Damage Assessment

Posted on Wed Nov 2nd, 2011 @ 11:07pm by Captain Vorn Krace & Commander Acle Walex & Lieutenant Commander Zim Drex

Mission: The Fate of the Swiftsure
Location: USS Iapetus - Engineering
Timeline: MD09 0255hrs

Captain Krace's entrance into main engineering was rapid. Though he had made sure to put on his uniform after being roused in the early hours of the morning by the alert klaxxon, it was clear he had done so quickly; the jacket wasn't zipped up to the correct point, and the collar of his undershirt was undone, allowing the fabric to droop slightly either side of his chin. He made a bee line straight for the group of officers gathered around the situation table. "Report!" he barked. "How the hell did they get out of that brig cell, and what did they do to my ship?"

Drex swiveled away from the engineering terminal adjacent the warp core. He rose to his feet. On the bigger, overhead screens behind him was a schematic of the Iapetus with several flashing red blips scattered about. "Captain. I can answer one of those questions, but not the other one. It looks like somehow the pirate crew was able to bypass the security lockouts on deck three and access the central computer. They blew out twelve out of the sixteen processing accelerators." He turned and tapped the console near one of the other blips near engineering. "They also managed to disrupt both power couplings from the EPS system. But I don't think they destroyed it, otherwise, we wouldn't be sitting here right now. I've got beta and gamma shift heads checking it out right now, and an emergency repair team up on Deck three. Unfortunately, the information on how they were able to escape was in the comm feed from the main brig, which was being routed to one of those processing accelerators." He turned to face the Captain, holding the a large PADD with both hands. It served to make him appear even shorter than he was. "Partial sensors indicated their last heading was 210 mark 5. Back into the asteroids." Just then his commbadge chimed.

"Ensign Dufrain to Lieutenant Drex."

Drex tapped his badge. "Go ahead."

"We've removed two conspicuous pieces of technology from the plasma conduit casing. They're no longer in contact, but they completely depolarized the conduits. We're going to have to completely reaugment the power matrix."

Drex shook his head. "Understood. Bring them over to Engineering, I'd like to have a look at the technology. Drex out." He looked back at the Captain. "Sir, you probably don't want to hear this but...Best I can say is we can get underway in 2 hours, and even then, under limited computer operation. Phasers are going to be on manual targeting until we can put in for repairs."

Acle had quickly stepped into his own quarters and changed into his uniform, although, quite out of character for him, there were wrinkles in his uniform's trousers. That and the holstered phaser that still rested securely on one hip. Although the computer's internal scan showed nothing sinister hidden within the ship, security had not quite finished sweeping it.

Acle stepped up slightly behind and to the side of the captain. He stayed silent for now.

Vorn reached a hand up to his face, and rubbed the stubble that had accumulated on his jawline since he shaved the morning before. This was definitely not news that he liked to hear. "What other systems did they take out?" he asked, wanting to get a full picture of the damage. Obviously they were without transit power and the targeting computer, but with the shuttles and Lieutenant Cathcart at tactical, they could make do until they got them back online. If they managed to hit more systems though, then that could turn into a bigger problem if anything unexpected came up.

Drex looked at his pad which had a laundry list of affected systems. If he had eyebrows to speak of, they'd definitely be bunching up. Where to start? "Everything associated with the main computer is essentially offline. Replicators. Library computer systems." He cringed. All of his Bolian cuisine was in there, after all. He continued down the list. "Transporters, torpedo guidance, navigation, targeting scanners, long range sensors, even inertial dampeners are running on fail-safes. Since there was no real damage to the warp core, we will be able to move eventually, we just won't be able to tell where we're going or do anything when we get there." He tapped his chin thoughtfully. "If I adapt the processors from the remaining shuttles and the captain's yacht and tie them into the main computer core, I might be able to restore control to some systems." He tapped his fingers on the underside of the PADD in a wave motion. "Any priorities, Captain?"

"Make sure that our communication facilities are unaffected and running properly," the captain said, though he hadn't heard the system on the engineer's list. "I want to make sure that we can keep in contact with our team on the station, and send a message back to Starfleet if we need to. After that, prioritise tactical and flight control systems."

Drex continued pondering the possibilities. "I think I could network a couple tricorder language processors together and manually route two EPS connections through fifteen or so class seven probes. That would be enough to control the main communications array..." He could worry about the other stuff later. He tapped his commbadge. "Drex to Ensign Dufrain."

"I'm right behind you sir." The young Ensign piped up, having appeared behind the Bolian about five seconds ago, holding the particle decelerators that depolarized the power conduits.

Drex startled and turned around. "Good! Good!" He took them. "Go with Ensign Johanson down to deck twelve. I want you to bypass plasma conduits 11 through 17 and divert a dedicated line right into the main deflector dish. I'll be up in the torpedo bay getting ready to send you test communication inputs." All the while, he got an idea for navigation. He turned back to face the command officers. "Stellar Cartography has its own dedicated computer. Since data from there is already being diverted to the bridge, all it would take is a crosslink into the conn and we'd be able to navigate using that." He smiled. "I think this is going to work, Captain. But it's going to take some time."

"Get started," the captain instructed, before beckoning for his XO to follow him as he turned and left the main engineering chamber.

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Captain Vorn Krace
Commanding Officer

Commander Acle Walex
First Officer

&

Lieutenant Zim Drex
Chief Engineer
USS Iapetus