Posted by Cadet J. C. Swishman (Engineer) in Main Sim - Main Engineering

Posted by Cadet Boris Levitsky (Engineer) in Main Sim - Main Engineering

Posted by Gamemaster Mr Centauri (Gamemaster) in Main Sim - Main Engineering
Posted by… suppressed (2) by the Post Ghost! 👻

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“Chief! Over here!” A petty officer called from around the backside of the warp core. There was a group of them digging through the wreckage, pulling away pieces to get to a storage door that was blocked. When they finally got the door cleared, a couple of pry bars were shoved in to break the door open.

“Whose in there?” Walker said as he climbed over the rumble and peered into the opened supply closet.

CWO Darach - Acting CE

Keeping quiet as the Chief sought out the source of the banging, J.C. extended the sensors out to get a better idea of what they were dealing with.

And it was a literally bigger issue than he even imagined.

7 times longer than Challenger… At least 7 times the height… The ship had locked onto Challenger’s saucer section via several maglock-like mechanisms, which looked to be enhanced with some sort of… Mechanical mesh layer. Maybe some sort of nanotechnology?

Brute-forcing their way out didn’t seem like an option; the way the mesh field encompassed the saucer would likely cause catastrophic damage before they got too far… And that’s not even accounting for the maglock-esque connections that’d likely take their own chunks out of the hull.

There were a few possibilities forming in his mind… Hull polarization could possibly shake the maglock connections loose… Maybe a low-level shield bubble, near the hull then expanded, could push the mesh away from the saucer enough to try and maneuver…

But these things were simpler… Had they already been tried already? It seemed silly to suggest them, a waste of time…

J.C. glanced over at the sudden bustle of activity. Had they found whatever, or whoever, was causing that knocking? He watched as crew started going at the door with prybars. It’d have taken a cavalcade of failures to get down to opening that door in such a way…

‘Wait…’ He thought to himself as he watched a second longer, then glanced back at his sensor readings.

They were powerless from the inside, just like whoever might be behind that door…

The external controls were unusable by us, just like that door…

But what if… Like they were doing with the door… They could pry the trap open from the outside?

J.C swiftly reviewed the sensor readings, hoping the shuttle bay wasn’t locked down…

Cadet J.C. Swishman, Engineer

Based on the sensor readings, the maglock disruption and the shield push was the most viable option. The problem was not the act the problem was power, with maintaining life support and all the blown power relays getting enough power to do one, was a challenge, getting enough to do both, nearly impossible.

Mr Centauri GM extraordinaire

Coughing, Levitsky heard a voice outside his temporary prison and perked up, his banging stopped. As he heard the noises of clearing debris, he began to shout. “H-Hey! It is I! Boris!” When the door opened, he staggered out, barely clutching his communicator as he nearly fell onto the floor. However, surprisingly agile, he managed to catch himself, standing to a start. Standing at attention, he saluted, attempting to save face.

“Hallo! Boris Levitsky, reporting for… Duty! Apologies, ended up getting stuck when the ship shook. Pretty bad state we in, then? Checked plasma relays, we seem to be in bad shape. What happen? Are we being boarded?”

Cadet Boris Levetski, engineer.

“Stow it Cadet, I work for a living,” Walker said with a sigh.

“If we are being boarded, either they are really bad boarders, or someone on the bridge is not doing their job at letting every one know. But until someone tells us otherwise, our job is to keep this ship running. What did you see about the plasma relays?”

J.C. glanced over at the commotion once more, taking a soft breath of relief at seeing someone pop out of the door. Good… Another survivor. And an engineer, no less? Could be useful.

He looked back at the sensor readings he was reviewing. His recent idea was complex, so he went back for the first two: Disengaging the maglocks on the Challenger’s hull, and shield-pushing the mesh. Down and dirty simulations said that those solutions would work well.

If it wasn’t for the fact that the ship was running at severely reduced power.

Blown relays, retaining the necessary power for things like, oh, life support… Power was at a barely-balanced premium. Hull polarization to try and shake the maglocks loose could probably still be doable even as crippled as the ship was. Though if the alien ship fought back, things could go south quickly. The shield push, that would be more dicey from a power aspect. Shields just sucked power, and for the amount of space for the saucer section to comfortably clear the nano-mesh… It’d be a game of touch-and-go.

Doing both? That’d be impossible right now. But of course that would be the best chance of escape.

J.C. scrubbed his eyes as he looked over the scans again, pursing his lips. There had to be a way…

He frowned, then set up a simulation… Stationing 4 shuttles at the cardinal directions around the nano-mesh… Then simultaneously setting off a hull polarization burst isolated to right where the maglocks were and a short-duration shield burst to provide an initial push against the mesh… Then having the 4 shuttles catch the mesh with tractors and pulling, seeing if they could pull the mesh free enough for the saucer to be freed without using the copious amounts of power to maintain the shield push.

Cadet J.C. Swishman, Engineer

CWO Darach - Acting CE