Field Expedient

Posted on Thu Jun 2nd, 2011 @ 11:19pm by Lieutenant Commander Zim Drex & Lieutenant Peter Brown

Mission: Shadows Fall
Location: USS Iapetus, Engineering
Timeline: MM3 MD3 0400

=/|= A close flyby of Iapetus on a blanketed starfield =/|=

Chief Engineer's personal log, supplemental. After pulling an all-nighter, I think we're finally ready to take on the Romulans. All that's left is a final test of the warp energy pulse, and the main tractor beam emitters...

Drex sits at his workstation, making final calibrations to the warp field matrix while Ensign Johanson monitors warp plasma flow from a display behind him.

"My eyelids feel like they have lead weights attached." She says, leaning back on her heels and stretching.

"What happened to all that honed Vulcan poise?" Drex said with a chuckle.

"Don't start. I haven't had my coffee yet, or a good night's sleep in three days."

"Field output."

"232 percent above standard." She said in a quick clip.

"We need to get it to 240, to disrupt long-range communications...When I was on the Bellerophon one week I got all of four hours of sleep while I tried to track down parasites in the gel packs."

"Ughhh." T'lara shuddered. "Tell me it wasn't worms. I hate worms."

"They were about six inches long, and they moved by hooking and straightening." He bent his little blue finger and straightened it back in whip-like motions.

She wriggled even more and stuck her tongue out. "If that ever happens to the Iapetus, I'm requesting a transfer. Just so you know."

Drex grinned, folding his hands and steepling his fingers. "Logic. Form. Function."

"You are such a jerk sometimes." She said, playfully.

He tapped the console a few times. "I take it there's no love loss between you and the Romulans."

"I heard you weren't too happy to hear about the Captain's decision to interrogate the captives." She said, grinning.

"Who told you that?" Drex looked over at her. Wondering if the whole ship had heard about his battle with morality.

"Hennesey, over in Astrometrics. He has a big mouth, and his equipment is sensitive enough, he can hear half the ship."

"I'm sure the Security Chief would like to be brought up to speed on that." Drex tapped the console again. "Field output."

"236."

"Almost there. Try boosting the gains on ODN junction N31." He looked over at Peter and dipped his head.

The Lieutenant tapped at his panel and replied with a simple nod.

Drex folded his arms across his chest, breathing a sigh. "The Captain is in charge. The regulations on this sort of situation isn't so clear, so it's up to him to make the decisions, and I'll stand by his choices."

"To the end?" T'lara looked at him with a raised eyebrow

"I still know where the escape pods are, Ensign." He gave a witty smile. "Where's it at now?"

"242...but I'm reading abnormally high plasma pressure readings near junction thirty five, alpha."

"Lock it down. We wont need to go above that level. I'll send the EEH's over that way to monitor and adjust flow rate on the fly. We should be good here." Drex stood from his stool, and went over to the Emergency Hologram station to enter the parameters into the matrix.

"It's going to be one hell of a ride." T'lara noted.

"I hope so. I need to stay awake." He leaned to the side, in front of the replicator. "Computer, Coffee, Black."

=/|= OFF =/|=