Securing Secondary Systems

Posted on Thu Nov 30th, 2023 @ 10:10pm by Captain Taiga Aisaka & Lieutenant Rea

1,784 words; about a 9 minute read

Mission: Starship Graveyard
Location: Bridge

The doors to the bridge opened and Taiga led the way out, followed by Lieutenant Rea. Their little 'encounter' on the Hull had put the crew of the Tokyo on high alert. Taiga walked over to the security console. One of the relief Security Officers was manning it and already doing a perimeter check.

"Anything?" Taiga asked as she looked down at the console as she stood next to him.

"Nothing Captain." He replied.

"Stand down Intruder Alert," Taiga ordered. The lights and consoles on the bridge changed back to normal. "They must have found a way to sneak up on us and get on the hull without anyone noticing..." Taiga said.

Rea had moved over to the Operations console and had started taking some readings. "Long range sensors are still offline, however we do have limited short range," she reported as she tapped away at the console. With most of the senior officers off ship on the shuttle missions to the other ships it was hard to get the entire crew together on this.

"Maybe they had some sort of personal cloaking device?" Taiga proposed. "The Jem'Hadar had a similar technology. I imagine having a cloaking device would have advantages in this sort of environment. It would make raiding ships for supplies easier and give them a technical advantage."

Rea nodded. "That makes a lot of sense." She couldn't help but agree with the captain. However she couldn't help but start to wonder how a mobile cloaking device would work, and what power requirements it would take to operate it.

Taiga let out a sigh. "We're more or less defenceless down here. I think we've underestimated the 'inhabitants' of this planet. Obviously they know we're here. We will have to take extra precautions from now on," she told them all. "Do we have any sort of shields?" she asked.

Both the tactical officer and engineer began to look into the possibility. "The shield emitters can be brought online. But the Tokyo can't establish vental emitters can't function."

Taiga pondered for a brief moment. "Maybe they don't have to..." Taiga replied. "Let me take a look a moment." She said as she relieved him of the tactical consoles. She began to play around the shield controls. She couldn't help but smirk to herself, it had been a while since she had to do anything like this. At heart she was still a tactical officer, and she always enjoyed working the tactical controls.

"Rea, can you extend the range of the working shield emitters?" she asked as she looked over towards the Operations console.

"Yes Captain, but that'll drain power from other systems." Rea replied as she tapped away to manage the power functions of the Tokyo.

"Ok, lets think about this a moment." Taiga said as she placed her chin between her thumb and index finger in thought. "What power sources do we have available to us?"

"We've got only one of the Fusion reactors online." Rea replied. "The Warp Core if offline, and we've got the impulse reactors. But we've powered them down due to not being in use by the engines." She took a momentary pause. "We've also got the power relays to the phasers and torpedo launchers."

Taiga clicked her fingers upon hearing about the impulse reactors and weapons. "Reroute power from one of the impulse reactors. Keep the other in standby. Also, take the weapons power from ventral phaser banks and torpedo launchers and divert it into the shield emitters." Taiga ordered. "We can't use them when we're on the surface, so we might as well put the power to good use elsewhere."

The engineer nodded. She hadn't thought aboutr rerouting power from systems that weren't working, or were buried in the sand. She tapped away at the console. "It'll take a few moments, the power grid isn't exactly stable." She replied.

As she worked a few sparks erupted from one of the power relays in the roof. The bridge crew ignored it as they worked. After a few tense minutes Rea smiled and looked back at the Captain. "Power rerouted. It's going to take constant monitoring though. The relays weren't designed for that sort of power transfer."

"I understand that. But I have faith in this ships capability. If there's one thing that the Tokyo is good at, its being able to adapt to any and every situation. Plus, she's a lot more modular and modern than most Federation Starships." Taiga replied as she also began to tap on the tactical console. "I can establish a partial shield around the ship. It won't cover the dorsal sections. But it should create an effective 'barrier' for anyone trying to get to us on foot." Taiga explained to them all. "Think of it like an invisible wall..."

The shields activated, and for a brief second the blue hue of the shields coming up could be seen around the Tokyo, shielding them from any outside threats that came close. Taiga couldn't help but smile as she checked the status. "Not as strong as I would like them, holding at fifteen per cent strength, but thats enough to knock back anyone or stop people from getting in." She said with a smile.

"I have to say Captain, that was a genius idea!" Rea exclaimed happily. "The power to the emitters is holding nicelty too. Honestly, I didn't think it would hold for even this long. That may be another story if they take weapons fire though."

"Lets hope it doesn't come to that," Taiga replied as she allowed the tactical officer to return to his station. She then moved down to the Operations console and began to look over the power levels and diversions that Rea had set up. "Hmm..." she said as she looked at the readouts on the Operations console.

"Do you think we could use the second impulse reactor to restart some of the secondary systems. Personally I wouldn't mind the replicators to be back online." Taiga asked.

Rea pondered for a brief moment. "It would depend on how much fuel we have."

"We should have enough for a while. Plus, I don't intend to be on this planet for a great amount of time." Taiga told her as she looked over the readings again. "I know that the more power we use now, the less we have later. But, you have to admit getting replicators and the security grid back online will benefit us all. We can finally replicate supplies, spare parts, medicines and food for the crew."

The engineer pondered for a moment. "It would speed up repairs. I'm just worried that we'd overload the power grid," she told the captain, concern in her voice. "It would also cause our power signature to go up. If any other ship has sensors, they may be able to locate us more easily. It would open us for more raiders from other survivors."

"Yes it would..." Taiga said. "However, it would also be a little like a beacon. If Starfleet comes looking for us, they may be able to pick up a higher power signature from us. Also, we may still have Starfighters out there in the nebula. We've been on low power mode for a few days now, if we increased it we'd turn the Tokyo into a 'glorified lighthouse' as Mister Yuvek once said."

A moment of silence fell upon the bridge at the Captains suggestion. Finally Rea nodded. "I can do it Captain. Give me a moment..." she said. Truthfully she didn't like the idea of pumping raw power through the grid like the Captian had suggested; but desperate times called for desperate measures. At least this way they could somewhat speed up repairs and possibly get the Tokyo back to a state where survival was more possible.

Taiga tapped her comm badge. "Captain Aisaka to all hands." Her hail went out shipwide to all decks. "We are going to attempt to reboot the main secondary systems. However we will be dumping a lot of power into the power grid. I would advise you all to stand clear of any power conduits... Just in case..."

She waited a few seconds for anyone to get clear. Then she turned and nodded at Rea.

The Eifie Engineer hesitantly pushed the button on the Operations console. The console began to beep loudly. "I'm showing an overload..." she reported as she began to franctically tapping at the consoles. "I've contained it. Seems like a damaged power conduit on deck eleven caused it. Luckily it wasn't a primary junction..."

A soft hum started to fill the empty silence of the bridge. Taiga smiled as the bridge replcator began to flicker back into life. It let out a few sparks as it recieved the raw power.

"Well?"

"One second Captain..." Rea replied as she continued to tap away at the console. "I'm managing the power flow manually. Until I can set up the computer to do this automatically, I'm compensating and rerouting so we don't blow every replicator and sonic shower off the walls..."

Taiga crossed her arms as she waited. She was tempted to tap her foot, but she understood that this was a delicate operation. Truthfully she didn't want to rely on just dumping all the raw power from the unaccessible phaser banks and impulse reactors into the grid. The phasers used a different polarity and frequency of power to those of replicators and other secondary systems. She kenw it could all blow up in their faces if they pushed it too hard, quite literally.

"I... I got i!" Rea exclaimed as she clapped her hands together. "Captain, we have Replicators back online. Security Grid is back and operational, we also have partial transporters." she reported. "Main computer is also operational, we should have full computer operations shortly."

"Good work!" Taiga smiled. "Now," she turned to the bridge officers. "Lets speed up those repairs. We should focus on getting the ship space worthy again." She told them all. "I also want the replicators to be rationed. We don't want to overdo it."

"Aye sir," The officers on the bridge replied each with a smile.

"Rea, go down to Engineering. Have your teams speed up the repairs to our key systems. Ideally I want to bring the warp core back online as soon as possible. We could use its power." Taiga ordered.

Rea nodded, "Yes Captain." With that said she left the bridge and made her way into the turbolift. Taiga on the other hand headed for her ready room. She wanted to have something cool to drink that wasn't basic water!

Posting by

Captain Taiga Aisaka
Commanding Officer

Lieutenant Rea
Chief Engineer

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