Checking in on Engineering

Posted on 22 Oct 2023 @ 12:58pm by Commander Kristiana Petrova & Lieutenant Commander Thex sh'Zoarhi

790 words; about a 4 minute read

Mission: Miranda
Location: Engineering

Thex swore again as her head moved slightly as she worked as another stab of pain shot through her head. Trust her department to be up to the eyeballs with whatever this was that seemed to be going through he ship like .... well a plague. Hearing the door to engineering open she cursed again as she slowly stood up. " Give me a minute I'm keeping this going all by myself." She called out.

"Take your time," Came the reply, with a slight Russian accent to it. Kristiana made her way into the Engineering bay, not overly rushing herself. She looked sick and felt terrible, but she wasn't so affected that she couldn't do a semblance of her job. A wince as she took a moment to rest against a bulkhead. "How're you holding up?" she asked. "I think your department got hit hardest of all in - whatever the fuck's going around."

Thex did her best to hurry over her EES boots making a distinctive thudding on the floor. " Commander. Whish you could see the girls beating heart in a better state. As for me i have a temperature and my head feels like there an ice pick between my eyes every time i move my head. I have less than ten crew not sick. I have them changing the ships scrubber filters."

That settled it. Petrova had already got word that other ships in the convoy had come to a stop and switched to minimum function because of insufficient crew resources, and the state of engineering told her enough. She tapped her comm badge and spoke into the ether, "Petrova to bridge. Bring the ship to a halt, shutdown everything but primary systems, broadcast our situation to the rest of the fleet."

After that she turned to Thex again, a look of concern on the XO's features. "Whatever's happening here has spread throughout the convoy. More ships are down to not-enough-crew to keep everything running. Just - focus on the primary systems, on keeping the ship intact, powered and full of air. With the lights on if possible. Everything else is secondary concern."

" So it's not just us. It must have been something we brought onboard with the rest of the convoy." Thex said letting out a ouch as her head moved.

"No, it's definitely not just us. It's been going around. We're still trying to figure out what its infection vector is and how to stop it," Kris mused. She was obviously sick too, her face gaunt and she seemed not as stable and self-assured as normally. "How are you holding up? Is there anything I can do to help?"

" Enough orion starbursts to drown a whale." Thex joked though cursed again as her head moved. " Joking. I could use any personnel who can still move. Someone has to be able to keep this girl in check."

"Yeah, fresh out of healthy personnel. All departments are feeling it, we're struggling to put together a healthy skeleton crew," Kris admitted. "Tell you what I can do, I can send Kat Walker down up here. She's the fighterpilot AI. Doesn't get sick, doesn't need breaks, doesn't get tired - though the battery on her remote drains. She's not an engineer and there are limits to what she can do physically, but she might still be able to take a bit of workload. How's that sound?"

Thex tried speaking but another sniff caused pain to shoot through her head. Restoring to a thumbs up she collapsed onto on of the stools. " Just find out what's causing this okay." She said as calmly as she could.

"Lieutenant Commander sh'Zoarhi, go see the doctor. Now. That's an order. People have been turning up dead because they stubbornly kept working through the disease," like I'm doing, Kris berated herself mentally. "And that's not something I want to see happen here. So, you are going to see the doctor, ASAP. Understood?"

Thex tried to argue before another sneeze sent pain through her skull again. " All right. Just...." She said slowly making her way over to the main engineering console. After typing a few commands she turned to the commander. " Ship's power is coming to standby mode. If this bar starts going into the red i need you to hit this button which will expel some of the warp core plasma. If you don't the ship's power cells could start popping." she explained as simply as she could give the circumstances.

"Alright. I'll watch this while Ensign Walker is on her way. You go to sickbay, get yourself looked at," Kris offered, turning her attention to the console, tapping her commbadge as she did. "Commander Petrova to Ensign Walker, please make your way to engineering."

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