Runaway Sojourner

Posted on Tue Sep 27th, 2022 @ 8:25pm by Captain Björn Kodak & Lieutenant Nico Oliveria & Lieutenant Margarar & Lieutenant JG Chiara MD, PharmD & Petty Officer 1st Class Amber Hartree & Petty Officer 2nd Class Joselyn Brand

Mission: Echoes and Effigies
Location: Main Engineering
Timeline: Mission Day 3 at 2040

[Main Engineering]
[MD 3: 2040 Hours]

Captain Kodak watched as t'Nai and her team took turns beaming away, then turned to regard the engineers as they worked at their consoles. Oliveria and Margarar were phenomenal engineers and the Chameloid knew that if anyone could stop the damned ship, it would be those two and their assistant, Mr. Ranorak. Despite some engineering background of his own, the Captain decided to sit back and not interfere unless they asked for his several-years-out-of-date skills to help out. Instead, he looked over at Chiara and her team, who were working to find medical kits and set up a field hospital in the engine room. They didn't know what waited t'Nai's team up on the Bridge and, if they were injured in trying to retake the ship, medical care was going to become essential.

"They've arrived," came the dry tones of Yeoman Brand who was monitoring the Jefferies Tubes team's progress. "I'm tracking their bio-signatures." She grimaced, a sort of rictus on a pale and face-affected face. "If Amber configured this right."

"Hey," Hartree snarked back, pivoting from her last turn back from a wall panel, arms carrying a pair of medical kits. She turned her attention to Chiara. "We need something that can be a makeshift bio-bed." Her eyes looked past Chiara. "But they're using that console table."

"A field hospital is rarely afforded the luxury of a bio-bed," Chiara replied. She was sorting though the gathered kits, taking a quick inventory of any medications which were found and confirming that they were still viable. "Maybe look for cots or blankets instead? We'll treat any injuries the best we can with what we have available... then transport to Sickbay as soon as control of the ship is recovered."

As the medical team worked, Ensign Ranorak arched an eyebrow at his console. "The control linkages to the warp core have been...erased," the Vulcan said, looking up at Oliveria and Margarar. "I apologize for allowing the holo-cadet to access those systems. I believed he was working for the good of the ship," he said, coming as close to a Vulcan lament as was possible. "We will need to restore the linkages before we can dissipate the ship's warp field and bring the Sojourner to a stop."

"Caralho!" responded Nico as he confirmed Ranorak's assessment. "It will take hours to restore the linkages. We need another way of bringing the warp core offline." He traced the flow diagram, lost in thought for a moment before zooming in on the antimatter flow, "The magnetic constrictors should do the trick. If we lock them all down simultaneously, there will be no antimatter in the reaction chamber available to sustain the core. The warp field would collapse, and the ship would be thrown into sub-light." Turning to Margarar, "You take the even number constrictors, and I'll take the odd, Ensign, stand by to lock them down on my order."

Margarar, used to accepting orders, acknowledged, "Even constrictors. Got it, sir." She got herself into place, waiting to do her duty.

"Understood," Ranorak nodded, settling in to wait until he was needed. He watched for several long minutes as Oliveria and Margarar worked on the magnetic constrictors, wishing he hadn't let the holographic version of Balsam anywhere near the control linkages. If those had still been in place, slowing the ship would have been easy.

"Timmoz to Engineering, came a tinny voice over the comm, interrupting the protracted silence. "The Bridge's environmental controls have been disabled. We turned off the force field and have access. They decompressed the entire deck."

"Ranorak to Timmoz," the Vulcan tapped his combadge. "Lieutenants Oliveria and Margarar are elbows deep in trying to stop the ship. As the Lieutenants are busy with this task, I will do my best to assist you. You mentioned the environmental controls were disabled. To confirm, you reached the Ops console and were unable to affect change?" he asked.

"And... the Captain's code lockdown won't be an issue there? We have not attempted further entry," Timmoz explained.

"Unknown," came Ranorak's matter-of-fact reply. Truth told, he had no idea what would await the team on the Bridge itself. He'd simply wondered if they'd tried to access the controls or were just guessing based on what little information they had. Either way, though, the problem that presented itself was the same. The team was going to need a way to operate in vacuum. "We have some environmental suits we could beam into the jefferies tubes. Do you have room to don them?"

Timmoz sighed tersely over the comm. "No. There's not enough room to stand, let alone put on a vacuum suit. And we're losing time."

"Very well. We'll stand by to help however we can. Ranorak out," the Vulcan said, then closed the comm channel.

On the edge of uselessness, Joselyn Brand paced, her Yeoman's ears unusually open to what she was hearing. Normally she was a paragon of discretion. "It's getting harder to think of this as aliens trying to help us," she murmured. Amber Hartree looked at her and away, back to Doctor Chiara. Brand knew the look. It was the, you're not helping look.

Gray eyes from the Lunar rolled away and back toward the console- which just blinked. "Whoa. Wait a minute." She glanced at the console. "Someone's just accessed the central computer core." She called back to Nico and Margarar.

"Who?" Margarar growled as she continued her work on the constrictors. "They cannot be permitted to interfere."

"Keep an eye on them. We have to get this ship out of warp," Nico responded, still applying the diagnostic tool to ready the constrictor for lockdown.

As news of someone accessing the core broke, Kodak couldn't help but smile. His crew was fighting back against whatever entity or entities were attempting all of this. His pride in his people swelled his chest as he looked around the engine room. "Maybe they can restore communications from there?" he rasped questioningly. Oliveria, Margarar, and Ranorak had all been too busy trying to stop the ship to focus on the comm system. Kodak had made an attempt to tackle the problem himself but, as he expected, his engineering skills were just too far out of date, especially for a brand new ship like the Sojourner. If it'd still been the Adelphi, he might of had a chance but not here. All Kodak could do was trust his people to get the job done for him.

"Perhaps," replied Ranorak from his console nearby. "The computer core would be an ideal place to attempt the circumnavigation of that particular roadblock," the Vulcan commented dryly. "They may be able to --"

"t'Nai to Engineering," a harried, intense voice interrupted over the comm. "I need an emergency medical beam out. Lock onto my signature as well as Mr. Timmoz. Route us through to Sickbay from the Waverider. I don't have time to explain."

"I'm on it," the redhead Hartree said. She'd been crouching to work on a set of medical kits- outfitting them. She approached the console and she flung fingers into motion. Joselyn stood back, rigid, her arms folded.

"Do much Transporter work?" The Lunar dryly teased.

Hartree squinted at the Waverider's buffer data. "Energizing," she said. A few beats later, she looked back at the Engineering gathering. "Transport's complete. Commander t'Nai and Lieutenant Timmoz are in Sickbay."

The Captain looked concerned as the call for transport came. Timmoz must be injured pretty badly if they were headed for Sickbay instead of the field hospital Chiara and the others had been working to set up. Kodak spared Oliveria a reassuring look. "I'm sure Doctor Ryan Walsh and his team will have him good as new in short order," he offered to the engineer. "I wouldn't be surprised if--"

A new voice broke over the comm. This time, it was Kotri. "Bridge to Engineering. The air is still a bit thin but the environmental system should have that sorted in short order. And as you know, Commander t'Nai was able to get the scattering field down." Hence the ability to transport herself and Timmoz, of course. "I think we're ready for the Captain up here."

"Alright," Kodak said, moving towards an open area of floor. "Petty Officer Hartree, if you'd be so kind? Let's hope I can remove the lockdown without further issue." Bracing himself, the Chameloid awaited transport.

Amber bobbed her head curtly once. She gestured at Brand. "Go with him and take a phaser." She said to which Joselyn blanched and looked like Hartree had just stuck a rotten cabbage under her nose.

"I'm... not Security." Brand muttered to her.

"I know that," Hartree whispered back. "But you know Regs. You can't beam a Command Officer into an unsecured zone without armed escort."

"And what's Kotri," Brand countered while she went to one of the wall storage panels and pulled one of the compact type I phasers from it's foam molding. "A bag of fried mussels?"

Hartree pointedly looked at Brand. "Just go. Kotri is one officer." Brand walked up to Kodak, stepping to the side and a pace behind. Her gray eyes penetrated Hartree as the whine of the transport began to hum. They disappeared in a scattering of spritely light.

Nico had faltered when the call from Timmoz came down but continued on. Just moments later, as he and Margarar finished, the call from the XO came over the comm, and his knees buckled. The Engineer was stunned, unable to speak or respond to the Captain, and then a few moments later, he was gone as well, and Nico found himself back in charge. He moved toward the transporter controls intending to beam himself to Sickbay, stopping after just a few steps. Tears slid down his face as he pivoted to the Vulcan ensign. Tugging his uniform tunic, he breathed, "Lock them down."

Alarms wailed, and the ship shuddered as the warp core went offline, the fusion reactors maintaining a weak subspace field to prevent structural collapse as the Sojourner emerged back into normal space.

Hartree braced as the ship shuddered around her. It reminded her of the vacations when her mother would drive their rover over rocky and gravelly roads in the mountains. She looked back at Nico, Margarar, and the rest of the assembled. "Please tell me that was the warp drive konking out?"

Nodding, Nico looked over to the yeoman, his response echoing in the now quiet chamber, "Oh, that was the was the warp core alright, Yeoman, and it's going to take us days to repair that damage to the ignition chamber." He scrubbed his face with his hands, groaning, "Margarar, I'm going to guess we don't have enough spare magnetic constrictors, and we will need to rebuild several?" Though his face was now dry, the urge to head for sickbay weighed on his chest like an anvil.

"That depends on what you call several," the Antican replied moving up and down the constrictors, surveying them with her eyes and tricorder. "A number of these could be manipulated to be effective for a short period of time by switching their locations and reversing polarity. However, we ultimately do not have enough even if we were to make such a, what is the Terran phrase? 'chewing taffy bandage' repair."

"A lengthy repair is, perhaps, better than the alternative," Ranorak nodded to both Oliveria and Margarar.

"So," Hartree hesitated as she was out of her wheelhouse. "Should we be sending out a distress signal?" She looked between the Antican, the Vulcan, Chiara, and Oliveria. "Even if we're weeks away from Pathfinder Station?"

"That's for the Captain to decide, and you are exactly right, Ronorak," Nico responded, "The Captain has lifted the lockout. I'd report to your alert duty stations." Tapping his combadge, he stepped towards his console, "Oliveria to Engineering Personnel. The lockout has been lifted. Report to your designated damage repair station and begin damage assessments. Check-in with Lieutenant Margarar."

=/\= A joint-post by... =/\=

Lieutenant Nico Oliveria
Chief Engineer

and

Lieutenant Margarar
Assistant Chief Engineer

and

Lieutenant JG Chiara MD
Assistant Chief Medical Officer

and

Lieutenant Commander Emni t'Nai
Executive Officer

and

Captain Björn Kodak
Commanding Officer

and

Petty Officer 1st Class Kotri Tesren (NPC)
Brig Officer

and

Petty Officer 1st Class Amber Hartree (NPC)
Yeoman

and

Petty Officer 2nd Class Joselyn Brand (NPC)
Yeoman

and

Ensign Ranorak
Engineering Officer (NPC)