Rust, Rust, and More Rust...

Posted on 11 May 2021 @ 3:54am by Lieutenant JG Kemm & Lieutenant Commander Arjin Djinx & Lieutenant Zayna Ryler
Edited on on 11 May 2021 @ 3:55am

2,073 words; about a 10 minute read

Mission: Extinction
Timeline: Mission Day 3 at 1200

Since meeting with Commander Djinx and Lieutenant Ryler, Kemm had returned to the life support mechanical room to run some more tests and scans on the rusted bracing. He wasn't an expert or specialist in temporal mechanics, and was in no way qualified to set up the scan, but he was an engineer and could look for the typical deformities that accompanied oxidation.

Zayna had finally had a moment to check in with Kemm on the rust situation. She'd been digging through any old information from Starfleet that might explain what was going on, but had no success. So, she decided to go and help finish setting up the scans. Finding Kemm, she gave a small smile as she came into the room. "Would you believe, Lieutenant, that there is nothing in Starfleet's database to help with this?"

"Such is the burden of exploration," the Kelpien replied to the scientist from inside the Jeffries Tube. "We constantly find new things that break the laws of physics, thermodynamics, and even time itself. Any ideas on how to proceed?"

"Honestly, starting with the scans should give us at least somewhere to go. Then, we can at least see how aggressive this thing is. I truly hope it is just this area and we don't have to do much." She looked towards Kemm. "However, knowing the luck of this ship? Are the scans ready to go or do you need me to double-check them?"

Kemm began to slide out of the Jeffries Tube so that he could get to a console. "A double check wouldn't hurt."

Moving out of the way for Kemm, Zay went over to a nearby console and pulled up the scan settings. "Let's see now..." She looked through the information. "I think these are as set as they can be with the systems available on the ship. Never did like having to deal with all of this, even though I studied it." She looked back to Kemm. "I say we give it a go."

The lanky engineer slid into a seat beside Ryler as she reviewed the scan settings. "Since we're potentially talking about temporal mechanics, as well as significant oxidation, these scans won't be instant. In fact, they'll take a few minutes, and they're focused just on five decks. I figure starting there will give us a decent picture and then we can decide to expand if necessary." Since he already had Ryler's permission, he entered the command sequence to initiate the scan.

"That's the one thing about temporal mechanics: studying time but always takes forever." The scientist grinned and watched the scans start up. "Sets of 5 decks at a time if we have to expand the scan. We might be here a while. Scanning for rust on a ship, hell, finding rust on a ship, never thought I'd live to see that kinda thing happen."

Kemm chuckled. "My first assignment was the Majestic, a Miranda class. She'd been through her fourth refit, but by that time it was just a fresh coat of paint and a new computer core. Her substructure was rusted like something I'd never seen before, and I had to apply a special bonding agent to several trusses. Never thought I'd forget that smell."

Zayna shook her head and gave a small laugh. "Older ships, true that'll happen. I've never actually be posted to one, strange as that sounds. First time rust encounter on a ship for me. The poor engineering team on the Majestic though! I can't imagine how much of a mess that would have been."

"Consider yourself lucky then," Kemm said with a smile. "Rust aside, what's the strangest situation you've experienced on a prior ship?"

"Besides this one? Hmm, let's see," Zay said as she sat back in thought. "Sensor blind spot, that was fun. I can't remember which ship honestly at this point, but we were dealing with something literally hiding in a blind spot of our external sensors. Tactical couldn't see it, I couldn't see it, but every once in a while some blip would appear then disappear. Let's just say there was an extra sensor array or two added to the area, even if it wasn't on the original ship specs."

The Kelpien chuckled again. "It's amazing how much starship designers don't think through every detail. Half the time I wonder if the design process is simply, 'This looks cool!' and then they just run with it, leaving people like me to deal with all of the actual work."

"I had to space walk on that one, it was not fun, as space walks make me motion sick. We can be under attack and the ship rolling. But space walking? Nope, count me out most of the time. I also hate the suits."

"Well, let's hope this investigation of ours doesn't involve an outside excursion." The console beeped, even though the scan hadn't yet reached the halfway point. Kemm looked down to see that something had been detected. "That's... interesting..." he remarked. "The scan has found some more oxidation. Deck 23, below us. A set of clamps holding Lifeboat 146."

Raising an eyebrow, Zay sat forward and looked at what came up. "Do we have information on what happened in that area before? That is an odd and random place for this to appear."

Kemm shook his head. "No, there's nothing on record. That section of the ship has never been damaged or compromised."

"New mystery then. Let the scan continue, but let's see if we can see how bad this oxidation is on this set of clamps. Up for a small field trip?"

"One second." Kemm lifted a nearby padd and quickly synced it with the console so that they could keep an eye on the scan results wherever they went. "Lead the way, Lieutenant."

Picking up her own tricorder, Zayna led the way towards the lifeboats on deck 23. "You said number 146, right? Now let's see, where are you...."

Kemm spotted a deck layout on an active corridor panel, which featured a green dot indicating their current location. "Thirty feet ahead," he read, "and take a right. That'll put us at Lifeboats 145 through 147."

Nodding, the scientist headed in the direction indicated. Once she found Lifeboat 146, she looked at the clamps. "Well...isolated is an understatement." She looked at 145 and 147 before going back to 146. "Just here..."

Kemm pulled out his tricorder to give the clamps a close inspection. "Looks like the oxidation is just beginning," he said, noting the patches of rust, as opposed to the largely rusted bracing back in life support. "The only trouble with this detailed scan is that we don't have much to compare it with."

"Just starting?" She pulled out her own tricorder as she asked and verified the scan. "But, there shouldn't be anything like that. However, I think that now means I have to do full on temporal scans of the ship now, not just what we're running now."

"Excellent," Kemm replied to the science officer. "Though I'm willing to bet that the bracing and these clamps aren't the only oxidized metallic structures on this ship."

Arjin had been pacing inside his office. He had been thinking about the “rust situation” as he had started to call it. He would have liked answers rather yesterday than today. He chuckled as the thought left him. Darned temporal physics. In an attempt to get up to date he decided to contact his number one. =^=Lieutenant Ryler. Do you have an update about our rust situation?=^=

Right before she replied to Kemm, Zayna heard her comm go off. "Of course he calls now." =^=Unfortunately so, Commander. Can you meet us with the lifeboats? We found something down here.=^= She turned back to Kemm. "I'm betting the same thing."

=^=On my way. =^=,

After some time Arjin arrived at the lifeboats and joined the others. “Lieutenants”, he nodded to both. “What have you found out?”

Zayna looked over are Arjin came in. "The scans are still running ship-wide, but we've found some more rust."

"A set of lifeboat clamps this time," Kemm spoke up. "Our scans are still running and will take another ten minutes to complete."

“Ten minutes. Then I will wait with you for the results.”

Kemm extended the padd he was holding. "Would either of you like to take over the scan? I need to perform a close inspection on these clamps."

Arjin took the Padd. “We will both keep our eyes open on the scan.”

Kemm turned his attention to the clamps to take a closer look. "The oxidization is concentrated at the base of the clamps," he observed. "It's like it started there, and then reached outward, much like it would have over time. The quantum signature appears to be off as well. These clamps certainly originated at the proper timeframe, but it looks to be distorted."

"So, it is spreading, and quicker than it normally would." Zay looked over at the scans. "Quantum signature off? That isn't a good thing." She then checked some of the results as they kept filtering in. "I'm not liking this."

"It's also not isolated to the clamp itself," Kemm reported. "I see oxidization on the bolts securing the clamp to the hull, but the hull brackets appear to be untouched, much like the area around the bulkhead bracing down in life support."

"I doubt that it is containing itself to specific metals, otherwise we'd be seeing it in more places. Was this area affected originally?" Zayna walked over to the next lifeboat just to do a visual double-check.

Kemm shook his head. "I don't think so, but I really can't say for sure. We'd only been twisted by those quantum filaments for a couple hours, and we had to work pretty quickly to undo all of that."

“If the quantum signature is off, we should presume the area was affected. Have you looked through the data about the undoing itself yet?”, Djinx offered.

The engineering lieutenant had shaken his head. "I'm afraid not. I focused on the existing specimen that started our investigation today, to get any details that might be helpful with the scan." His eyes then shifted to the padd, which had suddenly beeped. The scan was finished.

Hearing the PADD beep, Zayna looked over at Kemm. "Is this the only other place, or are there more?" She went back over after verifying that the second lifeboat was okay. Once she caught a glimpse of what was there, she raised an eyebrow. "What the...why does this say something in my lab is rusted? I've not noticed anything, though I've not looked to carefully because I didn't even think about it until today."

“Does it say what exactly? And are there other spots?, he asked.

Kemm couldn't tell. The padd was small, and since Djinx was holding it and Ryler was already looking over Djinx's shoulder, there was no way he could lend his eyes to the results.

Looking over at Kemm again, Zayna moved over a bit so he could see. "Looks like...the latches on one of the wall panels. Behind the wall, which explains why I wouldn't have seen anything."

"Metal bracing. Lifeboat clamps. Wall latches." Kemm thought for a moment. "All random items. The bracing and the clamps both show that the oxidation is centralized in small areas, which confirms we're dealing with something small. The fact that we haven't seen it, means we probably won't be able to see it. I wonder if we can triangulate these positions and see if we can detect something between it all."

"That isn't a bad idea. At this rate, with it being small but semi-similar things, something between all of them..." She looked back at the clamps, "But first I think this lifeboat is out of commission for a while until the clamps can be replaced."

"Agreed," Kemm stated, taking a step out of the lifeboat hatch. He tapped a series of commands into the control panel beside the hatch in order to both disable the lifeboat as well as submit a maintenance report to Engineering. "We should relocate to a lab for the triangulation."

“Agreed. Let’s head over to Lab 1”, Arjin offered.

"Completely agree," Zayna answered and nodded to the other two. "Still hoping this is an easy fix."

“Wouldn’t that be a first.”, the Commander chuckled before heading out towards the lab.


~To Be Continued~

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