Star Trek: Starbase 777 - main-engineering

Alrighty, so here was Allan. In engineering. Because he was an engineer! And whew boy, was everything out. It was sort of eerie to not hear any of the hum of the electronics in the huge engineering room, but there was the dim lighting, at least. As he ran through the list in his head of what exactly to deduce first - probably something to do with which systems were keeping the emergency systems on, so... life support, primarily.. it felt odd to not say anything as he usually did, and therefore he did. "So uhh, we enjoying the mood lighting?"

6

making her way here finally, she opened a panel and appeared in main engineering. It took her a moment to get used to the red emergency lights, but otherwise she had her engineering case, and was ready to go, her cat at her heels of course. "Ah... I'm here finally.. did we find anything out?"

Allan currently had his hands roaming about in a console, moving very, very slowly as he squinted at it through the emergency lighting. "Yeah, found out we've been fucked so many times by-" he paused, and then squinted at the figure speaking, recognizing her voice, hearing a.. oh, was that- "Oh! Hey, um- so, uh... there's.. it's all hard to see, but once you see it and feel it at the same time, you realize how fucked it's... fried, shut down, um... and it's just the backup stuff working, but I like, there's not.. it's flicking out too, so.."

She didn't know what the lieutenant was about to say before he recognized it was her, but she brushed it off and took her place at a different console, checking how the wiring was and if anything fused together. Her cat sat next to her, purring all the while. "Okay okay, backups working but those won't hold forever... and the console won't turn on... let me see if I can fiddle with it and see what happens. Can't be worse than what has happened already anyway."

"Yeah, a lot is fused together, broken, shorted - here, fuck, you need gloves before you get fiddling, um.." he started crawling around to find where he'd placed the damn glovebox, but it was so hard to see in this damn mood lighting..

Out from the tubes hatch was the local Reman, sans sunglasses. Renakir's light silver eyes seemed to shine in the dark. He could see Allan had beat him there and he was with another engineer that Renakir hadn't met before. "Jolan tru," Renakir said in Rihannsu only to realise he forgot what languages him and Allan both knew. Renakir knew some Standard, but he'd be much more comfortable with French or even Havrannsu if he had to.

"Rennie, oh my God, hey," Allan could hardly see him, but he recognized that voice anywhere and the smile that came across his face was probably obvious to the Reman. "I'm .. looking for my glovebox, do you see where I put it?"

Renakir stared at Allan with his beady little silver eyes like the man had five heads. Oh-- oh holy shit Renakir should have listened in his Standard class but no, he was too obsessed with being French. "Allan-- bonjour," Renakir walked over to his friend and waved both hands. He didn't know much Standard, however French had much more in common with Standard than Rihannsu did. "Mon amie, Allan," Renakir switched to French and tried to gesture to fit his words. "Slow... yeah?" He attempted just a word in Standard, hopefully with his terrible Standard and some convenient cognates they'd be able to help the station.

4

"Mi amor," Allan replied simply to Renakir's French, thinking it to be just a bit of endearment from the other. "Slow? Yeah, it's been slow finding the glovebox because I can't see, so if you please help me find it because I'm pretty sure it's out of the way of the lights because my dumb ass put it there.." he kept trying to wave his hands around the room to hoprfully bump into it.

Renakir assumed Allan was struggling to see things from the flailing of his hands. If only he knew what Allan was trying to find. He took a deep breath and reached a hand out to take Allan's in his own. Good thing it was dark and no one else could see this NSFV hand action. "Okay, Allan. What?" Renakir had a limited vocabulary in Standard but he was trying! "Thing? What? Dites-moi, Rechercher?" Please French have some word that sounds like a Standard word, Renakir thought.

Allan looked at Renakir with a very confused look, especially when Allan felt his friend's hand in his own. He held it back, and hoped that Renakir was just going to lead him to the dang glovebox. "The glovebox?" He repeated, starting to become worried that Renakir couldn't hear, until he spoke French again. "Fuck. UT's down too. Right. Right. Um. Glovebox. Gloves. Guantes." Luckily, the French was 'gants'.

"G.. UNE PAIRE DES GANTS!" Renakir's eyes lit up and he gave Allan a pat on the back before quickly searching around for gloves! He assumed it was gloves, the word 'box' was apparently lost on the Romulan-Reman.

After helping Vara'l to the medical bay, Kaylee arrived in Engineering through the tubes. She picked herself up, and tried to find someone to help, and figure out how. She saw Renakir and Allan across Engineering and made her way over to them. "Lt JG Valkyrie, sir! Ready to help how I can."

"Jolan tru, bonjour," Renakir waved at Kaylee when he saw her. He recognised the name from the roster and remembered she was human so... Probably Standard. "Can you speak Rihannsu or French?" Renakir somehow knew how to say those words in Standard, but he honestly could not manage much more than that, especially when they were under pressure to get power back. "<<We're looking for gloves, I know you can't see anything but we need to find gloves and maybe if you have a solution you can talk to Allan>>," Renakir said in French, knowing fully well Kaylee may not understand him but hopefully words would be similar enough to Standard that she could figure it out.

"Oh, uh, bonjour..I don't know Rihannsu at all, but I did do some French in high school...un petit francais." She made an attempt to communicate that she only knew a little French, 'small french' was hopefully good enough. Kaylee tried to listen in to Renakir's next sentences only picking up a few words...gloves? Solution...? How were gloves going to help? This wasn't making much sense to her. She never really noticed how much the UTs helped until they went down. She would never ever take them for granted again. "Lieutenant Allen? What's the problem with gloves?"

Maya appeared out of a panel in Engineering after a very not so fun journey through the tubes, still groggy from being woken up so early in the morning. "W-what's happening? why's everything sensual??? Who broke things???? I have wrench!" Maya asked in rapid pace as she got up and fixed her engie pajamas and gloves.

5

"Guantes eléctricos para que no muramos jodidamente por electrocución [Electric gloves so we don't fucking die from electrocution]," Allan said in Spanish to them both, before realizing that Kaylee was speaking Standard and they actually had a common language there. "Oh, Kaylee, hey - I have a glovebox around here somewhere, and we sort of need those gloves to you know, get into fixing this electrical damager since it's pretty dangerous to do it without gloves in the first place, but ten times as much in the dark," he explained, and then his head turned in the direction of the other engineer who'd walked in, "... sensual!?" he asked with a laugh, "Umali, that's - that's a way to put it."

Poking his head through the panel was someone who knew he was definitely not authorized to be there, and therefore didn't leave the tubes completely. Terahl adjusted his sunglasses, his expression serious for once. "Hey— d' you guys need anything? Any messages delivered anywhere, or supplies, or to transport somebody? I can get around fast." No pun intended. "Since I can't actually, uh, do anything to help, figured I may as well try something, right..?"

"Who is sexual?" Renakir asked in French, he clearly misherd Maya's words and of course he thought she was talking about something sexual? Either way, Renakir continued to search for the damn gloves. He then saw a very cool looking Andorian civilian walk into the room and threw his hands up in the air. "Woo, party people," He said in Standard, clearly his vocabulary was very small and limited to what he had heard in French nightclubs. "Gloves, une paire des gants! S'il vous plait!"

4

"Oh- hmm. I don't know if I actually have any electrical safety gloves. Just fancy ones." He waved a hand as if to show them. "I can pop over to Operations and grab some, unless you all have them here somewhere?"

"Yeah, huge box of them around here somewhere in the plain open where it's conveniently totally dark, and this French motherfucker, and I say that so affectionately, is the only one who can see," he pointed to Renakir, as if that would help. "Might be easier to grab them from Operations, unless you speak French or uh, Rihannsu?"

"Oh, I do!" Terahl leant forward, catching Renakir's eyes. "[There are some here, but it's dark, so you're the only one who can find them]," he answered in French. Good thing he knew a handful of different languages, it came in handy on the field...

1

"I am THAT french motherfucker," Renakir said in near perfect standard, raising a finger and laughing loudly. "Oh bless, you speak French. Alright mon amie, let's get this fucking bread," He said in french. "We're looking for gloves, right?"

4

"[Yep, you've got it. Good luck.]" Terahl gave a two fingered salute. "Need me to send a message anywhere else? I'll be popping around, so."

"Does Allan know how big these gloves are? Like are they in a box or something?" Renakir asked the civiian before walking over to the side of the room where the emergency lights weren't hitting so he could investigate the 'dark zones' for any signs of gloves.

"[They're in a big box, he said.]" Stylish, too. He'd seen a handful of different Starfleet uniforms in his years, but Starbase 777's were his favorite.

Kaylee had a moment of panic when Allan started speaking in Spanish. She didn't speak Spanish. She was worried she'd be the only person who spoke standard. But problem solved, he did speak standard. And then a few more people showed up. Okay. This should be fine. More engineers the better. Things can get fixed. Then we can start helping people. Unfortunately, Kaylee was now excluded from the conversations as she didn't speak the language. "So, no fixing anything until we get these gloves, sir?" Kaylee had had her fair share of electric shocks from equipment. It wasn't particularly nice. But she was sure there was something they could do without them, that wasn't risky to try. Life support was still concerning her. What if it did go down? What then? We wait to suffocate to death? (edited)

"Yeah, but now that Rennie knows what he's looking for hopefully, we'll get them, sorry, should've put them in a better spot," he said, as if a big open spot wasn't the best place to put it before the power was out. He couldn't have known it would be dark next time he would need it. "The microfusion reactors could need a bit of help, but we have to make sure we're prioritizing life support, and to figure out what the damage is on that, we need to.. mess with the electronics that are still operating, but mangled, so yeah, we need the gloves, unless you want to..." he thought for a moment, "nevermind, I can't really think of a way to make light without being a bit of an arsonist."

"No sir, its okay. Prioritising safety is good. But maybe have a large flashing sign saying 'gloves' over them." Yes Kaylee you're very funny nice joke well done. Kaylee felt a little awkward sitting on her hands here. She wanted to do stuff, she wanted to be helpful. But if there was nothing they could do, there was nothing they could do and she'd have to wait a bit.

4

Renakir quickly scurried across the floor on his hands and legs like some cryptid being. It was something he would otherwise be embarrassed to do if others could see him, but in the dark he was free to be as Reman as he wanted. Renakir quickly found the box and returned to Allan. "Allan, here," He said as he felt around for Allan's hand, accidentally touching nearly every part of his body BEFORE his damn hands. "Un box de gants." Not real French, but franglish was his friend here.

4

Allan laughed as Renakir literally just started grabbing at him everywhere but his hand, and finally when Renakir grabbed it and led him to the glovebox. "Merci," Allan whispered, and since he was already holding Renakir's hand, he gave it a small kiss. How scandalous. And then he took the glovebox and opened it on up. "Allllright, we've got gloves now thanks to the Frenchman," he said, putting on some himself and handing pairs to Maya and Kaylee.

3

Kaylee thanked Allan and started to put her gloves on. She usually struggled getting gloves on normally, but now she was mostly relying on touch, as it was pretty dark. Damn, they'd need to upgrade these emergency lights at some point.. "How can I help, sir?"

Terahl went back to the tubes! Good luck, later skaters.

3

She didn't know what to say after watching the broken English and French interaction. Man, the translator really does all the work... but at least the gloves were finally found. She put some on and went back to examining the console, they were on a time limit, and it was making her antsy. "Finally... fixing these wires is gonna be a massive pain..." It was a half truth really, she enjoyed fixing things, it made her feel... useful... accomplished.

Lapan popped out of a Jeffries' tube, hair thrown in a bun, his pajamas (a very flattering Miffy-themed set that had collected some dust in the tubes) his uniform for the day. Without asking, he also took a pair of gloves. He'd missed the discussion in different languages, something he surely would have been able to help with, and instead joined in on trying to fix whatever he could with regards to life support. In another life he would've been a systems engineer, with how many different systems he'd helped fix since coming to 777. "Sorry for being late, I had to pawn my kid off on the first pair of free hands I could find," he said, only half-joking as his son was actually being taken care of by a very small Romulan and her weird cat right now.

4

Allan looked at Kaylee and carefully took a few wires apart in the console he was looking at, looking to both her and Coda as he did so. "First step would be unmangling these wires and figuring out what's been welded together that's sort of unfixable without a uh, decoupler, shit.." he made an attempt to switch on his decoupler just in case. Yeah, no dice. "Okay, so wires first, then. As we work on that, we'll probably figure out how damaged the backups are right now - life support's our first priority, as always, so ignore shit like the weapons systems - in fact, if you find any energy there, take it the fuck away, yeah?" There was probably at least one system they could shut down further than it already was to reroute some auxiliary power. "No worries, um- I'm Allan," he smiled and waved at the newcomer, not knowing who they were but glad for the extra help.

"I know, we worked on the Kinaen together!" Lapan remembered Kinaen vividly. He'd never experienced a core transplant before and he probably never would again, at least not one like that.

3

Not a minute later, Lente also came rolling out of a tube, wearing black sweatpants and a wrinkled T-shirt, and swearing violently in three languages. "Godverde- fucking tubes. I swear I'm not claustrophobic, but I'm also not made for climbing that far," she complained, before saluting halfheartedly. "Reporting for duty, sir, please don't tell me I need to climb back up to the medical floors." At least this had been climbing down. If she had to climb all the way back up she was surely going to fucking die.

3

Kaylee nodded and started to try and untangle the wires. Without many of their tools, repairs were looking slim. She tried a few of her other tools, attached to her uniform by a handy-dandy tool belt - designed by her father - but nothing appeared to be working, so for now it was just seeing what was going on. Oh why can't anything ever be simple on this station? Never just a tripped wire or melted fuse. Always a mystery with this strange Lady. Miss 777, playing hard to get.

2

"Ooooh, the Kinaen, yeah, sorry, I was kinda ba- knee-deep in that core, remind me your name?" He asked, hearing the noise of Lente swearing next and grabbed a pair of gloves to hand to her. "Hell nah." Unless absolutely necessary, of course.

Lente took the gloves with a deep sigh of relief. "Thank the fucking prophets, or whatever," she said, before joining the first familiar face she happened to see, which was.... Kaylee! She sat down next to Kaylee, and started working alongside her.

3

"Lieutenant Lapan, sir, with Communications in Operations. I'm the one who... sweet-talked the ship?" It didn't sound great when you said it that way, even if it was kind of exactly what happened.

3

4

It was hard, working without any decent light. The cat at her side seemed interested in what she was doing, but otherwise kept to herself. When Coda felt stressed she ran a hand through the cat's fur and everything would be alright. Wires were her specialty anyway. "Oh, I remember the whole sweet talk thing. Do you think if you talk to the station like that it will start to cooperate?"

2

"Ahhh, yeah, that was great," he laughed slightly at Coda's suggestion, "oh, I've tried that sooo many times, but... wouldn't hurt?"

Pop, guess who! "Me again, hiya. Turns out there's an ion storm goin' on, pair that with an inverson field and it's a match made in hell. Science is, I think, working on a way to combat it, but not sure what they can do with the lights off." Flushed and a little breathless, Terahl paused, running his fingers through his hair to try to tame it back into place "I don't suppose any of you have a bottle of water...?"

17:34

Oh, new people! "Hi there," he greeted politely as he could.

"I'd replicate one for you, dude, but we're fresh out of power," Lente joked. "Might be good to sit down though, no need to run yourself into the ground. Take a few deep breaths and all that." If they needed to get more messages around the station she'd offer herself up if necessary... such a selfless act, really, to volunteer to tread the dreaded Jeffries tubes once more.

"Good call." Terahl climbed in to take a seat (probably near the entrance, away from all the wires and consoles and such) to catch his breath. "We've got a train of messages going around, sort of like a supply chain. Not just me running around. I'll stay out of your way," he chuckled, taking off his jacket and folding it onto his lap, rolling up his sleeves.

"Yeah, sit down, I can.." he stood up and looked across the room, and seeing that nobody was panicking too hard.. "I can get you water if you want? Won't take long, I think the closest manual pump is uh.. just around the corner if I go into the tubes up like, one level, anyone else need anything?" He asked as he rolled up his sleeves and walked over to the tube.

"Oh, no, 's okay. You keep doing what you're doing." Terahl flashed a toothy grin, genuinely thankful, popping back through the hatch-thingy! "Good luck. I'll be back eventually, probably."

From one of the side rooms around the corner, there was a loud clatter that completely and totally broke the eerie silence in what usually was a very active and loud Main Engineering.

5

"Don't like that," Lente commented quietly, not able to see what made the noise. And frankly, not too keen to be the one to go find out, either.

Hearing the clatter, Kaylee immediately jumped to a stand and went to see what happened. "Woah! What was that?"

"SO SOMEONE DID BREAK A FUCKING THING!" A sleep deprived and confused Maya shouted out as she turned to face the source of the loud noise which broke her off from her micro-sleep before she grab hold of the nearest wrench. A slurry of mumbled Filipino curses followed as she straighented up her tank top, pulled up her gloves, and walked towards it

"Nah, vibes are kinda rancid with that one," Allan whispered, and decided to follow Umali towards the source of the noise. "Okay, Maya and I are gonna check out the spooky noise - you two, keep an eye on the life support, make sure that sh- it's still lit up, okay?"

Kaylee stopped walking towards the source of the noise, acknowledging Allan's order, and continued working on the wires and checking the life support.

The sound of the sudden noise made her flinch on reflex. In response her cat hissed and puffed up her fur. Coda took a moment to take the cat into her hands to calm her down before focusing back on the wires. Whatever noise that was, it wasn't as important as making sure life support didn't fail.

3

"Okey Dokey, Short Shorts Man!" Maya said to Allen as she hyped herself up a little bit to ward off the need to go back to sleep. Was this a lesson to stop sleeping at 0200hrs every night??? who knows, but she isn't taking it. "Let's get dis guy, a-and Geordi LaForge him a new escape pod!" Maya added in a very bad Filipino Batman impression

Rounding the corner to see the source of the noise, Allan and Maya found many thousands of isolinear chips in a pile on the ground, in the middle of the computer core room. It may also not surprise you to learn that the many, many server racks around the room had been emptied of all their contents. During a blackout situation, the main computer is meant to switch into a closed-cycle power system. Clearly that just also ran out of power - forcing the computer to hail mother mary and eject every single one of it's drives to prevent further internal damage, or damage to the data inside. (edited)

5

"Fuck." Allan stared at the computer like it was a mangled corpse, but he turned to Maya and quickly added, "this is normal," before he sat down on the ground and started picking up the rods, "but it's gonna be a hell of a lot to pick up and sort again - you're familiar enough with the schematics of this thing? I've got a manual map in the office if not?" Not everyone was as attuned to computers as he was, after all, but the main computer was pretty essential.

Maya was absolutely horrified when she saw the sight of the computer core room being violated like this. She was somewhat disappointed there wouldn't be any bonking going on in the Engineering room, but this wasn't much of an improvement either as she looked over to Allan and helped him pick up the rods as well. "Yeah, I've worked around here a couple of times before. I should know enough about it." (edited)

1

"Good, good, awesome, cool," he kept sorting through the chips, sorting them on the ground first, "check for damage in the port before you plug them back in, by the way."

Okey Dokey, Short Shorts Man..." Maya nodded to Allan without paying much attention to what she just said this time as she began to check for damages in the ports before placing the appropriate chip back into place. "y'know... i thought people made new ensigns do this to mess with them before in all honesty."

"Mm, yeah, happened to me once, I think I cried," he laughed, despite it not being funny. The shipyards were.. an awful time, in all honesty, with absolutely shit leadership. "If someone ever did that here, Alizati and I, uh.. let's just say, wouldn't go well," he kept putting the ports into place. Teamwork would make the computer dream work. Surely.

While Allan and Maya worked on replacing each isolinear chip (an seemingly infinite, since half the time the chip would just pop out again), the Engineers in the main area encountered yet another error - this time with the backup life support. The constant detangling and rearranging of wires seemed to be too much for the emergency LCARS system to handle, and main engineering was bathed a tasteful shade of purple as the light of the system's Blue Screen of Death mixed with the red of the emergency lighting.

6

3

"Oh....oh fuck. Oh....oh no." Kaylee murmured to herself as the lights came on.. Now she herself had never experienced this. But she was taught about it and had heard stories from engineers above her. So she was a little frightened. Her stomach dropped as she tried to figure out what the fresh hell happened.

"Hey, now, don't do that, c'mon, let's not make rash decisions, you don't want to do that, please," Lente said as soon as she noticed the change; God dammit. She immediately changed gears, needing to find a way to get it back online. They were already on a time limit before, but this really cut down whatever time they had.

3

"What the fuck! Miss ma'am I'll need you to stop that right now. Or at least tell us your problem. We can't help if we don't know what's wrong." She started out, reasonably, a little angry, but getting angry at a big station wasn't going to help, so maybe being nice would. What the hell happened and how the hell does she fix it.

4

"FUCK YOU CHIPPY!" Maya shouted from the background at one of the chips as it plopped out of its socket before inspecting its port and harshly pushing the chip back in.

3

Thankfully it wasn't long before the system rebooted itself - but something was different. After the reboot the screens had lost their distinctive colours and shapes, as well as the fancy fonts and the backup system diagrams. All that had been replaced by what looked like something that Malcolm Reed would have used back in the 2160s. Why anyone would make a backup version of an interface for a backup power system that enabled backup support systems is a mystery even to the Federation's greatest computer scientists. Yes, this was not LCARS anymore - this was BCARS.

Starfleet B.C.A.R.S. <Backup Computer Access and Retrieval System> v1.43 (Installation date: 2387; Last opened: 2387)

<BCARSACTIVATION = TRUE>

[ADMIN LOGIN REQUIRED]
/service number/ _____
/password/ _____

(edited)

12

11

8

6

"Admin login required? This fucker hasn't seen the light of day for almost 50 years! This things the same age as my father! What the fuck!" Kaylee was getting a little tetchy now. Who the fuck did this 'BCARS' character consider an admin? Allan? The captain? The captain from 100 years ago?

3

"Lieutenant, it's - please, treat her gently, don't damage it any more than it already is," he said, continuing to quickly but carefully put the chips in, completely unaware to the programming dilemma in the other room.

In all honesty she kind of liked the purple lightening, but knew that it was really just different danger systems mixed together. What made it worse was the fact that the whole system had rebooted to ancient times, and this was something she was not an expert in. "How many tries do we get before it locks us out? Will it even lock us out with wrong answers?"

"I'm tapping out. Lieutenant Allen, can you take a look at this?" Lente yelled, remembering a conversation in the chatroom about him specialising in software engineering after she'd mentioned she was absolutely crap at it. He'd at least get further than she would.

2

Ah the joys of being an Engineer. She'd think back on this and laugh. Or cry. Or have nightmares. Who knows? But right now she was near tears. It was late. Or early? She was tired. And stressed. And panicking internally. What the fuck was she supposed to do now.

Upon hearing his name shouted, he got up, looked at Maya, and looked at the chips- "I do mean it, please treat her nicely, okay? Sort of the most important part of the starbase," and with that, he went to the other room. "Yeah, what's the sit-" as he approached what everyone was looking at, and covered his mouth with his hand and put his other hand on his hip as he looked at it. "...yeah, huh, this is - it's a sort of inception-type situation for uh, backup systems.." he tried his own normal credentials, but assumed they wouldn't work - worth a shot before he thought about attempting hacking, though.

"Alright! I understand... dunno why it's spitting out the chips, but that's for later I guess. I'll try to be nicer to her." Maya said to Allan as she calmed down and went back to work, she peeked over to what was going on in the other room, and decided not to deal with that software mess. "Ensigns, JG's! Could you help me with these please?" And so another great timeless Starfleet tradition carries on. The mechanic actually needed the help though, putting the chips back was getting rather frustrating. (edited)

1

To probably everyone's surprise, BCARS responded with a high-pitched beep, and the software unlocked. Then again, it looked like every single change to the backup systems would have to be manually inputted and submitted for the system to make the adjustments it needed to.

Starfleet B.C.A.R.S. <Backup Computer Access and Retrieval System> v1.43 (Installation date: 2387; Last opened: 2387)

<BCARSACTIVATION = TRUE>

[ADMIN LOGIN REQUIRED]
/service number/ 69-420-069 <RECOGNISED - ALLAN ALLEN>

/password/ N[3eE]v[3eE]rG[0oO]nn@[G6g]![v3eE]Y[0oO]uUp!|N[3eE]v[3eE]rG[0oO]nn@L[3eE]tY[0oO]uD[0oO]wn!

[USER ACCEPTED - WELCOME, LIEUTENANT ALLEN]

[ENTER COMMAND PROMPT BELOW]
>_

(edited)

7

8

6

5

"Oooh, what a throwback," Allan said, squinting with a bit of concern as it didn't hash his password. No matter, he'd just use his other passwords from now on. "Okay, okay.." he said as he entered some code into the command prompt. Keeping it simple for now:

check_status lifesupport
check_status lifesupport_backup

5

Starfleet B.C.A.R.S. <Backup Computer Access and Retrieval System> v1.43 (Installation date: 2387; Last opened: 2387)

<BCARSACTIVATION = TRUE>

[ADMIN LOGIN ENTERED]

[ENTER COMMAND PROMPT BELOW]
>check_status lifesupport
>system.lifesupport = OFFLINE
>
>check_status lifesupport_backup
>system.lifesupport_backup = ONLINE
>
>troubleshoot? [Y/N]

Well, this would be a simple answer. "Lights on the panel for the life support are still blinking over there, right? If they start flickering, lemme know, and I'll cut this out," After all, he didn't want the troubleshoot process to take energy away from the thing theh needed. > Y

Starfleet B.C.A.R.S. <Backup Computer Access and Retrieval System> v1.43 (Installation date: 2387; Last opened: 2387)

<BCARSACTIVATION = TRUE>

[ADMIN LOGIN ENTERED]

[ENTER COMMAND PROMPT BELOW]
>check_status lifesupport
>system.lifesupport = OFFLINE
>
>check_status lifesupport_backup
>system.lifesupport_backup = ONLINE
>
>troubleshoot? [Y/N]
>Y
>running system.troubleshoot... 0%

The console produced a deafening glitch-like sound effect as the troubleshooter got up and running - looking through each power-related system on the base was going to take a while for any program, not least this 27 year-old program. On the plus side, the life support panel lights were still blinking at regular intervals, which was a very good sign!

Kaylee, still on the verge of passing out or crying, decided to remove herself from seeing BCARS and went to help Lt Umali with the chips.

4

5

While he waited here for it to load, he looked across the room to make sure everyone was accounted for, and his eyes fell onto Kaylee, who looked... not great. "Hey, Valkyrie-" he stepped away from the BCARS and walked up to her, leaning down some to be level with her as he looked into her eyes- "you good?"

Kaylee quickly wiped her face, worried she looked like she was crying. Which she almost was. "Oh, uh, yes! No, of course I am sir! W-Why wouldn't I be?" Very convincing Kaylee. She looked as though she was barely holding herself together. Exhausted, stressed and upset. Honestly, not great. But you'd have to kill her before she said that to anyone. She'd be fine. As soon as they finished and she could go to sleep, she'd be a-okay.

3

"I'm back, what did I -?" Oops. That couldn't be good. Terahl climbed back down, carrying a bag full of water bottles and a jug to refill them. "Got some water for you all. Everything Ok?"

"You're- can I..?" he reached a hand out to hold her shoulder, and if she said yes, he did. "You are good, yeah? Like, objectively, you are good, and you will be," he said, "it's okay, you're alright, this is - if it's too much, you can sit down, Terahl's back with water, have a drink- is there anything in particular that's got you like this..?" his voice dropped to a whisper as he said that.

Kaylee nodded, allowing Allan to hold her shoulder, as she listened to him. "...Well. No.. I just-... I'm not used to waking up in the middle of the night to an emergency.. Not like anyone is... I'm just a little tired, sir, but I-..I think I'll be okay?" It sounded like a question, like she wasn't exactly sure. And she wasn't. If she was left alone for more than a few minutes, she probably would just go to sleep. And if any other unexpected bad surprises happened, she would definitely cry. She's just....not having a great morning.

1

"Yeah - yeah, it's a lot to handle," Allan carefully led them a little more to the side of the room as they spoke. "But you're doing great considering all that, yeah? This is some wild shit, and so like, nobody - nobody, and I mean nobody, is expecting you to be completely calm and together, but it's best if... I want you to take a moment to catch your breath and relax, and we can - we'll get some water first from our handy friend over here, okay? Water's always good." He looked over at Terahl, and then back at Kaylee.

3

"You got it, boss." Terahl got Kaylee a water bottle, passing it over. "There you go, kid. Take it easy alright?"

4

Kaylee took a sip of the water she was passed, before covering her face with her hands and taking some breaths. Shaky, but deep breaths. She wanted to go back to sleep. She wanted to go back to her girlfriend and dog and cuddle until they all fell asleep together. But she couldn't. She had to stay here where error messages were as common as water in the ocean. Where she didn't know what to do. " 'm s'rry..." she murmured, barely loud enough to be heard. She was so ashamed of herself. She was a Lt JG now. She should be mature and able to handle this. This is how Cadets acted. Take her rank away from her now.

4

"Don't apologize for this," Allan said nearly immediately, sitting down next to one of the consoles they were supposed to keep eyes on and gesturing for her to sit down next to him, "it's very, very okay, don't apologize. Being not okay is okay, it's okay." He pulled one knee into his chest and stretched the other out in front of him as he looked over at her. He was repeating it for Kaylee, but also a past version of himself that broke down in front of a superior officer and got chewed out for it. "We're going to take a few minutes here. As long as you need."

3

Kaylee sat down next to him. She wasn't sure what she felt. But there sure was a lot of it. Like...like a small child scared of getting in trouble, and then getting yelled at as they tried their best to fix it. And that's what she was worried was going to happen. But Allan was calm... Kind. She took another sip of water as she continued to collect herself. She almost murmured out another apology. 'I'm sorry I couldn't continue.' 'I'm sorry I wasn't ready.' 'I'm sorry I wasn't good enough.' But she caught herself. Allan has said it was okay. Don't be sorry.

4

And so, Allan sat there with her, probably occasionally answering a question or two from other engineers or giving a few instructions when it came to the other things being done - but overall, he was just chilling here with Kaylee and whoever else decided they needed a bit of a break. "Also, ah- just so you know, it's okay to ask for a hug or anything, that's alright too," he just felt like he should say that, because sometimes it was a really scary thing to even ask to lean on someone's shoulder. Sometimes. And other times, it felt like the safest thing in the world when you knew a person so well- "Hey, Rennie, you doing okay too?" he said, in the general direction of where he thought Rennie was.

2

Renakir turned his head when he heard his friend speak. He saw Allan and Kaylee sitting down beside each other and being in the same area, also sat down. Not that either of those two would have seen him do such action. His breathing was slow and calm as he listened to his friend speak words that he didn't know. Out of all the languages he knew, him and Allan did not share a single one, at least with proficiency enough to have a decent conversation. He sighed and gave his friend a saddened look. "<<Allan, I wish I could speak to you, I know you're tired too. I don't really know the right words to say,>>" Renakir spoke Rihannsu this time, knowing very well Allan wouldn't understand a word, but he wanted to speak freely in his own language for a moment. "[I don't know how much you'll undersand, but is Kaylee alright? She seems pretty beat,]" He said in French, hoping that one or more of those words would translate to something meaningful in Standard or Spanish. Renakir also knew Mandarin, but it might as well have been Rihannsu with out distant it was from any of the languages both Allan and Kaylee spoke.

A messenger arrived, and after a glance at the message they carried, said, "This just says progress update with a question mark. I assume Mo wants to know where you're all at?"

He took Renakir's hand again and recognized a few words in both languages, deciding to speak his minimum Rihannsu back to him. "Good," he whispered, "will be. You?" When the messenger came in, he looked at the screen again and sighed. "Waiting on a troubleshooter from '87 to load for life support backup, but it looks okay currently. Reloading every isolinear chip into the computer manually. Leave a heart at the end."

8

Thank Tenakruvek Allan spoke Standard and could relay their status to the messenger. Renakir could probably cook something up in Standard, but it would not be nearly as coherent as what Allan could make. He gave Allan's hand a light squeeze and leaned over to whisper in his ear. "Yes, e'lev," and with that he gave Allan's hand a light kiss, his pretty silver eyes meeting Allan's green ones.

5

3

Despite Allan again, being totally used to more scandalous behavior, he still blushed when Renakir kissed his hand and said those words, although it was all in the shift of movement across his face rather than any color shift due to the dim red of the lighting, which sort of evened it out. "Good," he said again in Rihannsu, looking into his pretty silver eyes, "you're good. Cool. Rock on." No question as to who he learned that from.

1

The mechanic continued to do her work of manually putting the chips back into placec, but after a little bit longer of dealing with trying to being nice to the computer core, Maya decided to simply step out of the comp core room and take a short breather with the others. "Are.. are we chilling? Did we save the day? How we doing?" Maya asked Short Shorts man, still with a couple of Isolinear chips on hand to fidget with in her hands, before she noticed Kaylee and couldn't help but feel worried as she sat next to her. "Lieutenant... are you feeling okay?"

"I'm okay...Just, a little tired, like I suppose all of you will be too." Kaylee said to Maya. She didn't want to worry anyone else. The last thing she wanted was for half the engineers to be worrying about her.

1

"Got this system from '87 loading a huge troubleshoot program. Almost done with it, though." He nodded in the direction of the console, still sitting with Kaylee and Rennie, nodding as Kaylee replied. "What about you, Umali?"

"I am on rock," Renakir said in the best Standard he could, but he had a typical French accent as to be expected. He listened to Maya and Kaylee chat as well, although he didn't know what they were saying. He gave both women a thumbs up and smiled, probably only his silver eyes were visible in the dark but hopefully his good vibes got through to them.

3

"I get that. I'm running on an hour of sleep at the moment. But we'll be alright though, we're Starfleet; we can do this." Maya said to Kaylee with a soft smile before she yawned a little bit and stretched. "Aside from the fact I would kill someone for a Raktajino right now, I've made some progress with putting the chips back in place. Though I thought It would be best for me to take a break for a little bit before I go insane and break something." Maya said to her boss, the Shorts Shorts Man, with a light chuckle before she turned over to Renakir and gave him a thumbs up back and a smile. "Omelette du Fromage... baguette."

2

Renakir laughed out loud at the attempt at French from his fellow engineer. In return, he replied back in the very few words of Tagalog he knew. "Putagina mo, Ako French motherfucker," at least, he hoped he was saying the right words. Naturally Renakir, like anyone learning a language, was great at swearing and vulgarities.

"A heart? Damn. I didn't know it was Valentine's day." The messenger moseyed offscreen.

5

She didn't know if she was actually dreaming right now or if she actually heard what she just heard, but either way, Maya just absolutely lost her shit and burst out laughing. It was the most glorious thing she had heard so far tonight. "Anak ng puta! holy shiiittt! Paco taught you well!"

"Message from Science!" The paper was covered in small sketches, explanations, and equations. All of them point to figuring out if it would be possible to boot up the shield generators using the power from the storm. They passed the paper off to Allan, as the ACEO. "Commander Lhai'lvek wants to know if it'd be safe to, uh.. 'reverse functionality' of the shield generators. Without frying everything, essentially."

Things seemed to be underway in Science and Engineering to get things fixed. That meant that it was the perfect time for other things to un fix, right? Without warning, a sudden feeling of weightlessness swept over everyone here. Objects began floating. People began floating. It would appear that the gravity had turned off: a sign that the life support system was losing more power.

2

Allan blinked in response to Renakir responding to his Rihannsu with nonsensical Standard, but he simply laughed and leaned his head on the Reman's shoulder. "Hell yeah we can," he said to Maya, also copying Renakir's gesture of a thumbs up. "Take any time you need, I can probably do some chip sorting while the progrm loa-" and then the messenger had come back, and he studied the paper, which... shoutout to Commander Lhai'lvek, this was a lot of shit - which made it ten times better for the engineer to make sense of it. "Right, lemme see, uh.." He got up and just sort of cleared his throat to draw the attention of most of the engineers in the room with him, and then proceeded to summarize the contents of the detailed letter and diagrams the Commander had sent down. "Basically, we need to boot up the shield generators in such a way that it reverses in on itself and actually takes the power straight from the storm without us getting fried like an egg. But uh, we need to get a shitton of power in the first place -" and then everything started floating! Splendid, as Dion might say for another situation.

1

Upsie daisies! Terahl tumbled head over heels with an amused little chuckle, grabbing for his backpack with all of the waters and such in it, zipping it shut. "Well, that's not ideal, is it?"

As if on cue, the silence of Engineering was broken by a happy chime from BCARS, who had just finished it's many, many hours of troubleshooting.

Starfleet B.C.A.R.S. <Backup Computer Access and Retrieval System> v1.43 (Installation date: 2387; Last opened: 2387)

<BCARSACTIVATION = TRUE>

[ADMIN LOGIN ENTERED]

[ENTER COMMAND PROMPT BELOW]
>running system.troubleshoot... 100%
>troubleshoot complete!
>
>system.lifesupport_backup <result>
>function = good
>hardware = problems detected
>power_level = 32%
>
>applying fix for <power_level = low>
>redirecting power from secondary-rated backup systems...
>disabling system.gravity_backup...
>fix complete!
>system.lifesupport_backup(power_level) = 56%
>
>recommended action - contact your nearest Starfleet corps of Engineers representative to request emergency support
>_

(edited)

"I would go so far as to say that it is incredibly unideal, actually," Lapan said, unaware if unideal was actually a word in Standard. It was now!

"We need to do that fast. 'cause we're already loosing too much power!" Maya said the floaty floaty bs started happening. "From personal experience, I think it is possible to use the shields that way. The shields can normally absorb and dissipate energy surges from storms and weapons fire, maybe we could reconfigure the shields to basically be a conduit to force siphon the storms energy and shunt it through the generators and jumpstart the main fusion reactor?? Kind of like how when ships are put in a tractor beam, they respond by sending a feedback surge against whoever is beaming them get out of it. We do that, but against ourselves using the storm, and directly to fusion reactor!" Maya was not sure if anything she said made any resemblance of sense, but hopefully self-feedback surge straight to the fusion reactor could forcefully jumpstart main power. "It needs to be precise, otherwise we burn shields...and also explode"

"Yeah, not at all ideal, but hey, we can work with it.." Allan said in response to Terahl, grabbing onto a nearby pole to get a look at the computer. "Shit, we're down to 32," he said, and rolled his eyes when he saw that BCARS had disabled gravity. Wow, what a fix. "So uh, it just magically decided to turn gravity off to get life support to 56%. Uh... interesting reaction, to say the least, but we've ought to choose some other system to swap out for that, any ideas?" He asked, a little more focused on thinking about what Maya had said.. "We just need the power in order to reverse it, but not so much power we explode, yeah.. where the fuck to get enough power to use shields in reverse..."

"....would it be bad if I suggested to shunt emergency power to shields? Like... Pull some amount of life support backup power for a few moments to give ourselves a shot?" Maya suggested to Allan. If this was an engineers version of the Kobayashi Maru test, she had no idea how that answer would go. "If we get the frequencies we need and set everything up right, we only need to pull emergency power for a few moments until the fusion reactors turn on."

"It could work... Pulling life support for a few seconds would only really affect the medical floors," since one could never be sure who was, at any given moment, being kept alive by the station rather than their own power, "but you can keep that running with, what, four percent of total power? The rest can be spared for inverting the shields" Thereabouts, anyway. Medbay didn't need to work optimally for those few seconds to keep people alive.

After having travelled via the treacherous tubes for the second time that... day? night? Evoras emerged in engineering, still looking decidedly more dishevel than she usually ever did. After taking a few seconds to orientate herself, she pulled the paper pieces from her pocket and held them out to the nearest person. "I've got calculations... In an unconventional format, but calculations none the less."

"I love calculations! What's up?" Lente asked cheerfully, completely forgetting that 1) this was a dire situation, and 2) this was the CSO she was talking to. She was floating, it was coming up on like 5am, and she was in her pajamas, her hoodie was laying in a tube somewhere between here and her bed, and she couldn't care less.

"We probably could. We could still breathe for a couple of hours if life support theoretically goes offline when we do this. So we would all be good if we dedicate more power to shields and reserve some to keep the consoles online." Medical could probably be fine for a little until they can kick power back on through essentially letting the storm shoot their own power core. They're trained professionals who probably got this in the bag. "Hello commander, fancy seeing you here!" The sudden appearance of the CSO startled her for a bit, but she's glad Evoras is here. "We could do the reverse shield generators thing, but we need more power and info on how to modulate shields. Current idea right now is letting the storm shoot our power core... but in a controlled way... hopefully..."

Evoras raised an eyebrow at the currently ongoing conversation and then began to hand out the info she brought. "There's what information we got on what's going on outside from a short scan. Then there's the principle way in which the effects should be reversible..." She kept going until she didn't have any of the paper pieces anymore. "I assume that the people back up in the labs are working on more details."

"Okey dokey! this is a good start! Thank you, Commander!" The engineer said as she read through the papers Evoras handed her. "Now's just a matter of how exactly we're going to execute all this... power to even get started being the main issue right now, unless we're good with pulling life support power for a little bit." (edited)

With the loss of gravity, her cat clung to her uniform with her claws, as painful as that was, Coda was able to somewhat keep herself stable by holding onto the console she was working on, but now all the tools she was using were just floating aimlessly beside her... great. "With how wonky the system is acting, I don't think pulling life support would be a good idea. It's already pretty low as it is... what systems have we pulled from to conserve power? Other than gravity of course..."

"Hellooo, I-- ow." Serro bumped her head on the hatch. "I have the last scans we got before everything went bad!"

"Much obliged, Lieutenant." Evoras turned to look at Coda. "You are not entirely wrong, but what we are hoping for is that by using that power for a short while we will be able to get the entire station back on a power level that is close or at the very least closer to normal. So as long as everything works out well..." She didn't finish her sentence, but she did trust her and her scientists calculations and she didn't have any reason to mistrust the engineers so she was optimistic that this attempt would not get them into any more trouble than they were already in.

2

Serro handed over the paper containing the information to Evoras. "So? Are we pulling the trigger on this?" She glanced around to the Engineers and Operations officers.

"Emergency life support's at around 56% right now, everything else's offline, and I don't think there are any other options knowing the situation we are in. So we gotta risk it." Maya explained to Coda calmly as she worked on figuring out how the whole self-lightning rod thing work on whatever main consoles are available. It would be hard to work with estimates based on the initial calculations given, but when she heard that new scans just arrived, she was more than elated when she turned to Serro. "THANK GOD FOR SCIENCE! We're going to lightning rod ourselves to victory and it is definitely going to work!"

4

Serro laughed at the determined shout, clapping her hands together a few times. "Let's do this, then!" Get to it!!! (edited)

"LET'S FUCKING DO THIS THING!" Maya declared, the sleep deprivation putting too much unhinged excited hype energy into her brain "Engineers, ready your stations and prepare to initialize shields and reverse polarity on my mark! OPS, the moment we get power from the storm, compensate for it the best you can so nothing explodes and re-route it to the main fusion reactor. We're jump starting this bitch like Tom Paris' Chevrolet fucking Camaro!" Maya Umali desperately needs a full nights sleep right about now, she's running on hype and spite.

5

6

Stations were prepped and ready to go. Just waiting on Maya's word!

Lapan turned to the person next to him, who happened to be Lente. "Who is Tom Paris again? Is he important?" he asked quietly.

"Probably an engineer of some kind? I don't know what a Chevrolet Camaro is either," Lente said equally quietly, standing by to work quickly.

"Sounds like some sort of human vehicle if you ask me, maybe some sort of plane." Evoras said, holding onto a desk to keep herself 'standing'

2

This was it. The big time. the big bad ass moment she had been waiting for her entire life. Was this the feeling security officers get when they finally eject fucking warp cores, or when engineers in discovered exceeding Warp 10 was actually possible? She didn't know. All she knew was that after this shit is finally over, she's going to go take the BEST FUCKING SLEEP OF HER LIFE and chug a whole bloodwine barrel's worth of extra strong Raktajino afterwards. All she needed to do, was wait for the perfect moment... "ALL HANDS! FUCKING MARK!"

8

Maya gave the word, and the command was entered in BCARS - which accepted it without a second thought. Almost immediately the entire station went dark; no lights, no screens, no nothing. Just the windows providing what was probably the best view of the cosmos possible. No light from anywwhere to get in the way this time - a calm between the clouds of the raging storms of the cloud outside. This quiet serenity passed by for what seemed like a while, before something happened outside - an event that no one could have anticipated. The window facing interiors all around the station were bathed in a brilliant shower of greens, purples and blues as the shields inverted and interacted with the storm. Up and down the station a mini aurora had formed giving everyone a truly awe-inpsiring once-in-lifetime phenomenon. The aurora was accompanied by a low humming noise, which gradually got more and more intense. Most notably, the actual, not backup lights started to show light - and the hum of the fusion core became the most prevalent sound in Engineering. Not long after, all the screens sparked to life (and all were showing the BCARS login screen). Main power had returned, and while there was still a truly gargantuan amount of work to complete before the station was fully operational again - the fusion core was online. We take the small wins!!

7

7

7

6

Kaylee, happy that things were working, wasn't feeling great after the gravity went down and then everything went back up. She hadn't ever been space sick before, but she felt pretty nauseous. That, on top of her exhaustion and fragile emotions as of current, it was safe to say she was having a Not Very Good Time™. She was no longer sitting on a chair, opting for the engineering floor as she tried to regain her composure. "mmmphf..." (edited)

"Fuck yeah! You did it, Lieutenant!" Lente exclaimed excitedly as she fell to the ground, luckily falling butt-first and sustaining no injuries. She took a look at the consoles, but figured someone else could do something with those. She was beat. "I need a nap. And a glass of wine. Probably in reverse order from how I just said that."

Evoras was already pretending to stand so she didn't fall, but the sudden additional force pulling down almost made her leg give way. She blinked a few times as her body remembered what it felt like to exist with gravity pulling on it constantly. "I will return to the labs then, if you need anything else feel free to let me know, I suspect it will be a while until I get off duty again." She raised her hand to a ta'al and departed, towards the lifts rather than the jefferies tubes.

After all that, Maya had collapsed at this point; she is now one with floor.

Roughly half an hour after all the shit that just happened went down, in came Autumn - well rested, in a crisp and ironed out uniform and holding a strong cup of coffee in their hand. "Hey everyone, I'm so so so so sorry I'm in late - either I slept through my alarm, which is scary since I've never done that before - or it just didn't go off, which is equally scary!" Autumn stopped at the entrance, looking around at the mess that was main engineering right now. "...Fun shift so far then?"

5

Lente, who genuinely looked like she'd been put through a wash-dry cycle, twice, with no ironing, stuck up her middle finger in Autumn's direction. "I lost my hoodie somewhere in the Jeffries' tubes, and now that I think about it, it was probably one of yours. Fuck you." (edited)

5

Maya was still here. in a tanktop and starfleet short shorts. unconscious next to a console. She is one with floor.

Kaylee was also now one with the floor. Barely conscious and groaning softly, she struggled to keep whatever was in her stomach down and herself awake. If she stood up she'd either pass out or...well... Space sickness is not nice.

After giving most of the people in the room who wanted one high-fives or some other equivalent of a celebratory gesture, Allan went back to the BCARS he'd been logged into and decided to test systems to make sure they were up and running. He felt a lot more at peace now with the hum of the fusion core and other electronics around the room.

lifesupport --status --detailed 
lifesupport 
[about a dozen others just like that]
internal_comms check status
internal_comms run test.mp3

While that ran, he went up to the unconscious engineer on the floor and tapped her shoulder. "Hey, Maya, I'm going to beam you to your quarters... okay?"

As one with floor, Maya didn't respond much aside from groaning a little bit "short shorts maaaannnn...."

1

"Yes. You can also call me Allan, have a nice sleep, okay?" he said before fiddling with some manual controls to beam her to her quarters so she could actually sleep more comfortably.

21:16

After that and while Never Gonna Give You Up was playing over the comms, Allan went back over to Kaylee, sitting down next to her. "You wanna go to your quarters too, I assume?"

After Allan had approached her, and asked if she wanted to go back to her quarters, she shook her head. No. She should be able to make it back to her quarters herself. She should be better. She tried to pull herself to a stand, and as she did she felt kinda...dizzy, and she swayed for a few moments before trying to stabilise herself on something nearby.

"Just send her, I think she's down for the count. No sense in having her hurt herself." Lapan was the proud father of a toddler, and he knew like no other that sometimes people just insisted on making themselves miserable just because they could. For Morgan that usually just meant chewing on soap after being told it wouldn't taste nice, but this was basically the same principle.

3

4

She didn't need to find something, as soon as she started to sway Allan held her by both her shoulders to steady her, shaking his head. "Yeah," he said in reply to Lapan, "sorry, Kaylee, gonna send you to your nice and comfortable quarters now, and spare you the walk, my friend. Not gonna let you down like that." And with that he beamed her out to her quarters. Boom.

6

5

4

Oh, and then he used the comms to check up on his friend he'd been talking with before all this mess happened, who.. hopefully was awake at this point.