Cold Restart

Posted on Thu Dec 10, 2015 @ 7:56am by Lieutenant JG Rhe'la Daughter of the Forty-ninth House

533 words; about a 3 minute read

Mission: Pangaea (Wrap up)
Location: Main Engineering
Timeline: MD 4 sometime after "Is There Anyone at Home"

"Computer, status of primary fusion reactor?"

+"Primary fusion reactor is at cold standby. All systems nominal."+

Rhe'la leaned under the railing overlooking the reactor (as she wasn't quite tall enough to look over it), her hands clasped to the railing over her head. It was most assuredly a dangerous endeavor, but she didn't join Starfleet to be safe. "OK! Everyone stand by! We're going to bring the reactor online. I need everyone ready to shut it down or jettison it if something goes wrong."

The fusion reactor operated in much the same way as the warp drive on a starship. In the event of catastrophic failure, it was possible to eject it through a shaft through the center of the station. Small RCS thrusters would carry it away, in theory allowing it to explode safely away from the station.

In theory. Since the system had never been used since the Celestial-class starbase was first commissioned. Earlier Stardock and Regula-class bases had no such systems, and as such a reactor breach was typically fatal to the station and a sizeable portion of its inhabitants. The Celestial was based in part on the Cardassian Nor-class, which was basically built around its massive reactor, and as such didn't have any sort of emergency system.

Regardless, Rhe'la didn't want to be the chief engineer who had to test the validity of that theory. The reactor could have been brought back online the day before, but she didn't want to risk it when she was going to be off the station the next morning. "Computer, initiate reactor start up sequence."

Her voice was calm. However, the little Zarnac was anything but. Once the order was out of her mouth, she felt every muscle in her body tense as the reactor began emitting a soft thrum.

Pushing off from the railing, she skittered over to a nearby console. Her gloved hands tapped the controls rapidly, bringing up internal sensor readings. "So far so good..." she whispered, sounding almost afraid to jinx it.

"Deuterium fusion reaction beginning... magnetic containment field stable... power flow rising..." Her voice took on an almost breathless quality as she spoke the words to nobody in particular.

A chirp from the console brought her attention away. "Slight variance in the containment field... Uriarte - adjust the phase inhibitors by .02."

Crewman Uriate wordlessly went to work at his own console; entering in commands which the computer would follow. "Point oh two, aye."

"Much better..." Rhe'la mused. "All right... I think we're in pretty decent shape. It'll be a few hours before it's back up to full power, but, we're well on the way back to full capacity. Good work, everyone."

The assembled engineers smiled and patted each other on the back for a job well done. They had all been overworked and feeling under appreciated over these last several days. The new chief hoped to rectify both of those now that the station was out of immediate danger.

Her forked tongue flicking in satisfaction, Rhe'la tapped her commbadge. "Engineering to Ops. The fusion reactor is coming back online. We'll have main power restored in a few hours."

Ens. Rhe'la, Daughter of the Forty-ninth House
Chief Engineering Officer

 

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