It Might Be Her First Rodeo
Posted on Thu Jan 31st, 2019 @ 2:34pm by The Narrator & Lieutenant Commander Mara Ricci
Mission:
S1E2: A Temple To New Gods
Location: USS Resolute
Timeline: MD3 13.30PM
One the engineering display, the work proceeded apace.
One the hull of the Support Module Work Bee's manned with engineers from the Module were busy at work stripping off every conceivable gram of fat the module had. Hull plates spun off into the vacuum, exposing the delicate conduits and inner pressure hull beneath. A trio of phaser arrays was cast off into the void, removing seventy tons of material with each cannon.
A tired looking Engineering Chief Petty Officer looked out of the video conference window on her screen, and then off camera to something else.
"We're down to contemplating which parts of the station to open to vacuum to remove interior bulkheads. Its a minimal saving in weight, but they're not on the critical mission item list."
Mara nodded. "Thanks, Duke," she said. "Any idea what we're down to, weight-wise? I'd hate to lose too much of the module."
"We've shaved off a thousand tons with some of the hull platings on the far side of the drum away from the side that will hit the atmosphere. Though compared to the three-quarters of a million tons of Spacedock we're still wrangling it's a paltry saving," Duke ran a hand over his chin. "If we open everything to space, blow ever door, and only keep the agri dome in the centre air tight we might get another thousand. You have to remember the Spacedock class was already a lean machine, has to be to stay in orbit without using a metric ton of fuel every second to keep from falling out of the sky. I'm just not sure all of Scotty's Engineer's could come up with a rapid diet plan in the time we have left."
With a sigh, Mara ran her fingers through her hair. "Well, it's going to have to be enough. We've got two warp tugs and I can always send for a third. I think two can handle it. All right, do whatever else you can in twenty minutes. That's about how long it'll take me to get ready to hook these up. But, please don't strip my station bare, okay? I don't fancy trying to rebuild her."
"Ma'am, no offence, but it looks like the Support Module got parked in the wrong part of town. We have all of the gas harvesting drones welded to the remaining hull supports to give us a marginal boost in thrust. We plan to do a controlled venting along our lateral vector to again give a marginal increase to our delta vee," Duke shook his head with a grin. "I know I signed up to this mission to try out engineering on the ragged edge, but there are safety committee's back home who are gonna spontaneously combust with the amount of failure scenario we're making here."
Mara grinned. "I'd like to see them do better," she replied. "I'm going to go get the shuttle ready. I'll be in contact in a bit."
"I'll be out on the hull with the work crews. You know...you're not the only one running the numbers here. We've pulled every high voltage power cable, support beam, and run the fabriactor system dry printing high tensile cable since you arrived. This only works if we get it right on the first try," Duke said slowly. "All I'm saying is you're buying the beers for this one when we get back."
Mara grinned. "You're on," she said, closing the connection. It was time to get this show on the road.
Twenty Minutes Later
At least this time, Mara didn't have to be outside on the hull. Somebody had to be in the shuttle to drive the tubing around. it was probably the least important job, but as Mara got dizzy walking around on hulls, she felt she was better off in here.
She flipped a switch which opened a channel to the team on the hull. "Ricci here," she said. "You guys ready to lasso this bull?"
"We're as ready as can be expected," Duke said, a small space suited figure on the outer hull of the Support Module waved at her. "We have a few Work Bee's securing the connection tethers, but we should to be good to go shortly."
"That's great news," Mara replied. "The sooner the better. I think we've got enough tubing for five tethers. If we can attach them in five to seven minutes each, we can use all five. I don't want to try this with fewer than three, and I don't want to take much longer than half an hour, so we'll sort of play it by ear. Let me know when you're ready for the first tether."
"We're ready now, no point waiting for the last two to get secured," Duke said. As if on cue a pair of Work Bee's began to pull the first of the tethers up from the surface of the Support Module. The tether looked small by comparison, ineffective and delicate. But on closer inspection, the thrusters of the two construction mechs' were glowing red hot as they dragged the hundreds of tons of dead weight that was the first tether towards the Resolute.
"You know, one of those breaks the back lash would slice a nacelle off of the Resolute, or breach the Modules hull," Duke commented.
"Don't remind me," Mara replied. "We're just going to have to cross our fingers and hope to any God that's out there that it doesn't happen." She had, in fact, attempted to come up with a failsafe for that situation, but hadn't had any luck. For now, they had to concentrate on getting everything hooked up.
The Work Bee's were joined by four others, each pair struggling under the weight of the tethers. The connection points were jury-rigged to the small starship, and the process of securing each connection took precious time. Time that the growing sphere of the poisoned planet refused to grant them more of. It filled the entire view of the universe ahead of the Module now, revealing it's dried oceans and wasted continents as a preview to the death that was coming for them.
"Resolite to Chief Ricci, we're ready to do a stress test with a quarter impulse burn on the tethers before we try the main event. Might want to get clear," the voice of the Resolutes helm officer chimed in.
"Heading that way now," Mara replied, directing her shuttle away from the module. Once she was at a safe distance, she added, "ready when you are."
"Copy that. Quarter impulse burn in 3...2...1...burn."
The tethers went suddenly taunt as the Resolutes main impulse drives powered up. IF there had been an atmosphere to conduct the sound of the roaring drives, or the singing high pitched whine of the tethers and cables now under strain, it would have been a daunting sight. But in the vacuum of space, there was nothing but the silence.
"All connections reading nominal stresses, well within limits," the Resolutes helm officer reported. "Chief, permission to push to full burn and start uprooting this stump."
“Granted,” agreed Mara. “Take her up slow and keep monitoring the connections. I don’t want to take any chances.”
"Copy, going to half impulse."
Nothing seemed to change, except for the glow of the Norway classes impulse drives. From a dull cherry red glow arose a deep orange as the real space thrusters kicked into high gear.
"Still showing nominal on all connection points...stress spikes have reduced. Ramping up to three quarter," the helmsman reported. The orange glow became soft yellow.
And then the first alarm began to blare.
"Engage the warp tugs," Mara said almost passively. She had, in fact, expected the Norway to give long before this. That was a good sign; it meant they were probably going to get out of this with the engineering module in tow.
Latched onto the stern of the Support Module, the Warp Tug's powered up and went to work. Both able to go to warp and use impulse power, the true power of the Tug was that it was designed to funnel the truly awesome power of its warp core directly into the impulse reaction. This gave it an order of magnitude more motive force than even a Vesta class starship at sublight speeds.
And it would need every newton of thrust to move the thousands upon thousands of tons of dead weight.
"Tug 1 and 2 online, ramping up. Resolute going for full impulse. All work crews clear the Module!" The report came from the helm officer as the orange glow of the starship's engines turned a sullen deathly white.
And slowly but surely, the shuttle's navigation computer began to lay out the lateral delta vee the Support Module was now gaining. 0.5 meters per second squared. 0.75 meters for second squared. The mountain of metal and ceramics was beginning to move from its suicidal dive towards Planet Backstop.
Mara couldn't help it; she broke into a grin and spread slowly across her face. It was working. "Excellent," she breathed to herself. But, there was still a lot of work to be done. "Resolute, how are the readings looking?"
"Looking good. I've got an amber light on tether four, all the other's are in the green. Adjusting the angle of burn to compensate," the helm officer responded. The Resolute shifted slightly to one side. "Okay tether stress readings are back in the-Red light on tether 4! GET CLEAR!"
The stressed tether came free of the physical lock on the hull of the starship. What happened next was psychics in its purest form, as a million tons of stress and tension whipped the metal band back towards the Support Module. It collided and rolled down the side of the flared upper dome, sending up a cloud of debris and shattered hull plating in its wake before the tether tip whipped down along the domes underside.
But it was damaged, pure and simple, and easily repaired. It was the plume of gas erupting from along the dome's new crease that was the worry.
Well, that wasn’t good. “Damn!” hissed Mara. “What’s it leaking? Anybody?”
"Atmosphere from the Agri Dome. There's a breach, ten meters long, meter wide," Duke's voice said, undercut by a steady rising howl. "We've already lost 5% of the interior pressure. We fit 80% there's a risk the dome will collapse and wreck the Module!"
Not to mention destroying the Agri Dome itself, which would be the future home for much of Canopus Station's food stuff's and replicator feedstock. Without that Canopus, Station would be a hard post to man, not to mention the relief work Carpathia required.
“Shit!” exclaimed Mara. “Why haven’t emergency force fields kicked in?”
"Hull breach snapped a power line. We're re-routing now, having to do this manually," Duke replied. With a flicker of light the segmented honeycomb sections of the structural integrity field began to fill in the hull breach. Slowly the plume of escaping air turned from a cloud, into a stream, and then just the outgassing from broken conduits venting. "We're down to 62% of total atmospheric pressure in the dome. We're gonna leave off repressurising until we've got the new skylight patched up properly."
"Resolute to Chief Ricci, I thought you'd like to know we've reached 2.1 kps squared and are now clear of the planet's gravity well," there was an evident sigh of relief in the helm officer's voice. "Dropping us down to quarter impulse and setting course for the Engineering Module for link up and transport back to Carpathia."
"Understood, Resolute," Mara replied. "Duke, do you want me to put this tub on autopilot and beam down there to help patch up that hole, or have you got it under control?"
"I think we have this under control. But there is one hell of a mess to clear up in the dome," he chuckled. "For a Ship Engineer, you do fine station work Chief."
"What can I say?" replied Mara with a grin. "I study a lot. I'll stay our here as escort, just in case. Contact me if you have any issues or need any help. Otherwise, I'll see you back at Carpathia."
