Ensign Roop - Postural Control Prep

[Donald Furrow-Scott]

((Late Beta Shift, TCS bays, Shuttle Repair & Fabrication Workshop, Deck 11, USS Ronin))

Nakada: Response

Roop: ::laughing:: Are you serious?

Sitting back in the reversed shuttle command chair, facing away from the windshield, Roop put his arms behind his head and clutched the headrest with his fingers, stretching them as he listened to Ensign Nakada.

Nakada: Response

Roop: No, I’ve never visited Chicago. Maybe…flew and orbited over it a few times.

Nakada: Response

Roop: I do remember seeing Lake Superior and the others. ::breathing deeply and looking back over his shoulder at the shuttle pilot’s command console:: Fifteen-forty-six.

Nakada: Response

Standing up from the pilot’s command chair in agreement with Ensign Nakada, Roop looked back out of the shuttlecraft and into the larger space.

The two-story cargo bay that was the Shuttle Repair and Fabrication workshop hummed with the life and sounds of a garage, even this late in the evening. The Runabout Kushiro, fresh from a maintenance cycle, sat gleaming upon the multi-scissored elevator like a white mongoose on a centipede’s back, ready to lead up into Shuttlebay One through the opening above it. Honeycomb lights on cantilevered booms pointed like flower heads this way and that, punctuating the contrasts between spotless and grimy, tools and projects, and ready or not. Tucked against one-third of the Fabrication bay, sharing the industrial replicator pad, was the Turbolift Control System board and Maintenance bays, or more commonly amongst the engineers, just the TCS. In this unassuming nook of the shuttle bay was the only truly visible part of an incredibly important and busy system of the Ronin’s day-to-day life. 

Almost trophy-like, a stripped turbolift car was hovering on a tractor beam beside the TCS master display on the all. The display shared that wall with a garage door to the turbolift shaft. The transparent aluminum windows in the garage door were views looking down a subway.

Surrounded by shuttle parts and spare nacelles, enough unmounted ids generators to float a circus, and amidst shuttle panels, housing, and tall toolboxes, sat the front cab of a shuttle like a beheaded trophy.
Out of these seats in the half-cabin of the shuttle, Ensigns Nakada and Roop stepped out into the turbolift bay to join the engineers arriving with a Class I probe on an anti-gravity lift.

Sujat: Here’s the dalek you ordered, Sir.

Roop: Die-a-lek?

Ardiansyah: ::pointing at Roop with a shrug to the other Zakdorn:: He doesn’t know what a dalek is, cousin.

Roop: Crewmen Ardiansyah, Creman Sujat, this is Ensign Nakada. He’s heading up this refit and will be working on the computer side of the TCS problem tomorrow.

Nakada: Response

The two Zakdorn crewmen greeted Ensign Nakada with appropriate respect.

Zakdorn Cousins: Response

Roop: Your task will be to follow the probe in the shafts tomorrow in the gondola turbolift. The EPS lines of the turbolift have been maintained superbly by Chief Tucker and his teams, and I read that you two have done some of that work on tap alignments over the past months. The probe will travel slowly down the shafts, verifying the EPS system and looking for microfractures, energy tap bleeds, or EPS fluctuations, with you following behind in this open-sided gondola work lift. We don’t expect many issues, given the attention they’ve already received, but we’ll be rechecking. Along with that are the level one diagnostics you’ll be performing on every shaft bulkhead & forcefield hard point as well.

Nakada: Response

Zakdorn cousins: Response?

Roop: Get up into the gondola and tie in the mobile LCARS podium to the probe.

The two Zakdorn gazed up at the hovering gondola lift.

Ardiansyah: After you, Passepartout.

Sujat: You first, if you please, Mister Fogg.

With narrow eyes, a wide mouth open with thin lips, and shaking both hands in the air to Ensign Nakada, Roop clearly had no idea whom they were calling each other as they climbed up into the gently swinging gondola. Roop closed his mouth and shrugged, his hands coming down to clasp behind him.

Nakada: Response

Focusing back on the task at hand, the probe standing on the grav-lift beside them began to chirp and ready itself for the Zakdorn.

Satisfied, Roop moved over to the two opposed holo-emitters temporarily set up in the TCS spare bay area. A few moments at the control panel and the entire TCS system sprang to life in three dimensions. In size, it was roughly the same area as the inside of a turbolift, extending from knee to head height.
The shafts were all bright yellow tubes, with a dozen black turbolifts. The ship decks, frame, and hull all appeared a ghostly faded grey. The lifts were stationary or moving as the moments passed. Bright white stars representing the crew appeared in the moving turbolifts, and the entire model had four distinct sections: port & starboard, front & rear.

Nakada: Response

Roop: Correct. We’ll bring the turbolifts here one at a time and do a complete refit of the three linear induction motors, the turbolift manual translation LCARS pad, the Emergency Braking System Expansion Bladder, and the vestibule airlocks. ::pointing to the first set of spare parts already replicated and waiting::

Nakada: Response

Roop: Again, correct, Mister Nakada. Your great suggestion of two teams worked perfectly with the refit times. One pair of crewmen for replicating the new and inspecting the old parts, and another pair for the actual removal and replacement.

Nakada: Response

Roop: No. We’ll never have more than one turbolift down at a time, nor more than a quarter of the shafts red-tagged at any time. Even with the gondola and probe in the shaft, in any emergency, they can be parked in any pass-siding and evacuated as a normal lift in moments.

Nakada: Response

Roop: Ah. I hadn’t realized just how much programming work you got to do on the Arrow. ::motioning towards the TCS master display on the bay wall and walking through the holographic model like a ghost up to it:: Lucky Chief Tucker recommended you! I’ll be verifying my two crew’s turbolift refits myself. That should leave you and your two picked crewmen to sift through the Ronin’s computer core to trace and debug the programming side of the TCS. ::biting his lip and nodding in agreement:: It makes a lot of sense to allow us to focus on important tasks without being overwhelmed, but still support each other if the need or questions arise.

Satisfied, the Zakdorn began shutting down the probe to low power mode and lowering the gondola down onto a floor stand before climbing off.

Sujat: How long, Sirs, do you think this will take to complete all the shafts and lifts?

Nakada: Response

Roop: Unless we find serious problems, which unhappily or happily might help us solve the turbolift idiosyncrasies and delays in arrival and travel times, one way or the other.

Roop waved to the Zakdorn as they summoned a turbolift to the garage door, like and yet unlike every other turbolift door.

Roop: Until tomorrow morning, crewmen. See you then.

Roop shut off the holoprojectors and ensured everything was offline, on standby, or ready for the project. He picked up his large LCARS padd and, connecting the strap, slung it over his head and one shoulder for travel like a medkit.

Nakada: Response

[Tag/TBC]

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Ensign Roop
HCO Officer assigned to Engineering & Lieutenant Tucker

USS Ronin NCC-34523
Captain Karrod Niac commanding
R240206OR1