. Then shook her head as her Chief asked for questions, Alexander replied, "No questions Chief" She replied, eager to be about it.

Owens took in everything Griffin stated, "No questions over here Boss."


===[Shuttle Shatner]===

"Got it," Kelly said as she headed for a shuttle and began to do the pre-flight check while powering it up.

Owens did a quick check on the equip he would be using to scrub the hull of the Black Hawk. He gave a nod to Kelly to let her know that they were ready.

Once Owens was aboard, Kelly launched the shuttle and headed out of the hangar bay once she got clearance and headed for the section she had been assigned to. To the naked eye, the ship surface looked the same as ever, but she knew there were things that the naked eye couldn't see and the sensors revealed the millimeter changes in thickness of the hull. "All set, Owens," she said. "Do that voodoo that you do."

Owens began to Anti-Proton generator above their first section, "Voodoo?" Joe laughed softly before he focused on the pilot. "I guess that is one way to look at what we do, but to me knowing how to fly these things is more voodoo." He pointed to the shuttle itself. "Putting something together and making sure it works, simple. Flying one of these through space, now that is witchcraft if I've ever seen it."

"Witchcraft and magic is just science that we don't understand yet," Kelly said. "I understand how to fly and I also understand some Engineering. It was my secondary at the Academy. Still, I prefer flying, but I like to have knowledge of both in case some Engineer decides to sandbag me when they give me a time estimate on something and I know it could be done in less time. I've heard that's done to make them look good."

The sensors beeped before displaying a readout of the engineer's efforts. The sections of the hull that the shuttle was bombarding registered clean, free of the cosmozoan that had begun to eat away at the tritanium in the armor and hull plating.

"Each person has their own preferences, but no need to worry about me." Joe read the readout on his panel, "But this will take some time, we are ready to move to our next section."

"Moving on," Kelly acknowledged as she maneuvered the shuttle along the hull. She tried to see it with her bare eyes and wanted to fire the phasers at it, but that would likely damage the ship and that was the last thing she wanted. "And we're here at the next sector."

"Might as well strap in and relax, we are gonna be out here for awhile," Owens announced as he began the process again.


===[Shuttle Stewart]===

Ensign Melvaur had settled in to the helm seat of his shuttle and was running through the pre-flight. The business of the engineers was their own. His duty at this point was to get them out there. And he was good at his job.

Melvaur didn't wait for the engineer to even take his seat before lifting off the deck. Their ship was huge and this was probably going to take quite a while.

With all aboard and the runabout now outside the Black Hawk, Melvaur plotted course for their first grid section. "We will be there momentarily. Prepare yourself." He didn't even turn to see if the human was doing as he stated. He just began plotting for the next grid section and hoped that the man was as good at his job as he was at his.


===[Shuttle Brooks]===

"Brooks acknowledged and on Station." Alexander replied her eyes keeping tracking of the pilot display as she carefully monitored their locations and surrounding space. A large number of computations went into that and not for the first time Alexander appreciated the quality of the systems she got to work with. Vessel and pilot acting as one to complete their tasks.

Nasek sat quietly monitoring what she needed to from her side station, not wanting to disturb the pilot into whose hands her life now rested.

When the order was given Alexander acknowledged, "Ok Spanners it's on you" Nasek glanced over at the pilot confused, "It's a nickname" She replied, "We're pilots we do that, now get with it Spans, wax on, wax off..." She joked trying to relax the Ensign.

Alora nodded mentally rolling the nickname around in her head as she began to clean the hull coordinating with Archer's very careful and occasional adjustments to their position.


===[Shuttlebay]===

Back in the shuttlebay, Lieutenant Kemm continued to work with the other shuttles. In addition to his own tiredness, he could tell the rest of the team was exhausted, each person pushing through regardless of their circumstances so that they could have a moment of rest when it was all done. Kemm just hoped that they would have more than just a moment's rest. After all, both the ship and this crew really couldn't take much more.

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