The Jig is Up

Posted on Thu Aug 19th, 2021 @ 2:31am by Lieutenant Haruna Mizuhara & Commander Grace Vetur & Lieutenant Percival Bálor Ph.D & Warrant Officer Arin Merkara

3,278 words; about a 16 minute read

Mission: Out of Time

The red doors of the main engineering room swished open. The room was very different from the engine room on the Ontario. It was a small square room with only one level. A large grill sepereted off the room from the intermix chambers which made up sections of the ships warp reactor.

She looked around, there was only two other people in the room. It was obvious from the damage that the room had taken a beating with several panels laid open, dangling by wires and burn marks across the room. The warp chamber which usually glowed red, now sat their dull and grey.

"Well, its a mess in here" Haruna said simply as she placed both hands on her hips. "Hey you, what happened here?" she asked pointing to another engineer dressed in red.

"Romulan attack," a young ensign replied. She looked at Haruna's uniform. "Who are you?"

"Lieutenant Haruna Mizuhara, chief engineer and resident girl genius of the Starship Ontario. The same ship that responded to your distress call. As I've been told your chief engineer is heavily injured. So I'm here to lead repair efforts"

Arin walked over to Auxiliary Power Control and stared at the brown panel with lines and lights. It wasn't that much different than the display boards on the newer ships, but there wasn't as much information at a glance until you memorized the circuit pathways. Several of the lights that should have been lit weren't which indicated shorts, breaks, or burnt connections. Donning what looked light normal safety glasses, they actually tied into her tricorder and fed her information as she went.

Girl genius. The ensign didn't believe her. She just hoped this Mizuhara didn't do more damage. The other woman, however, seemed more competent. "I'm Ensign Puller. Can I help you?" Yes, they needed help, but she still felt protective of the engine room.

Percy just listened and observed the tech heads metaphorically shake oneanother's hyperspanners and trade isolinear chips or in the case of the old ship they were on duotronic enhancers. "I'm Lieutenant Percival Bálor, I'm here to watch," the half-Tellarite said nonchalantly. "Unless you have something that needs a green thumb, I'll be twiddling mine and staying out of your way."

"A green thumb?" Ensign Puller asked, looking at Percy's hands for a moment. "Oh. You're a botanist. Or are you a horticulturist?"

"Botanical Anarchist," replied Percy with some sarcasm. "At least that is what the Ontario's First Officer would probably say. "I have a lot of grandiose ideas, but I lack the patience and finesse to do things slowly...safely...whatever."

"And you were sent here to help us repair the ship?" Puller wondered if he had the patience for that or if he'd do a hurried job and cause more trouble. "Do you know anything about warp cores?"

"I was sent here because I'm a scientist," he replied. "I know not the most logical reasoning, but I needed more landing party time and such," he said using some archaic terminology. "I can hold tools and such, but you wouldn't want me messing around with warp cores unsupervised."

Her eyes widened. "No, definitely not." Puller looked around and found a toolkit. "Do you know what the different tools are?"

"Well, our Captain and Ship's Counsellor are the biggest tools we have on the Ontario, but I am pretty good at handling small ones," he replied sarcastically. He sighed. "I know my way around a plasma torch. I'm not as completely incompetent as I may seem."

"Umm..." That was more information than she wanted. "I'll let you supervise your friend over there. Just...don't touch anything. Okay?"

"Grand!" exclaimed Percy. He felt a bit empty-handed without a nice glass of scotch in his hand. What I'd give for a glass of scotch right now he thought to himself. Nevertheless, he raised his hand slightly. "Cheers lass, you don't understand how taxing it is to supervise that one."

She looked over to where Haruna was gazing rapturously at the warp core. They were both nuts. Puller wondered if the entire crew was crazy, or just these two. "Right."

She raised a hand and and called "Lieutenant Forsl, can you help these two? I'm going to check on the secondary engine room. There's an odd reading coming from there."

A Vulcan looked down from the railing above. "Very well, Ensign."

As he started down the ladder, Ensign Puller practically ran out of the engine room.

Percy shot a look over at Haruna. "Mizuharachan, Arin, quick, grab your souvenir ladies. Now is your chance," he said in a hushed voice, teasing the Chief Engineer in particular over her nostalgic intoxication over the older starship. "I'll distract the Vulcan," he added.

The Vulcan dropped to the ground in a practiced move. "Thre are no souvenirs in engineering." He looked at their uniforms with a raised brow. "You appear to be out of uniform. What ship do you come from?"

Ah this one is the bright bulb of the bunch...leave it the Vulcan thought Percy. "Before I answer that my logical friend, I have a question for you...when a starship is leaving a starbase, does the starship go to blue alert?" inquired Percy raising a brow. "I'm the Chief Fun Officer from the USS Lollipop, and you are?"

"To do so would be illogical, as is to name a ship after a confection made of sugar." He assumed the man was half-Tellurite by his facial features. The Tellurites he knew were more intelligent than this one. "In your version of math, does two plus two equal five for large denominations of two?"

"Only to our Captain," Percy replied. "Alright, my pointed eared, friend. You seem like one of the smart ones on this starship. I'm from the USS Ontario...yeah, I know. That name is not going to mean anything to you," he added and sighed.

Percy gestured to Arin "Nor is seeing a green-skinned Orion in a Starfleet uniform. Now, isn't that a bit...illogical to you? Isn't this whole thing just a bit off to you? I'm going to guess it is. You're going to want to speak with our First Officer."

He was saved from responding as the doors to engineering opened. Ensign Puller walked in, followed by Lieutenant Commander Vetur.

"That's the one," Puller said, pointing to Percy.

Grace crossed her arms across her chest. "Causing trouble again?" she asked.

"What surprises me is that you let him out of his cell to begin with," the Vulcan retorted.

"Yes. I see I was mistaken to do so."

Percy, a bit of a movie enthusiast rolled his eyes. "I see dead people...they don't know they're dead," the half-Tellarite said bitterly. He looked at Grace "Cats going to be out of the bag Commander. I'm not trying to cause trouble, but they have a Vulcan aboard. You can't keep this sort of stuff from them."

"What sort of stuff?" the Vulcan asked. He looked over at Haruna. "Do warp cores always make her orgasmic or is ours unique?" But the comment about dead people, combined with the strange uniforms was raising a number of questions.

The Chief Science Officer laughed uncontrollably and doubled over, falling to the floor and began snorting up a storm. A Vulcan just said orgasmic he thought to himself. It was grand. It was glorious. It made this whole away mission worth it.

As he finally started to contain himself and calm down, he was on his back and looked up at the Vulcan. "Nah, she's always like that but yours really excites her...it's practically Tantric sex."

Forsl watched Percy, his expression stern. "Ensign Puller, please get the Captain."

Puller turned and ran.

When the door closed behidn her, the Vulcan turned to Grace. "Explain."

Grace was staring at Percy. At this point, she wasn't sure if she should beam both him and Haruna back to the Ontario or babysit them until the job was done. She looked at the Vulcan. "I think you already know."

"If this is an example of Starfleet, I do not wish to remain in this future."

"It's not. These two are...exceptions," she replied.

"Clearly."

"Hey, I could have stayed on the Ontario," replied Percy pulling himself back upright. "But no, you had to take this little Piggy all the way here. Oh, and you brought Haruna? Oh come on now...you're smarter than that. You brought a kid into a candy store."

"It was not my decision, Mr. Bálor, as you well know," she replied coldly. "You are both Starfleet officers. I expect you to show a modicum of decorum. If not, we should have a conversation back on the Ontario."

"Subconsciously though..." Percy smiled. "Subconsciously you wanted me here because you knew I would be effective. I may not have the best decorum, ma'am, but I am a fine officer underneath all of this. I'm a diamond in the rough and you want to polish me."

"I think the word you're looking for is tan, not polish, as in tan your hide." Grace was not at all pleased by his behavior.

'You should also be aware that as soon as Ensign Puller left engineering he told the females to Grab your souvenir while he distracted the Vulcan."

"Yes, that is more in keeping with the Lieutenant I know," Grace said. "The only question now is, what to do with you?"

"That was humor," replied Percy looking at the Vulcan. "Pon Farr cannot come soon enough for you," he added before shifting his attention over to Grace.

"I'm sorry I made humorous remarks on a serious mission. I'm a wise ass. Yeah, I know. I'm sloppy at times and I give you more headaches than I mean to. I respect you even if my actions don't do very well to show that ma'am. I don't mean to disappoint you...you're like a second mom to me. I just want to make you proud." Percy sighed.

"You honestly expect me to believe you?" she asked. "You're the favorite subject of gossip on the ship, Mr. Bálor. Did you know that?"

Percy stayed silent, a first in a long while. I did the half-Tellarite thought to himself. He wrinkled his nose and ran his forearm across his face, looking down and away to avoid eye contact with Grace. There was nothing else to say.

She turned to the Vulcan. "Please give us time to effect repairs, then I will talk to your Captain and First Officer. There are a few things we may need to...explain."

"I imagine there are," Forsl replied. "I will give you until the repairs are done. I agree that this is a...delicate matter."

"What is?" Ensign Puller asked.

"Repairing the warp core," the Vulcan replied placidly. "I thought you were going to check out a problem in the auxiliary engine room?"

"Oh, yeah. I forgot." The young engineer turned and left the room.

When she was gone, Grace turned to the Vulcan. "Thank you."

It hadn't occured that for the past few minutes that Haruna had been rather quiet, silent in fact. She had sat herself crossed legged down in the center of the room next to antimatter/matter reaction chamber. The old Constitution Class Starships didn't have a 'core' like the Ontario did, at least not like they knew it.

Instead the dilithium reaction matric chamber was located in the center of the room, whilst the main reaction chamber was hidden below the floor. The slanted conduits to the nacelles were accessed and visible through the protection grill at the far end of the room. The large engineering console banks and displays showed different status of the ships systems.

However, Haruna had popped open the dilithium matrix chamber to examine the ships dilithium crystals. The small pink crystal was enclosed in a special frame made of metal and glass. Haruna held it above her head closing one eyes as she examined the state of the crystal.

"Cracked..." she said to herself setting it down on the deck next to her. She then reached into the chamber itself and began to feel around inside the hole where she had removed the frame. After a few seconds she removed her hand which was covered in some sort of black grime and dirt. "Burnt... dirty..." she muttered. This time Haruna was in true 'Engineering' mode, her face was deadly serious and she seemed to be focused, so focused in fact that she was blocking out everything that was going on and what everyone was saying.

"Impulse reactors..." she said to herself. She had an odd habit of talking things outloud as she was doing it or when she was focused on an issue. "Warp core reaction dead. Restart...." she muttered as she rose to her feet, passed everyone in the room silently like a ghost and ended up at the Engineering monitoring console which still had the old gold status and switch panel above it.

"Re-route power from Impulse Engine two..." she said as she began to flick switches and toggles. "Need new Dilithium Crystal to restart reaction... I can get one from Ontario.... Wait no..." she paused. "Too pure. Will overload warp matrix. Need less pure one..." she muttered again as she still watched little lights flash and move on the panel above her head.

"Power re-routed..." she said. A faint pulsing in engineering could be heard as the machinery began to come to life. Haruna left the console and went over to her next target, the boxy old square looking computer banks which lined one of the walls. On top of it were several old data cards in various colours. She picked up several and began to slot them into the card reader whilst pressing buttons.

The lights in the room turned from the faded emergency lighting to full power casting a better illumination in the room.

She turned to look at Arin. "Warrant Officer. Go to the Impulse Engine room and use re-start sequence three to bring Impulse Engine One back online" she said simply as she held out a bright yellow data card to the engineer. "This data card will tell you how to do it. There will be a data reader up there. I also need you to ensure that the deuterium is getting to the engine, so make sure you check the flow ratio in the conduits" Haruna said.

Arin took the data card. What she wanted to do was something unpleasant and unladylike. She didn't know why Haruna kept her at arm's length while treating her like a first year cadet and it was starting to aggravate her. She wondered if it was because if it not been for her rank, she would be the Chief Engineering Officer, not Haruna, considering she had a multiple of hands on experience. Instead she flatly said, "Aye Sir." Walking over to the controls in the next room, Arin got to work, putting anything else out of her mind.

Haruna then turned to Percy and gently took his tricorder from his hand. She tapped it several times. "I need this specification of dilithium crystal to restart the engines. I am running main power from the impulse generators right now. When Warran Officer Merkara can get the second back online, we will have enough to restart the warp core. However it needs cleaning and repairing first. Without this dilithium, I can't restart it"

She paused. "The problem is that the dilithium we use today is far too pure to use on these older vessels. So I need you to synthesize some to these specifications" she said passing him back the tricorder. "As close to those numbers as possible" she told him simply. This was a different Haruna, it was almost like Chief Engineer Scotty had come back as a spirit and possessed her body and mind.

Percy nodded. "I can do that, Lieutenant," he replied and looked around. "I need one of those dataslabs...tablet things" he added. It would be to aid his calculations and conversion rates.

Haruna walked over to a computer, slotted in a data card. She then looked up some data on the screen, toggles a few buttons and took the card out. "Here" she said passing him the data card which was bright red. "I have calculated the conversion-rates for you" she told him simply. "The sooner the better"

That we are home, yes he thought privately. "I'll get you what you need, Mizuharachan," he replied and offered a small smile. Maybe I crosed a line a two before he pondered, but he had to get her what she needed. That was top priority.

Forsl watched them for several moments, then turned and went back to his repairs.

Grace watched a bit longer. Then she left to have a quiet word with the transporter chief on both ships.

Without another word, Haruna returned back to the central intermix chamber and pulled out several toold from her uniform. She began to 'clean' the dilithium chamber silently without another word leaving everyone in astonishment in her sudden change of behaviour.

Arin climbed down out of the Engineering circuit bay. She had several burnt duotronic circuits in various pockets. Placing them into the nearby recycling bin, Arin walked over and rechecked the control panels. She could spend a day or two tweaking things, but the important part was that it was they worked. Seeing Haruna working on the intermix chamber, Arin walked over to report.

"The impulse drives are specced out and working. What's next on the list." Arin commented. Watching Haruna work, she noticed something. Initially she wasn't going to say anything but that wasn't fair the crew of this ship. Speaking in low tones, Arin said, "Sir, I'd watch the polarity on the contactors for the chamber. They have a tendency to shift on this type of ship. It comes in positive then shifts negative unless recalibrated."

"Yeah I know" Haruna replied simply still in her 'Engineering trance' mode. "I'm not afraid of a little electricity, I've been electrocuted many times" she told the warrant officer. She pulled out her arm which was dirty from the inside of the chamber.

"Once we have the crystals we should be able to restart the warp core reaction" Haruna explained simply. "I want you to examine the warp coils in both nacelles whilst we synthesize the crystals. You can access them from Jeffries Tube Three and Four, just down the corridor, second right then third left" Haruna told her. She had memorised all of the old engineering manuals and schematics of the vessel many years ago, she knew the layouts of these old ships like the back of her hand.

"Check for any fused coils and make sure to check if the buzzard collectors are also in working order. Report to me if you find anything. Its a long climb through the struts though, ladders all the way" Haruna explained.

Addressing Haruna. "So check the nacelles. Got it. That's all you had to say. I'll let you troubleshoot the wrong way on your own." She turned to leave, not awaiting a comeback." Channeling her anger, she head towards the access for the nacelles.
____
OFF

Lieutenant Commander Grace Vetur
Executive Officer
USS Ontario

Lieutenant Percival Bálor, Ph.D
Chief Science Officer
USS Ontario

Lieutenant Haruna Mizuhara
Chief Engineer
USS Ontario

Ensign Puller &
Lieutenant Forsl
NPC by Grace Vetur

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