Post by Admin on Mar 31, 2016 5:52:43 GMT
Categories of Malfunction
Postby DeirdreMcGowan » Thu Aug 21, 2008 9:41 am
Deirdre McGowan, Engineer Extraordinaire, currently wished in a small section of her heart that she was still in sickbay. So many systems, both major and minor, had been affected during the raider attack. Of all those, about one-third was in the "destroyed" category; another third fell under "seriously broken;" the last third were "inconveniently dysfunctional."
Quite a bit of the "seriously broken" had been fixed while she was twiddling her thumbs on a biobed. Of the "destroyed" items, there were science consoles and lab equipment that still needed to be tended to, while some of the warp coils were still being repaired. There had been a lot of damage to power relays, so part replication had been laboriously slow until some of the EPS conduits had either been replaced or worked around. According to CPO Singh, they were still about an hour away from being able to run the first diagnostic on the starboard nacelle.
Considering the number of consoles that had popped during the battle, as soon as she'd been coherent enough she'd contacted her engineers to have them add extra shielding on any consoles or other personnel interfaces to hopefully avoid further damage to the crew in the future. Looking over the reports, it seemed that they'd fixed the Captain's chair before she'd informed them. That was a pity, but there wasn't anything that could be done now. If the redhead remembered, she'd suggest the Captain stand during combat in the future.
There remained a bevy of "inconveniently dysfunctional" items she noted as she scrolled down the list, and scrolled, and scrolled. She looked over the prioritization on them, and agreed with Singh that most could wait until the two more serious categories were tended to. Though, after looking at the amount of time her crews had been working, it would also wait until everyone managed some rest. Discovering that quite a few of these items fell under the sciences, she fired off a quick note to sh'Brissilek informing her of the schedule, with an apology to the Andorian. She liked the antennaed woman, but they were in dangerous space, from both environment and the bad guys, so she had to make sure the ship and crew could survive both and get moving before the Irishwoman could worry about DNA analyzers.
Wondering how Thornton was faring over on the derelict, she pulled up his file. She didn't assign him to the Systems Chief position lightly, and his skills were as varied as hers. One day he'd likely get a ship of his own to baby, she figured. It would be good for him to get his chops on away teams, see a little more of the universe than the jefferies tubes. Considering she hated it herself, she'd happily let him take the lead there.
Another thing that would have to wait would be sitting down to write letters of condolence. She'd lost good men, women and other through this incident, and had more in the sickbay ICU that may not make it. She was sad and angry on top of exhausted, but she'd made a career out of working through her emotional nature so she'd get by once again, and no doubt the future will hold more of these. All she could do was do her duty and make sure that her remaining personnel did the same. Nothing they could do would bring back the lost, but at least they could begin moving toward obtaining justice.
With a sigh, she closed the file and rubbed her eyes. There was still a lot of work to do, and she was tired already. Getting fried and then medicated obviously didn't suit her energy levels. The replicators were still on low power mode and only serving simpler refreshments, but she'd made sure coffee and tea were on the list. Though of course if she wanted a seven course meal she could override, such were the advantages of being the CEng. Behaving herself, she ordered a coffee. She preferred tea, but she'd break down and hit the sludge if she needed more of a boost. After a good gulp and a flap of the arms to loosen up, she situated herself back into position. Time to get back to work.