The Word & The Material.

Posted on Thu Feb 10th, 2022 @ 7:43pm by

714 words; about a 4 minute read

Mission: Not All Changes Are Welcome.
Location: Main Engineering

James was in Engineering making final preparations for the Agincourt's repairs based on the sensor readings that were made available. It painted a pretty grim picture but nobody said being an Engineer was easy or fun all of the time. Watching on the display the tractor beams pull the Agincourt into station-keeping beside the ship since she was too badly damaged to dock painted a grim picture. Considering not long ago she was functional and in working order and now to be towed back home was for some difficult to watch.

The doors opened and Dr Omier walked in. As cold as the woman could be sometimes the had the skills and the technical ability to get a job done. Repairing the Agincourt would be a job that many would-be counting on being done, and done right.

Amber walked in with a PADD in one hand, she had used her time on the Barham to conduct scans, connected to the Agincourt's computer for a diagnostic on most of her systems, the hull plating, armour, and space frame. While all of it could be repaired it boiled down to time, materials, and man-hours. "How are we in the preparations?" Amber spoke coming to the stop next to James and the read out displays of the damage.

"Based on the information you provided, initial repairs can begin right away, we can seal the breached sections and repressurize them. I know having her docked would speed up repairs but dorsal port, starboard and port quarter magnetic couplings are damaged." James explained as he pointed to the sections on the damage outlook display in front of them.

"If we focused our efforts on those?" Amber asked though part of her told her it was not going to be that easy.

"No can do. With the damage to the surrounding areas there is no way to get a confirmed stable and secure mag clamp on those sections." James replied having anticipated that question.

"What about dry docking the ship?"

"Dry docking?" James asked.

"It was a technique used a long time ago for sea faring vessels. During times of maintenance or repair, the ship would be moored into a drydock where the water was drained and the vessel sat upon blocks so the workers could get under it." Amber managed to call up an image of a large vessel in such a manner so James could see her meaning.

"But..." James scratched his head as he looked at the image. "You're talking about sitting the ship on blocks, it's not designed for that. The lowest points are the nacelle housings and they are not built to withstand the weight of the ship."

"Which is why we would have additional blocks under the main hull section, bow section. As long as the blocks were aligned with the space frame joints it should work." Amber countered.

James ran some numbers, it meant manufacturing supports that could hold up a Defiant class Escort. Something he was pretty sure had not been done since most starships are repaired in a dockyard somewhere. "I'll need to run simulations to even come close to if it can be done especially given the damage involved."

"Get started, I'll head up the repair efforts. I'd like to be able to tell the Captain we have a plan in place." Amber spoke looking up from the display to see many people looking at her. She knew what was on the minds of each of them, the Chief Engineer. She wished she could say something that would put everyone at ease but she didn't, RJ was not here.

"I know many of you have heard the word, The Chief Engineer is missing along with others of her away team. That is not something you nor I can change right now but what we can do is what we have trained to do. Out there next to us is a ship needing our attention, the sooner we give it that attention the sooner it can be back out there joining the search." Amber needed to divert minds back onto the task at hand and right now it was waiting for them." She knew it was not the ideal speech, but she was not known for them.

"Let's get to it."

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