Star Trek: Starbase 777 - upper-engineering

Cheeks burning as she heard the mention of the quickening behind her, Fives sat down to get to work, waiting for the list from Intelligence. And for anyone else to show up.

As Engineering and Operations were filing into the engineering bay, the list of components that Alyx had been building up at the intel hub had made it's way down to the ones who would need it most. This list was rather long, and had each customer complaint attached to their respective parts. Most of the parts were critical shuttle safety systems - things like emergency warp core cutoffs and inertial dampers seemed to be the most removed - it made sense, considering they were both quick to remove and easy to miss in inspections - but without them, the dangers of a Starship's operation increased tenfold. The rest of the list was the same; comprised of vital but easily overlooked components that would easily snag a quick buck on the black market. @Engineering @Operations

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Upper engineering! One of Allan's favorite sections of engineering. Jokingly, he loved it all, but... there was at least a fun way to exit from the upper engineering section. "Boy oh boy, we've got ourselves a list! Woo! Look at that..." He laughed as they all looked at the list, which was possibly on display on some large consoles in front of them for convenience, "it is... yikes, emergency warp core cutoffs, inertial dampers, okay, that's... that's a fucking yikes," they were easy to miss in inspections. So easy that when he used to do inspections on the shipyards, he would check once, twice, and thrice for such items, see them, note them, and sometimes, well, one specific time, a ship would still explode. Well, maybe that was just a onetime thing. Still, it came up to his head anyways, and he took a deep inhale in and out, and then looked back at everyone else, "buuuut, um - to our luck, those are both fairly easy to spot when you're looking specifically for them and, um, that's what we're doing."

Unfortunately, ships weren't Kaylee's speciality, so after she learned this emergency was on ships, she was a little...uneasy. She worked with yknow, tools. Not..engines. But ah, she could probably figure it out. Its all Engineering, right? She caught up on what she missed in the briefing, and walked into upper Engineering to try and help however she can.

“Remind me why I thought bringing the dog was a good idea?” Dagis joked as she held the puppy in her arms. Not one for ship maintenance, the Ferengi didn’t understand the entire ins and outs of how everything worked, but emergency warp core cutoffs and internal dampers she understood perfectly. “Pretty sure they’re important for a ship to have.”

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Looking at the list made her feel anxious. these were important systems, and she often worked on repairing such systems. Even then, knowing that such systems were stolen made her head scratch... why these systems specifically? with such an obvious question, she decided to voice it, trying to hold back on her automatic monotone voice to show that she was really serious about this issue. "I don't like that these were the systems removed... its an odd thing to take, even if it can be missed in inspection." realizing of course that finding the culprit wasn't exactly her job, she cleared her throat awkwardly. "So we are tasked with finding these parts then? It doesn't sound too difficult..."

Vara moved in the with the rest of the group with her hands behind her back (hey! She was nailing this Intel thing wasn’t she? Good job her!) and simply watched. Was it a bit of exhaustion from the last mission? Yeah sure, but she can coast here. The investigation was in her wheelhouse anyway, so she just…..watched! “Hmm, do those parts indicate anything you can build with those?”

Having just noticed Vara entering with their group, she decided to think on the question that Vara posed. "Hmm.. If you were creative enough you could probably build whatever you wanted out of scraps. But critical safety systems? unless you wanted to kill somebody I can't imagine what you'd use the systems for... that's just my opinion though, and I'm not exactly an expert..."

"Do either of you know what a chop shop actually is?" Five inquired genuinely, tilting her head to the side a little. "It's miscellaneous parts obtained illegally. There's likely no greater motive than making a quick buck, until we have reason to believe otherwise. Regardless," she leant forward a little, "We should focus our attention to tracking down where these parts are, and reuniting them with their respective starships if we can. I'd rather not spend another second chatting without at least getting some work done."

“Please darling, I know what a chop shop is. I was just inquiring to other possibilities.” She said as she overlooked the computers.

"Ensign, I would ask that you not refer to me with condescending pet names. It's unprofessional." Five smiled politely so it was obvious she wasn't upset, leaning forward to get back to work-- was everything still on the station, or was it already shipped off? Or do they not have access to that information?

Suddenly feeling super odd about this whole interaction, she cleared her throat and decided to change the subject. "So... what is the place place to start looking for these things?"

As far as the complaints go, it was a safe bet to assume some of the older things on the list were long gone - but it was also practically guaranteed that the more recent items on the list were still on board, possibly including components not on the list at all.

"The more recent reports are likely still on the station, hidden out in their base of operations--" ha-- "I assume. Not to mention there's a good chance that there's things missing that haven't even been reported yet."

"Thats a good point, so then we start from most recent? Are we going out in teams to retrieve said items? What I mean is... what's the plan here?"

"Well, Tactical and Security are going to apprehend them. Once they do, I assume we'll be safe to go and conduct a proper inventory." Five glanced to Dagis and Allan for confirmation, not wanting to step on any toes.

“Ah, sorry PO.” She said to Five genuinely. “Maybe we can trace them to a buyer if we’re lucky.”

Walking into upper engineering was the comms officer with the pretty hair that bounced with every step they took. They glanced around the room briefly to assess who was there with them. A few of their colleagues and some others from different divisions. They had a chance to look at the list and shared the sentiment of others. It was long and honestly a big overwhelming to them. Sakkath tucked their hair behind their ears and walked over to stand next to Allan, the one person in the room they had had previous interactions with.

“I would assume as much, yes.” The Ferengi responded. “But if they need an extra set of hands I’m sure some of us are more than capable of using a phaser, not that I want anyone shooting anyone, mind.” She added, puppy now laying down at her feet having been put down there before she got any back pain.

Sakchai was here too! To help. Just a very tall and wide Cardassian guy who stood off to the side. He stayed away from his boss, not because he was intimidated but because he was unsure about the critter she had with her and what if it was violent or didn't like him? Sakchai once got chased by a giant vole, one could never be sure! "I think splitting up is good, uh, I am good at finding things."

"Yeah, that seems like the plan," he confirmed to Five, having been lost in reading the list for a moment. He then noticed someone else standing next to him, turning to look at them and then smiling just a little. "Oh - hey Sakkath," he whispered, and then thought for a moment, "I mean, it wouldn't hurt to do a scan of the station looking for these things? Could limit it to the shuttlebay, I mean - inertial dampers, for one, are pretty recognizable in shape, they're, um - pretty critical. If you try to go to warp without them, um. Everyone just like... immediately dies, so... they are, um. Pretty important and distinct from other parts for that reason."

"Jolan tru, Allan," Sakkath bent their knees so they could whisper back to Allan. Their voice sounded a lot more sensual than they intended. Their voice naturally had a softer quality to it so when they whispered it felt like a warm breeze at sunset. "A scan is a good idea, it saves us running around like headless hlais. Oh, I did not intend for that to sound violent," Sakkath chuckled ever so softly at their use of the Romulan idiom. They were still very Vulcan but had been trying to be more forward with their emotions as of late.

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Ensign Cecilia Beau was there too. Granted she wasn't around, but she was somewhere in upper engineering. Wholly unaware of what was going on, well not entirely wholly just a little bit. Instead of entering the room everyone had been gathering in to plan, like a normal person, Cecilia decided to enter like any sane Jeffries Tube inhabitant would. Via a tube. The hatch to a relatively close Jeffries Tube slid open and the plucky young Ensign crawled out. "What's up my party people." The Ensign hopped off the floor, though the prospect of scurrying around some more was not totally objectionable. She decided against it for now. Though calling the people "party people" probably wasn't the best way to announce her arrival. "Err... Ensign, reporting for duty ready to offer assistance." She saluted, more out of embarrassment of looking like an idiot than actually thinking it was necessary.

With the arrival of much more people, Coda felt comfortable in taking a backseat in the conversation. she had nothing to add of course, and she had voiced all her questions. Now she was waiting for further instructions... since she probably couldn't go off on her own or anything.

Sakchai let out a loud and deep yelp when the hatch opened up and out came one of the engineering ensigns! He threw his hands up as if he were surrendering and that's when he realised there was nothing to fear. In his attempt to cover up his own paranoia he began to wiggle his body. "Wooo party people, that's us," He said with a laugh. Sakchai stood out amongst the other officers with his black and blue Cardassian uniform so he was aware he probably looked very awkward at that moment. Whatever he was cringe, but he was certainly free.

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"I'll get to work starting the scans," Five nodded, turning on her chair and getting to do just that. "Is there anything we can do to keep people from taking off in the meantime?.. Just in case there's more issues, I'm worried about people being in danger.." She frowned a little.

Coda had to agree with Five here about preventing people from leaving but it didn't seem all that feasible in reality. "If we prevent ships from taking off it might cause whoever is doing this to hurry things up, and that could interfere with security's job of finding out who exactly they are. At the moment I believe the best course of action is to work as quickly as possible."

[ COMMS ] "Lieutenant Commander t'Rei'nak to Engineering and Ops. We'll be leaving shortly to arrest those carrying out the operation. Is there any way you can close off the tubes leading to the shuttlebay?"

"We could contact tactical and security and see if they have any people to spare. And ask if they can post them outside a lot of the major entrances to the docking areas. And just in case we could lock down as many of the ships as possible to prevent them from lifting off." Cecilia chimed in, then cle5aring her throat. "In case anyone is already on the ships and is thinking of leaving. But I'll defer to you guys, being higher rank and such." Cecilia let out an awkward laugh and gave the nape of her neck a couple of small itches, trying to quell her embarrassment.

"Jolan tru," Allan had whispered back to Sakkath, a small smile on his face as he echoed the phrase. He'd tried hard not to laugh when Cecilia crawled out of the tube and called them party people, and successfully did not laugh, actually, but he did wave at her to come and join the rest of the group. And then again tried not to laugh when Sakchai greeted her, but he failed that time, having to stop laughing when Five spoke up. "Y- yes, thank you," he said, and was about to think of some things to do when Vovvi came over the comms saying just as much. "Tubes to shuttlebay? Sure can do," he said, looking back at the tube Cecilia had just climbed out of and then looked back at the ensign. "Locking down ships would be effective if it wasn't a direct red flag that we're onto them - entrances includes the tubes though, so - mind closing those up, ensigns?" He said with a hopeful smile at the two. It probably wasn't a two-man job, but he wanted to give them both something to do anyways, "I'll keep working on these scans with Five in the meantime, I think, unless we've got anything else coming up."

[ COMMS ] "Thank you for your help. We'll be in touch."

She gives a nod and gets up from where she was sitting. Making eye contact with the other Ensign, of whom she didn't know the name of, she then inclined her head to where they were instructed to shut off the tubes. "Shall we then? I don't want to keep another department waiting on such a simple task.." (edited)

"You got it, boss! You can count on us." Cecilia nodded and glanced at the other ensign. Granted she had never had to shut down any set of Jeffries Tube, she assumed it wouldn't be that hard especially for someone like her. "Let's get to work." The Ensign smiled brightly.

walking with the other ensign, they both come up to the tube that was very recently crawled out of, and remove a panel that controls this side of the system "Do you want to do the honors, Ensign?"

"Oh man, I've always wanted to do something like this." Cecilia practically dove into the tube, though of course she didn't actually because she cherished her health. In reality she just grabbed the handles and slid in on her back so she had better access to the internal control panel in the tube. "Uh! Not that I was banking on this type of thing happening. I just meant that shutting stuff down is... hella cool." Cecilia called out from inside the tube, her legs hanging out into the room. Unscrewing the panel and shifting it off she placed the screwdriver in her mouth. Fiddling around in the wires and motherboards of the Jeffries Tube. After what seemed like a minute of chirps and beeps and other assorted computer sounds, somewhere deep in the Jeffries Tube a gentle "KA-THUNK" sounded. If Jeffries tubes were things you could have in bags then Ensign Cecilia had it in one. "That's how you do it."

Now that the tubes were sealed, it was time go catch the bastards. Then again, it was probably wise to let the combat team go to the #shuttlebay first - not that the engineers couldn't fight - just that tactical and security could fight... more.

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Still deep in the tube, Cecilia managed to secure the panel back on, making sure everything was running smoothly from her PADD. She had the bright idea though of course she wasn't exactly skilled in the wheelhouse, so to speak. "I've had an idea. What if we go to OPS, we can get access to the cameras and we'll be able to help tactical and security by offering overwatch. You know, telling them where the bad guys are." All this was being said, slightly muffled by the confines of the Jeffries Tube that Cecilia hasn't left yet. Though of course she would, soon enough. Just now at the current moment.

having been here, clearly the whole time and she defiantly did not sneak back in, she opted to help Cecilia if she needed it, of course, for whatever they planned to do next. "I'm sure ops is already on it... Did you have fun in the tubes there?"

Five, who was, in fact, not on it, nodded to Ensign LeBeau. "We can do that," she said, spinning around to access the cameras. "There'll be a few blind spots, however, it'll be better than doing nothing at all. Good thinking, Ensign."

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"Shouldn't be any blind spots, but... I'm sure they've created some," Allan nodded at Five, also bringing up the cameras onto the main console screens so they could all look at them together. It was sort of weird. Last time he brought up cameras on the station, he had to hack and bypass into it because he was just an engineering ensign who absolutely did not have permission to do so. But hey, now he actually did! So that was neat. "Just kinda have to find out if there's anyone particularly close to the entrances at the moment would be first priority, maybe?"

"That's what I'm here for. Well, not really, but it's part of the job description." Cecilia let out a soft laugh, nerdy certainly. She slowly slid out of the tube and straightened up, making sure she was at least presentable, ignoring the smudges of pitch grease splotches on her face. "Or any positions of advantage. Just because we can see them, doesn't mean the combat team can." Cecilia made her way over to the main screen, chewing the inside of her cheek as she looked at the shuttlebay through the camera's lens.

As it turned out, the cameras in that shuttlebay had been forced offline - they were going to need a total reboot if the engineers were going to see anything through them, and that was going to take some time.

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"Unfortunately system shenanigans aren't really my speciality. I'm more of a mechanic than a software engineer. Unless you need me to go digging around in the guts of the camera system, I'll defer to you guys." Cecilia peered at Allan, though she then moved her gaze to Five, who as the OPs officer would probably know how to do that best, assuming.

Her specific specialty was electrical systems, so perhaps she could be helpful here? As she peered over Allen's shoulder to see if truly all the cameras were out, she thought about how she could be helpful here. "I can see if I can make the reboot faster by rerouting some systems? the Jeffry tubes are shut off to the shuttlebay so I can probably pull power from there?"

Well, he did happen to be a software engineer. However, a reboot of an entire cameras system was a little more than just software. "Yeah, that... that would actually be worth a try there, Mitchells," he said as he already started going through the process on the software end of things. "Yeah, pull power from those tubes into the camera systems, see what that'll give us if anything once they boot up again." Which... was a silly process, easy enough to start but... took a long ass time to load. Maybe he'd work on that process later on.

As the power was diverted, the screens showing the blank camera feed quickly switched to show a progress bar that was filling very slowly.

With permission she started to reroute power to the camera systems in the shuttlebay, watching as the reboot took basically forever to fill up. She tried to think of more systems to pull from. "Ah... maybe the lights somewhere? Is there any systems in the shuttlebay we can mess with to help out security?"

"I'd avoid cutting off the lights to shuttlebay, since they sort of need to see down there, but, um... could probably take some from a turbolift? Leave two running still, obviously, but... well, turbolifts have got a shitton of power to draw from, yeah?" He looked at her and then back at the progress bar, deciding to bring the console log up beside it to see a more detailed status of what exactly was loading in and some more... exact percentages, if it went how it was supposed to.

She added the turbolift power supply, leaving two still running. "Hmm.. maybe add a few more systems we don't need at the moment?"

The extra turbolift power definitely helped, as the cameras rebooted the image returned... But it was still incredibly blurry, compressed and pixelated. The system still needed to calibrate itself after being offline for so long. The image showed dark blobs fiighting other dark blobs with the occasional bright orange blob flying between them.

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looking at the screen a little dumbfounded she wondered how long the calibration would take. "At this rate we won't be able to help until the situation is over."

"Nonetheless, it was a good suggestion and a valiant attempt," Five offered, leaning forward a little. "We'll keep trying regardless."

She watched the scene as best she could, but blobs kept falling over. She couldn't tell if it was people, or just items getting thrown about in the fight. "Could we.. turn off the gravity in there? Would that help?"

The cameras had been brought back up to full resolution now, and were showing the firefight in crystal clear 4K 60fps video. It also showed a bunch of criminals prying open the now unpowered jefferies tube door and climbing through it.

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Watching the camera she stared for a moment before she sprang to action. She planned to bring back power just enough to lock the tube down on this side, to hold them off for a bit, but it wouldn't work permanently, as she assumed they might be able to pry this door open as well. "Well... this is not an ideal situation."

Sssshiiiit. "We need to communicate to the team and let them know some people are escaping," Five said, looking for something, anything they could do to stop them.

Cecilia sighed and tightened her jaw for a moment. Her brain running with all the ideas she could think of that might help the combat team. "Time to roll up our sleeves. 777 strong, et cetera." Cecilia made her way to the Jeffries tube and readied her phaser, fiddling with the buttons on it, setting it to stun. "I'm going to shut off more of the tubes. I need you to talk me through where to go." Despite how cheery she was before, it was getting bad she had to admit. She nodded sternly to Five, Coda and Allan. "I'll see you on the other side." And with that she took the handles and slid into the tube, shutting it behind her, beginning her journey. (edited)

"Ensign, we can do it through the console -!!" Five went for their phaser and dove down into the tubes after Ensign LeBeau, grumbling curses under her breath all the way.

Watching this all happen, she uncharacteristically rolled her eyes and she witnessed Five just quite literally jump into the tubes that were barely made for two people. "Okay, I guess the console is my job then...." She turned to track their pins on the console as they traveled through the tubes, to make sure they were not getting cornered or anything. (edited)

The criminals had been moving the whole time this exchange was going on, and it seemed that they were only travelling a few decks down before moving to a nearby exit.

[COMMS] "Engineering, what's the position of the criminals."

[COMMS] "Can you lockdown the exit they're using? We're on our way there." (edited)

Working on the console she went to lock down the exit, hopefully in time before the suspects escaped.

It was just barely too late to catch them all in the tubes, as one - maybe two? - managed to leave the tube network at the entertainment complex before the doors were sealed off. Nevertheless, the majority of the criminals were in fact trapped, and decided to go back the way they came - towards another hatch, but most importantly, towards cecilia and five.

[COMMS] "Criminals in the tube. Track the escapees and contact Sec and Tac."

[ COMMS ] "If they've slipped out, I advise we tell Command to move to yellow alert!"

Tending to the console, she connected to the entertainment complex cameras now instead of the shuttle bay, since things in there have calmed down. She focused on finding the suspects and possibly helping in anyway she could.

Unlike the shuttlebay, the cameras in the promenade were fully operational - which gave Coda a magificent view of the current hostage-taking happening on the promenade. It was one of the criminals wearing starfleet uniform too. As far as Coda saw, they were they one criminal not trapped or surrendered.

At least she didn't have to fix the cameras this time. Tapping her comm badge she intended to contact security.

[ COMMS ] "Lieutenant Commander t'Rei'nak to Engineering, you're all safe to head down and start cataloguing the stolen parts. I'll be here to oversee and assist best I can."

Taking a moment to tear her eyes away from the screen, she grabbed the list of stolen items and headed to the shuttlebay. Putting the hostage situation out of her mind she had to trust that the other departments had control of the situation.

[COMMS] "Kestrel to Engineering, please shut down lift if possible."

After a quick check of the cams to see which one, the turbolift was shut down to prevent the escape of the criminal!

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