Three unlikely heroes - a June Challenge JP

Posted on Tue Jun 21st, 2022 @ 3:12am by Captain Samuel Woolheater & Captain Gary Taylor & Consul Andrinn Orin
Edited on on Tue Jun 21st, 2022 @ 5:49am

Mission: Season 5: Episode 4: Reef
Location: USS Elysium - Various
Timeline: MD01 - 0000 hours
5172 words - 10.3 OF Standard Post Measure

[ON:]

The Ferengi junior officer, Ensign Flurt, grumbled all the way to the turbolift. He is a computer technician, a computer expert; not an Engineer. And why is he have to go work on this section of the ship anyway? It seems like anything that is plugged into power means it falls under Flurt's repair team. So, no shore leave for him. He got in the turbolift and fumed. The only benefit was that at least he could work without distraction and with nobody bothering him.

Then the lift slowed and stopped. ~Oh no!~ Flurt thought. The turbolift doors opened and another ensign stood at the doorway. Flurt said, "Get in or get away from the doorway!"

Sauk arches an eyebrow that all Vulcans seem able to do. He looks at the Ferengi and controls a roll of his eyes. "Indeed Ensign, I shall get in. Though I fail to see the reason for your anger."

Flurt was a rather, unremarkable Ferengi. He wore his uniform according to regulation and yet it still didn't seem to git him. The Vulcan entered the lift and the lift waited. Flurt looked at the Vulcan, "Is this your firs time on a turbolift? Destination??" the Ferengi said.

Sauk turned cool blue eyes on Flurt. "The proper question is in a turbolift not on and my reply is no it is not. In addition as you were already IN the turbolift, your destination would be the first one to be arrived at. I can give the computer my destination when you disembark which I hope will be soon."

Flurt made a face, "Computer? Resume!" The lift resumed its travel. Flurt didn't like Vulcans. They had no concept of the Great Material Continuum. They thought they were so smart too.

Sauk stared at the back of the Ferengi's head, It was hard not to. It was so large! For his part, Sauk thought Ferengi's were dishonest, disreputable and disagreeable.

The turbolift came to a halt again, allowing for the doors to part way and allow another Ensign to walk in. Tam hated that he was the one that had to stay behind on the ship FULL of scientists to write the paper on bioethics of their last mission. But, the fact of the matter was that it would have given him a chance to be able to do it without much distraction.

However, there was a malfunction in the computer core connecting them to the science labs. He had to go down there and figure out what was going on to be able to complete his work. He went down the hall and boarded the turbolift and said, "Computer Core."

He looked back at the two fellow Ensigns and saw that one was wearing a blue tunic and the other was wearing a yellow. Looking back at both of them, he just nodded. Tam didn't want to talk much on the ride down to the computer core and honestly, just wanted to get it done and over with.

Sauk gave the new Ensign a curt nod and resumed looking at the back of the Ferengi's head.

DECK 30 - MAIN ENGINEERING
The turbolift doors opened and Flurt stepped out. He went straight for the tech workbag that was stowed here. Picking it up and then walking towards an LCARS interface he began his diagnostic and maintenance cycle. The Engineering section was completely empty. Everyone was either on shoreleave or had better things to do at midnight. Flurt grumbled as he started the diagnostic. Flurt took the computer off-line here and into maintenance mode. There was a loud sound as the doors in Engineering locked.

Sauk, stepped out, saw Engineering was empty and went to get back on the lift when he heard a loud and vaguely sinister noise as the doors to Engineering locked. He looked at Flurt and the other Ensign and then in the direction of the doors.

Tam looked at the doors as he heard the same thing as Sauk. He looked at both men and said, "That didn't sound good. What do you guys think that was? Hopefully, nothing like the disease I read about in my bioethics journals from the time of the Enterprise-D."

Tam sounded a bit nervous and was almost rambling. He didn't want to be the first one out onto the Engineering Deck to figure it all out.

The talking irritated Flurt and he cast them a glare, "It's no disease! I put the computer into diagnostic and maintenance mode. Some ancillary systems will go on and off while the diagnostic runs." He said with his teeth showing. Finley sharpened they were too. "Now, if you don't mind, I have to get back to work."

"Dude, is that why my connection from the Science Station in Science Lab 3 went down? What's going on with the stuff down here? Tam asked, following Flurt as he went from one station to the next. Tam was now a bit angry because he might have found out who was messing around with his work and causing him to get behind.

"You're causing me to miss shore leave! I don't want to be down here anymore than you do, but the sooner you get this done, the sooner I can get away from this ship for a little bit," Tam said as he picked up a tricorder from the table near where the three Ensigns were working. He flipped it open and began searching for the problem to his own problems.

Sauk huffed at them both. "Getting angry will not cause the diagnostic to run faster. Nor will getting angry at those asking questions cause your work to be prolonged." The last directed at Flurt.

Flurt looked at them both, "Look. I have to re-calibrate the deuterium manifold buffer. The only way I can do that is to take that system off-line and run a diagnostic. Those are my orders. I don't know anything about your Science project or your problem" he looked at Sauk, "whatever that is."

Sauk started to reply but was interrupted by an alarm and a warning.

An alarm sounded, =A= WARNING! Liquid nitrogen coolant pressure is below one-thousand Pascale's. Recommend coolant system be reenabled. =A=

Looking around, Tam was worried. Looking back at Flurt, he said, "What does that mean? The ship isn't going to blow, is it?" Tam wasn't an engineer. He was a scientist and at this moment, he wanted to be back in his lab, working on his bioethics reports and science reports.

Doing a full 360, Tam found a console that was beeping and walked over to it, inputting his command codes. He looked at Flurt and said, "It looks like something is wrong with the coolant system that cools the warp core...I think? I only took the basic cores at the academy to make sure the ship didn't blow, but that's about as far as I got!"

"YOU think?" Sauk questioned, "Do you know how to run a diagnostic on this system so we may see the problem and hopefully come up with an answer?"

Flurt looked at the Engineering panel. The diagnostic shouldn't have triggered any kind of shutdown. And the warp core was in it's most minimal state! "Uhh...umm...be quiet you two! Let me think! the diagnostic should not have done anything?!"

An alarm sounded again, =A= WARNING! Liquid nitrogen coolant pressure is below eight-hundred Pascale's. Recommend coolant system be reenabled. =A=

Sauk walked over to the nearest computer interface and looked down at it. He then looked at Flurt. "While I am not an engineer, I do know computers and you." He said looking at Flurt have put the system into a test mode. Thus, I conclude the alarm is not real."

Working his own computer interface, Tam didn't even look up as he said, "Are you positive, Mr. Vulcan? Cause from my console, it looks like everything is about to go to absolute and utter garbage. I would like to...you know....live until tomorrow? Just saying..."

Sauk turned his attention to Tam. "As I stated before, I am no engineer, but I do know computers and our engineer friend has but the system in a test mode and you will live until tomorrow." He dead panned.

Flurt, now realizing that he had not put the Engineering computer system into maintenance mode, but rather into test mode, corrected the error. The alarm ceased. The doors also unlocked . Flurt spun around to face them both, "This isn't my fault! And I'm not an Engineer. I am the computer specialist here. You are distracting me and caused me to make a mistake." Here he pointed at Tam and said, "YOU with your stupid science project" and then turning to face Sauk, "And you with your...what are you doing here anyway?"

Flinging his hands into the air, Tam said, "Dude, wait a minute! You're the one who had the computer systems go into some stupid test mode. It's not MY FAULT that you couldn't control it and caused the panic in the three of us. Plus, what are you even doing here, Vulcan? You're wearing blues, like I am. Should you be in a lab somewhere?"

Tam just shook his head and walked over to a wall, slowly sliding down it as he didn't know whether to cry, have a panic attack, or be happy that the ship wasn't going to be blowing up anytime soon.

"I am a junior counselor, and I was assisting Commander Keela-Salik in gathering some information to help her give a proper recommendation a course of action to one of her patients."

Flurt was really perplexed now. A scientist of some kind and a counselor...kind of. A junior counselor. Flurt sighed and said, "Let me finish my diagnostic. And I will help you with what's wrong with the Science lab connection OK?" And saying to Sauk, "Don't stand too close to me? I don't like getting crowded in." He stepped to the LCARS panel and felt Sauk still looking at him. "I dn't like being watched either."

"Then I would say you have a problem, computer specialist." Sauk replied in the insufferable cool way of most Vulcans.

"For being a counselor, or counselor's aide, you kind of suck at your job. Aren't you supposed to be helping make the situation better? Talking us down to make us feel better? Something?" Tam said as he chuckled to himself, pleased in a way but also feeling down because he was just scared.

Flurt said as he worked on the computer console, "Call this an overgeneralization if you must but all Vulcans think that they are better than anybody else. Because they don't have emotions!" here Flurt made a face as he finished the program. Now, it was very clear, there was on the screen the words "MAINTENANCE MODE" displayed across the control consoles of every computer system. "Ha ha!" Flurt said with satisfaction, "Got it. Sometimes you just have to let the experts do the work." He had a satisfied smile, "I need a mug of snail juice" and he went for the replicator.

Sauk looked at Tam. "No. My duty is to help you recognize your shortcomings or whatever problems you have, Not to paint an unrealistic view." His gaze shifted to Flurt, "I agree. I too wish we had a computer expert here."

Looking at both of the men standing before him, Tam got to his feet and said, "Well, both your species have had their run-ins with each other and Earth. Hell, even the Klingons saw the Vulcans for what they eventually became. As the Klingon Ambassador said in the late 23rd century, the Vulcans were the intellectual puppets of the Federation. Nobody is safe here."

Tam scoffed as he leaned up against one of the consoles.

"One warm, extra gooey, snail juice!" Flurt commanded from the replicator. The replicator started up, it took longer than one might have expected, it dimmed, it brightened, it sparked and then it materialized an armed drone.

Flurt squealed, "AAhhhHHHH!" as the drone came to life. It was aa small, hover drone, armed with a single-type III hand phaser equivalent. It hovered off the pad of the replicator as Flurt dove for cover, "Look OUT!" he yelled.

The drone fired after Flurt. For a small Ferengi, he could move fast if he needed to. The drone scanned the room and then, seeing Sauk first, hovered over to him. "That's not what I ordered! I ordered an extra-gooey snail juice!
What is that thing? Why is it firing on us?" he yelled.

Sauk did not have time for a reply as he dove behind a workstation as the drone scanned the room.

Flurt yelled, "What do we do? What do we do?" The drone spotted Tam and started for him.

Tam ran and slid by one of the open consoles in the room and tried to hide, but the device started chasing him. He had to run towards several lines of consoles to be able to avoid the device firing on him, ducking and weaving as he moved. However, the device got one or two good shots in, aiming towards his shoulders and leaving several phaser burns on them as he ran.

Finding a good hiding spot, he yelled for the other two. "You guys, we have a problem. I've got some phaser burns on my shoulders and I don't have a way to get to a medkit. Think either one of you guys can get to one and get me something for these burns?"

Sauk raised his head and saw the drone hovering in the vicinity of Tam. He shouted to Flurt, "Computer specialist, If I divert the drone to you think you can deactivate it."

Tam leaned up against the console and said, "I don't care how it's done. Just one of you two deactivate the dang thing and get the medkit over here! My arms are going to fall off if you two don't do something!"

Tam was starting to get worried because as the adrenaline was starting to wear off and thus, causing the burns to hurt worse.

Flurt was petrified with fear. He was covering his ears. But he did manage to hear what Sauk was asking. It what must have seen like a very long delay, Flurt ran the scenario n his head. It was a small drone. Probably left as a booby-trap from either Elysium's own crew for Admiral Highlaw - or it was left by Highlaw's crew. Either way, the drone was out of the bag now. Flurt cautiously looked over and saw Tam injured. He looked at the drone and reasoned that because it was so small, about the size of a cat, it's targeting system may also be simple. He could either damage the sensor, making it blind. Or he could try and shut it off. He yelled, "I'll try! AAAhhhh!" he squealed in fear.

Sauk jumped from his hiding place and in a very dignified way sought to avoid the drone, while trying to get a medkit to Tam all while waiting for Flurt to succeed in deactivating the drone. "I suggest you hurry." He yelled to Flurt as the drone was now targeting him.

"Flurt, just focus and work on deactivating the drone! You're the one with the skills to do it. All you have to do is focus on it and we'll walk through it with you, okay?" Tam said as he watched Sauk work his magic, trying to run towards the medkit on the table.

Tam looked over his console and looked at Flurt, waving him up to get to get up and do something, anything.

There was a half-eaten bagel here. With what smelled like old lox on it. The bagel had hardened to the point that now it was a cement donut. Flurt tapped it and realized that it was very stale and very hard. He picked up the half-eaten bagel and yelled at the top of his voice, "If I wanted a therapy session; I'd make an appointment with the Vulcan! I'd rather get eaten by a Klingon Taaaaaaaaarg!" And with those words, Flurt got to his feet and charged at the drone. It was too focused on getting to Tam and didn't see Flurt running towards it. At the last second, it did turn and fire at Flurt, missing the Ferengi computer technician by centimeters. The phaser blast hit a power coupling which exploded.

Flurt tackled the drone to the ground and with the stale bagel and lox, smashed the front sensor array, blinding the drone. It started firing now randomly but it couldn't aim very well with cream cheese now on the phaser emitter. Flurt pulled a tab on the top and with a scream, yanked out the CPU. The drone died and powered off. Flurt fell off the drone screaming.

Hearing the drone coming down with a crash, Tam let out a sigh of relief and said, "Did you get it Flurt? Did you finally take it down?"

Standing to his feet in what for him was a victory pose he said, "Success! Ha-ha!"

Rising from the floor his pant leg smoking, Sauk moved to the nearest medkit and got it for Tam, "For your shoulders." To Flurt he said. "Well done computer specialist."

"ha-ha!", Flurt was proud of himself. Seeing the smoking pant leg and the injuries of on Tam's shoulder, Flurt tapped his COMM badge.

=A= Ensign Flurt to sickbay? I need a medic down here to Deck 30, in Main Engineering. =A=

Silence greeted him.

He tapped again, =A= Ensign Flurt to sickbay? Anyone in sickbay? I have, I mean, we have injuries down here. Please respond. =A=

There was no response. "Why doesn't anyone respond?" He went to a console and tried to access the communications system. As he did so, above and behind him, where the errant phaser bolt had struck the power conduit. A fire broke out. An electrical fire to boot. Using the neolytic wiring casing, the phaser had heated the wiring beyond its thermal rating. Because most major systems were in standby mode, the energy was temporarily suspended in the conduit. And the neolytic wiring harnesses were acting like a long, synthetic fuse that lead directly to the deuterium manifold. Flurt turned around slowly to see what was causing that hissing sound. "Uh...guys? We have a new problem!"

"A new problem?" Sauk repeated, "How totally logical that this ." As he rolled his eyes.

Looking up from where he was sitting, Tam said, "Uhh, what now? Did the drone do something to cause another problem?" As he looked over his shoulder to where Flurt was standing, he could see and smell the problem that the drone caused.

"Oh, no! What do we need to do?" Tam said as he tried to get up. He held onto his shoulders as he walked over to the console near Flurt and said, "Look, Computer Specialist. We need to work together to figure this thing out and you freaking out isn't going to help. Don't...break...down! We need you!"

Flurt said to Tam, "I'm not used to working very well with groups. That's why I work with computers. A computer doesn't...it doesn't judge you. Or make you feel stupid. It only does what you tell i to do. And there is always a logical reason for what it is doing." He turned away. "Not like working with people."

The electrical fire was growing. It's like someone had lit a fuse that was slowly travelling along the upper wall, out of reach, to a chemical bomb in the Dueterium manifold.

"Flurt....it looks like the stuff is traveling up the wall or something. That is bad...that's really bad!" Tam said as he watched everything unraveling around them.

Flurt said, "You're hurt. You need help. So does Sauk. Wait? The fire alarm? Let's manually activate it? then someone will come and help us?!"

"Where is the fire alarm?" Sauk asked. "Is there not a fire suppression deterrent that can be activated?"

"Yeah, why hasn't the fire suppression system activated yet? There should have been something going off, right?" Tam said, looking around as he held his arms, trying to look for a console that could give them a clue.

He walked over to the one he was originally working on while he came into Main Engineering. He pressed in a few commands, but since he wasn't an engineer, it would let him access anything.

Looking over at Flurt, he says, "Flurt, it looks like it's going to need your command codes. What are they?"

Flurt came over and said, "The maintenance cycle is incomplete. Those processors are offline until the cycle is done." Here he typed in a time command and the countdown was displayed. "Another six minutes and thirty-seconds!" he said to Tam. "Can you walk? Help Sauk? I know where the manual activation for the fire suppression system is."

Walking over to Sauk, I help him up and walk him back over to the console. Looking at him, Tam said, "Think you can stand if you lean on the console?"

Flurt ran to the manual fire pull lever. He opened the cover and inside was a tag that dangled from the manual pull ring. It read,

"CONGRATULATIONS! And Thank You for your order.
A brand new Part #57-A00F 'Fire's out!' replacement fire system has been ordered.
Your order is very important to us and is scheduled to arrive next Tuesday.
You have earned 1500 loyalty reward points for this order.
Need help installing it? Call us!"

Flurt screamed, "AAAhhh!!! On ORDER? On order!!!!" Running back to Tam and Sauk he said to Tam, "You're a scientist aren't you? What can we use to put out an electrical fie? The fire suppression system is broken and a new one won't be here until next Tuesday!"

Sauk looked at his comrades, "Does Engineering have any heavy blankets. We can use them to smother the fire."

Flurt was not helpful, "Blankets? Blankets! There aren't any blankets here in Engineering. And even if there were, the conduit runs at least seven meters above our heads along the compartment. It only gets down to a reachable level as it enters the Deuterium Manifold." Flurt stopped and looked at them both, "And you know what happens then" he said as if everybody knew that.

Looking at the two gentleman with him, Tam realized it was getting bad and he said, "I think I've got an idea. But, nobody is going to like it and the Captain is going to be pissed. I just need to know what kind of fire it is."

Did you not say it was an electrical fire?" Sauk questioned his companion.

"Well, I've got an idea. There was a special type of insulation that I remember reading about when I was back at the academy. If we can find some of it, we can potentially stop the fire from spreading and get to the tanks...causing the boom boom not to happen. So, do you know if there's any X-1289 insulation anywhere here in Engineering?" Tam asked, looking at both men because the type of insulation was used in a multitude of different ways.

Flurt said, "Never heard of it before. X-1289? Why is that important?" As Flurt was speaking, the "fuse" that was slowly making it's way to the Deuterium manifold suddenly sparked and blew out main power to some of the consoles. It got darker as those consoles powered off. The maintenance cycle would be complete in exactly sixty-seconds. "Where do we get some of the insulation from?"

"God, it should have been standard issue for Federation Starships that are this new. It would have looked like this," Tam said as he went over to one of the only consoles that was still working and brought up a picture of what it looked like, hoping one of the other two had seen it while they were in Engineering and just didn't recognize it.

"If memory serves, that type of insulation can be found inside the consoles here in Engineering. I believe we can find some inside the disabled consoles." Sauk answered.

Tam runs over to one of the disabled consoles and looks inside to see quite a bit of it in there. But, he wasn't sure if it was going to be enough. He knew that there wasn't much time to get it all out and put into the other section to smother the fire, and there wasn't going to be enough time to put on thermal gloves. So, he did what he thought was best.

He started pulling it out of the console and ran over to the section that was on fire and started to cover it with the thermal resistant coating and it began to work. However, it began burning his hands. "Sauk, Flurt, I need you guys help. Sauk, start pulling the thermal insulation out and Flurt, hand it over. We're going to need several more feet of the stuff if this is going to work."

"Right! I understand now. The foam insulation doesn't burn. It will even smother the electrical fire if we have enough of it. I got it! I got it!" Flurt rushed over to an empty console near Sauk. He said, "Let me help you." And he helped Sauk to stand up despite a burned leg from the phaser fire earlier. Flurt opened the console and showed Sauk the insulation needed. "All along the ODN path here and here. Pull off as much as you can. I will do the same on the other console. Give it to me and I will run it to Tam!"

=A= Maintenance cycle complete, Warning! Fire detected. Fire suppression system is off-line. =A= the computer announced.

Flurt got two large handfuls of the X-1289 foam insulation from Sauk and ran it to Tam.

Sauk continued to pull out huge sections of the insulation, moving as rapidly as possible from one ruined console to another and handing them to Flurt.

The other two worked in tandem and brought Tam the insulation that he needed in order to smother the fire. As the insulation was brought over, the fire started to smolder and eventually got to the point that it was burning itself out.

As the last embers died away, with only half-a-meter to spare, the electrical fire was smothered and Flurt happily said, "We did it! We did it!!" He said and and understood all of those Academy team building classes were about. Better late than never.

The doors opened as an emergency fire team arrived on scene and looked around the Engineering. Consoles had been opened and ripped apart. The air was heavy with smoke. Pieces of a drone lay on the ground and both Tam and Sauk had been injured. As the fire team started to secure the area and make sure that all fires were out, one of them came to the three of them and asked, "Ensigns? What the hell happened here?"

Sauk cast a sidelong glance at Flurt and Tam before stepping forward and addressing the officer who posed the question. "Lieutenant, my companions and I were in Engineering on various duty assignments when a series of unfortunate events occurred. Starting with being attacked by a small armed drone and culminating in a fire that we had to use insulation X-1289 on to put out as there was no fire suppression deterrent available. An oversight that should be looked into. However, thanks to the quick thinking of my companions a crisis was adverted and the ship saved."

Flurt just looked at Sauk in amazement for a moment. It was absolutely true, they had worked as a team; they had worked together. And, yeah, some stuff got broke along the way. Flurt said to the Lieutenant, "Yes sir, that's what happened. My friends and I were very lucky to have survived this 'deathtrap' you call Engineering. It seems that you missed some of Admiral Highlaw's little toys. Now, if you don't mind, my friends are hurt and I need to get them to sickbay."

The Lieutenant look at them suspiciously and then said, "Yeah, I guess we owe you our lives?"

The Lieutenant nodded and said, "Let's get this place cleaned up! On the double! And double check all your work? Is that a half-eaten bagle I see there??!!" he said as the clean up crew began their work to fix Engineering again. When they were finished, it was as if none of this had ever happened. And no one would be able to tell that any damage had occurred what-so-ever. Why even the fire suppression system would be installed. No charge.

DECK 12 - SICKBAY

Flurt stayed with both Sauk until his burned leg had been healed with a dermal regenerator.

Flurt said to Sauk, "You know, you still irritate me at times. But today, I learned that having someone who remains calm and collected under fire is a good thing."


Sauk took what Flurt said, processed it and replied. "I have also learned that it is a wise person who listens and works with others. You are a wise person computer specialist Flurt."


And Flurt stayed with Tam while the medics healed his shoulder and arm. He said to Tam, "I'm still not sure what kind of Science you do? I'm not even sure you're sure what Science you do. But whatever it is that you do around here, you're a good person to have around when you run out of options. Realizing that the insulation inside the computer consoles would smother the fire saved us and a big chunk of the ship. When you figure out what it is you do around here? I'd be happy to help you with whatever that crazy science project is."


Tam looked at the other two men and smiled. "Yeah, I would absolutely love for you to come and help me out with a crazy experiment. But, this time, can it be a bit more controlled than it was last time? Maybe, you can help me write up a program to figure out how to control a burn of some of the material we used this time? Honestly, I'd love for you to help out with that!"


Flurt stayed with his friends until they were discharged missing his nap and his snail juice. But far richer, a little more humble in that he didn't know everything. A little more appreciative of other crew members skills and strengths and a little wiser; for having friends.


[OFF:]

Ensign Tam
Some sort of Science-type
(Played by Consul Andrinn Orin)

&

Ensign Sauk
Junior Counselor/Major pain
(Played by Commander Gary Taylor)

&

Ensign Flurt
Computer Expert & Drone Killer
(Played by 1st Lieutenant Sam Woolheater)

 

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