Breathing Easier

Posted on Tue Oct 24th, 2023 @ 11:04am by Lieutenant JG Amari & Lieutenant JG Nezuko

1,411 words; about a 7 minute read

Mission: Starship Graveyard
Location: Nezuko's quarters
Timeline: Before arrival at Karlax Nebula

Nezuko messed up.

It had been so much easier on the Susquehanna. When she was first promoted and given the position of Assistant Chief Ops Officer, she had been given her own private quarters. The life support system on that Akira-class ship was accessible. Easy to isolate and modify for her purposes.

The Armitage class was based on the Akira. Why had they changed the life support system so drastically? Why was it suddenly hardened against access?

The reasons were obvious, of course. An accessible life support system was easier to fix and maintain, but also easier to sabotage. The upgraded system on the upgraded ship design meant that saboteurs would need to do a lot more to damage the air circulation systems on board.

But it also meant that Nezuko's attempts to modify her quarters' systems were...less than successful.

The air and heat circulation systems for nine cabins other than Nezuko's had been shut down. Nine very annoyed Starfleet officers were waiting very impatiently for the Amphea to fix her mistake.

She did the only logical thing. She hung her head in shame and called for help.

Thankfully, Amari was on duty, and was at her side fairly quickly.

Coming down the corridor Amari headed for Nezuko's quarters, her computer had pinged her with several engineering requests about a life support issue on deck four that was quickly followed by a message from the chief ops about her own quarters so she grabbed some tools and headed down. Quickly reaching the room she tapped the chime.

Nezuko tapped the nearest surface three times in quick succession, a signal which the computer's audio sensors understood as a command to open the door for the guest.

When the door opened Amari quickly caught the taste of stale air. "What have you done?" She asked.

With another sigh, Nezuko gestured to the mess in her quarters. She had taken out one of the wall panels to access the life support apparatus. There were no compressed air tanks on her deck -- those were elsewhere -- but piping brought air to diffusers and then circulated it via ventilation ducts to the ship's various compartments. There was space behind the bulkhead near the spot where the main duct split off to service Nezuko's room, enough space for her to install some new hardware.

But taking apart the duct had set something off. The diffuser shut down completely and locked off air circulation. Several red error messages flashed on the small display attached to the diffuser.

So the bulkhead remained detached, the duct remained disconnected -- it would not reconnect, probably because of the error -- and various pieces of equipment were strewn about her room.

Amari was silent for a minute as she took in the mess that was the life support section of the wall, gradually trying to figure out what the woman had been trying to do. "You were trying to reconfigure the whole life support system?"

Nezuko shook her head. It wasn't the entire system she was trying to modify, after all. She gestured to the new components she had brought together. The air tanks labeled "70% Ar, 30% NO3-(g)". The duct valves. The access console. The mini forcefield generators. The turned her PADD toward Amari, which displayed the blueprint for the room's life support apparatus and highlighted only the ducts which went to her own room. It was clear from the diagram that she was trying to reconfigure only her own room.

Amari took the Padd from Nezuko and quickly read through it. "You're trying to get your own breathable atmosphere in here..."

Nezuko nodded. She’d worn her respirator every moment of every day since their return from Risa, except for those minutes in sickbay when Dr. Febin filled the exam space with her air. She needed the freedom of her own atmosphere. Plus the safety of a refuge if her respirator batteries failed.

"Aren't some of the quarters on all starfleet ships designed to have variable atmosphere's, do you not have one of them?" Amari asked, she was sure she'd read it somewhere.

On the PADD, Nezuko brought up some basic specs. It looked like the VIP quarters, as well as certain cabins usually accorded to officers ranked Commander or higher, had that capability but it was far from universal. As Ops Chief, it was her department that assigned rooms and she felt bad giving herself special quarters to someone else’s detriment, especially if she could make the modifications herself. Or so she thought.

"This will not be an easy job." Amari remarked thinking about all the equipment that would need to be added to the existing system, most of which was already scattered around the room. "I don't even know where to start."

Nezuko shrugged and picked up the new compressed air tank and started pulling it into position. They had to start somewhere, after all. May as well just pick one.

It took a long time but after several hours of elbow grease, improvising and not necessarily sticking to starfleet procedures and regulations Amari eventually took a step back from the wall. "Ok, we have the new tanks installed, isolated from the regular air system, room is airtight, recycling of your gases." She mentally checked off what they needed to do. "What's next?"

Just as Amari was finishing the last step of that process, Nezuko was finishing tying some ceiling projectors into the power grid. A 1.5 x 1.5 meter area directly in front of the door would now have an atmospheric forcefield in place, so someone else could enter her quarters and stand just inside the door breathing normal ship air. She also quickly mounted a magnetic book to the wall next to the door, on which a face mask with an oxygen source was mounted, for visitors.

With that done, there remained just one thing: the controls.

There were two options with this sort of refit, a dedicated control unit or simply integrating the controls into the ship's computer. There were good reasons to do either approach, but Nezuko was concerned about the possibility that ship-wide computer problems might impact her ability to breathe, so she opted for a dedicated unit.

She held to Amari a very small control panel, no larger than the thermostat in most dwellings, and gestured to the open access port where wiring still jutted out.

Amari took the control panel. "Connect this up and then we can test everything." She grabbed her tool kit and started to connect it to the system, of all the jobs it was the quickest. After a minute she stepped back and scanned the whole intricate machine with her computer. "Alright, we have power to all the sections, all the seals are nice and tight and the system is primed, I think we're ready."

Nezuko nodded. First, she handed Amari the face mask and rebreather. Next, from the newly installed control panel, she brought up the atmospheric forcefield, sealed off the necessary vents, and, once she verified that Amari's mask was on, she activated the new system.

The ventilation system activated, and a current of air -- not an uncomfortably strong one, but they could definitely feel it -- began flowing through the room. The air began to cycle and after about forty-five seconds, the control panel displayed that the room's air had changed to Amphei Prime Standard.

Nezuko removed her mouthpiece and breathed in deeply through her mouth. She grinned as she let the pure air from her homeworld flow in and out of her lungs.

She gave Amari two clawed thumbs up.

Amari had unconsciously and completely unnecessarily held her breath for a few moments when the air cycled into Nezuko's natural gaseous mix, she caught herself and began to breath normally again. "Everything looks good to me." She said after the air cycling had finished.

Nezuko quickly found her PADD and quickly typed a short message and showed it to Amari on the other side of the air field. Thank you. Sorry for being a bother.

"Don't worry about it," Amari replied. "It has been interesting to test my skills at federation technology like this. and to help out a friend."

And with that, Nezuko set about enjoying an open space of her own, where she could breathe free.



Posting by:

Lieutenant JG Nezuko
Chief Operations Officer

Lieutenant JG Amari
Engineering Officer

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