Ensign Talon Morda: Again?
Eston Melton
((Main Engineering, Deck 12, USS Khitomer))
((OOC: There was some crossed stage direction between whether young Talon follows the Doc elsewhere or lingers to shovel coal. Since he’s been invoked a couple of times since then, he’s hanging with the yellowshirts for now.))
Ensign Morda was briefly distracted by the doctor’s honest-to-goodness goodbye wave, and Lieutenant Michaels just as promptly brought his focus back around to his amateur-hour sensor sleuthing.
Michaels: Lacy. Morda. Tell me you have something more reasonable than Khitomer being tied to an invisible dock with invisible ropes.
Morda eyeballed Lacy, hoping for help. This was much more her area of expertise. But, he tried to be useful, thinking through what’d he’d read about Lattice space equipment and their telltales. He set aside scans of the derelict and where they’d lost the probe, shifting to Khitomer’s own monitors. No shearing forces. No force gradient. No graviton surge. He squirrelled up his brow and scowled, then eyeballed Lacy for her to look. A tractor beam typically pulled -- either with greater force than its target, or with equal force to keep it still. But here…
Morda: Not a discrete tractor beam holding us here. There’s no-- ::sigh:: I think whatever’s holding the ship is ommidirectional - and, I’m not sure, but rather than a tractor field, it looks compressive. Like it’s squeezing us in place. Or at least got us gripped from every direction.
Leaning over to Lacy:
Morda: The probe telemetry, and the sensor impression that something made physical contact and begun to surround it. Do you see any similarities?
Lacy: Response
Abruptly, then: an admiral! He recognized her from the security brief about the ship’s new VIP.
Nicholotti: What's our status?
Michaels: That is uncertain at the moment. We are motionless due to some restraint we have not recognized yet. We are generating normal levels of power but only a small amount of that is getting into the systems that need it despite there being no open switches or relays.
Morda: Another thing? Wherever our power is going, if it’s leaving the ship through other means, it’s not being transformed into heat energy or other radiation outside the ship.
Lacy: Response
Nicholotti: It may be important to set ourselves up to meet whoever resides within the nebula even if we figure out what it's made of. And if the stories are correct, it may be best to put us on equal footing.
Michaels: With all due respect, Admiral... This just gets better and better. Equal footing with an unknown adversary about whom there are "stories" that I am not certain I want to hear with unknown capabilities while dealing with... with this situation.
Nicholotti grinned and Morda found himself immediately wary of the flag officer.
Nicholotti: I mean, we can't run anyways. Maybe we need to look like we meant it, rather than simply playing dead and hoping we can escape.
Michaels: Meant it, Admiral? This is why I am an Engineer and not a tactician.
Morda was no field marshall, and he was a ground-pounder not a vac-head. But some tenets of starship tactics mirrored those of the ground. At present, they had lost some choice in avenues of approach, their agility was halted, and the terrain itself was an enemy. Whatever the admiral was gesturing at, he suspected it would have to do more to do with charisma and communication than more overtly tactical assets.
Whatever was brewing in Nicholotti’s and Michaels’s minds, Morda would let it play out. He turned back to the console he’d appropriated, and leaned back over to Lacy to compare notes and patch into the science department’s findings.
(( Brief Time Skip ))
Michaels: Mr. Morda. Please confirm that we have two shield emitters that not functioning properly on each of the two main nacelles.
Morda: Uh…yes, ma’am. Confirmed.
Michaels: Two factors here. The main nacelles are the rear most portion of the ship. It is also the section with the weakest shield protection.
Morda: Marginally weaker.
Michaels: The primary function of the shields is to prevent the ship from colliding with matter at near light speed. Even a tiny rock could be devastating at that speed. We do not need shielding if we are going backwards under impulse power.
Was this a test? Was she setting him up for another threat to transfer him to engineering?
Morda: I wouldn’t think so.
The way she asked the question -- she was thinking of something. He turned his attention from the console toward the lieutenant, desperate for a break. He was making no headway identifying or ruling out what was draining power or holding the ship still. Lacy might have found a tendril to chew on, but she was in her head and he couldn’t keep up. The data pool from the science division was spinning. He overheard an engineer mention there was a planned spacewalk and to route power to support an extravehicular event, and Morda hoped that excursion would yield insight. But sitting in engineering, away from his new charges in the Alpha Shift security team and pretending to be an engineer… he was getting antsy.
Michaels: Ginny. You are in charge here.
Lacy: Response
Michaels: No I am not planning on doing something stupid. At least not that stupid. Again. I just want to check out those malfunctioning shield emitters myself. :: beat :: from inside the ship.
Lacy: Response
Michaels: Mr. Morda. You are with me.
Morda couldn’t help it:
Morda: ::Deadpan:: Again?