Lieutenant (JG) Thea Kairis - Arrhythmia
Quinn Reynolds
((Power Plant, Gibaria Outpost))
After locating another route to the heart of they power plant, they made their way through the narrow corridor, and the humming from the conduits sounded alarmingly loud to Thea. A check on her tricorder showed everything was within safe operating limits — for now. But the quiet was like a stiletto, twisting into all the soft and fleshy places.
Kairis: How bad was it? Upstairs, I mean.
Sevo: ::She paused before answering.:: Um…well, for my team, we encountered creepy black vine or tendril looking things covering everything; walls, floor, ceiling. They had managed to physically break open a closed bulkhead door by sheer force.
zh'Tisav: We only had one, in a containment container. It was still creepy though. I felt like it was watching our every move.
Sevo: We discovered they reacted rather harshly to subsonic pulses. When we tried doing that to map the area, the vines began shaking and moving around. I nearly got swiped by one.
Thea was quite sure she'd been assigned to the right team. Dealing with aggressive plant life wasn't something she'd know how to approach. Or would she? Part of her damage control training was containment, after all. Maybe there was room to apply that to other situations.
Kairis: Sounds remarkable. Maybe not something I'd want to study up close...
Sevo: They are a mix of organic and metallic substances. My tricorder couldn't make heads-or-tails of them. And they grow *very* fast. After the pulse attack, Neathler noticed one vine had grown a few centimeters in the moments of the attack.
zh'Tisav: If those are the plants, I'd hate to see the animals...
Sevo: We hadn't encountered any fauna while I was up there, but I wouldn't be surprised if there were any. I'd have hated to meet one.
zh'Tisav: What if they're one and the same? They already move like animals...
Thea walked along, listening to the flow of conversation and feeling somewhat like she was surplus to it. Her own fault, she supposed. She had asked what was going on upstairs, it was no surprise there was little she could add to it. But she had her answer; "how bad?" sounded fairly awful. Reactive plant life capable of breaking through doors, spreading like a plague, and no one was entirely sure about the animals except the distress call which had said "hostile".
Kairis: It sounds like the people here must have been quickly overwhelmed.
zh'Tisav: We figured out the scientists were trying to use subspace fields to counter-act them. One idea was a type of attack, the other was more like a mobile panic room. I was called away before we could test them, so I don't know if they even work.
Kairis: The teams are sharing updates via text reports, sir. You could check to see if your old team has added anything.
Sevo: Response
The Andorian reacted to something, though Thea wasn't sure what. Blue antenna stretched forward, and her hand went to her phaser, briefly checking the charge. Sevo took the cue and readjusted her grip on her rifle, while Thea briefly hesitated. She'd have a hard time shooting anything without hitting one of her fellow officers, but it was better to be ready and not have the chance to fire than the opposite.
zh'Tisav: The air feels different, I think we're getting close to the core. Let's tread carefully, we are in a bit of a bottleneck after all.
Sevo: Would hate to be caught by those vines in here.
Thea grimaced, the thought worming its way down her spine as if it was one of the vines itself. But at least the pools of light from their torches were starting to get lost in the low light glowing at the end of the corridor. Literal light at the end of the tunnel, and she had to suppress a small huff of inappropriate laughter. She preferred that to the dread of a few moments ago.
Stepping into the room reveal a chamber far larger than she'd expected. The conduits from the narrow tunnel flowed along the walls, finding their way into cabinets and junctions with an almost organic meandering. Other tunnels and openings punctured the walls in places, piping feeding in and out of those, too. Arteries and veins, all leading to the heart suspended in the centre of the room.
Sevo: Is that what I think it is?
zh'Tisav: Yeah. Never thought I'd ever get this close to one of these.
Thea took it in. Tyrellia sat on the Romulan border, and had done for centuries, vigilant guardians of the Neutral Zone. She wouldn't say she had a particular interest in Romulan technology as a result, but it had always been there, hovering on the edges of her attention. And now there it was, occupying all of it.
A toroidal fuel line wrapped around the centre of the sphere, feeding in matter to the artificial singularity within. Above and below the sphere were the housings for dilithium crystals, as vital for Romulan power generation as they were Federation. It was through them the reactor's output flowed, into the conduits feeding into the rest of the facility. It was remarkable, a triumph of engineering by any measure, and she silently admired it for a moment.
Sevo: It's a lot bigger than I expected it to be.
zh'Tisav: It is. For the size of this facility, one half as big would have worked; just how much power does that gate need?
Thea knew a rhetorical question when she heard one, and didn't answer. That was a numbers game, and possibly not one that needed answering now, or by them. But it did raise a troubling question; the scientists had cut the power to the gate, and yet it had remained open, fed by a power supply on the other side. What in all the gods' names could do that?
Kairis: Makes you wonder what's powering it from the other side now.
Sevo: So what's the plan?
zh'Tisav: Well, if this were any other type of generator we would shut it down and shunt the facility to backups until we can make repairs. But that won't work here, we need to find a way to throttle it back safely.
Thea paused, trying to figure out the most diplomatic way to tell a superior officer they had jumped ahead too far. zh'Tisav seemed like the practical type, not one to take offence at a reminder, but the awareness that many didn't was burned into her like pyrogravure. While she hesitated, turning the options over in her mind, the Andorian approached the reactor with the same reverence Thea had seen people approach shrines.
zh'Tisav: Imagine this thing powering the Gorkon. No more antimatter, you can fuel it with anything. You just need a Bussard collector and a convenient nebula…
Stern as she seemed, it was warming to see a sense of wonder in the tall engineer. Thea smiled despite herself and nodded. There had to be good reasons Starfleet had never adopted the technology, or even really tried to experiment with it, but dwelling on that seemed counterproductive to the moment.
Kairis: It is impressive. ::A little of zh'Tisav's wonder echoed back into her own voice.:: I never thought I'd get to see one up close, either.
Sevo: Response
zh'Tisav: I'm afraid I don't know much about singularities, just the basics, but I recall a discussion from the Academy. A cadet had the idea that feeding it heavier, less energetic elements could reduce the plasma stream output. But it was just a thought experiment, "spit-balling" as some of the Human cadets would say. Do you think it might have merit?
Ah. Back to that. Thea took a breath, and decided the wisest course was plain-spoken facts. The reactor wasn't powering the gate anymore. The gate had another, unknown power source in the dimension it was connected to. The reactor was unstable, and they didn't know why. They had to maintain power supply to the facility to ensure the rest of the Starfleet teams could do their work.
Naturally, some of those goals were in direct competition, but when had being a Starfleet officer ever been easy?
Kairis: It sounds like it could work, but I think we first need to figure out if the full output is what's causing the instability in the reactor and other power systems, sir. We had a theory it might be feedback from the gate; whatever is now powering it from the other side might be bleeding through and interfering with the systems here.
Sevo / zh'Tisav: Response
Kairis: If we can't stabilise it, then we need to find the backups before we bring the singularity to minimal reactivity. We have to maintain power to the rest of the facility, else we'll leave our teams stuck in the dark with nothing working.
Sevo / zh'Tisav: Response
Engineer (Damage Control)
USS Gorkon
simmed by
Commanding Officer
USS Gorkon
T238401QR0