Lieutenant JG Tholin ch’Clex – That odd

[johanssonted]

((Power Chamber 2, Deck 742-Beta, Voth Generation Ship Igirni))

Tholin stepped to where Stapledon had directed him, careful to keep his footing on the vast platform while his eyes moved between the tricorder display and the enormous machinery surrounding them.

 

The scale of it made him feel small.

 

ch’Clex: There. ::Looking down at his scan.:: That should cover it, relaying the information to you now, Lieutenant.

 

Kim nodded.

 

Stapledon: Okay, that's what I was worried about, sir.

 

She turned to Xarrin and then Genkos. Tholin watched her expression shift, and his antennae angled slightly forward. Whatever she had found, she did not like it.

 

Stapledon: The delay in signal from some of the sensors has a cascading effect. Not all at once, but over time the compensators start acting in response to outdated information. So a valve is closing, a door is opening, and then another signal finally makes it through and a counterservo starts running.

 

Tholin understood enough.

 

Not the deep engineering, perhaps, but the principle was simple. A system reacting to old information was dangerous.

 

Adea: ::nonplussed, but faking it:: Oh right, that’s… bad.

 

Xarrin: ::shaking his head:: It’s not bad because it’s not possible. I don’t know about your ship but nothing within our reactor assembly can be fine-tuned to such a degree.

 

Kettick: Response?

 

ch’Clex: How do we go about fixing it, then?

 

Kettick: Response?

 

Stapledon: Well, we'd probably be able to tell by looking for fine metallic dust in some of the equipment.

 

Genkos pointed to Kettick with his cane.

 

Adea: In which case, let’s run some scans, searching for a fine metallic dust. Should be fairly easy to find, no?

 

Xarrin: I’d be stunned if you didn’t find any given three sets of rods have failed, especially since the two replacements failed in the last three days. They only lasted 30 or so hours each!

 

Stapledon / Kettick: Response?

 

Tholin lifted his tricorder and adjusted the scan parameters, narrowing the search as Stapledon had described.

 

ch’Clex: Beginning scan now.

 

The search took time. Too much time for Tholin’s liking, though not enough to justify impatience. Eventually, the readings began to resolve into something useful. Not close, exactly, but close enough by the standards of a ship the size of a city.

 

Once they had identified some dust that was relatively local, they started to head toward it.

 

Adea: I guess we can clear the dust, but we would need to find its origin as well, no? To prevent it from happening again.

 

Xarrin: Without stating that obvious, that would require us to find the cause of the failures and we are yet to do that. ;;gesturing towards Stapledon:: I also thing we have a long way to go to prove your hypothesis. If the servos controlling the rods are being sent incorrect signals, I’d have expected them to fail long before the rods given the size of them.

 

Tholin kept his eyes on the tricorder but answered carefully.

 

ch’Clex: I agree that the dust alone does not prove cause. But it will give us a trail.

 

Stapledon / Kettick / Adea: Response

 

Xarrin kept his attention on Stapledon.

 

Xarrin: I’m not saying your hypothesis is wrong, but dust on its own does not prove anything and I’m unconvinced servo’s firing incorrectly would have caused the two replacement rods to have failed as quickly as they did. I think we should consider what else might have caused this.

 

Tholin looks over at commander Kettich.

 

ch’Clex: He is not wrong, nothing should be ruled out.

 

Stapledon / Kettick / Adea: Response

 

Xarrin: No, we shouldn't rule anything out, I just don’t believe this is an entirely mechanical problem. Are your scans sophisticated enough to long for any compounds that shouldn’t be in the reactor? Perhaps it’s become contaminated somehow in a way our diagnostic instruments are unable to detect?

 

Stapledon / Kettick / Adea: Response

 

Tholin glanced down at his tricorder and adjusted the sweep.

 

ch’Clex: I can run a parallel scan for compounds that do not match the local material profile.

 

Xarrin / Stapledon / Kettick / Adea: Response?

 

Tholin stepped along the edge of the platform, careful to remain within the area. He let Stapledon and Kettick focus on the reactor itself while he widened his own attention to the surrounding access points and service panels.

 

At first, there was nothing. Then his tricorder gave a soft chirp.

 

His antennae angled forward.

 

ch’Clex: I have something.

 

He lowered the tricorder slightly, narrowed the scan field, and ran it again. The reading was faint. Almost too faint. A trace compound caught in the edges of the reactor housing, inconsistent with the surrounding metallurgy and maintenance residue.

 

ch’Clex: Trace amounts of an unknown compound near the affected housing. Very faint. It may be contamination, but it is not part of the reactor assembly.

 

Xarrin / Stapledon / Kettick / Adea: Response?

 

Tholin did not answer immediately. He took two slow steps back, following the tricorder’s faint signal away from the reactor.

 

Then another chirp. This one came from outside the immediate work area.

 

ch’Clex: The same trace is present beyond the reactor housing.

 

Xarrin / Stapledon / Kettick / Adea: Response?

 

TAG / TBC

 

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Lieutenant Junior Grade Tholin ch'Clex
Tactical Officer
USS Eagle-A
D240112TC4