Master of Engines

Posted on Tue Mar 13th, 2018 @ 10:50pm by Second Mate Quinton Beck & Civilian Resident Akio Itachi (NPC) & MERCHANT RANKS N'Tach Oro-korinko (NPC)

1,862 words; about a 9 minute read

Mission: From Within...

-Start-

{Main Entrance- Engineering}

N'tach almost seemed to be ignoring them. Quinton sat with his arms folded seeing what else the departmental meeting would bring. The first one for his Engineering Department, and a full third of the ships complement. Chief Christopher Callahan proved to be taciturn and very efficient, his portions of the meeting were brisk and the crew interacted.

N'tach seemed to be talking to himself.

His eyes and attention were upon the ship in spite of the fact that he was addressing his guests, "...I was impressed by the initial work your crew accomplished, Captain. It was certainly executed in a rush, however, the result was solid work. This is why I made it my first order of business to clean and organize before increasing efficiency and maximizing output. Though these measures require vigilant upkeep, and loving attention."

Quinton had his arms folded but tossed them up in feigned exasperation, "Well you should've seen her when we found her. It took all of us to make her fly,and we poured over and scraped every box for anything we could use. The custom build you see is what was required to make it work. We do what we can with what we have."

N'tach ceased his limping about the engine room and leaned against a console. He smiled at Quinton, "Yes, we do. In order to ascend to our maximum potential we must work diligently, and exercise unorthodox thinking," he hesitated before standing tall and removing his helmet,

"...but above all" his ridges were covered in the scars of old burns as he paused in oratory caesura,

"...sacrifice."

He had their attention now.

"Marks of the wars we fight, the danger we face, will adorn all of you who work hard. Youth calls it a blemish but experience knows it is wisdom."

The Master systems display came up, the myriad byspasses and stopgap mesaures displaying as a tangled snarl of digital lines.

"We must love what we do, or we waste life and time. Study these systems, they are not so alien once you know them..."

The gathered crew stood and moved closer, they were taken in by the grizzled master of engines.

N'tach had begun drawing shapes floating before him, a holographic trail in three dimensions left in repose.

"This is how we will stack the power grid, see the way the Magnetics contractors serve as redundancy to containment breaches along EPS manifolds. It will function as a failsafe preventing lethal blowback on the panels. Further, our internal damping is powered directly on a straight line from two points, Hardened fields along bulkheads in a honeycomb configuration along the ships hull will do wonders to keep us from suffering extensive hull damage."

Akio was finally able to roam the ship, after the long weeks inside hiding from prying eyes of the Rampart. To behold the ship as N'tach showed what his innovative designs had brought made him realize he was no longer the Engineer by necessity. N'tach lived here, loved to be here. Akio hoped to rekindle his attachment to the Tiburon, its return would allow Akio to go home, to his engine room/ lab of horrors.

He was sitting in the fan arc, watching with several others on the Engineering Staff and Captain Beck. N'tach had invited them to see, knowing they all needed this Operational tour.

..."See here, how the capacitors throughout the ship will regulate our power distribution by default. We won't have much ability to push beyond it, but it will be stable. Alternative impetus would be needed if we required greater maneuvers.

Christopher Callahan had taken a backseat to the self proclaimed Master of Engines, letting him conduct the inspections and trainings. It allowed him to do his work and file papers when needed, and the old Klingon was certainly experienced. He knew plasma burns when he saw them, the Klingon was covered in them. It told a story to anyone who worked with plasma manifolds in battle before. Not to mention he was fascinated to see this configuration, it defied logic that a dozen alien systems never meant to work together now did. He was grateful in a way, N'tach could love the ship all day long, someone needed to. Chris believed in time off.

Talloc walked into the engine room, saw the meeting and diverted to Chris, asking, "We have plans for the rebuild yet?"

Staring down the fresh faced and grizzled alike, he turned to Talloc, wary of the interest from a security man. Chief Callahan was new guise, a new life, and he wanted no part of the old. That also meant treating the cops like he wasn't afraid.

"Engines are great, I've got an ancient Klingon lecturing my people though. Why do you ask?"

Talloc chuckled and said, "Because I need to know what this ship can do, if we can maneuver effectively in a combat situation."

A few of them who hadn't gone to the SysOps lecture N'tach had begun joined them in the back of the room.

Chris realized he had ears listening that would tell others whatever he said. He wanted to reply that the Second Star was held together by rust and forcefields, powered by a weak heart. If they got into a fight it wouldn't be a matter of choosing tactics or maneuvers at all.

"We are tougher than most freighters, we will wait to see when it happens I guess but I know they got a floating armies worth of weapons.

"We've got this souped up Warp Core in the cargo area and it hasn't been installed." A new voice, Lid'a, one of the new deck crew asked.

"It doesn't fit." Simplest answers were best, Beck was tight lipped about the "second cargo bay."

"And why are marines on the hull?" Riley asked, she was in Tactical but doubled for operations, likely a former marine herself.

"Ask Kas, she signed off on Starfleet installing things all over."

Talloc spoke up, "Starfleet feels we won't be able to hold onto this ship and worries their famous brand will suffer if the wrong people get their hands on it." The spy was pleased as he sensed his answer was acceptable.

"So like now we've got some sort of automated systems in all the JTubes?" Lid'a asked, "Not to mention I was in said JTubes and there were dedicated ODN lines placed I wasn't able to access..."

"And there are levels that the TL's won't stop at. How are we supposed to respond to Engineering emergencies, if we can't get there?"

Talloc looked at her, "It won't stop at what decks now?"

Riley retorted, "Deck 27, it doesnt even show in the turbolift directory. 25... then 26... then 28."

Lid'a was getting annoyed, "I don't give a pea's pod what they are up to, one of them said it was need to know and grabbed me by the arm! I just asked, Do we respond to emergencies on the decks we can't get too or what? He said I was not rated for that information."

Talloc interjected and asked, "What are the problems that you are having and I will get my security team to take a look."

Quinton looked sharply at Talloc, hearing his voice in the room.
"Mr. Sudor, our security panel is coming up, that is on the agenda believe me so table this for now," he gave a deferential nod, "And the rest of you... you are missing a master class and there will be a test."

He hated speaking for other, so he looked to the Klingon still drawing shapes in the air. "Sorry N'tach."

Talloc went to the side of the master display and stood by for further instructions from the Captain.

Shut down, they sat quietly. N'tach never broke stride in his illustrations.

Christopher Callahan did not like being lectured, and even less so to be treated like the assistant. The old man wanted to discuss philosophy when the steam cap behind him clearly needed to be resealed or they'd lose coolant pressure next time the ship took a hit.

"Yes... Sacrifice and that is a great quality for an engineer." Chris spoke up from the rear of the room, these were his people as well. "We try to stay away from noble sacrifices as a rule though."

He got a stern gaze from N'tach but had certainly received worse.

"So you've considered the specs, just keep in mind a third of our parts are decrepit still, we only got the important stuff gift wrapped-"

Quinton barked a short laugh when he heard 'gift wrapped,' realizing it was a mistake he resumed a straight face.

"yeah... so that should tell all of you two things. One, regular maintenance and logs of that maintenance, two, see something say something. Your eyes are the tool that is always on." He nearly kicked himself for saying that.

I heard some questions a second ago, let's just do a Q&A then.

"Whats up with the energy grid in the Secondary hull?" Jerra asked.

"Starfleet's outfit is setting up labs and containment facilities. Also the level of damage on the outerhull forced us to get innovative on routing so now the Saucer powers the forward half of the Engineering Section, through the Deflector as you'll notice is routed to the Second M/AMA near the Core.

N'tach took this chance to speak, he had already drawn plans to fix this. "We will lay new paths from the inside out, it will require we re-open many of the sealed decks which will also serve to open new parts of the ship for our use."

In the crowd Jerra audibly groaned, that was miserable work. It totally explained why he started this with a mention of sacrifice. He had signed on for a normal duty kind of cruise, but there were rats on this ship and some of the parts were rotting.

Christopher snapped at Jerra, "None of that, we keep our miseries bottled inside until an inappropriate venue at a much later time, got it?"

That got a few laughs, Chris was satisfied and actually beginning to enjoy this team. They had all started paying attention to his lecture, and N'tach did not disappoint.

Quinton was quickly out of his depth in their conversation and gracefully bowed out from the room. He caught eyes with Talloc and gestured towards the exit, saying under his breath so they could hear him, "Chief, ShipMaster, Tactical sitrep at 1600 please be early."

Chris nodded, but N'tach kept drawing. It seemed he had the entire ships systems dedicated in his memory and was able to draw it on demand.

He ran down the crew in his mind, just as the Master of Engines held the wires and welds in his mind, Quinton worked with people like cards in a hand.

Talloc was a spy, but also a man of the Fleet and useful in so many ways...

Fala could sell or argue anything or anyone to oblivion...

Optimism was his secret strength but when reality underlined how he felt it was invigorating.

This would work. It was going to work.

-End-

 

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