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Episode 02: Cosmic Imperative / Re: Chapter 2: DIS Engage [ Day 1 | 1259 ]
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The small team busied themselves with the reinforcing that was requested. For Lok’s part he was not exactly certain why they would be doing this except if they were venting the plasma out of the nacelles, which would be well within tolerances of the system and could be done with a few button presses…unless of course there was something else being vented as well. In his brief visit to main engineering he had heard talk of some sort of radiation leak into the system. In his experience this could “dirty” the plasma reducing its efficiency, but it didn’t normally require such dramatics of emergency stops and venting. Lok mentally submitted however that he did not have a full idea of what was going on or the nature of the radiation that was in the system. This thought formed a nervous knot in his stomach, he hated not having the full picture with which to work with, not so much of an issue on a small craft, but on a ship this big, half of it could be on fire and you wouldn’t even know without an alert.
Normally Lok preferred to talk with his team whenever performing duties like their current one but with time being of the essence it was only the business of handing tools and giving instructions. “Put that there. Tighten that. Modulate that up a bit. Modulate that one down. Size twenty spanner please”, and so on. They had worked their way up the trunking for the port upper nacelle installing the polarizers and portable forcefields. Once they were fully installed Lok would tie them together into the ship’s forcefield controller program that would allow the main computer to handle most of the heavy lifting in terms of modulation, output, and power consumption. With the possibility that the mysterious radiation was far worse than Lok thought, he wanted as much extra help as he could get to avoid the risk of him manually compensating causing its own disaster. There was still the concern that whatever this mystery radiation was it could still play havoc with their equipment and cause failures, some unique radiations could easily strip the interior cladding of the plasma conduits and cause a whole mess of problems.
The group finished their task just in time as reports came in over the comms that the ship was about to fully drop out of warp. Lok descended a ladder down to a lower level, along with a length of opti-cable that was attached to their string of portable forcefields, that had a computer interface. Upon reaching the interface he put the other end of the opti-cable, which had a isolinear adapter, into one of the aux isolinear chip slots. A few button presses on the computer console and the ship instantly recognized the new forcefield additions and powered them up and set them to the most optimal settings. About a minute later the unmistakable sound of a silent engine filled the space followed by the energetic sound of plasma transiting through the main conduit just meters away. Satisfied that everything was in order, Lok ascended the ladder to see his conscripted helpers packing up tools and monitoring the progress of the venting via tricorder.
“Hey Chief, can you hand me that please?” asked Mark while gesturing to a diagnostic probe on the floor near the hatch Lok was sticking his big fuzzy head out of. Lok smiled and climbed a bit higher to grab it, he could sense the satisfaction of a job well done coming from both Mark and Dalani and was happy for them. Mark leaned forward to grab the probe when suddenly there was a metallic bang, followed in short order by terrific sound of raw energy as a massive green arc of plasma exited out of one of the constrictor rings of the main conduit. The arc caught Mark across the back and continued across the compartment to strike a large hydrogen expansion tank for the bussard helium collection line, something it shouldn’t have been able to do, which promptly exploded.
This all happened in the span of perhaps a couple seconds. Lok barely had time to react as he watched the brilliant arc streak across the room followed by another flash and a sheet of red flame whooshing its way toward him. Not wanting to be hit by the flames Lok let go of the ladder and fell back through the hatch into the lower level, only getting a little singed in the process. What hurt more was the unmistakable sound of a hydrogen explosion to his highly sensitive ears, leaving him unable to hear apart from a loud ringing. Momentarily dazed, Lok reached up to gingerly feel his face and ears, ensuring they hadn’t been burned or blown off before his senses recovered enough to remember that Mark and Dalani were still in the compartment above.
Lok ascended the ladder once more into the now smoke filled and on fire compartment. Luckily the main plasma conduit appeared to have automatically been sealed off by the computer, otherwise they would have most likely all been killed by now from the torrent of charged plasma filling the small space, but the explosion did rupture a nearby EPS conduit and started a small fire. Mark was laying face down on the deck, thankfully still alive, but in a bad way; he had minor burns all over and his uniform was singed but most noticeably he had a large burn across his back from the arc that appeared to have burned quite deep, possibly causing not only third degree burns but fourth degree as well. Dalani was in the corner of the compartment and appeared relatively okay, she had some minor burns on her hands and face as well as being a little dazed but was already in the process of getting to her feet.
Finally getting his wits fully about him, Lok, still unable to really hear anything, tapped his combadge rapidly three times to put him on the emergency channel. [This is Chief Lok, there has been an explosion in Section 16-25 Beta, main plasma conduit ruptured and fire in the compartment, we have a medical emergency and are evacuating the section!] Lok reported emphatically over the emergency comms, he noted that he could barely hear himself and was probably shouting rather loudly. He then turned and, using hand signals gestured for Dalani to help him move Mark out of the compartment, the young man had by this point fallen unconscious by this point, no doubt from the pain and shock. A further concern was the presence of radiation, a partially damaged tricorder at Lok’s feet was showing high levels, no doubt from the main conduit when it ruptured, the irradiated plasma gas that they had been trying to vent had partially vented into their compartment. Strangely though, Lok noted several sparkles in the air, a phenomena he had never seen before.
Carefully, Lok and Dalani picked Mark up off the deck and made their way back through to the main jefferies tube access that they had come from. Getting the poor guy through the tube without injuring him further would be difficult but luckily Dalani found a nearby mechanic’s anit-gravity sledge* and put Mark on it in order to push him easily along in the tube. As Dalani pushed, Lok sealed off the hatches behind them to prevent any gas or smoke from penetrating the rest of the section.
