Keeping An Eye

Posted on Sat Jul 8th, 2017 @ 4:20am by

579 words; about a 3 minute read

Mission: Unknown Life, Unknown Dangers
Location: Secondary Engineering

I was sat at my desk monitoring what ever it was that was growing, now that we knew where to look it was easier to focus scans. What started off as a piece no bigger than a fist though smaller by Main Engineering's efforts would regrow in time. What ever it was was feeding off the energy flow of the nacelle and the ambient radiation by the warp reaction. Warp plasma that flowed through the nacelle was not only lethal to any kind of contact but the radiation was something no doubt being fed on by what ever it was.

Even with the attempt by Main Engineering to stem its development it still fed off the radioactive nacelle itself. Cutting off the fuel was one thing but the nacelle itself was a food source and right now he could see there was nothing to be done about it.

"Commander O'Connell, I've been monitoring from Secondary Engineering. I would recommend venting the nacelle, sealing off the warp core from the nacelle at the Engineering level. It's feeding off the radiation absorbed in the metal sir." I spoke. "All we can do is buy time, its going to follow the conduit from the nacelle down the strut to Engineering. I can have a team go in and sever the conduit at the strut base but were talking at least 25 hours of work for a section with radiation rotations and to buy us any real time we need at least 4 sections."

I knew that was asking a lot. Room to work was at a premium, then there was rad suits that had to be worn and even then we had to rotate work crews before radiation exposure got too much. But sooner or later we would be faced with the crisis that it would breach the conduit and once that was done it would be completely unopposed straight to the warp core.

If the reports were true and the rumours he'd heard, then what ever this was that was growing on the nacelle was not something to be taken lightly and as it grew, it would become harder to get rid of.

As I sat down to consider my suggestion it fell down to logistics. I was talking about taking apart section by section a major artery of the ship. Which meant sealing it off, letting it cool, radiation checks, initial dismantling and then the major works could begin. All the while rotating the crews out before critical radiation exposure and making sure they were medically cleared to repeat the process when the rotation came due.

How would this effect ship board operations, strictly speaking it wouldn't unless combat operations were engaged. The ship had three warp cores given the size of it and in standard operations we could easily power the ship on two. My hope was that we could still use all three cores but that depended on how things with what ever that thing was developed. We had the power of three, as long as we didn't need warp drive, we still had three but I was without a doubt that if we raised shields, surrounding the ship in a energy bubble, it would be like giving the organism an eggshell for protection.

All I could do now was wait to hear what the Chief Engineer had to say about the idea, but time was not a luxury we had left to enjoy, our backs were against the clock.

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