<USS Avalon> log-Destination Unknown

Destination Unknown

-Dodge Thomas 

 

Thrum....Thrum....Thrum....

Like the fiery horses of Apollo's chariot, the warp engines pounded away, 
pulling the Avalon through space at a comfortable speed of warp six. Inside his 
office, Dodge rubbed his temples and silently wished the thrumming in his brain 
away. It was only the first day out of shore leave, but Dodge was sure they had 
been flying for a week. It could be worse, he thought absently. I could be the 
transporter chief.

thrum.....thrum......thrum....

Ensign Black lay on his back, staring up at the manifold relay input/output 
panel. It looked as if they hadn't been recalibrated for months. Particulate 
variance was off the scale, while regulation efficiency was less than 
seventy-percent. On top of that, he was hot, sweaty, and his neck hurt from 
craning to see all day. Jeffries tube assignments were always the worst when it 
came to physical strain. Sure, he didn't mind being alone and in the relatively 
claustrophobic space, but did it have to be hot as well? Sweat rolled into his 
eyes, stinging them.


"Damn it all to hell!" he swore. Leaning back and straining his neck to look 
up. Somewhere, maybe a hundred meters and several twists and turns away, he 
could hear the distant thrumming of the warp core. The sound soothed him, 
almost forcing him to take a deep cleansing breath before moving on. The 
greater good always needed some small sacrifice on the part of the worker. He 
smiled as he realized this, and got on with his work

THRUM....THRUM....THRUM....

Ensign Criswell cracked her knuckles and smiled widely. "This is it boys." The 
throng of male techs who stood around her shifted nervously. The warp core 
towered above her, making her look like the proverbial David before Goliath. 
Criswell took a deep breath, popped open a control panel, and reset a few 
relays. 

"You do know what you're doing, right?" A nervous tech asked hesitantly.

"Of course." Leila answered through the hyperspanner she had clenched between 
her jaws. "Forcefields are my scientific specialty." She removed the 
hyperspanner from her mouth and put it to work on the emitter nodes. After a 
few minutes, she stepped back. "There. Give her a go."

Seconds later, an iridescent green and purple forcefield flowed up around the 
warp core's base and cascaded down from the upper section. The two forcefields 
morphed and stretched, like some amoebic creature's fingers, until the two 
protective screens met and interlaced. For a few seconds the cylindrical swirl 
of energy remained steady, glowing brightly. Then, with a flicker, a pop, and a 
sound that resembled a decrescendoing 'Fssszzzeeeeewwwww', the entire 
forcefield wavered and then melted away. With it went the lights, and indeed 
all power on deck ten.

Ensign Criswell stepped back, her features only illuminated by the steady glow 
of the warp core.

"Damn."

Thrum....Thrum....Thrum....

As soon as Dodge had heard the forcefield crackle and collapse, he had gotten 
up to leave his office, hoping he could help. Alas, the power had gone out and 
he was not stuck in his office, the door only about a quarter of the way open. 
Without power, he couldn't even use his tricorder to open the doors. He pulled 
open a small panel on the side of the door and yanked out a circuit panel. The 
door hissed and moved about three centimeters. Dodge pried the door open the 
rest of the way with his hands, having released the locking mechanism.

"Criswell!" He almost shouted, trying to speak over the murmurs and yelps of 
surprise. "What did you do!?!"

"I swear, it wasn't my fault. Black didn't recalibrate the manifolds to handle 
the energy output I was running through them."

"So we shorted something out then, right? Why haven't the redundant systems 
come back online? How about the backups?"

"Yes, we shorted stuff out, but not in the general sense. The main computer is 
right next door, and it's not getting any power, so the secondary computer is 
taking all it's functions and processes over. The problem is that the main 
computer thinks we've suffered a warp core breach."

"What? Why?"

"Output relays don't suffer the kind of shortage that they just did without a 
good reason, and as far as I can tell, the computer has perceived this 
particular incident as a warp core overload. It thinks it's dead, but since 
it's still functioning it's confused, and in it's confusion it's shutting all 
the power off."

"How about deck access? How far did this go?"

"Deck ten is isolated." Ensign Black crawled out of a jeffries tube behind the 
group and stumbled onto the floor."

"How do you know?" Dodge asked tensely.

"Because, I just tried to get to deck nine. Apparently, the ship is trying to 
contain the breech that isn't there." If the lights had been on, Ensign 
Criswell would have sustained a harsh barrage of glaring on the part of Ensign 
Black.

"So how do we fix it?" Dodge let the question hang in the air for a few 
seconds, but soon found that he had been ignored.

"Well, if you had just recalibrated the manifolds, we wouldn't have this 
problem, would we?"

"Well if you would have just waited for my signal!"

"Shut up!"

"Both of you! We need to stay calm and try and figure this situation out. 
Criswell, I want you to--"

The lights came back on.

"Uh," Dodge stammered, looking around at the looks of surprise from all the 
people around him. "What just happened?"

"It appears that the power has come back on." Came a voice from the entrance to 
engineering. "Commander Javan Sierra at your service, or more accurately here 
to save the day."

Dodge stared at him flatly. "How did you get the power to come back on?"

"I think the question here is how did you get the power to go off?"

"We were running a test on the emergency warp core containment field, seeing if 
we could improve it. Is there a problem with that?"

"It appears there would be, since the power on deck ten was out for nearly five 
minutes, and would no doubt continue to be out if it weren?t for Ensign 
Khellian who is currently monitoring the engineering systems from the bridge. 
At any rate, you're problems down here are not mine and I will therefore let 
you go with a warning. The next time you decide to knock out power on this 
ship, you may want to consult the Captain before doing so." Javan turned to 
leave, hesitated, then turned back to Dodge. "Oh, and Ensign--welcome aboard. 
I'll have your security systems sent to your office terminal." He turned and 
left engineering.

Tangible silence filled the room, broken only by the steady 
thrum---thrum---thrum of the warp engines.



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