Lt. Commander Tahna Meru - Let's Blow This Generator
Tahna Meru
((Engineering, Freighter Korelath))
Meru reviewed the instructions out of an abundance of precaution. The device had multiple backups unlike the one that had failed. But the failed one was only meant to contain the polaric weapon, not neutralize it entirely. For all its dangers, dealing with this type of device was a once-in-a-lifetime scientific opportunity.
Tahna: =/\= Shame we’ll never be able to talk about this if we live. =/\=
Standish: =/\= Why not, Lieutenant Commander? Once we're back in our timeline, mentioning what we did here won't hurt anything. Will it? =/\=
Sevo: =/\= You, uh, haven’t ever had a visit from the Department of Temporal Investigations before, have you? Best we’ll be able to do is talk about it amongst ourselves, and probably the senior officers. I suppose if we’re doing something wrong, some future agent may pop in here and tell us so. =/\= ::she smirked::
Nera: =/\= Personally I’m more than happy to not mention any of this to anyone. I don’t fancy the idea of being locked in a small, very bright room, while being “questioned” =/\=
Meru, also, preferred to spend her shore leaves free from interrogation, and the Department of Temporal Investigations was just one group they’d have to worry about if they talked. There was also the matter of the polaric energy—all of Starfleet would likely come down on them for spreading that information, regardless of the fact that they were shutting the device in question down permanently.
Standish: =/\= I have details on the new survivors. Cardassian male, human male, Bajoran female. They all seem to have escaped serious injury but the human and Bajoran heart rates are elevated. Ensign Nera, do you see anything else? =/\=
Sevo: =/\= Interesting. =/\=
That was interesting. In Meru’s time, it might still raise eyebrows for the Cardassian and Bajoran to be willingly working together on a civilian ship, but now, while Bajor was still occupied? And why was the Cardassian the only one without an elevated heart rate, given the stressful conditions and the presence of Starfleet? If the Cardassain was working to sabotage this ship, how much more dangerous would the civilian crew’s situation become when he finds out there are two Bajorans among the Starfleet crew on board?
Meru shook those thoughts from her mind. They were something to return to later, certainly, but for now she needed to focus on the task at hand: neutralizing the polaric energy.
Nera: =/\= Nothing else so far. I’ll keep the scan going until the whole ship has been swept to be certain. As for their condition, probably a stress response =/\=
Standish: =/\= What if that's the Cardassian that T'Sai mentioned? Maybe we shouldn't reach out just yet. =/\=
Sevo: =/\= Our first priority is to get this polaric device shut down. Then we’ll deal with the crew. =/\=
Tahna: =/\= Exactly. We can only manage so many problems at a time. If the Cardassian is a saboteur, he hasn’t hurt the folks with him yet, and he likely won’t at this point. =/\=
Nera: =/\= That would be best. We know where they are at least, and they can stay there until we know for certain the ship isn’t about to explode and tear a hole in subspace =/\=
Meru and Sevo worked together to finish the final assembly and checks of the containment device. Meru’s tricorder chirped, its scans (and rescans, and re-rescans) all coming back with strong evidence that the new containment device would hold.
Tahna: =/\= Looks good to me. =/\=
Sevo: =/\= Right, we’re as ready as we’ll ever be. =/\=
Nera: =/\= I think I’d rather be manually reaattaching a spinal column =/\=
Tahna: =/\= Me too. =/\=
There was a hint of dry humor in her voice. She had no idea how to reattach a spinal column, but were it not for the instructions they’d found (which she hoped were accurate), she’d have very little idea how to build this containment unit either. Sevo’s tricorder was the one that would trigger the containment device to power on, while Meru’s continued its passive scans for danger.
Sevo: =/\= Ready to activate containment unit in 3…2…1…=/\=
Nera: =/\= Moment of truth =/\=
The Mission Specialist paused, hovering over the button for a quiet eternity, at least so it seemed in Meru’s head.
She activated the device.
There was a quick shimmer of energy in the air around the polaric generator, and the device was online. Meru watched the readings on her tricorder—the unit was holding steady.
Standish: =/\= Great job sirs. Looks like you've got this problem solved. =/\=
Thank the Prophets. But the job wasn’t done yet.
Sevo: =/\= That was the easy part. Now we have to actually shut down the generator. =/\=
Nera: =/\= Oh, so that was the easy part. This just gets better =/\=
Standish: =/\= The next part might be harder but you've got it. We know now that the designs you found were valid. =/\=
Tahna: =/\= So far they’ve been valid. =/\=
Sabotage, or even just everyday error, was an option at any point of the process. But even without having studied polaric generators, Meru and Sevo both had strong enough scientific backgrounds that either of them should be able to tell when something didn’t make logical, scientific sense, and the instructions for shutting the device down seemed sound on those basises.
Nera: =/\= So, what’s the first step in turning this thing off for good? =/\=
Standish: =/\= I think they said something about absorbing the power and sloughing it off. =/\=
Doctor Standish joined the pair of senior officers by the device, examining the pulsing lights on the outside of the containment unit as he might a patient.
Standish: =/\= So what do those lights mean? =/\=
Tahna: =/\= They indicate that it’s absorbing energy, and that its reserves haven’t been filled. And to answer the earlier question, ::Meru glanced back at Doctor Nera:: the original design for the unit was just meant to store the energy generated, so that it could theoretically be used for power. I tweaked it a bit so it should begin breaking down the energy on a molecular level instead. =/\=
Sevo: Response
Nera =/\= Any additional precautions we can take? =/\=
Meru shrugged.
Tahna: =/\= Sure, you could hop back on the shuttle and get the hell out of here. Or, y’know, activate redundant forcefields, but they may or may not be very effective. I’ll send you the frequencies used in the containment device itself, they’re more likely to be effective. =/\=
She was only partially kidding about the shuttle comment—that was just about the only remaining precaution anyone could take, but it wasn’t an option available to them. They had to finish the job. She began the process of instructing the containment device’s power cells to break down, rather than store, the energy—though she wouldn’t actually initiate it until the forcefields were in place.
Standish: =/\= Would it be crazy for us to take this device back with us on the shuttle and drain it there? That way we could get this shuttle without much more delay. =/\=
Meru frowned. Maybe she’d misheard him, in her focus on the device, but she wasn’t quite sure she understood him.
Tahna: =/\= This device is the greatest, most immediate danger. We need to finish shutting it down before anything else, then getting the ship flying again. =/\=
Sevo: Response
Nera =/\= I’ll try to pull some power from some of the systems we aren’t using, get a forcefield up around engineering. Just in case…well, you know =/\=
Standish: =/\= Ok. Then we'll need to decide what to do with the survivors and how to get this ship moving. =/\=
Meru nodded, but didn’t comment, focused on securing the processes within the device for breaking down the energy.
Sevo: Response
Standish: =/\= While they're finishing that up, maybe we can check with the ship's doctor. =/\=
Tahna: =/\= You can call him, see if any of his patients will be returning to their posts anytime soon. =/\=
Sevo / Nera: Response
Standish: =/\= The environment's ok now. Permission to remove my helmet, Lieutenant Commander? =/\=
Tahna: =/\= Wait till we’ve fully shut the polaric device down. =/\=
The EV suits wouldn’t offer much protection against being in the direct radius of a polaric blast, but there was no sense in not taking every possible precaution, especially since they were already suited up. After the device was shut down they could strip back down to their uniforms and transport the suits back to the shuttle.
Sevo / Nera: Response
Standish: =/\= We'll check in with the ship's doctor and see how he's doing. And we still have the one missing survivor to locate. I think we're almost done here. =/\=
Tahna: =/\= How about the engines? Are they coming back online? Impulse? Warp? =/\=
Sevo / Nera / Standish: Response
Meru looked at Sevo. All the readings were holding steady, everything seemed to be in place for the next phase.
Tahna: =/\= Triggering the breakdown of stored polaric energy. =/\=
Sevo / Nera / Standish: Response
Breath held, prayers sent, Meru activated the control from her tricorder. It took an agonizing few moments for the process to begin, and another second for her tricorder to register it. But there it was—the energy was being broken down, being rendered harmless, converted to little more than heat and static, which the device was designed to handle. And the device registered no issues.
Meru grinned.
Tahna: =/\= Now we just trigger the overload of the generator itself, and any energy released as it shuts down permanently will be rendered harmless. =/\=
Sevo / Nera / Standish: Response