Tour: Engineering

Posted on 01 Nov 2024 @ 10:59pm by Lieutenant Ranul Frex & Commodore Harvey Geisler

1,769 words; about a 9 minute read

Mission: Bait and Switch
Location: Main Engineering
Timeline: June 29, 2390 || 0730 hours

[ON:]

As was common for the first morning of a new mission, Harvey took it upon himself to tour the vessel, stopping by each of the major locations aboard the ship and check in with his senior staff. The first leg of the journey brought him to Engineering.

Harvey still could not get used to the different engineering layout that this ship had, not that it was optional for him and his crew to change it. The first Black Hawk, also an Akira, was a rapid response vessel built before the Dominion War, designed to carry cargo and personnel to needed areas quickly. During the war, the ship had been refitted to revamp the flight deck into something more suitable for fighters, but the ship's warp core and other critical infrastructure ran straight through the middle of the Flight Deck.

This new and particular Akira was built with the idea that she would be a carrier. This meant that the warp core was changed from horizontal to vertical, removing all chances of a wayward fighter from punching through bulkheads and finding the mighty engine. The Commodore had been told that this was also inspired by the ship's ancestral mother, the classic NX-class, which also featured a vertical warp core. It's retro was something Harvey heard one of the engineers say before.

Standing now in the open doorway of the vessel, Harvey took a sip of his coffee and started to look around for his new Chief Engineer.

Walking from around the corner, Ranul was talking to one of the Assistant Chief Engineers of systems. Ranul handed him a PADD and chuckled as he said to his fellow Engineer, "While I love our NCOs on Deck 4, tell them that it'd be better to turn off the replicators for an hour to fix them instead of the entire replicator system going down for the entire ship. Then, we'd have to eat rations for two weeks instead of heading down to the mess hall for an hour to get us something good to eat. Tell them that if they have a problem to come and see me, okay?"

The Engineer couldn't help but chuckle herself and nodded as she took the PADD and head out of Main Engineering, nodding at Harvey and telling him good morning on her way out. Ranul had turned himself to see that Harvey was standing in the doorway of Main Engineering on Deck 13, almost reminiscing about the warp core. Ranul walked over and asked Harvey, "Is there anything I can do for you, sir? Is there something wrong with the warp core? I don't think I've seen someone stare down the warp core so intently since I was a cadet at the academy."

Frex had caught the Commodore mid-sip. As soon as the mug was lowered from his mouth, Harvey shook his head. "Nothing's wrong with the warp core, Lieutenant. This is probably something you'd never hear anyone else admit, but it's strange walking around this ship, expecting one thing and seeing something else instead."

"I tell that to myself every day that I come down here and look at the warp core. Reminds of those old Earth Starfleet vessels or even some of the old Vulcan cruisers with the big warp rings. You'd be surprised how those ships and their engine rooms were designed and built, sir," Ranul replied as he walked over to stand next to Harvey and admire the warp core for a moment.

"You know," Harvey remarked, looking to Frex, but nodding at the warp core. "I think of things like splints and casts and pills as the 'dark ages' of medicine. Do warp core designs like this fall in such a category with you? Or do you think of it as something like retro?"

"I think it depends on the situation. Think about the warp cores of the Defiant-Class. Those things are technically vertical cores, but from what I've read about them in my studies, they were overpowered for the vessels they were apart of. The way they did the warp cores in the redesigns of the Akira-Class Starships made sure to take lessons from the Defiant-Class and make sure something like that doesn't happen here. So, if it's retro, it works because we are running at peak efference, especially for a design that's over 20 years old for ship design and 200 for warp engines," Frex offered up.

Frex looked back at Harvey and asked, "What do you think, sir?"

The Commodore smiled, absorbing every word the engineer delivered. Harvey was no engineer, but he knew enough to know when someone was either bullshitting, or clearly knew what they were talking about. He had no doubt that Frex was the latter. "I think that as long as it works, and you know how to keep the engines working without fail, then I don't care if it's retro or state of the art. How've you been settling into the new post, Mister Frex?"

Frex shrugged his shoulders and replied, "Well, it definitely has been an interesting ship. I've slowly been working my way around the ship, as well as her systems. Now, the crew is definitely an interesting one, but I'm glad that I've been slowly making my rounds with them as well, sir. Tech, I can get. Emotions and others can be tricky, but I'm glad that I've been embraced onboard."

"Hopefully, I've been up to snuff for both you and the rest of the crew?" Frex asked, curious as to how he was doing as well.

"Up to snuff?" Harvey asked, sensing that Frex was eager to see how he rated amongst the staff and Harvey's own judgement. "You have certainly proven yourself capable," the Commodore answered, "but I fear your greatest test has yet to arrive. It's one thing to warp into the unknown. It's another to chase a fate that has had fatal results for others. In a grand sense, all of our lives are in your hands, Lieutenant."

"I'll make sure that everything is running at their highest peaks and make sure that nothing gets past our shields. Or at least give them some heck while trying, sir," Frex replied, knowing that the next few hours and days would be important for ship and crew. Frex knew that he was only one part, but he held an important part in making sure the ship didn't go down because of something he could've prevented.

"Speaking of that," Harvey said, taking advantage of a perfect transition and pointing towards a situational display, "tell me how you plan to defend our bridge and nacelles. Any thoughts with adjusting our shield harmonics to better stand against polaron?"

"Well, we've learned and improved shielding since the time of the Dominion War, which have been implemented throughout the fleet since then. However..." Ranul replied, thinking about an option to boost efficiency of the shields. He waved for Harvey to follow him to one of the nearby consoles, where Ranul put in some information to bring up the shield harmonics and matrix. After plugging in some information and tweaking a few commands on the console, Ranul said, "Okay, this might work! Something I wanted to see if it might help was working with the deflector dish and having it emit an anti-poloron beam into the shields itself. More so than we've already done in the years past. Something that I've been looking through with the sensor information from Unity Station was that the poloron beams that were used were similar to Borg weaponry, where it was constantly rotating. If we use what we've already implemented with a rotating anti-poloron beam through the main deflector, it might give us more of a fighting chance with the shields. I'll have to do some tests first, but I think we can make this work."

Were it not for his own aptitude for science, Harvey might have struggled trying to follow Frex's thought patterns and studies. Some of it was certainly over Harvey's head, but there was just enough there where Harvey was able to follow along close enough. "An anti-polaron beam through the deflector? What kind of tests would you need to run, and how would they affect at least our standard operations aboard the ship?"

Ranul could tell that it was a bit of mumbo jumbo and might've gone over someone's head if they didn't understand some of the engineering jargon. Ranul kinda chuckled before looking back at Harvey and replying, "It shouldn't interfere with standard operation or anything. I'd just like to run some simulations to make sure I work out any kinks that might arise out of implementing something like this on a ship like the Akira-Class. Ships without secondary hulls operate their shielding a bit differently than ships with secondary hulls and I didn't want to miscalculate anything, sir."

"Whatever resources you need, you'll have them," Harvey assured. "I'll make sure Commander Marsh is aware and can prioritize the engineering labs. Is there anything else you might need for your simulations?"

"Well, if Ops can allocate a little more juice towards the shields and the main deflector during the tests, that would be amazing. I don't want to burn out the dish while running the tests and be stranded in the middle of the Gamma Quadrant. Just don't want to step on toes while running our tests," Ranul said as he punched up some of the power that his team would need onto a PADD and handed it over to Harvey to look over.

Harvey accepted the padd with his free hand. Using his thumb, he manipulated the controls to scroll through the data he was just presented. "Looks straightforward enough. I'll take this to Commander Marsh shortly and make sure that power is allocated. Anything else I should be aware of, Mister Frex?"

"All I ask is that once the power is available for use, just let my team and I know, so that we can make sure to run the tests in a timely manner. Now, is there anything else I can help you out with, Commodore?" Ranul asked, looking over at Harvey as he finished looking over everything on the PADD.

The Commodore shook his head as he turned off the padd's screen. "Not at the moment. I think it's time I get out of your hair and let you get back to it. Keep up the good work." With a confirming nod, Harvey turned and left the room.

As Harvey headed out, Ranul replied, "Thank you, sir. Just let me know if you need anything else."

[OFF:]

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