Commander Jo Marshall - Drown It, Cool It, Crack It, Bop It, Twist It
Jo Marshall
((Dockyards, Orbital Ring))
Through the choking haze, silhouetted figures battered at the window of a sealed hatchway. The outer hatch was sealed, surface blistering, red heat pulsing through the alloy. No Klingon in armour had broken off to help. All eyes were still on the freighter. Fist pounded, voices hoarse against the onslaught of the cacophony, even as the fire crawled down toward them.
Jo sprinted across the deck, her boots skidding to a halt before the hatch. Even from a metre away, the heat prickled her skin through her uniform. Touching it was suicide. She yanked her tricorder free, thumbing through readouts with shaking hands.
Marshall: ::shouting over alarms:: Structural locks are intact but the control node’s half fried. We can’t pry it, but we can override it.
Her attention was buried in her tricorder, only catching the last second as Tahlira reached out a hand closer to the hot hatch, and thankfully yanked it away before she could burn herself on the metal.
Deyari: I can try to rally some of the Klingons to bring cooling agent. If we can cool it, we might be able to get in there.
Where the plasma fire raged on, the Klingons decked in their firefighter armour snapped at one another in their home language and variation of dialects, each getting sharper as the stakes increased.
zh’Tisav: Good idea, but would they listen to any of us?
Marshall: Chances are, no. They've got a torus to save.
Deyari: The windows, can we break them? We can use a low level phaser blast.
Marshall: It might not be enough to cut through the material.
Her voice wavered though; she wasn't as assured of that as she'd like, and the longer the fire licked at the duranium, the more appealing an option it became. Low level blast into the window shielding, take out the corners first, hope they didn't melt with the combined heat.
Deyari: Wait, can we use the workbees? They're meant for dealing with structural problems, they've got to have some sort of lines that can attach to the hatch, or something!
Jo looked at their Ensign for a solid second as her brain caught up with the proposition in play. They'd ridden those machines there, and what they did have was a simplified array of contraptions on board for doing precisely that—weird jobs in space. Jo's heart hadn't yet stopped its rhythmic pounding, almost like she could feel it drumming harder as the heat increased with the slams of fists on the inside of the metal door.
Marshall: That's as good an idea as any. What do you think, Vylaa?
zh’Tisav: It could work. My worry is that metal is so hot it won’t break, but buckle. We could just end up with a giant blister on the side of the building.
Marshall: If the joints swell, yes, it could. But it'd need to be significantly hotter for that to happen, with ample force applied.
Not for the first time, Jo wished the Damage Control Specialist had come down with them.
Deyari: Response
zh’Tisav: The Ensign’s first suggestion holds the best chances, but we need to change it up. If we cool it rapidly, it’ll enter thermal shock and crack like an egg. Problem is the standard firefighting agents can’t do it rapidly enough, not in the quantities we have available. We need water, and lot’s of it. Like from a water main.
Which wouldn't be hard, given the size and complexity of the torus. Water mains would be running through the deck plating beneath them, through spouts and into areas the workers could reach them. Clamouring from inside the metal death cage made Jo's stomach drop another few feet into the ample black space beneath.
Marshall: Diverting a water main would give us volume, but it's a big if.
Deyari: Response
zh’Tisav: Only time for one, though.
Marshall: Time we don't have.
Said through gritted teeth as another thunderous pound echoed from the other side of the hatch, growing weaker and fainter, like knuckles were breaking in the attempt to escape.
Deyari: Response
Shoving her tricorder back into the holster, Jo locked eyes on Vylaa. Time to put their Starfleet credits where their mouths were, while the firefighters dealt with the spreading plasma fire inching closer toward the fuel cells.
Marshall: Find the nearest water main, see if you can rig it. If it works, we can douse the hatch and shock it open.
zh’Tisav / Deyari: Response
Jo turned to Tahlira, smoke billowing out through the deck plating and obscuring the view of her own boots. She attempted to swallow; the dry sensation held like ash in her throat.
Marshall: We'll prep the workbee, using the grapples to rip the hatch off its runners once it cools.
zh’Tisav / Deyari: Response
Underneath their boots, the deck juddered in a deep growl, punctuated by the roar of Klingons and their penchant for creative insults mid-battle. Another warning klaxon sounded, this time coming from the nexus node for the torus far further up than they'd come from, and where someone had made decisions to get them out of the section as quickly as possible.
Marshall: We'll drown it, cool it, crack it, and drag them out before the section evacuates. Let's move.
zh’Tisav / Deyari: Response
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