Birthday Breakdown MISSION START

Posted on Fri Apr 8th, 2022 @ 4:38pm by Jeassaho Kea (*) & Chief Engineer Michael Burnstein & Laurier Cami & Liha t'Ehhelih

Mission: Mission 15: Adrift
Location: Rosie - Engineering
Timeline: MD-01 21:00
1663 words - 3.3 OF Standard Post Measure

It was a normal Tuesday evening in Engineering. The lights were low, the sounds were normal. Anyone would have been forgiven for assuming anything was amiss. Aside from the small group of engineers huddled in one corner of the room.

"Okay, so that's streamers, lights, sound effects..." Cami whispered. "Jea should be here any second. We'll wait until she gets all of the way into the room and then we'll all jump out and surprise her. Okay?"

"You're sure about this?" Liha asked skeptically, and not for the first time. Surprise parties were not a thing in the RSE, and for very good reason - having people jump out at you was reason to draw a weapon, not expect a celebration.

Burnie swallowed a sigh. He wasn't necessarily sure Jeassaho was going to enjoy this, but she would at least know what was happening. Hopefully. Were surprise parties a thing on Betazed? Could you even really arrange one on a planet of telepaths? Either way, he figured she'd run into the concept before and would understand and appreciate the good intentions. "It'll be okay. No blood shed, I promise."

"Fine." Liha scowled at him and at each of the people in the group for good measure. "But if anyone ever tries doing this to me, I do NOT guarantee no blood will be shed."

"That's the...uh...spirit?" Cami shrugged. "Shh! She's coming!"

Jeassaho walked down into the engineering workshop confused and annoyed at being pulled from her bed at 21:00, especially to an engineering work shop but Cami had declared that she had something to show her and it just could not wait at all. "Hello?" She called hearing a noise inside but she had not been able to find Cami yet in the complex tunnels of the back end of Engineering.

As Jea approached, Cami hit the button and set off the pre-prepared streamers and flashing lights, jumping up with Burnie and a reluctant Liha.

"Surprise!! Happy Birthday!" she cried, tossing some shiny confetti-type material she'd replicated into the air in front of them.

Jeassaho had just been about to start dropping swear words and curses at the obvious prank call on her when the lights turned on without her asking and a yell went up. She jumped and looked around before bursting into laughter. “Whoa.” She finally said went her hands went up in defence at the sudden shock she was experiencing from the light, noise and the confetti in the air. She stepped further in sweeping her long hair backing noting it was covered in glitter that was forever going to show up on the ship now. “Well… I did not expect this from you guys.” She had been expecting a quiet birthday with them in the middle of a job in the middle of nowhere.

"It was my idea! Oh! Cake!" Cami lifted a golden-frosted cake on a platter, with several candles burning on top. "Quick, I had to turn off the fire suppression system in here so you'll have to blow them out already."

"I would not doubt that it was your idea. Liha would never dare and there would be more confetti and bangs if it was Burnie. There would be really issues from the fire suppression system." Jeassaho laughed at the look on everyone's faces from ecstatic over able to surprise her to something more akin to horror at the turn of events. "Well would hate for the fire alert system to get upset over that." She bent over where the cake was lifted up and blew the candles out with a flourish.

"If it was up to me, it would have been in the weapons lab where we could do real bangs, but someone," he glanced at Cami, "thought if I comm'ed you to go there you'd show up with a full emergency team," Burnie joked as he cut the cake into slices.

“It’s the thought that counts,” Jeassaho said brightly. She knew they were all sad for her that Gregnol was not onboard for her birthday. The woman would never admit it aloud but Jeassaho was relieved as he always tried to one up the previous year's birthday and then got stressed about keeping it a surprise. It was better all around that he was dealing with a Fenris Ranger request and getting some time on his own to do what he did best other than brood.

"If thought was what counted, there would have been more of it put into avoiding glitter," Liha muttered, brushing it off of her jacket.

Burnie shook his head, sure that idiom had not quite translated for Liha. "What she meant was -"

**WHUMP!**

The ship bucked! Alert klaxons sounded as systems all around engineering flashed warnings!

Even as Burnie ran toward it, the matter/anti-matter control panel exploded in a shower of sparks! "Someone get to manual! We have to shut it down!" he yelled, patting out sparks on his sleeve and then pulling the shirt off to beat at flames in the console itself. "And get fire suppression back on!"

"Cam you go get the fire suppression," Jeassaho said seeing the woman had turned it off she could turn it back on. "Liha with me," Jeassaho ordered knowing that if she got there and needed some strength she was going to need the woman. She knew her weaknesses and what her strengths were and bruth force sometimes failed her. Why she had married Reuben. The Betazoid ran out of the workshop and propelled herself down the corridor to get to the manual controls to shut it down.

"It's working! Cami called, tapping at the console and ducking as something sparked above her head. "At least, I think it's working." A panic ran through her head as she wondered if her having turned off the suppression system temporarily had contributed to the issue, but it was unlikely; the system was locally isolated, so it couldn't be that. So what had happened, then? The panel in front of her flickered momentarily then died completely. "I'm losing power here. Double check containment!"

"On it!" Burnie yelled, leaping back as the fire suppression came on. "Frak! Containment is going critical. Liha-"

"I got it!" Liha yelled back, reaching past Jeassaho even as she pointed to the lever and pulled it back hard. With a harsh grinding noise, the manual over ride kicked in, shutting down the matter/anti-matter reactor. the lights flickered, power disappearing momentarily with the power source until back-up generators kicked in.

"There." Jeassaho pointed to the manual lever. The Betazoid yelled as she could hear the sparks through the communication system as she activated it in the room. "Everyone okay?" She called calmly.

"Fine," Burnie called back, tossing his ruined shirt and brushing ash out of his hair. "Just lightly singed. that didn't feel like a weapons hit, so it had to be something else. Cami, get a damage report. Jea, pull sensors from right before this all went sideways. Liha, come over here and help me with the reactor." He frowned at the assembly. "I think we may have to rebuild it."

"Good luck rebuilding anything without main power," Cami grumbled. "I can barely get anything out of these systems. Half the automation assembly is shot; it's not even a software issue, looks like an EPS rupture fried some of the junctures." She pushed a tangle of hair out of her face. "Navigation, warp drive, long range sensors...we're going to have trouble keeping the remote connections alive. Might have to tell the bridge we'll be steering from down here for a while."

Jeassaho sighed coming back into the room to hear that the main power was down. "Definitely, time to tell the bridge though I am sure the consoles are lit up and whoever is there is already pacing waiting for us to tell them." She knew she would be if she was the officer in charge of the bridge onboard a Starfleet vessel.

"Tell them we'll be dead in space for awhile," Liha said blowing out a frustrated breath. "The anti-matter injectors are fried." She gave Burnie a meaningful look. "We can't restart the power plant."

Great... Burnie gave a sharp nod in acknowledgment and tapped his commbadge. "Engineering to Bridge, we've got bad news."

"Don't I know it," Jake's voice came back over the comm. The line was fuzzy, instead of the usual clear sound. "Someone tell me who broke Gregnol's ship while he's away..."

“Not me! Not me!” Jeassaho shouted from the background as she tried to figure out the best route in fixing the situation even as the lights flickered.

"Based on the effect on our anti-matter containment, my bet would be quantum filament," Burnie replied sourly, as he helped Liha pull damaged anti-matter injectors. "But we'll figure that out later. Right now, we need to get back-up power online and sensors up. I can only give them to you for 30 minutes without over-taxing essential systems, so as soon as they come up I need you to scan for verterium so we can patch the anti-matter injectors."

"On it, chief!" Cami replied, scrambling to a console that looked like it might work.

"30 minutes." Jeassaho looked at her chronometer and set the timer on it knowing other people on the bridge would be doing the same. She waited for the backups to come back on and said. "Mark."

"Sensors coming up. Barely. Resolution is terrible. Prophets, it's bad enough half this tech is older than most of us..." Cami grumbled, hurriedly working away. "Verterium...come on, you stupid...wait, faint reading." She tapped the panel impatiently. "I can't isolate it exactly, but it's definitely on one of those moons of the third planet. I know, it has like, six of them. Best we can do at this distance and with this level of power."

30 minutes was nothing in the grand scheme of things but it was all they had.