Gremlins in the works

Posted on 22 Sep 2022 @ 8:22pm by Commander Amelia Fox

Mission: Through the looking glass
Location: Main Engineering
Timeline: MD3 afternoon
1408 words - 2.8 OF Standard Post Measure

ON:


He was on the hunt for some sort of glitch in the system, it appeared and when he chased it down and thought it taken care of, another one would appear. Finally he figured he needed more help. He had his other engineers work on other details. He tapped his comm badge, after going back to main engineering.

"Commander Fox, could you come down to engineering? I've got a bogie and would like your perception on it."


Amelia was feeling rested now after the long away mission. She had managed to grab some sleep and some time with the girls and Syvar. She tapped her comm badge "I'm on my way."

From her quarters, she headed to the turbolift and down to deck 36. She walked into Engineering, past the master display table towards the warp core which was puttering along at idle.

Michael also called for Derek Han, "Ensign Han, would you come down to Main Engineering? This is Lieutenant Hawkins."

Amelia spotted the Chief and made her way over to him. "You called Lieutenant?" she asked cheerily.

"Ah yes, I've discovered a bogie of some type. Don't know if it is a bubble of some sort of energy just blipping around. I am hoping we are not dealing with some chronitons which will play havoc with our systems." Michael responded, having a worried expression in his eyes.

"I'm beginning to like the UNiverse less and less." Amelia sighed. " Which systems are being affected?" she asked, concerned. "And Is this likely to get any worse?"

"There has been some fluctuation in the power conduits to the holo-suite. I haven't set up a test for that yet as yet another had come up and was messing with a replicator in one of the smaller mess halls. Someone had asked for a mud pie, a chocolate dessert and got a real one instead." Michael frowning slightly.

The door to engineering opened and Derek stepped in. " I was just down the hallway when I got your call, is there something that I can help you with? " He asked.

"Oh good, glad you arrived, Ensign Han, I think the three of us can find out what is causing the strange fluctuations with the different grids and the mess of replicators." Michael replied.

" Fluctuations? What kind of fluctuations? " Derek asked. " There could be some trouble if the replicators are being effected, Not everyone aboard is a chef so to speak. And just how many of the grids are being affected? Has the Captain been notified as of yet or are we just starting our investigation? " Derek knew that any problem that affected the power systems could turn into a serious problem for the ship and crew. He walked over to a locker and got out and engineers kit. " Do either of you need a kit while I've got the tool locker open? " He asked.

"I've got my kit, been chasing this gremlin for a little bit for lack of better word, besides goblin, bogie, that sort of thing." Michael responded. He looked at Amelia, "Commander care for a kit as well?"

Amelia smiled "Yes, I suppose I will. It's been over nine months since I've been able to crawl through the bowels of the ship. One of the drawbacks of being pregnant. Where shall we begin?"

" Well if it's across multiple systems, I would suggest starting at power relay boxes, Sub-relay systems and transfer points and followed up by checking the Isolinar chips that control those systems. " Suggested Derek. " Have diagnostics been run on these systems? Or checked for abnormalities. "

"They have but I feel we need to do so once more." Michael replied "Just who knows what else got jostled about." going over his readings. Once again another glitch appeared. "Blast. Okay we do need to work our way outward."

" Computer, show pattern and times of glitches since the start of the occurrence and predict next occurrence, time and location. Run as a level two diagnostic. Begin. " The computer responded. =^= Approximate time of completion in two hours. =^= Derek looked at the others. " I guess we'll find out if the information will be helpful or was a waste of time. But until then we've got work to do right? "

"Just need to be careful to make certain we don't get enveloped with any chroniton particles. I don't want to go into a phased situation, but hopefully we won't have trouble like that. I wonder if we can come up with a collection device for those." Michael mused.

Derek was slightly shocked at the last statement, not knowing if it were a joke or not. " Wait!! Chroniton particles? Do we have those aboard the ship? If so, could that not be the source of our problems? If we do then I would suggest we work on making a chroniton collector asap."

"Which is what we will be doing, and yes Chroniton particles. I detected a few floating about, just minor ones but enough to cause some concern." Michael responded. "Hence the reason why I called both of you. We don't have the option of going to a station to wait for us to totally cleanse the ship so we'll have to get creative." the chief engineer giving a slight grimace.

" I'm all for creative solutions. " Said Derek. " But how creative are we talking about here? Do you have an idea for a chroniton trap in mind or is this something we need to research together and quickly? " He asked in general.

"Research and do it quickly. We need to figure out just how to gather it or even send a pulse after it." Michael answering Han. "I don't want the ship to be caught into an out of phase situation."

Derek went over to the nearest console and began working as quickly as he could. " I found something that might be of interest in the LCARS! " Exclaimed Derek. " There is a research paper from the Daystrom Institute on Chroniton Particles. It takes a good amount of power to pull it off, and the only thing I can think of to do this with is the deflector dish.. If we rework the polarity and charge the dish we could send a beam about five kilometres in front of the ship to act like a lightning rod and draw the Chroniton Particles to it."

Derek sighed. " Now here's the tricky part. After collecting the particles into our lightning rod, we set up a modified force field and beam the particles into a magnetic sealed lead and thorium coated bottle to trap the particles. The downside is it will fry most of the deflector dish circuits and it will take us a good six to eight hours in Zero-G suits to repair the dish to where it will be operational again."

"You do know that chronitons are harmless to humanoids?" Amelia interjected. "Just be careful that messing around with them doesn't lead to us being thrown through time..."

"We do know that, we just need to place the chronitons in a proverbial bottle otherwise we're going to be in a lot of trouble. Do you approve of us doing that? it will save the ship and the crew from having any more trouble." Michael gave Amelia a look of confidence. "We can do this."

Derek looked at Amelia. " Yes, I am aware that they are harmless to humans physically. But can be rather annoying if you are time phased and disappear where you can't interact with the crew or communicate with others. I say we bottle them up and ship them off to the Daystrum Institute or the Vulcan Science Academy and let them play with them and figure out what to do with them. " " Or give them to my cousin. " He muttered under his breath.

"We could do that unless we need them to get back to our own universe. Either way Commander, it looks like the Ops and Engineering team, will be a bit busy." Michael remarked to Amelia.

Amelia opened her tricorder "As long as we don't end up with a visit from temporal investigations, it sounds interesting. Come on, these Chonitons won't find themselves."

" It seems we have a plan in place to get these things rounded up. " Said Derek. " Shall we get started? We gotta catch them all. "

Final TAGs?

OFF:

Commander Amelia Fox
XO
USS Andromeda

Ensign Derek Han
Operations Officer
USS Andromeda


Lieutenant Michael Hawkins
Chief Engineer
USS Andromeda