What Is Behind Door Number One

Posted on Sat Oct 16th, 2021 @ 10:39pm by Jeassaho Kea (*) & Chief Engineer Michael Burnstein & Laurier Cami & Liha t'Ehhelih

Mission: Mission 14: Holoworld
Location: SS Holoworld - Main Engineering
Timeline: MD 02: 1300 hrs
2370 words - 4.7 OF Standard Post Measure

Jeassaho was relieved that her husband had decided to send over more people to the ship when it had been decided to split up. The Engineering team was full of the best of the engineers on the ship so the Betazoid felt content that they could handle whatever came their way.

“I have not been on a ship this new in forever. It cannot be more than two years old.” Jeassaho mumbled relieved that they were out of the holodecks and in the crew areas that were not just huge empty spaces that kept glitching. . It was familiar like Rosie or the numerous other ships that she had been on.

"And sadly will never fly again," Burnie observed, scanning to check structural integrity before they got too far into this section. He knew enough about 'luxury starliners' to know that crew quarters were the area the owners were most likely to skimp on. "But there may be some decent salvage ...once we've found any survivors, of course."

Jeassaho nodded. It was sad to see a ship this new and shiny with a broken back. It was not something that any Engineer wanted to see. "Of course. Ships like this have all the good stuff." That prospect was exciting. Jeassaho smirked a little before laughing to herself that she had fully got into the civilian life that she now had.

"You know...if she's so badly damaged that she can't ever fly again, we might get salvage rights," Cami replied, winking at Jeassaho. "We could have a lot of fun with some of these parts."

"More than just fun," Burnie noted, looking around. "You can use holographic tech to at least temporarily replace failing organs. I've seen it. If the medical bay is salvageable, we might be able to do some serious upgrades."

“Let’s not tell my husband any of that unless we can make it possible.” Jeassaho said with a small smile. She did not want him anymore disappointed than he currently was about the delays to the them changing their mindsets to Fenris Rangers. “Medical would be my priority to fix up. The stuff we stole from the Cosmos is not going to last much longer.”

"Well, we've got to get into the engineering section first..." Cami responded, pointing at the caved-in section of corridor ahead. "So far as we can tell from the schematics, there are only a couple of ways in, and this one is totally blocked off. We'd need a few dozen demo charges to get through some of that."

"A few dozen?" Burnie looked in his pack, looked at the blockage, looked back at his supplies. "Eh, probably better to save these for if we need them further on. Where are other ways in?"

“Pay up,” Jeassaho announced holding out her hand to Cami. They had made a bet that Burnie would bring something to blow up. Jeassaho had been betting it would be considered in less than an hour whilst Cami thought it would be over an hour.

Liha suppressed a snicker; no one who knew Burnie would ever bet against him being ready to use explosives the moment there was any excuse for it, or even any far fetched rationalization.

Snorting with an over-the-top eyeroll, Cami glanced back at Jea. "Not like I have it with me right now..." she grumbled, chastising herself for mentioning explosives in front of Burnie. "The other entry point is the long way around; there's a maintenance walkway running over the spine of the ship that seems to give access to the main areas of the ship." She shook her head. "Who even designs these things? So inefficient..."

Jeassaho looked at the woman smugly and winked back. "I won't forget." She assured her fellow Engineer before looking at the map. "Not designed for the crew. All designed for passengers and the people paying for the luxury of being everywhere and anywhere they want." Jeassaho reminded hauling her pack back onto her shoulder with a groan. "We always have to take the long way around. Everyone else got to go straight up or across."

"Always the way," Burnie said, starting to climb. "But after scooting up and down Jeffries tubes every day on Rosie, at least we're in shape for it."

As they finally arrived at the chamber outside of Engineering Jeassaho stopped mid offering her hand to help the next person out and looked at the closed isolation door. Isolation doors were only used in the main engineering, specifically to seal off the warp core and dangerous antimatter reactants in the event of a warp core breach or loss of antimatter containment. None of that was seen from the scan outside so why was the isolation door down.

Burnie looked at the doors. He wasn't surprised they were down though. "Whatever happened, it looks like someone had the time to 'batten the hatches' in case they lost containment when they crashed."

"Smart and brave," Jeassaho commented going to a console. She slammed her hand down on it and frowned. "Same as every other console locked out." It was the same on every console they had attempted to use. There should be a way around the lockout but nothing seemed to be working so far.

"Could try a systems shunt?" Cami suggested, poking at an unresponsive console. "I've always wanted to hot-wire a starship..." she glanced at Burnie, knowing that he would never in a million years let her try anything hazardous on Rosie.

"Since she can't be crashed twice, go for it." Burnie nodded approving, even as he reached into his pouch for an explosive cord. "If that doesn't work, I'll blow a way in."

Jeassaho just laughed and turned around stopping as a figure appeared behind them. It was a hologram who looked twice their age and gave an air of confidence that some people see with someone appearing to be aged. “None of you are crew?” The hologram demanded.

"Oh, whoops. Did someone turn on the holoprojectors down here?" Cami wondered. "Hey - maybe he can help us get these systems working again!"

The idea was good, but Liha figured any decent program down here should be designed to keep unwanteds out of engineering, so it was going to need to be convinced. "Check your systems, mister," she said. "This ship crashed and the crew seem to be gone. We're here for rescue and recovery, so how about opening these doors and letting us in?"

“I am fully aware the ship crashed I was operational whilst it crashed. I saw the chief engineer secure these doors.” The hologram said not looking at all sorry that he was unable to assist them.

"Secure them why? Because of the crash? Do you know what caused it??" Cami quizzed the new individual.

"Because of the crash. Warp cores are renowned to be unstable with a force like the one we were heading into." The Emergency hologram replied with a tut.

"Well, you are a spicy hologram," Jeassaho mumbled trying to work out if he was a standard model or specially designed for this ship and crew. Some people took great pride in creating something unique for their Engineering. It was not something that had appealed to her even as a Chief Engineer. She just wanted something that would work in an emergency when she lost crew or containment.

"It was good measure to take." Burnie nodded. He'd have done the same. However the hologram's response lead to another question. "But where is your chief engineer? Or any of the other crew for that matter?"

The hologram glitched for a moment before shaking his head. "Gone. One moment they were here and the next everyone was gone." The hologram explained. "I was tasked with repairing the damaged consoles behind the blast door and then I was repairing the coolant leak on deck 23 before I was deactivated due to lack of work."

"They are deactivated after about 12 hours with no orders," Jeassaho commented. It was a fail safe that was into some models which made perfect sense to her.

"You are the pretty and smart one I say here, girl." The hologram said rubbing his beard looking at Jeassaho.

"All very interesting," Liha cut in in a tone that said it might have use but was not actually of import. "Now how about opening these doors so we can get in and have look at the state of things. Otherwise we're going to have to let him," she jerked a thumb at Burnie, explosive wire still in hand, "go ahead and blast them open."

“And you are pretty sour missy. I am afraid I cannot as the console is fused.” The hologram said having the same limitations as they all did. Jeassaho turned to look at the console and frowned as she looked the console over.

“I would not say it is fused.” The Betazoid said pointedly. The console was smashed in. "It was smashed in by something heavy."

"The console shouldn't be the only reason why you can't access a door lockdown control. If you're plugged into the redundant systems then you should have remote access, right?" Cami wondered.

"I do not have remote access missy that was deactivated ." The hologram explained glitching once before disappearing completely. Jeassaho stood there shaking her head.

"Okay then," Burnie said, trying not to smile too broadly as he began applying the explosive wire around the doors. "Let's blow this open and get in there so we can see what's what."

"Are we sure about this?" Jeassaho asked. "No one else is finding this weird that the console is smashed whilst all the others are intact and the holograms keep glichting?" It was weird to her and she was wishing she had a weapon or something a bit better than a hypo spanner.

"It's more than weird," Liha said, checking her knives and the phaser up her sleeve - after the Ferengi and the last salvage mission there was no way she was going to be down here unarmed. "Something went seriously sideways here and we should all have our guard up." She looked pointedly at Burnie.

"Please..." Burnie looked back, then rolled his eyes as he patted a pocket with a type I phaser-shaped lump in it. After the last salvage disaster he wasn't taking any chances either. Setting a detonator, he looked at the rest of the group. "Best way to find out what's going on is to get into engineering, but Liha's right, if you have weapons, have them in hand when the door blows. If anyone who doesn't have a weapon, or a tool they like to use as one, I have a couple ...prototypes... laser cutters that'll do."

“Pass. And do not tell my husband I left a weapon behind.” Jeassaho said holding out her hand for it. She would never hear the end of it if he found out that she left the one thing behind he had reminded her on numerous occasions to take.

Burnie handed the amped up laser cutter to Jea and then motioned for everyone to stand back a bit. "Okay, open says me," he quipped as he activated the detonator.

Bam! After a flash of heat and light a scorched outline glowed briefly before the metal inside it fell inward, crashing to deck within. Phaser in hand, Burnie cautiously looked through the opening, stepping inside when nothing dangerous presented itself.

"Is it just me that wants to jump his warp core when he gets all pyro?" Cami whispered to Jeassaho as they initially hung back from the entrance.

"I am going to pretend for my sanity and to be able to look him and his girlfriend in the eyes ever again that you did not just say that," Jeassaho commented smirking.

Liha's brows had gone *all* the way up as for once she truly regretted her Romulan hearing. She shook her head, resolving like Jea to forget she had ever heard that - even it took several bottles of strong ale.

TAG ANYONE ELSE HEARING

Jeassaho followed Burnie and took in everything looking like it was functioning. “Not much damaged so why would they put the cover down?” she wondered noticing all the consoles were lit.

"Might be automatic when the ship collides with something, or in low power situation?" Cami suggested. She poked at a nearby panel, which did indeed seem to be operational. "Huh. Damage control system confirms what the hologram said: minimal structural damage. A lot of it easily fixed with the right tools. Although there do seem to be some odd readings from the computer core; someone with more expertise in that area than me needs to take a look."

Jeassaho moved over to look at the the readings and frowned. “Normal ship functions were stopped 48 hours ago give or take a few hours either way as this area of the computer core is corrupted.” Jeassaho glanced at the other two with a unsure expression as she ran a tricorder over the console to check that there was no error with the console.

"Hardware is all clean," Cami nodded. "Software isn't my bag. Let one of the computer geeks worry about it. Y'know, I think I saw mention that there's a spa program in the database..."

"I'm not an expert, but I'll take a hack at the software," Liha said. "it may take a bit of time. Software designed for leisure isn't something I've had much experience with."

Jeassaho offered a smile to Liha and out her thumbs up in a human gesture of you can do it. “I say we have a better look around if we have time on our hands?” Jeassaho said with a shrug looking around for any arguments.

"Yes," Burnie agreed, taking out a tricorder to scan the bay more thoroughly. "While Liha hacks the core, let's see what we can reset to manual control." Checking the tricorder readings, he looked around making mental notes. "Engineering is in decent shape. It would be a shame to leave perfectly good equipment on a ship with a broken back, so let's start making a list of salvage and pulling out what we can.”