Logistical Delays

Posted on Thu Aug 1, 2019 @ 7:42pm by Ensign Athyle sh'Paveress & Master Chief Petty Officer Thomas Barnes & Lieutenant JG Zander Devereaux & Ensign Autumn Rivers & Lieutenant Dalton McNamara

Mission: Refits and Reviews
Timeline: MD 8 || 0900 hours

Seven days.

It'd been seven days since the upgrades had started. Even with the extra personnel, the Triumphant was a full day behind schedule. The fault hadn't been attributed to the crew directly. After all, Tom felt like the schematics and the upgrade orders had been rushed out. The plans had been horribly annotated. The armor generators had been improperly spec'd out. The replicator and machining instructions for the generators were incomplete, leaving the Engineering department to have to fill in the blanks.

Then there was the installation. The configuration instructions were based off of the incorrect specifications, leading Tom to pause work until everything could be sorted. Thankfully, the engineering team remained faithful, despite the fact that the delays were felt by all. The promise of shore leave when this all was over was looking bleaker and bleaker.

And, if there was one thing Tom hated more than anything, it was standing still, in a compartment exposed to space, as a workbee was bringing in one of the last few armor generators. "Come on back," he waved with his gloved hand, slowly stepping back and trying not to trip thanks to the heavily magnetized boots.

Lieutenant Zander Devereaux grunted as he gave a micro adjustment to the RCS thrusters on the workbee, annoyed that he was in the cramped cockpit and not the one giving orders. However, he was determined to not be the one giving orders, so he had to accept getting them, "Contact in five," he said over the com.

In the control booth, Ensign Autumn Rivers kept an eye on the console in front of her that measured things far more accurately than 'contact in five' and ran her own conclusions against the computers. "Confirmed," she called in a calm voice. "Bring it in at one eighth thrust at a twenty-one degree angle counterclockwise."

"You sure about that, Rivers?" Tom asked, eyeballing the workbee's movement. "I think you're going to cause Devereaux to crash this thing. Pull that nose up just a hair."

"I'm positive," Autumn said even though she ran a secondary and began a diagnostic.

"So up a hair or twenty one counter?" Zander asked.

Tom sighed, not believing that he was having to say this. "Up a hair, lieutenant. And twist your twenty-one. You do just one, and I'll see to it you're promoted off this ship."

"Does it come with a demotion in rank?" Zander asked as he raised the nose of the workbee and brought it around to twenty-one degrees.

Autumn shook her head in the control booth as she listened to the older men. She thought she'd never understand humans no matter how much she analyzed them, but shook the thought away. "That's it. Now to dock it and get it sealed in place."

"Seriously?" Tom muttered. "Nice and easy, Devereaux," he said, gesturing with his hands and slowly stepping backwards. "Ensign, you have those other workbees ready with the hull plating?"

"Yes, Sir," Autumn said. "Two and three are standing by and so is four and five. Give the order when ready."

"As soon as Devereaux here clears the area, you can have them swoop in with the hull." Tom wished he could wipe the sweat off his brow. "Once that first layer is down, we can repressurize and finish hooking this last unit up."

Once Zander got everything set and backed the workbee out, he gave the all clear.

"Acknowledged, Master Chief," Autumn said as she began to give the orders for the others. However, one of the two workbee pilots thought he was first and started to move in, sending a section of the new armor smashing against the second workbee that was already moving.

"No, nooo!" Tom cried, watching the action unfold above him. He still recoiled, covering the clear portion of his helmet before remembering that the gravity had been disabled. The two hull fragments had crumpled a bit, and Tom knew that this was only yet another delay. "Well, that's great. Just great."

A blistering stream of verbal abuse came from Zander's workbee before he brought it around.

Autumn muted the stocky Engineer's channel and quickly called emergency crews. "What happened?" she asked as she stared at the scene. The workbee pilot who thought he had the right away started to blame the other pilot before she muted both of them as well. "Chief Barnes, are you okay?' she asked.

"I'm fine," Tom winced, looking back up above him. One of the workbees moved, flooding Tom's vision with horrible white light. "Well, I was until I couldn't see anything anymore."

"I'm bringing you in, Sir," Autumn said before she switched channels to the workbee pilot. "Would you mind not causing any more accidents today? We're behind as it is."

"Bringing who in?" Tom asked as his vision returned. "If you're trying to bring me in, leave me here. Redirect the workbees from Section Twelve to this one. Their hull plating will fit this contour."

"You got it, Master Chief," she said as she sent the commands to the other pilots before having the two current ones back off and go for more armor.

"Want me to scare them straight?" Zander asked.

"How exactly do you want to do that?" Tom asked, starting to approach the generator that had been inserted into the opening. On the outer edge of the generator's bottom ring were several clamps that, when activated, would magnetically seal to the ground, which the team would follow back through with a welder to fortify the unit.

"Let me go a day without coffee," came the stocky engineer's reply.

Meanwhile, the other two workbee's got the armor into place with no difficulty.

"What's next, Chief?" Autumn asked.

"Need you both in here," Tom said, finishing with the magnetic controls. He tapped the control stud, activating the clamps to lock the generator to the floor. "Grab a welding torch, and Mister Devereaux's coffee rations for myself since he volunteered."

Tom rose from the floor, speaking, "Computer, repressurize this room. Authorization Barnes Gamma Theta Nine Nine Three." He waited for a minute before removing his helmet and starting to get out of his EVA suit.

Autumn and Zander made their way to where the Master Chief was.

Zander looked at him and then began to reorganize his tool box as if he had heard a command that Tom hadn't issued yet.

Autumn watched the stocky engineer with curiosity and then over at the Master Chief. "Is there something I'm missing here, Master Chief?" she asked.

Tom yawned as he pulled off the chestpiece. "Coffee?" he asked in reply. Tom knew that he wouldn't receive any, especially since one spill would cause more damage than anything if it happened. "Let's get this welded to the floor. Laser torches, everyone!"

Zander looked up. "Coffee?"

"No coffee, welding," Autumn said and enjoyed the look of displeasure on the short, stocky Engineer's face as she got her equipment ready. "Ready, Master Chief."

"Ready, Master Chief," Zander mocked the Ensign but kept his tone neutral as he got his plasma welder ready.

Tom picked up his own welder and set to work. Based on the other installations, this process would take at least ten minutes. If Tom could have more people in the room, he would, but it was crowded enough as it was. "I'm glad this is the last generator for the dorsal portion of the ship. Once this is online and configured, we can run the first full test of the system."

"And then repeat it sixty more times," Zander grunted as he got to work.

"Master Chief, how much are you allowing for variance?" Autumn asked.

"Variance with the armor?" Tom asked, shielding his eyes with a speciality visor from from bright light. "Or in the welding?"

"The welding," the Ensign responded. Her work looked like it had been done by a computer with zero slag anywhere along the seam.

"There's no room for variance," Tom cautioned, deactivating his torch and flipped up his visor. "Though, there is little comparison between a human's effort and a Lagashi during moments like this." His own weld was almost perfect, aside from a soft bump when he had unexpectedly shifted his weight.

"Speak fer yreself," Zander muttered as he deactivated his torch and inspected his weld. "Point zero zero eight variance."

"Which, according to Master Chief Barnes," Autumn said with a slight smirk. "Is not Lagashi."

"Don't be putting words in my mouth, Ensign," Tom warned, rising from his position to take a look at Zander's weld. He smiled as he did, noting that it indeed wasn't the work of a Lagashi. "Keep it going, Lieutenant. Let's not delay."

"My apologies, Master Chief," she said as she activated her torch and visor once more and set back to work.

Zander grunted and went back to his weld as well. "This is only going to take forever."

"Not forever." Tom moved back to his side and started on the next clamp. "Just another eight minutes. Unless you're a Lagashi and you could get it done in..." He looked at Ensign Rivers, waiting for her to finish the sentence.

"Twenty minutes solo," Autumn responded automatically.

"And if all three were Lagashi?" Tom pressed.

"Five minutes from start to finish," she said.

"What if they were nine Lagashi?" Zander asked.

"Nine would not be needed. Six would accomplish the job in under a minute," Autumn told him.

Tom chuckled, continuing to weld. "Maybe that's what I should do. Replace the entire engineering staff with Lagashi. Or, at least the refit team. Maybe we could regain out lost time and make it to the original finish line."

"Or get bogged down in details," Autumn replied. "We always end up in a theorem forum before any work gets done."

"Just how the hell do you get tied up in theory over armor installation when the work's already most done?" Tom asked, continuing to weld.

"Debating the best ways to do it," she responded as she finished her next weld.

"That's why you just do it," Zander said as he finished his weld ten seconds behind hers, annoyed that the slender Ensign cheated to get hers done first.

Tom frowned, still working on his own weld. His hand had wavered, forcing him to go back to a spot he missed. "You mean there are more ways other than simply turning it on?"

"The angle of the torch, the size and thickness of the material, and a host of other things," Autumn said.

Zander wanted to laugh at Barnes' obvious joke and he wanted to laugh even harder at the Lagashi completely missing it. He could have fun with her, but for the moment, he headed for the next weld spot.

Tom finished with his own weld and proceeded to the next one. "See, you're talking about welding. I'm talking about the actual activation and configuration of the armor."

"Oh, that's the easy part," Autumn said. "We're doing the hard part now."

"I have two left," Tom announced as he finished another weld after a few moments of silence. "You two?"

"Two," came Zander's reply followed by a grunt.

"One and a half," Rivers said. "I had a head start while you were talking."

"Good," Tom said with a smile. "Ensign, as soon as you finish that weld, I need you to start hooking up the primary power leads."

"You got it, Master Chief," she said with a chirp in her voice which disgusted Zander. The stocky engineer bent to his task and tried to run as straight and perfect a bead he could in as short a time.

"How many more sections we got?" he grunted.

"This is the last one," Tom said, shutting off his torch and flipping up his visor to see where he was going next. "Well, the last one we're doing. Lieutenant Rodriguez is heading up the last on the starboard quarter. We stole his hull plating thanks to the snafu from earlier. I'm sure he appreciated that." Tom replaced his visor and fired up the torch once more.

"When I get my hands on that sumbi..." Devereaux trailed off and grumbled. "It's hard being a DCS and having to deal with seeing things like that. He deserved to have them stolen."

"Why does he deserve them?" Autumn asked from where she worked.

"Because if his pilots mess up that badly, he deserves to wait." Zander growled.

"Was that his pilots who nearly crushed me?" Tom asked, looking up at Zander through his shielded visor. "I thought those were on loan from DS10." Tom could very well be mistaken. After all, so much had happened the last few days.

"I'm not certain, but they were idiots," Zander said as he worked on the other half of his weld.

Autumn continued to work as she listened and processed what they were saying. "Is it not a requirement to know how to operate a workbee?"

"Knowing and performing excellently are two different things," Tom pointed out before starting his final weld. "How are you doing over there, Ensign?"

"One to go, Master Chief" she replied as she turned to begin her last weld. "Does this include a free dinner at The Black Hole?"

"Only if we nail the alignment on the first try." Tom smiled under his visor. He'd treat the team to dinner regardless, but it was the first round of drinks being free that was up for the contest.

"Always gotta be a catch," Zander said as he set to work on his last weld.

"What's life without a challenge?" Autumn asked as she set to work on the last half she had remaining.

"So says the analytical Lagashi," Tom chided. Continuing to weld, he asked the ensign, "Based on our progress so far, what are our chances for a first successful test?"

"Eighty-five point three seven five percent," she said after a brief hesitation.

"Couldn't be any more precise than that, eh, Ensign?" Zander cracked.

"I could, but you'd fall asleep by the time I was done, Lieutenant," Autumn responded.

Tom turned off his torch and flipped up his visor to check his work on the final weld. "I think we're about done here. Ensign, how's the power hookups coming? I want to start firing this thing up soon."

"Thirty percent done, Chief," Autumn replied. "There's a mild variance here, but it'll even out once we get everything hooked up."

"Any way we can help you out?" Tom stood up from the floor and moved to the rear wall to place his torch back into the tool chest and retrieved a tricorder. "Or should I go ahead and start with offline diagnostics on the generator?"

"Make sure the EPS taps are running at optimum, please, Master Chief," she said and looked at Zander. "When you finish that, do a diagnostic on everything we've done so far, please. Lieutenant."

Zander nodded. "Aye, Ensign," he gruffly replied but it was with more respect that he had previously given. "Level two?" He glanced at the Master Chief who had the timetable.

"Three," Tom replied, activating the tricorder and interfacing with the nearby EPS tap's remote access point. "The primary taps check out," he muttered before switching over to the secondaries. "Wow. The secondaries are operating at two percent above normal."

Tom tapped his badge and called out, "Barnes to Operations."

"sh'Paveress here. Go ahead, Master Chief."

Barnes smiled, hearing the voice of his Andorian friend. "Keep an eye on the secondary EPS taps on Deck Ten, section thirty. I'm looking at surplus power surging through unnoticed."

There was a bit of silence on the other side before the Ensign added, "I see it, Master Chief. We'll get on that right away. Operations out."

Tom watched the gauges on the tricorder start to fall as the the power flow was regulated once more.

Zander began the level three diagnostic and watched it with the same fascination one might use to watch paint dry. "So far, so good, Chief," he said.

Meanwhile Autumn went from place to place, checking readouts, making adjustments and verifying her work in a methodical, high pace.

The Chief Engineer closed his tricorder and slipped it into a pocket on the close-fitting garment he had to wear with the EVA suit. "While that runs, Lieutenant, let's do a visual check on the material tanks and the internal plumbing. Let's make sure nothing is ajar." He opened up a maintenance hatch and began to feel around, making sure nothing had jostled loose between the manufacturing bay and the workbee flight.

Zander made his way over to Barnes and pulls another hatch, checking it visually, then inspecting it with a tricorder. "Everything appears normal here," he said after a moment. "Then again, normal usually isn't, but I know time isn't on our side. This one passes inspection."

"Keep moving." Tom closed his hatch and opened another, finding an EPS relay that was slightly loose. "We've got six of these hatches to go."

"Shouldn't take long," the stocky Engineer said as he moved down past Barnes once more and started running a check. "Looks like we have a slight variance here." *he reached in and made an adjustment, then scanned it again. "Okay. We're good on this one."

Tom moved to the next hatch, removing the cover and starting to feel around the various flexible tubings and wires. Satisfied, he pulled out his tricorder, synced it with the remote access point and performed a level five diagnostic. The results came back a moment later, allowing him to replace the hatch cover and move on. "Ensign, what's the word?"

Autumn looked up with a frown flickering across her face. "We're going to have to replace this unit entirely, Chief," she said. "I double checked it twice and it's giving me different readings each time."

Having opened his second to last hatch, Tom looked up at the Ensign with disappointment and surprise. He felt the color draining from his face, and could not stop the sigh from escaping his lips. "Please tell me you're not serious," he pleaded, not ready to lose the little bits of progress they'd gained in the last half hour.

"Sorry, Chief," she said. "But go on with your inspection. I'll get this fixed myself."

His frown remained. "All right," he muttered. "Be quick about it. Zander, check on that diagnostic. If there's any more trouble, I want to know."

"It looks good from here, Chief," Zander said.

Meanwhile, Autumn had gone in elbows deep and was pulling everything that could be pulled. She ran her tricorder over every piece of equipment until she came to a thermal coupler and frowned. "I found the bad piece," she called out as she held it up.

Tom looked up to see the coupler in Autumn's hand and heaved a sigh of relief. "Gotta love those couplers. I should have a spare in our bin. Keep moving on the hookups and I'll replace the coupler." He moved over to the bin and found a coupler near the top. He scanned it thoroughly with his tricorder before announcing, "I've got a good one here!"

The Ensign finished what she was doing and then moved onto the next one. "These two check out solid," she reported.

Zander crawled out from under a panel and looked around until he spotted the Master Chief. "All's good with the diagnostics so far."

Tom personally replaced the coupler and continued to scan behind the ensign, just to make sure nothing was missed. At long last, Tom was satisfied. "All right. Miss Rivers, power up the generator. Lieutenant Devereaux, let's head for Engineering."

"Consider it done," Zander said as he packed up his tools and came to his feet.

Autumn went to the control panel and started the generator, then stood back to monitor the readouts. "Everything is appearing nominal, Master Chief," she said.

"Thanks," Tom replied over the comm. By now, he was already in the turbolift bound for Engineering. "Go ahead and initiate a configuration check. Make sure the deployment foils are in the proper positions. We should be able to do a full dorsal test as soon as we hit Engineering."

"You got it, Chief," Autumn replied as she began to carry out his orders. "Stage one configuration check and deployment tests in progress."

Zander looked at Barnes. "Such mechanical precision. I wonder if everything is like clockwork with her."

Tom smiled. "Normally, I'd say for anything mechanical to just pop open the hood and watch it work. But, we're talking about a cybernetically modified person here. I don't think she'd appreciate that too much."

"Come on, Chief, she's one step away from being Borg without the pasty skin and dead eye look," Zander said. "I doubt she'd be offended."

"Tell you what," Tom said as the doors opened to the Engineering level. "If you can ask her and she not get offended, I'll restore your coffee rations. And, if she'll actually let you do it, I'll work in a week's paid vacation."

"That's probably a sucker bet and who am I to resist a challenge when coffee is involved?" The shorter, stocky Engineer asked. "You're on."

"You do understand that if you lose," Tom said, stepping out into the corridor and leading the way to Engineering, "that I'll be putting you in charge of Beta shift and get you bridge duty for a week."

"That's not the deal," Zander growled. "It was a week of no coffee or a a week of working while on vacation."

Tom chuckled. "So, you were listening earlier? I thought you'd tuned me out when you were organizing your tool chest."

"I can hear the word coffee eight decks away and the change of pitch in the engines from anywhere on the ship," Zander replied.

The Master Chief entered Engineering and went straight for the pool table where Ensign sh'Paveress was waiting for them. "Hearing and responding are two different things, Lieutenant. Report, Ensign."

"Power levels are nominal," replied the Ensign. "That surplus you called about earlier has been taken care of. The rest of the dorsal generators have been completed as well."

"No thanks to you stealing some hull plating from my section," Ensign Marknall, a Saurian engineer, piped up from the table. "But we still got it done."

"That's what I like to hear." Tom smiled, looking over the holographic controls. "Ensign Rivers, tell me some good news, will you?"

There was a bit of static or some type of interference over the comm before her voice came through. "Every system is showing green and...ready...begin."

"All right then," Tom said, taking a seat at the table and gesturing for the rest to do the same. "Ensign sh'Paveress, initiate the power grid. Zander, initialize the ablative matrix. Marknall, run a final Level 5 Diagnostic."

"Initializing," Zander said and his fingers danced across the console. "Everything looks good so far, Chief. We have fifty percent..sixty..seventy...eighty. Eighty-five. Ninety. Ninety-one. Ninety-two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. Either. Ninety-Nine. One hundred percent!"

Tom nodded, having taken the opportunity to study the controls in front of him. "All workbees are in observation positions," he announced, calling up their cameras as holographic displays. "Initializing dorsal armor in three... two... one..." He entered a command sequence to activate all of the dorsal generators, an override ability to allow for testing and configuration. His eyes watched the displays as armor plating materialized above the primary hull, quickly adding plate by plate in a successive fashion. After a few seconds, all that remained of the Triumphant's familiar visage was the curvature and slope of the primary hull. "Level three diagnostic on the armor, please," he called out to no one in particular. "Have the workbees engage in external scans. Let's make sure we are at specs."

Lieutenant McNamara, the acting Assistant Chief of Engineering came around the corner of the pool table. "Already on it with the diagnostic, Master Chief!" the Bolian said as if he were happily having an engaging conversation. His blue fingers moved across the surface of the pool table and the results began to come in. "Sector A, one hundred percent. Sector B, one hundred percent. Sector C, one hundred percent."

Tom patiently waited for the Bolian to reach Sector Z. In the meantime, he spot checked each of the junction points of the armor, looking for potential stress points. "Let's unsheathe the phaser arrays," he instructed the group. "Let's start one by one, removing the armor, dry firing the phaser arrays, and then replacing the armor. Once we're done, let's open all the phaser bays at once."

The workbees had completed their scans and the results came up on the pool table while Zander started to go down the steps to begin doing what the Master Chief had ordered. "Removing aft phaser battery armor in Sector C14," he said and then the armor was gone once again in that area. "Armor successfully removed, Master Chief."

The Chief Engineer watched the display as the armor was retracted above the phaser bank. He grabbed a nearby padd and made a note for Lieutenant Cusack that the phaser bank's range was now cut off five degrees in each direction. Such was the tradeoff for enhanced defensive capabilities. "Dry fire test initiating," he remarked, tapping the controls. After a few seconds, he checked the diagnostic readouts and reported, "All is well with this bank. Proceed to the next bank."

Section after section was removed, phaser banks and torpedo launchers tested and greenlights across the board. Zander looked up from the last diagnostic as it came in. "That looks like that's done," he said. "All green and ready to go horribly wrong the first time we get in combat."

"Then that's perfect," Tom confirmed, looking up to Zander with a smile. "Damage control is your specialty, so we'll be looking to you to help us get settled into this new armor as we go."

"That's because I'm the best damned Damage Control Specialist in the fleet," Zander said and didn't sound boastful at all.

Tom chuckled. "All right, let's disengage the armor." Tom entered the commands to do so himself. "That's fantastic work, everyone. We still have a ways to go with the backup generators, but this accomplishment is worth celebrating. I'll see you all in the Black Hole in fifteen minutes, and the first round's on me."