Posted by Ensign Elemirre Serinde (Engineer) in Main Sim - Engineering

Posted by Ensign Elemirre Serinde (Engineer) in Main Sim - Engineering
El covered a small yawn with the back of her hand as she walked into engineering. Inhaling the machine oils made her feel more like home and, for a moment, rejuvenated her. She could see three engineers. One was nearly swallowed up from the secondary life support unit. Tools were laid out to one side, a panel to the other. She didn’t know who that was. Facing away from her was a trim man with shaggy blonde hair. Dorian. For whatever reason she just wanted to ruffle his hair. It was so .. ruffle-able. He was watching some gauges. Over by the Cochrane was Rosa-Maria, who, at that time broke the relative silence, by calling out, “Dorian, output levels since entering this space have been off by 1.105%. It ranged from 2.118% at its peak but settled back to current 1.105.”

Dorian ran his hand through his hair. “Confirmed. My guess is the coil may be just out of alignment and needs a reconfig.” Rosa-Maria gave a noncommittal grunt in reply.

“Hey,” El said, breaking any further comments.

Dorian turned. “Well if it isn’t our happy wanderer. Chief is doing okay?” El suppressed a frown. What about me? she thought. “Not heard but the away team has found something big down there. Some big machine that might be causing this. That’s as much as I was able to eavesdrop. But be ready in case the chief needs you to beam down a spanner to throw into the works there.”

She paused. “Look, I can help with the coil if you like. Oh, and the Captain would like a status report on things. I think she was hoping we’d found an avenue through this spatial soup we’re stuck in.”

Dorian shook his head. “That was Alpha shift working on that. We’re just fixing what they didn’t do here on Gamma.”

El could hear Rosa-Maria mutter something under her breath in what sounded like Spanish but too low for her to catch. Not that she was in any way fluent in it, or even nominal. It was a ‘nice’ language. It sounded dreamy and many of her romance novels had people from those regions in it. “Where would we be without you then?” she said. She had hoped that they would know more, though she also knew that pass on material was often a need to know and some shift leads only delivered a minimal amount to get them through the shift. Her sigh hid a burgeoning yawn.
- El, Eng

El slipped on a set of insulated coveralls which tended to be too big for her. She felt rather like it was a ski-suit. She’d been in one once when they were out at her College in England. They had flown to France for that. El liked the sauna afterward but didn’t much like the cold and had a hard time fathoming how others could have such fun. Slipping on a pair of thin, flexible gloves and setting her goggles around her neck she pocketed a scanner and small tool kit. She thought she looked like a little Smurf. “Damien, heading over to the nacelle. The port one, right? I’ll contact you when I’m at the coil.” Without waiting for a reply she carried on.

Truly they could do this on Alpha shift when there were more people. El was more interested in the ship having optimal power in the event of needing to warp again. She was optimistic that way and while the chief might think it was a misplaced priority what was being commissioned good for if it weren’t for being able to make a decision. The job cleared her head for now. Talking and diplomacy and such was tiring. This was hands on and something she could do. Besides this shouldn’t take long. It was either an alignment issue or something more. If the former she could do it. If the latter then it was back to Alpha shift to figure out.

Getting to the hatchway she tapped in the entry code and it hissed open. A wash of cooler air passed her. They didn’t precisely make these tubes big and in this way she was thankful that she was small. Sealing the hatch behind her she started the crawl over.
- El, Eng

El crawled along the tube thankful that she didn’t mind these spaces. The smell was different than engineering. There it was a mixture of smells but always a hint of the machine-ey there. Here it was almost rarified. Ozone like. With the air a feel of autumn. She’d first really felt that season in Britain. At first she liked it. The changes were something she had not really seen in her island paradise growing up. But when the cold started to hit the lustre had dimmed rapidly.

Reaching her destination El looked at the coil and the status display next to it which was mostly status indicators. She placed her scanner on the plate next to it where it magnetically affixed to it and made connection to it. More data scrolled over the small face that El took in. Everything was within operating parameters, showing green everywhere but for one yellow tick that suggested a small charge buildup. That was normal and occurred through regular operation and was usually dealt with in routine maintenance. It had been done at the last check, she noted. Maybe it was this area of space, or perhaps something leaked when they were hit by the plasma blasts from the orbiting platforms. It hadn’t done any damage to them but electronics were skitchy things.

[o] El to Engineering. Damien. I’m at the coil. What are you reading for negative charge buildup at the 12xB junction chips and coil? I’m getting a notice that it is higher than it should be [c] She set her comms on the decking and upped the speaker volume while she shifted to get more comfortable.
[o] Rosa here El. Damien’s coffee got too much for him. I’m reading a 12.8kw charge. That is up from the normal. Uh .. [c]
[o] 11 .. [c] El said helping her out. [o] Can you send a degauss command through with a PM notation on the log and we can see if it needs more work [c]
[o] Bringing that up now. So El, when are we going to get together. You said you’d teach me some choice words in Chinese and I’d do the same in Spanish? [c]

El, Eng