Joint Duty Log - Merlin, Thelin, Tailor - "Explosions!"

Posted on Wed Apr 11th, 2018 @ 8:46am by Commander Evan Merlin & Commander Thelin th'Zarath & Lieutenant Charles Tailor the Fourth

Mission: Lacuna
Location: Cold Station Theta
Timeline: SD241804.11

Gamma shift was normally a quiet one on the station and the Andorian found that he enjoyed the peace and quiet as he strode around the engineering section, the rumble that preceded the unmistakable sound of tearing metal and flames disrupted his thought patterns and a shockwave sent him flat to the deck, the lights went out and were replaced by the emergency lighting and smoke began to filter through several bulkheads, he swore a couple of times as instinct took over and he launched himself into a sprint into the control centre.

The entire room was darkened and all the consoles were offline, his crew were diligently trying to bring them back online from where they were but nothing seemed to be working, "Chief!" was the shout that came as he burst through the door, "Command controls are offline, we can't seal off the damaged sections and last sensor readings showed one section venting atmosphere, Ops might have a better chance, the damage seems to be localised."

That was all the Andorian needed before he ran out again, grabbing onto bulkheads with his bionic arm to swing himself around corners he found himself with a choice to make, risk the ever present danger of turbolift 3 straight to Ops or attempt to sprint up four decks to reach the next turbolift.

=/\= 10 Minutes Later, Ops =/\=

The sound coming from Turbolift 3 could only be described as expletives punctuated by a persistent hammering.

Inside the lift, the doors had jammed shut and Thelin was annoyed beyond all belief, the original service lifts in this station were the bane of his existence and had nearly killed him twice already, this particular lift had also meant a rather unprofessional first meeting with his CO. Closing his eyes, the Andorian removed his blue skinned glove and the covering to the arm, he wound up and pulled back his bionic arm, formed his hand flat and took a breath in before lunging forward with all his weight and releasing the tension in his arm.

The doors split where his arm hit and to anyone watching in Ops, a hand busting through the door was likely the last thing they had been expecting.

The Ensign behind Ops screamed at the sudden crashing sound, but the wild-haired Lieutenant just turned around, saw the gleaming hand and laughed. That marvellous arm could only belong to one person, and that meant that that person hadn't been destroyed in the blast or sucked outside or anything. The laugh was part delight, part relief.

"Seeing you is the first good news I've had since things went boom," he said as he bounced over to what was left of the doors and helped Thelin up. There was a faint smell of smoke. "Good to see you. Things are a little crazy here, I think you noticed. We're getting very little information up here, lots of scrambled, contradictory messages, but mostly just errors. You were down there when it happened? What can you tell us?"

"It wasn't external." said Charles, annoyed. First his career died, then a perfectly good sulk had been interrupted by this explosion, and now some idiot had wrecked the turbolift. Sure Commander, forget the emergency door release and the magnetic clamps for manual door opening. Just punch a hole in the thing.

Charles didn't know about Thelin's long-standing grudge against this turbolift, and at this stage in his day he didn't really care. Hell, if he'd been a turbolift, he'd have probably hated the guy too.

"No ship was close enough to ram us, no sign of warp signatures within our perimeter, and this sensor reading says no external weapons signatures recorded." Charles continued, borrowing the Operations console for a moment. Weapons signatures weren't really his department, but it didn't take a genius to push buttons. The console under his hands flickered with the lights, reporting different numbers for a moment, and the grumpy Lieutenant revised his assessment. "At least I don't *think* we're under attack. Might want to raise shields anyway. You still want to keep all these ships here, sir?" he added, letting the Commander decide how many variables he wanted. More ships meant more dangers, but then that could be what the attacker wanted; pop the station one, and break free in the confusion.

It was so much easier when he just flew ships. Don't like the neighbourhood? Just fly away.

"Station is still on lockdown, no one leaves, right sir?" Thelin replied, directing his comments towards the Lieutenant he'd met in the bowels of the station, it had been passed across his desk that he'd been promoted and was acting Executive Officer, which meant he was in charge until Captain DiAgessi could be located.

The Lieutenant nodded. "Still on lockdown, and going to stay that way until all of this is under control, at least. Good to hear it wasn't a collision or attack, though, Lieutenant," he said, giving Charles a nod.

"Whatever happened it was enough to knock out command controls in the engineering section, the reason I'm here is because we've been unable to secure the damaged sections and fires are still raging out of control, we need to isolate, contain and assess but we need command controls to do that." the Andorian replied as he rubbed some minute scuffs off his arm and fished in his pocket for his cover and glove, "The explosion was in one of the oldest sections of the station, almost unused in day to day operations, it would seem that in addition to knocking out control to engineering, the damage has also taken out the fire suppression systems, our focus has to be getting the emergency bulkheads up and those systems online."

The Lieutenant flicked a loose strand of hair back and walked over to an unassigned console, activated it and began to assign it to the Engineer. Whatever command functions they'd be able to get up and running from there would be his to use. "Can we scan for life signs in that area and beam them out? If so, it'd be easier to just close off that entire section and explose it to vacuum. Quickest way to douse the fire."

"Theoretically yes," Thelin replied as he took on the console that had been re-purposed for the command controls he needed, "If the fires haven't knocked out the sensors we can still scan for lifesigns and vent the atmosphere, I'll know more once we get all of the subroutines online," the Andorians hands were flying across the console as he transferred everything to the new console, "Right, sensors are coming online, you should see any lifesigns on the monitor, as you get them out I can begin sealing off sections behind them and prepare to open up the airlock..." he pointed to a junction on the overlay, "here, this one will vent the entire section."

"That looks promising." The Lieutenant nodded as he walked back to the Ops console. He was well aware that he could coordinate everything from the central seat, and maybe sitting there would be better from a psychological point of view, inspiring confidence and all that. But truth was, he felt too restless to sit down, he needed to move, to remain active with everything that was going on. "Ensign Willis, please get as many lifesigns out as you can and beam them directly to Medical. Let me know when everyone's out." There were already deaths, he feared.

For his part, Charles was getting on with his *sigh* duties. The local communication systems were distributed, standard policy when designing a space station, so the loss of one or two comm nodes near the damaged area weren't enough to prevent people screaming into Charles' ear piece the second he screwed it back in.

"This is unacceptable! The station is on fire and you expect MY crew to stay here when clearly...."

"Dishonor! Such a cowardly attack shows the Federation is weak and its enemies are weak! I demand that you..."

"We have children aboard! Please, we can't be here if you're fighting a war! I'm begging you, allow us to leave..."

"....have to go now! Don't force us to remain when clearly..."

"...scum sucking pus-filled son of a....."

Pushing a few buttons, Charles send a coded pulse over the comms frequencies used by Flight Control, indicating an announcement was coming. Not all the talking stopped, but his transmission's phase encoding held priority over the lesser chatter, effectively drowning them out.

"To all vessels in the vicinity of Cold Station Theta. A minor event on the station has occurred, and is under control. Be aware that you are not in danger, and there is no cause for alarm so long as you remain in your designated docks, berths, hangers, and flight patterns. The lockdown remains in effect. Please limit use of the primary Flight Control channels for genuine emergencies and relevant issues. Comms channels four-theta-charlie and six-theta-charlie are being reserved for medical concerns, and doctors will be on hand to offer advice. Shuttles will be dispatched to retrieve those requiring treatment. For those of you suffering emotional distress, comms channels two-beta-omega through seven-beta-omega will be rerouted to station counselling. For all other concerns and complaints, please use channels seven-theta-charlie through ten-theta-charlie. Flight Control staff will be tasked to monitor these channels. Thank you for your time. Announcement Ends."

Stretching his jaw to relieve the soreness from so much talking, Charles tugged a pack of mints from his pocket and popped one in his mouth. The ships on the receiving end of his announcement might not be able to smell the curry he had for lunch, but he certainly could.

"Good news is, we have full control over the sensors and the fire suppression systems in addition to emergency bulkhead controls," the Andorian responded with a slight smile, "Bad news, plasma fires have broken through deck plating in the sections highlighted orange, we need to prioritise evacuation of those sections and any adjacent and above before it spreads further."

"On it." The Lieutenant called up a schematic of the station, highlighting the affected areas: those already cordonned off and those sections in immediate danger. He knew the station well enough, himself, but it certainly helped to have an overview like this. Memories could be faulty. Data files were more reliable, generally.

As he recalled, and as the schematic showed, the explosion had taken place in one of the relatively unused sections of the station. It made for fairly easy evacuation, since only a few people would be down there. Nobody really needed to be there, but sometimes couples sneaked down for some very much out of the way quality time (the Lieutenant had once stumbled upon one such couple, to a lot of deep mutual embarressment), youngsters sneaked in for a dare, and adventurous or bored wanderers like himself also frequented those areas.

Scanners picked up seven lifesigns in the affected area, and they were swiftly beamed away. "So," the Lieutenant asked, striding back to the console where Thelin was working from, only pausing briefly to give a nod to Charles to thank him for his concise announcement, "How does this affect our systems? Any chance for a dramatic cascade?"

Still bitter over the end of his flying career, Charles ignored the nod and stroked his cheek with one finger. Helm was his life and passion, and he would never know the sensation of flying again. Not unless it was a garbage scow, or some cut-price shuttle. Part of him even hoped to get fired, sparing him the hard choice of what he wanted more; to serve in Starfleet, or to fly.

The Lieutenant turned his head at the not-quite-casual gesture, raised an eyebrow and whispered: "Maybe not now, Lieutenant…" Then he grinned and moved on. This had happened so fast it could almost have been imagination.

"Computer control will take time to restore but we're not looking at any critical cascades, there's nothing that runs through there which could cause us to loose more than a few systems of convenience." Thelin replied with a slight smile as he began sealing off the required sections and venting the atmosphere into space, one by one the sections were extinguished and resealed.

"Meaning the station is no longer in immediate danger of exploding? That's a relief." Though the Lieutenant did figure that where there had been one unexpected explosion, more were certainly possible. "That's gonna be a lot of overtime," he muttered, half-loud.

"I'll have the repair schedule drawn up and crew assignments sent to both yourself and Captain DiAgessi, it's going to take a lot of work but we have the manpower available for it, one thing I'm going to avoid is removing anyone from the finalisations of the refit, the older sections are more at risk of events like this so we need to get them back up to spec as soon as possible," Thelin replied as he pulled a PADD from his pocket, placed it on the console and began to sync up the settings and routing a remote access subroutine, "I'll have access to Command Controls from this PADD as well as this station, that'll mean I can get down there and assess the damage first hand.

"Thank you," the Lieutenant said with another nod. He lowered himself into the central chair, feeling suddenly very, very tired. It was something so unusual that it actually took him a few seconds to realise what this feeling was. He sighed and rubbed his face. Prioritise. He needed to visit the medbay to see to the wounded, but not now, it would be a chaos there. No. He'd stick around here for some time until it was absolutely certain nothing else would happen, or until they had located the CO, or until she arrived here. And then he would actually… get some sleep.

Lt. Evan Merlin
ACO/CStratOps
Cold Station Theta

Cmdr Thelin th'Zarath
Chief Engineering Officer
Cold Station Theta

Lt Charles Tailor
Chief Flight Control Officer
Cold Station Theta