Runabout repairs: Ensign Joryn Tarvos

[07:00] 

[Quarters of Ensign Joryn Tarvos]

“The time is now oh-seven hundred hours” announced the computer as the ambient lighting in the room gently increased to wake the occupants. Joryn could hear stirring across the room as his bunk-mate began to wake up. He shared his quarters with Ensign Samuel Carpenter, or ‘Sam’ as he preferred to be known. Both of them had graduated from the Academy a couple of weeks ago and had been assigned to the Devron Fleet Yards.

“Do you mind if I use the shower first?” Sam asked as he got up from his bunk.

“Sure. Go for it.” Joryn replied. It’d give him a chance to wake up properly, with a coffee, and find out what the day held in store.

“Coffee, double strong, double sweet,” Joryn commanded after he heard the bathroom door close behind Sam. A steaming mug began to materialize in the replicator across the room. Joryn picked up his PADD as he crossed the room to collect his coffee. He sat at the table and scanned through his new messages, looking for any that affected him individually among the usual plethora of announcements.

He found a message with a subject that indicated assignment details for the day. After a large sip of coffee, he opened the message.

The grizzled, wrinkly face of Lt. Grusc appeared. If Joryn remembered correctly, the Tellarite oversaw maintenance operations in the shuttle bays. “Ensign Tarvos,” the message began. “I need you in Shuttlebay Four today. We have a couple of runabouts that took a beating on their last mission and I need to know what state they’re in. Report to me once you’ve determined that. Grusc out.”

As maintenance goes, that wasn’t a bad assignment. The runabouts are essentially miniature starships and have a variety of systems that goes along with that, even if it is in a limited way.

Sam appeared from the bathroom, already dressed in the blue-trimmed uniform that indicated a science or medical specialization. “ Good day ahead?” He enquired.

“Not bad at all,” Joryn replied. “Fixing banged-up runabouts.”

Sam raised an eyebrow. “Hmmn, I wonder if I’ll be fixing the banged-up people who were in them” he quipped.

“Maybe so,” Joryn said as he made his way into the bathroom for his turn in the sonic shower. 

Sam was gone by the time Joryn came out of the shower. “Better get down there and see what we’re dealing with,” Joryn said to himself as he put on the gold-trimmed uniform of an Engineering officer. 

[07:50] 

[Shuttlebay Four]

Joryn arrived at the Shuttlebay ten minutes before his shift was scheduled to start. Two Danube-class runabouts occupied the majority of the space. One showed significant burns on its outer hull. There was a familiar burnt smell hanging in the air too, one that he knew came from burnt-out EPS conduits. He was willing to bet that it’d look similar on the inside.

The Shuttlebay crew began to arrive and immediately set about gathering toolkits and tricorders from the storage compartments that they were stowed in. 

Joryn accessed the log from the previous shift. Only one crewman had been on duty, right up until two hours before the shift ended. That was when the runabouts arrived. One had been sent to rescue and recover the other. The entries from that point mostly regarded damage control. Oxygen had been removed from the atmosphere of the Shuttlebay to prevent fires from breaking out and a dozen crewmen had been issued with breathing apparatus and reassigned to shut down the systems of the scorched runabout, remove fuel and make it safe.

As the beginning of the shift drew closer, the crew gravitated towards Joryn. He was the ranking officer and so would be expected to give direction. Five others had been assigned to the Shuttlebay for this shift. He recognized Petty Officer Johnsson, a red-haired human woman, and crewmen Zha’Tal and Kovrel, Romulan refugees who enlisted in Starfleet after the destruction of Romulus. The remaining two faces were new. The shift details identified them as crewmen Taylor and Orum, one Human and one Bajoran. The nose ridges told him which one was which.

“Good Morning,” Joryn began. “First order of the day is to assess the damage to these runabouts.” 

The manifest identified the runabouts as USS Brazos and USS Clyde, the former being the more visibly scorched of the two. 

“Petty Officer Johnsson, I want you to assess the Clyde and I’ll take the Brazos,” Joryn directed. “Crewmen Kovrel and Taylor are with PO Jonsson, Zha’Tal and Orum are with me.”

 The interior of USS Brazos was dark. In the poor light, Joryn could make out the warped surfaces of destroyed consoles. He knew that the cause was likely to be ruptured EPS conduits behind the consoles. This ship wasn’t going anywhere soon. 

Joryn made eye-contact with Zha’Tal and said ”Hook up an external power supply to the Brazos.” The warp core had been shut down and all of the warp plasma had been removed by the previous shift. External power would at least let them boot up the computer and light the interior. 

“Orum, Check over the warp core.“ The young crewman nodded and left to carry out the task.

A few moments later, several instrument panels came to life and about half of the lights came on. The flight control and operations consoles positioned in front of the forward two seats seemed to be working. 

The last configuration appeared to have a lot of the engineering controls routed to the ops console. It was reporting the lack of power and the offline status of all critical systems. The engineering console to the side of the cockpit remained dark and appeared to be warped. 

Joryn tugged on the panel until it detached from the bulkhead. 

The familiar burnt smell intensified. The light spilling into the console revealed that the EPS conduits had indeed ruptured behind the panel although it appeared that the console was already fried before that. The EPS taps and power converter were burnt out in addition to having physical damage from the small explosion. Hopefully, that meant no-one was sitting in front of it when the conduit blew. 

Zha’Tal entered the cockpit and Joryn directed him to the Science console opposite. It appeared to be in a similar state to the Engineering one.

The team checking over the Clyde finished after about an hour, then came to lend a hand with the Brazos. The Clyde was in better shape; all systems were running although some on their redundancies and there was still a couple of power reroutes in place. She could fly now if necessary, but a couple of hours could have all the damaged components replaced and she would be 100% operational.

A further hour with all hands on the job and the checking of the Brazos was complete. She was salvageable but it was going to take days of work. Most of her problems had been power related. The automatic safety protocols had shut down her warp core because the generated power wasn’t being carried away quickly enough to prevent a buildup and eventual overload. The impulse engine in the starboard wing had taken a direct hit and its destruction had severed the conduits carrying the warp plasma to the starboard nacelle. 

The crew had gotten creative with the power distribution after that. The emitters on the phaser banks all showed signs of overload. They’d been routing everything they had left to whatever bank was still operational and facing the attacker. Apparently, it had been enough to hold out until the cavalry arrived in the form of USS Clyde. 

The surges in the power grid from doing that under fire was going to mean that the entire EPS grid would need replacing, in addition to an impulse engine, the phaser banks, destroyed consoles, about half of the hull plating, and a multitude of interior panels that’d been blown out by the EPS ruptures.

Joryn anticipated what his orders would be and directed the team to start working on getting USS Clyde fully operational. He placed PO Johnsson in charge of leading the repair work and set off for Lt. Grusc’s office.

[11:00] 

[Lt. Grusc’s office]

Joryn sat across the desk from the stout Tellarite Lieutenant. 

He’d reported on the status of the runabouts but it was difficult to tell how the news was being received. 

Lt. Grusc appeared to be frowning and mentally shuffling resources around in his head. The silence was slightly awkward. His eyes finally focused on Joryn. 

“Good work Ensign. Having USS Clyde back before the end of the shift is good news. Command has already been asking for a runabout for some relief mission or other.” 

Lt. Grusc tapped away on his PADD before setting it down on his desk. “I’m reassigning some crewmen to you for the remainder of the shift, including a fabrication specialist. Get them started on the Brazos while your team finishes with the Clyde. We have an old Excelsior-class ship due in for a refit so there’s going to be a high demand for the replicators. Try to get all the replacements needed for the Brazos replicated today. If you submit a request for space in the adjoining carbo bay, I’ll push through the authorization for it.”

“Yes, Sir. Thank you, Sir,” replied Joryn as he left the Lieutenant’s office and headed back to the Shuttlebay. 

There was still a lot to somehow squeeze into the rest of the shift.