October 1, 2012

Post of the Month--September 2012

Please congratulate Lieutenant Archangel T'Koris for writing September's post of the month!! A post of high quality, her Commanding Officer, Captain Scott Bradley, remarked that "Lieutenant T'Koris makes a post that really captures the feel of Trek and sets an appropriate atmosphere for the situation. One I definitely enjoyed reading!" Don't forget to keep an eye out for fantastic posts over the coming month, especially during our Halloween themed special mission.

[Engineering]

"Whoa!" Archangel exclaimed as the ship shook briefly.  She wobbled on the narrow ledge she was standing on, losing her balance.  She grabbed onto the edge, panting heavily as she realised that she wasn't going to fall yet.  She took a moment, simply dangling there, to rethink her strategy for fixing the warp core.  Standing several metres in the air on a bit of metal less than a metre wide, was perhaps not the best thing to do.
"I've got to remember to use a safety harness next time," she muttered to herself. 

Scrabbling with her boots to try to get a purchase on the edge of the warp core, the attempted to heave herself back up onto the ledge.  She had managed to get her torso back up when she paused.  A thought had occurred to her.  Every time the ship encountered glitches, it was when they were on an important mission.  So far, they had had to send out a distress call about as many times as they had gone back to a starbase without needing to go into dry dock for major repair.  So, half hanging on to the ledge, she started to put the pieces into place.  These glitches were far too focalised.  They nearly always took out the warp core, (which was starting to get really annoying), and other major systems, taking a few of the minor ones with it, (speaking of which, she really should figure out what to do about those Tribbles in the Captain's ready room).  They couldn't possibly be random and affect the same systems every time.  That was just too convenient as far as she was concerned.  It had to either be a program, or some sort of intelligent being.  Then again, what kind of intelligent being would try to sabotage the ship they were on? 

Realising that she was still clinging on to the service ledge and that her thoughts were going round in circles, Archangel pulled herself the rest of the way up to the ledge, sitting with her back against the core.  Her shoulder muscles were burning from the effort.  Sighing heavily, she went back to work, pulling out her tricorder and scanning the core again.  Offline, she couldn't detect what was wrong.  It didn't seem as if there were any glitches at all, which suggested that what ever was causing them was in the power grids.  She cursed under her breath.  That was going to be a pain in the backside to fix.  It meant a lot of crawling through the jefferies tubes, which she hated. 

Slipping the tricorder back into its place on her toolbelt, she started to climb back down the ladder to the main Engineering deck.  A few rungs from the bottom, the lights went out.  Archangel yelped with surprise, letting go of the ladder and falling the last metre to land on her backside on the metal floor. 
"What happened?" she called out, peering into the darkness to where she was sure a group of crewmen had been standing.
"I don't know, lieutenant," a voice called back, echoing strangely in the silence.  "Everything just went off!  The main power's out!"
"I can tell that for myself, thanks," Archangel muttered, picking herself off the floor and moving towards one of the consoles.  She cursed again a few steps later.  No power.  Of course.

The emergency backup lights came on, filling the department with harsh shadows.  Archangel leant against one of the consoles, rubbing the ridges on her forehead.  She tapped her commbadge, intending to give the Captain her report, but there was no connection.  Growling in frustration, she slammed her fist into the console screen, cracks splintering out from the impact.  No power, no communications, no engines. 

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