Runabout repairs: Ensign Joryn Tarvos

briwhyte

[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.  

briwhyte

[ 08:00 Shuttlebay Four ]

Joryn had been awake and ready for a couple of hours now. He’d been unable to sleep with excitement. A few crewmen from the ending shift were tidying up the bay, stowing equipment back in its proper compartments, and logging the tasks that they had completed. Joryn didn’t recognize them. He did recognize the two runabouts in the shuttle bay; the USS Brazos and USS Clyde. He had managed the repairs on both just a few days earlier. They’d been used a few times since then and he was glad to see that they both looked in perfect condition. 

The orders had appeared on his PADD the night before. A mission! 

He was vaguely familiar with the mission commander, an Andorian lieutenant called Thelev ch'Rhavalr. They hadn’t spoken before, but Joryn knew that Thelev was a security officer and his career was on the command track. They’d be accompanied by T’Sai, a Vulcan doctor who held the rank lieutenant (junior grade). Joryn was unfamiliar with her. Vulcans didn’t socialize much and he hadn’t been to the starbase’s medical facilities other than for a routine checkup.

The mission itself was classed as a relief mission. He was clearly going to be the one responsible for fixing whatever equipment was broken. The two lieutenants would be assessing the security and medical situation at the destination. Joryn had already packed an extensive toolkit and a few spare uniforms to last the mission. He stowed them in a locker on board USS Clyde and moved forward to the Engineering console in the cockpit.

There were still around twenty-five minutes before he was due to report there and so Joryn decided the time would be best spent reviewing the status and engineering log of the runabout. After all, he was about to be the Chief engineer on a starship even if he was also the only engineer on that starship.

The runabout’s systems were all operating normally. The previous mission had been to tow a starship back to the fleet yards for repair since the journey time for the runabout would have been less than the time projected for the ship’s crew to get their warp core back online. For the runabout, that mission had been completely uneventful.

There were no outstanding repairs, the sensors had all be calibrated and even the manifest showed that the runabout had a complete set of the standard equipment on board. Joryn wouldn’t need the toolkit that he put together as the runabout already had all of them and could replicate more if needed. Still, if he used his own kit then he’d have to make fewer entries in the ship’s manifest so he decided it had been worth the effort. Besides, it never hurts to be prepared.

Thelev boarded the runabout fifteen minutes early, just as Joryn finished reviewing the logs.

“Getting an early start, Ensign?” Thelev joked.

“I just wanted to make sure there weren’t any surprises in here for me,” Joryn explained as he gestured towards the console displaying the log.

“Good,” Thelev responded. “I hate surprises, unless, they’re ones I’ve created.”

It took Joryn a moment to realize that the Andorian meant setting up a surprise attack in a tactical situation. 

“Yes, Sir,” Joryn replied.

“Anything in there I should know about?” Thelev asked.

“No,” answered Joryn. “All systems are operational and all of the standard equipment is present,” he added.

“How about mission-specific equipment?” Thelev enquired.

Joryn flicked through the mission orders and checked the manifest again.

“We’re due to take on supplies to deliver to the colony. They’re not on board, but we aren’t scheduled to receive them for another twenty minutes,” Joryn reported.

“Okay,” Thelev answered. “Get in touch with the Quartermaster and inform them that we are ready to accept the cargo. If there are any delays, I want to know about them now” he commanded. 

Joryn requested a connection to the Quartermaster’s office as Thelev moved aft to stow the bags he’d been carrying.

It was still five minutes until the time that Joryn was supposed to have reported to the shuttle bay. The cargo of supplies had been ready and had been transported over within five minutes of Joryn contacting the Quartermaster. He’d even double-checked the cargo manifest. 

It contained a large amount of fuel that was typically used in older reactors, just like the ones that used to power colony buildings. There were spare components too; matter-energy conversion matrices, waveguides, memory modules, power conduits, and pattern buffers. Joryn immediately recognized them as essential replicator components. The remainder of the cargo comprised toolkits and medical supplies.

Although Thelev hadn’t briefed him yet, Joryn could tell that wherever they were headed had lost the ability to replicate the supplies they need.

“Lieutenant Junior Grade T’Sai reporting for duty,” T’Sai announced as she boarded the runabout.

“Very good. At ease Lieutenant.” Thelev acknowledged and gestured for her to take a seat at the science station in the cockpit. “Ensign, I want you at the Operations station”.

The mission start time was approaching and Joryn sensed that Thelev was about to begin the mission briefing.