Engineering Tour

Posted on Tue May 16th, 2017 @ 1:40am by Commander Bertrand Cuprum & Captain Elijah Michaels & Commander Cor Cordale & Lieutenant Commander Christopher Evans & Lieutenant Commander Ziyal Tajor & Lieutenant Hel Samedi & Lieutenant Valeria Mordin

Mission: The Trial of Cor Cordale
Location: Presidium Engineering deck

The grey line continued along the wall for some time, eventually leading to a large lift. Cor, Hel, Val, Lin and Ziyal stepped inside. There were only two buttons, one up and one down. Cor picked the right one on the second attempt.

When the lift doors opened they were greeted by an inspiring sight. They were on a large gantry area which stretched away either side of them. in front was a glassed area which showed the gigantic Gravitational stacks which held the facility in space. Above them could be seen the arms which led to each of the Shipyard building and refit docks. Everything glittered in the reflected light of the surface below, where you could clearly see the large city that housed any of the workers who did not reside on the station. In all it looked like some vast spiders web of glass and steel.

A group of Nipoonese in grey uniforms and high collars were waiting. The first stepped forward and held up his hand, palms forwards.

"Brightest mornings, to you all, visitors of the Federation. I am First Engineer Cra-dich."

Cordale imitated the gesture, showcasing how completely different his hands were. "B... Brightest mornings back. Cor Cordale, chief engineer of the Victory."

Valeria followed suit, though with slightly more grace than the Thux. "Brightest morning. Valeria Mordin, chief science officer."

The pale human woman waved a hand. "Hel Samedi, engineer. Weapon tech and computer specialist. Brightest morning." she offered, still looking around, enawed. The scale of this facility was something to behold, to say the least.

Ziyal watched carefully, and when her time came held up her hands in greeting. It was impossible to miss that she was missing a finger on her right hand. "Brightest mornings. I am Ziyal Tajor, Chief of Strategic Operations."

Cra-dich turned his palms to each of the people as they were introduced, and then back to Cor. "I am authorized to answer your questions, as well as show you enough of our facility to allow you an accurate report to your home. I understand our technology is significantly different form yours, and in many ways more advanced than any other species, so i will need to go slowly for you, no offence intended."

"Where would you like to start your tour? Gravinometry? Transportations? Ship Constructions? Power relay?

The Thux gave a nod, "I'll try to keep up. If something goes over my head I'll let you know but this is your facility and from one engineer to another i know there's Probably one part you're most proud of. Lead the way, and save the best for last."

"Well, if I may be purple about it," Cra-dich ventured. "I am a gravitational engineer, so I have a personal affinity for the Gravity stacks. If you would come this way..."

They were led down a gantry stair case, and then onto a tram car which moved towards the giant stacks which dominated the view. Cra-dich spoke as they traveled.

"You will be aware that one of the issues of geostationary orbit is maintaining the correct balance between acceleration of the mass of the station to offset the acceleration due to the gravitational body it orbits. This maintains a massive level of potential energy. Your own Newton observed that energy is neither created or destroyed, but that is not quite true at a quantum level where a small discrepancy is allowed for a minimal time. Subatomic particles may be created and destroyed in such a time and way that the net imbalance is negligible. However, it is possible to separate these newly created particles,which causes an energy discrepancy. This occurs naturally at the event horizon of a black hole. Still with me?"

Welp, time to earn that check.

"We call it Hawking Radiation, named after the brilliant man who theorized it, though sadly he didn't live long enough to see it proven." Cordale started, "But the theory is quite sound. Short lived virtual quantum particles pop in and out of existence all the time. Harnasing that energy, now that's impressive. Color me im..."

Valeria put a hand on Cordale's shoulder and gently shook her head.

"Cra-dich... I'm very impressed." Cordale corrected.

"By manipulating Subspace we are able to isolate the Vacuum Energy in a similar way that allows us to use the potential energy of particles destruction, frozen in the temporal envelope of the gravity window, to augment the offset produced through acceleration. This allows us to support the entire structure much closer to the surface. you see?"

"It's a gravitic offset." Cordale now looked very impressed, "You're sustaining a lower orbit despite the increased gravitic attraction." Cor actually gave a whistle, "That's mind blowing stuff." and even Valeria seemed to have a somewhat impressed look on her features.

The group arrived at the entrance to a massive space, that dwarfed even the 12 story high M/ARA on the Victory.

"The stacks are all linked, to allow load sharing and distribution of energy. They work in perfect union to support the entire infrastructure. There are some costs. The gravitational disturbance means shuttle travel is slow and cumbersome, but transporters are rendered completely useless. Likewise, we have not been able to use tractor beams for the docking and un-docking, and need to rely on shuttle tugs and umbilical arms for fine manipulation beyond RCS adjustments."

Ziyal had been listening carefully to the whole explanation. She was not an engineer, but she picked out the important bits. "So they require constant power input to make up energy losses and remain erect?"

Cra-dich winced, "I guess... you could say that. They are a recursive system using... they borrow energy from the vacuum and repay it back with the gravitational force exerted by the planet."

Ziyal accepted that answer, processing for a moment. "What precautions and procedures are in place if one or more of them starts to come down?"

"Come down?" Cra-dich frowned. "I don't..."

A junior engineer whispered in his ear.

"Oh, system failure?" Cra-dich responded. "Well, I can't detail our counter measures for security reasons. There are White Hand operatives that would love to know how to sabotage this system. But rest assured, all the Gravitaional engineers are on station full time so we can respond. you will notice the change over of shift is now and the personnel are doing hand over. The systems are at full wind up, so even if there was a critical failure, we would have around one to two hours to respond before irreparable stability loss. I understand that if there is a containment failure on one of your vessels, destruction is almost instantaneous?"

"There's probably redundancies upon redundancies to prevent a catastrophic failure. Is only logical." Hel opined. Then a nod to Cra-dich. "Yeah, if our redundancies fail and we lose containment there's a sudden and beautiful pop, and nothing left but dust."

"That seems an unreasonably high risk, but I assume you have your own measures in place. Shall we proceed to Ship Construction?"

Ziyal glanced at Cor, concern on her face. She had already thought of a few ways to bring the whole thing down. Cra-dich's non-answer and deflection were both worrying. Ziyal could list the main ways of dealing with a containment failure without talking in the slightest about ship security. However, he had invoked the security secrecy that they had been told about, and Ziyal did not want to offend their hosts by prying too deeply. She would follow the chief engineer's lead.

Cordale went to go hold up a hand, but then stopped... remembering that that was how these people said 'hello', not 'hold on'. "The higher the risk, the higher the payout. At least, that's one way to look at it. We won't pry any further, of course, just give me a moment to confer with my crew."

The Thux turned and almost produced a huddle with the others, calling them in close. "Okay, that was a bit off. Security must be pretty tight here. Keep your eyes peeled for anything that looks off, anyone out of place. Anyone looking to see if anyone is looking for them. Standard sneak stuff."

The Nironese exchanged confused glances at the huddle, but perhaps this was how aliens acted in the Federation.

The Thux broke the huddle, and gave a nod, "Sorry about that, and we respect the limits of what you're allowed to answer. We certainly don't want to be a problem. Ship Construction, you said?" he paused to confirm, "By your lead."

"Actually," Cra-dich gestured to a woman at his side, "Construction is under Ara-te. She will show you around. I will leave her in your hands while I sign off on the handover of shift."

Ara-te led the party to the tram again and it moved quickly away from the stacks.

"Our construction technique is very similar to your replication technology, without the levels of quantum resolution your Federation insists on. As such there are some limits to what we can produce. Your bio-gel packs need to be hand installed but the rest of the ship can be moved from blueprint to cast-a-form in a significantly reduced time."

The party is now speeding along one of the gantries out towards a docking arm, "It took some time to compensate for the possible reduction in integrity, But the introduction of a bimodal pass has increased accuracy by 30% with only a 1.7% increase in delay for..."

There was a shudder in the structure around them, the lights faltered and the tram came to a halt. Through the window, the away team could see a large orange plume of flame appeared at one of the gravity stacks. Apart from that nothing happened immediately.

Ara-te however was white right down to the gills.

Cordale was about to be impressed, but then catastrophe struck. "Everyone alright?" he asked, both of his squad and Ara-te.

Valeria was picking herself up from the floor, "I am uninjured. Nothing that requires attention."

Stumbling, bareyly able to remain standing, Hel spoke "I'm unhurt." She looked around, quickly taking in the scene in the distance and that directly around her. She saw how distraught Ara-te was, then reached for her shoulder, turning the alien woman towards her. "Hey, hey,come out out of it, shake it off. We need action now, action and information."

Picking himself up off the floor "I'm fine" Evans said with a nod.

Ziyal was thrown against the wall at an awkward angle, hitting her funnybone. She held her arm, wondering why it was called the funny bone as the feeling was anything but humorous. "I'm ok." She said, holding her arm, she looked out across the yard for the source of what had happened and was transfixed by the explosion from the gravity stacks. There was a sinking feeling in her belly as she realized exactly what was happening. 'Oh, God. No. Give me strength and wisdom.' She prayed silently.

Ara-te looked to the group, "I... I'm not... I haven't been authorised..."

An alarm began to sound. She seemed to focus suddenly, "We... we should return you to your Captain. You should go back to your ship."

She indicated the Tram which now seemed to have power again, although it was unclear for how long.

"Everyone, let's go." Cordale called to the group, he then looked to Ara-te, "What's going on, and how can we help?"

Cor's Comms crackled to life, "USS Victory to Away teams. We have detected explosions in your vicinity. Please advise of your status."

He tapped his comm badge to respond, "We're on the tram currently, there seems to be a situation in the Gravity Stacks region. All Victory hands accounted for here and unharmed."

The tram arrived at a scene of chaos. the gantry down to the stack was all but torn of its hinges and the scene below was a mix of bodies, torn metal and exposed circuits. Ara-te stared mutely for a moment then spoke in almost a whisper.

"All of them," she breathed. "They're all dead."

Ziyal nodded, it had been during the shift change, exactly when she would have done it to maximize casualties. She did not know what shift structure they were using, but three was the most common one that she knew of.

Chris was looking around with a bit of horror on his face.

Ara-te looked to Cor. "The Gravity stacks are winding down. We have an academy that is training more engineers but it will be hours before they arrive and we have... I don't know how long. I'm not a Gravity Engineer."

"Where are the off shift personnel?" Ziyal asked.

"It... it was change of shift. Everyone was here," Ara-te was obviously close to loosing it completely, overwhelmed by what was happening to her people and station. "It must have been the White Hand, but to do THIS?"

There was a loud screech and one of the outer most docking bays tore loose and fell towards the planet. there was a white flash as it hit the atmosphere and caught fire. In a few minutes it would impact a populated area of the city below. In maybe an hour there would be no city below, when the whole Presidium came down.

They could see the Victory trying to move in close to the station to dock.

"We... we should get you back to your ship," Ara-te managed. "You should not be involved."

If it were possible for an Aphodelian Human to turn even more pale, this would be the moment to. The realization that hundreds of people were dead preceeded the dawning comprehension that that was a mere whispered prelude compared to the disaster awaiting those down below, millions of lives with fiery doom descending upon them.

Her brain was working overtime, fueled by shock and adrenaline. What could Victory do? Tractor the falling debris? No. Atmospheric interference, plus the chunk was too large and gravity too severe. Extend the structural integrity field to try and hold the facility together? No. Same reasons. Emergency beamout of people down below, on the surface? No. Not enough time, not enough capacity. Then it hit her.

"Cor, Victory can use phasers to vaporise the falling pieces. Give the people on the surface a fighting chance." She knew that vaporising something that size would just cause a dust and particle matter debris cloud of similar mass, but it would be slowed down by atmospheric drag, spread out over a large area, and with pieces of microsopic nature instead of macroscopic. It would be a nuclear winter descending, but hopefully without the cataclysm on the scale of a significant portion of an orbital platform sized inferno hitting a population center.

The Thux thought for a moment. "Ara-te, we're already involved. We're here, and we have to do something. I can't sit here, idle hands, and let people die." he paused again, "Can the Gravity Stacks be re-initialized?" he then turned to Hel, "Solid thinking." and he tapped his comm badge.

=^= "This is Cordale to Victory. Target the falling debris and try to take out the larger pieces. Gotta give the people below a chance." =^=

With that, he started to actually walk off the tram in the direction of the Gravity Stacks. "Commander, in fifty six minutes this entire facility will collapse." Valeria cautioned, "And we were ordered not to interfere."

"I'm not about to watch more people die in front of me." Cordale said firmly, hopping off the torn gantry to the engineering pit proper. Gravity, Antimatter, Sticks and Fire it didn't matter... engineering was engineering. "I was ordered to watch once. Never again."

"We're engineers, Lieutenant." Hel offered, following Cor. "We solve problems. We'll worry about politics when we've done all we can. Not before."

Ziyal followed Cor and Hel starting a countdown on her tablet, she spoke to Ara-te, "We'll need schematics of your gravity systems, a damage control readout, and a nice tall stack of tablets, I only have my own."

Evans was right behind the rest of the team. He was ready to assist where he was needed, like most operations officers, Evans was trained in engineering matters as well. "Where do you want me?" Evans asked, following the lead of the Chief Engineer.

"On my tail, and ready to process. At the moment, I'm not specifically sure where you're needed. Gonna play it by ear." the Thux admitted to this being a work in progress plan.

Not wanting to be left behind, at this point even the normally protocol centric Ts'usugi found that saving lives was more important than doing nothing. To this, she followed the group to the Gravity Stacks.

Ziyal tapped her commbadge. =^=Ziyal to Victory, can you get me in touch with whoever is in charge of the tugs?=^=

=/\= "We can try for you Lieutenant." =/\=

Ara-te trailed behind the team her gills turning a bright orange. "But you can't just... this isn't... You aren't authorized!"

At the base of the gantry a Nironese security team were erecting a cordon. One of them stepped in front of the approaching team.

"I am sorry, sirs. No one is permitted on the scene of the incident, especially not visiting dignitaries. I will have some people escort you to the docks."

Ziyal shook her head, "We know what we are getting into, and you need our help." She said, stopping only as more of the security forces now moved to block the entrance to the stacks. The politeness was now tinged with just the right amount of menace to prove this was not an option they would compromise on.

"With respect, sirs," The lead officer said, refusing to take the PADD. "I must re-emphasise, for your own safety and security, I must insist you return to your ship and do not contaminate the crime scene with your presence."

Cordale gave a nod to the security forces, "I recognize your respect, and I recognize your duty. I cannot idly sit by and let potentially millions of innocent people die when I have a chance to fix that. All I need is access to a terminal, even a remote one, and I may be able to keep the Presidium in orbit. Otherwise, everyone here dies, everyone down there dies, and your crime scene is atomized." Cordale was almost pleading. Though, he still had his dignity.

Ziyal looked at the security officer intently in the eyes, "A shuttle flight from the engineering academy to here is longer than an hour and the stack will experience irreparable stability loss in less than an hour. Once that occurs, the stack will fall on the city, killing millions, and destroying all evidence of the crime here. Therefore, I have only one question: If not us, who will fix the stack and when will they arrive?" She held her tablet with the countdown there for the security officer to see. Her voice was calm, laying out facts and asking the obvious question.

"We're not your enemies." Hel pleaded. "Those lives down there, we're willing to do whatever we can to save them. You mention our safety and security, but we're trained engineers, soldiers, we chose long ago to risk our own safety and security for those who haven't, or can't make the same choice. Like the people down there."

At the mention of 'soldiers' a change takes place in the five security guards. As a man they reach for their weapons and draw them. While they do not point them directly at the Away team they are armed and ready. Ara-te gives out a gasp and steps back.

"Please," she pleads in turn. "You must return to your ship."

The chief of the guards eyes Cordale, obviously the spokesperson for the group. "This is sovereign territory of the Nironese people. We will not let Alien forces access to our territory or systems. You will stand down and evacuate the station."

Evans was the newest officer in terms of how long the team had been stationed aboard the Victory, he knew what he felt was right to do. However he thought it best to follow Cordale's lead, no matter what it was.

Ziyal looked at Cor wanting to talk to him before he did something ill-advised and took a step back from the cordon so that the small group of Starfleet officers could conference in privacy.

Out of the edge of his eye Cordale caught Ziyal's movement, noting her step back. "We'll be right back." and he took a few steps back of his own, "Huddle." he said softly to his fellow Victorians. Once everyone was close enough to speak softly, he started speaking softly. "Okay, I'm not about to rush a bunch of soldiers with guns, but we don't have a lot of time to just sit and do nothing."

"Fourty seven minutes." Valeria added to the conversation in the huddle.

"Right. I'm no.. not about to just let this place fall, but I can't just let you guys get hurt." a pause, "I'm going to need a distraction. Something to get all their attention at once, then I'm going to make a move for a console. With luck, I can start a re-initialization before they stun me."

"With more luck, those weapons have a stun setting." Valeria helpfully added.

Ziyal's mind raced as she analyzed the situation. There was something calming, almost meditative about it. Ziyal shook her head, "I don't want this place to fall more then you do. However, I think the explosion did physical damage to the stack. To bring them back up, we'll need to conduct repairs of some form. A brief 'look over here' is not going to give us the window that we need for that. We also need to consider the legality of helping them when they have clearly and definitively refused our help. It is almost certainly a prime directive violation." Ziyal paused a moment to let that sink in before continuing.

Much as she wanted them to consider the consequences, she knew that they were Starfleet officers in the truest sense of the word. Doing the smart thing was often secondary to doing the right thing. So she continued, "If we decide to do this, I can probably hack into their systems from my tablet and get us a damage control read out. At the moment, I don't think we know what the problem is well enough to solve it. We have to assess the situation so we don't go off half-cocked. The people below us can't afford for us to get shot and fail. We can decide what to do once we have assessed the situation." Ziyal said, her brain already working on her hacking problem.

Ziyal's words rang true to Hel. "She has a point." she mused. "They've vehementy refused our help. Besides, what are we going to do on alien systems with interfaces we can't read, running gravity tech we have no hours on what their own engineers can't? Nothing more we can do here. Back on the ship we can prepare relief aid, smoke falling debris, run scans, anything. More than we can do here without starting an inter-species incident which could escalate into war with the federation. Imminent catastrophic loss of life is a helluva bad time to start pushing the boundaries of diplomatic relations."

Evans knew what he wanted to do, which is what he thought was right. However they were making accurate statements, he caught one of the guards looking rather impatient. "I'm good either way, but someone should make a decision soon" he gave a glance toward the guards.

Cor turned to each speaker in turn, listening. There was a wash of concern on the Thux's features, each contribution weighing heavily not just on his mind but on his very soul possibly. Finally, he turned to Evans, "They're union. I hope. Either case, paid by the hour." and at that, the weight on the Thux's shoulder cracked ever so slightly. "You ladies are right. I've been thinking too much as a Thux first. Thinking with my heart and not, well, I would say with my uniform but that'd... you get the point." Cordale said with the air of a confessional.

"We're backing down, and heading back to the Victory. Once we're there, we can coordinate with tractor control and even weapon control to better disperse the incoming artificial meteor." he said with a nod, then turned to face the security detail, "Sorry, got caught up in the heat of the moment. I'm not used to being unable to help, and it ... it was wrong to press. We recognize our boundaries, and will return to the Victory without incident. Good luck, and..."

Up until then, Cor realized he didn't have any form of greeting or departure tone for his Book of the Thux. His entire constructed history, his How To guide to be a Thux. What would the Source say to bless people who were, essentially, on their way to their doom....?

"Good luck, and may the Source be with you."

Hel gave Cor a look, but didn't say anything. She had enough tact to know that, coming from a society which accepted Death as a natural part of every day life, most anything she could say would be neither very appropriate nor constructive to a people which might not share her societal beliefs and were faced with the imminent death of possibly millions.

Ziyal also gave him a compassionate look as the team turned to leave. It was not the first time she had to analyze a situation where the only viable answers were poor ones. What he had decided was logical and arguably the only thing to do. However, that did not make the decision easier. In a way, it was easier to die in a blaze of glory trying to save as many as you could. You didn't have to live with seeing so many die while you felt powerless. She prayed silently for everyone. For those below who would die, for those who were working to save them, for the crew of the Victory. This would be a day everyone needed prayer.