| Author | Message | ||
     Kari |
The warning alarm had been blaring for over a minute before Kariasa Ma'Aru was able to pry the dented cover off of the Third Primary Plasma Coolant Relay Panel, located directly below the Artemis class starship's warp core. She assumed that the panel had been damaged by a number of stem bolts when the ship had been hit by a plasma torpedo. As soon as it was clear she brought up a tricorder and set to work trying to locate that jam that the ship's computer had been complaining of. The results were not what she expected and the jam was not registering on the tricorder's screen. Setting the small device of the ground she started to reach for something else when it began beeping frantically. The problem was directly in front of the tricorder and Kari shimmied quickly across the floor towards another access panel. Fortunately, this one came off much quicker and in a moment she had found the conduit she was looking for. Reaching for an engineering toolkit she hesitated a moment before finally deciding on an Electro-Plasma Regulator. Holding the tool awkwardly in two hands she had managed to get most of the jam clear when then tip slipped off the conduit and cut straight through a cluster of Optical Data Network lines. She was rewarded by a rather spectacular explosion behind her which a large section of the bulkhead directly into the Coolant Relay Panel she had just opened. Moving quickly back towards that panel she pulled the bulkhead away, and grimaced at what she saw inside. Most of the tubes inside had been ruptured and were leaking coolant at an alarming rate. The cramped panel filled with the blue-green liquid in moments and Kari had to scramble quickly to avoid being covered in the stuff. Grabbing the toolkit she stood and glanced frantically around the engineering bay, trying to decide what to do about the situation. She quickly noticed that the missing coolant was having a decisively negative impact on the warp core; almost all of the displays around here were flashing warnings of some kind. After a moment of deliberation she moved towards the most important looking one. She quickly determined the warning was trying to tell her that if she didn't get more power to the anti-proton injection system the warp core would shut down, stoping the flow of power completly. Pulling up a power management display she quickly went through the list of subsystems currently drawing from the ship's supply. Most of the systems were already well below their normal settings and only one would probably continue running if some of its supply were rerouted; a few taps later and she had successfully restarted the injection system by giving it power from the electromagnetic storage fields. It would be the last mistake she made. Kari didn't even have time to turn towards the warp core before the entire engineering bay and, a fraction of a second later, the rest of the ship was caught up in a brilliant explosion; the expanding fireball being fulled by every power and plasma conduit it passed. --- The testing program didn't have long to gloat however, as soon as the ship was gone the familiar lines of a holodeck grid appeared in its place. With a deep sigh Kari sat down, a chair materializing to catch her at the last moment. She brought a hand up to rub her temples, half to soothe the headache which had just appeared there and half to block the taunting, "Simulation Failed," message hanging in the air directly before her. What infuriated her most, she quickly determined, was that this entire process had been her idea. There was still no one pressuring her to go through these simulated academy courses and finish the training she didn't get the first time around. It wasn't all bad, she reminded herself. She had sailed through most of the courses left to complete, Tactical, Navigation, Science, Operations, Starfleet History, even Medical. She remembered all of the instruction she had gotten at the actual academy and the holodeck programs had filled out the rest. There was only one slight snag. No matter how hard she tried, how many times she read through the course materials, she still couldn't get past the Engineering Practical Examinations. There was just something fundamental about fixing a starship that she wasn't able to grasp. It would seem logical she thought that with hundreds of species working for thousands of years on technical advancement that they would be able to develop a ship that didn't fall apart at the slightest disturbance. Though for some reason this wasn't the case and instead these ships had to employ large numbers of people to fix these problems. And to be personally satisfied with her academy degree she had to learn how to be one of them. With another sigh Kari stood, the chair disappearing behind her, and called for the computer to restart the program. With a shimmer the familiar layout of the Artemis's engineering bay appeared around her. Setting a fist on her hip, she waited for something to happen; the wait wouldn't be long. In a moment the lights dropped and a everything turned slightly red in color. The ship shook violently as it was hit, a spray of sparks shooting out in a nearby jeffries tube. Taking a tricorder in hand she ran towards the sound. Maybe this time she would be able to keep the ship in one peice... |