Boarding Party Time

Posted on Wed Sep 25th, 2019 @ 3:04am by Captain Kelly O'Connor & Lieutenant Commander Magnus Grey & Lieutenant Iona Vrell & Lieutenant Shri Thais & Lieutenant JG Brian Pendragon & Lieutenant JG Liliane Olivier

3,439 words; about a 17 minute read

Mission: Mission 7 - Aenerth for an Earth
Location: Shuttlecraft & Kaliya
Timeline: 2296/02/19 - 1015

Aboard the Shuttlecraft Maggie, Magnus sat in the copilot seat next to Liliane. They were on course to the Aenerthan ship Kaliya, which floated adrift ahead of them.

“Liliane,” he said, for the first time using her, or anyone’s, first name when on duty, “what’s our ETA?”

"Ooh...I like the way you say my name. You make it sound so...personal. You should say it again," she said, giving him a sideways glance along with a wink and a chuckle. Liliane turned back to her console and checked a few gauges and indicator lights. "As for the ETA-" her tone turned serious and back to the task at hand, "-our current approach vector will bring us in line with the Kaliya in approximately twelve minutes."

He nodded, smiling at her. “Keep your eyes open for a docking port or a landing bay.” He turned to face the rest of the boarding party in the shuttle’s passenger compartment. “When we get on board I want everyone to stay out of any area that’s badly affected by the radiation. If you absolutely need to go in for any reason, notify me first. And keep your eyes open. Something about how they responded to us...doesn’t sit right with me.”

Finding her spot at the science station on the shuttle, Shri configured everything to her liking best she could. She never was a fan of what the displays on the shuttles were, but she always made do.

Iona wandered in with her med kit and sat down as Magnus was speaking. "Oh, and I need to give you all some preemptive radiation protection, it's a drug called hyronalin and it's used to both protect from and treat radiation poisoning. I have it loaded into this hypospray. I've already dosed myself. It will help keep you from experiencing radiation poisoning. But, I will also have to monitor all of you once we return."

"And a second date with Sickbay too. Sounds romantic," Liliane piped up. "Mind you, I didn't have a first one yet." She slowed to half-impulse. "There's one docking port just ahead. Just the one that is the least damaged."

"If you're really lucky, you can have a third date too," Iona said cheekily as she reached up and dosed Liliane with the hyronalin. She then gave each of the rest of the team a dose and nodded when she was done.

Magnus couldn’t help but blush, though he wondered how Liliane had heard about his night with Iona. How widely had that spread through the crew? Did Shri know? She hadn’t said anything, but maybe she didn’t care. He wasn’t about to bring it up just now. “Move us into docking position. And when we get back, we’ll need to discuss this shuttle’s name.” He smiled before turning back toward the passengers in the cabin. “Pendragon, ready the airlock. We’ll be docking momentarily.”

Lil gave Magnus a grin when he mentioned the name. She shrugged and gave him a wink. "You can say I was inspired by it," she said as she laughed.

"Aye, sir," Brian acknowledged, first checking the readings on the nearby panel and then moving over to double check them manually. Everything checked out. "Airlock standing by."

Once docked, the door opened. A short, scruffy man welcomed them with a cough. "I am Captain Lon Aurel of Kaliya. Welcome aboard. Thank you for coming." He coughed again and braced himself against a wall. "Things are bad here, as you can see. Please, come in. Whatever help you can offer us...."

Iona went straight into Doctor mode. She scanned the man and frowned at the results, then retrieved a hypospray from her kit. She dialed in a dose and held it up. "Oh... I'm Doctor Vrell. This is something to help with the radiation poisoning, it's called hyronalin," she showed him the hypo's vial.

"Thank you," he replied with a cough. "You are generous. There are much worse than me inside. Take care of them first, please," he told her, speech labored.

Immediate needs resolved, Magnus stepped forward. “I’m Commander Magnus Grey, First Officer of the Federation Starship America. Our doctor will treat your crew, while our engineer here will help with your damaged engine. Can you tell us exactly what happened?”

"We suspect a leak in the matter-anti-matter chambers. Most of our parts are second hand, Commander. They must have been defective." He coughed again, some blood coming out of his mouth.

Brian winced. Recycling and saving costs was all very well, but there were some systems you really shouldn't risk that on, especially matter-antimatter systems. Even if you did opt for seconds, they should have had proper quality control checks, but by the time you've acquired the right kit to perform those on a variety of different parts with a multitude of materials, tolerances and requirements, you would have spent more on the testing kit than you would on new already-tested parts.

Shri looked around, allowing the others to talk while she did so. But when she heard the coughing, she looked over. "Iona, how is he doing?" She lingered around a bit, trying to get readings from everything. She was no engineer, but was still curious.

Magnus gave space for Iona to examine him more closely. “Let our doctor take a good look at you. Try not to speak. If you can point me to someone who will have received less exposure, please do. Also, how many of you are aboard?”

"Twenty," the Captain replied. "My wife, the kids and I probably had the least."

"There are children on board too?" Shri's voice was laced with worry. "We should get them taken care of as well, quickly. I wouldn't want to know what this would do to them if left untreated."

Wanting to roll her eyes at the typical 'save them first, I'll live' crap Captains tried to pull all the time, Iona stepped forward and gave the man a dose of the hyronalin. "Save your breath," she said softly. "It'll be alright, conserve your energy now." She smiled and scanned him. Frowning slightly at the results she gave the man a second dose and moved to stand next to Magnus.

"If he's taken the least," she whispered and gave a look to Magnus that said this wasn't good. "I don't think our medical bay is big enough for this entire crew, but we need to get them all there for treatment. This hyronalin is only going to do so much."

"Sir? If it's going to take more than one trip, do you want me to prioritise shielding from further exposure over problem diagnosis and emergency maintenance?" Brian asked. "I'd like to avoid a complete shutdown, if possible, mainly as restarting kit like this from cold is likely to put even more pressure on anything that already has a weakness than just running it as low stress as possible would."

“Agreed,” Magnus said to Brian. “Shields first. Let’s make sure no one else gets sick from this. Iona, identify the worst affected and get them to the shuttlecraft.” He decided against using the shuttle’s name. “We fill the shuttle, you and Liliane fly to Transporter range of the America, beam yourself and the patients over, and she comes back for more. As people get better, and once Brian finishes with the shields, they get brought back. Thoughts?”

"Where do you need me Ma..Commander? Shri stated looking over, catching herself before she said his first name. "I'm no engineer."

"Sending them back depends on if Pendragon can fix the radiation leak or not. Shields won't hold forever if the engines are failing and I refuse to send people back when the situation could repeat itself," Iona said firmly to Magnus. "And if you don't need Shri for anything specific, she could help me scan the patients....?"

Magnus nodded to the doctor. "Agreed. We'll only send them back once things are fixed. Shri, help Iona with the patients. Try to get them talking, if they're healthy enough for that. Don't push them too hard. I'll work with Mr. Pendragon to see if we can get the engines repaired quickly." He reached into his pocket to retrieve his communicator. With a flip, a channel opened. "Grey to Shuttlecraft Maggie. Liliane, prepare to receive incoming patients. Dr. Vrell will fill you in."

Liliane had been fiddling around with a few things while the others had gone aboard the other vessel. "Aye," she said, straightening herself from beneath the console. Was that a bit of annoyance she detected when he used the shuttle's name? She shook her head as she got to work.

"Mr. Pendragon, I'm following you," Magnus said to the engineer. "Put me to work."

"Aye sir," Brian acknowledged.

"Understood," Shri stated as she looked over at Iona. "Where do you want me?"

"Here," Iona said, digging in her med kit for a spare tricorder and another hypo. She put in the vial of hyronalin and dialed in the correct dose. "Take these," she said as she held them out for Shri. "And just follow along with me. Scan anyone we come across and give them a dose of hyronalin. The hypo is set to the correct dose. If they need more attention, call me over and I'll assess. Are you ok with that?"

Shri nodded and took the tricorder and hypo. "That much I can handle. Basic medical training for the win?" She shrugged and let Iona lead the way.

With a nod, Iona set off to find others in need of care. She led Shri past a door and bulkheads that were so old that it was hard to tell if they'd been damaged or if they were just in that bad of repair when picked up for reuse. Scanning for lifesigns and radiation levels, she stepped into a room and found several people in various stages of illness. "Hi! I'm Doctor Vrell, and this is my lovely assistant for the day, Lieutenant Thrais. We're here to help! In these hyposprays we have a drug called hyronalin. It will help with your radiation poisoning," she said as she held up her hypo and wiggled it for the ill people to see. "Alright, sit tight and we'll get you patched up enough for transport back to our ship for treatment!"

Unable to contain a chuckle at the 'assistant for the day' comment, Shri kept up with Iona, running her scans and administering her doses of hyronalin.

Brian, pulled out his tricorder. First things first - which was the best shielded compartment for people to wait in and what could he do to keep it as well protected as possible for as long as they needed it.

"Sir? If you can start by pulling the schematics of the ship. I'm interested in the structure between the engine compartment and the bow section - how thick the bulkheads are, how many layers the radiation needs to get through to which compartments. Particles like moving in straight lines, so the more things they have to pass through, the better. While you're doing that, I'm going to get some preliminary readings - see what levels we have currently and ascertain where the hot spots are. That'll tell us the type of radioation we're dealing with and give us a baseline to see how its progressing over time."

“On it,” Magnus said. He found a console on the wall, which hadn’t been encrypted. He had had enough time aboard America to study the Aenerthan language and while he was far from fluent, he could navigate their computer with ease. “Schematics are up. The bulkheads around the engineering compartment are a duranium composite and twenty-five centimetres thick. There appear to be some emergency panels that should have lowered themselves around the warp core when the radiation leak began, but they never engaged.” He kept scanning the schematics. “It looks like the living quarters are a few compartments away. I count eight additional bulkheads, each ten centimetres thick, between the engineering bulkhead and the first cabin.”

Brian looked over Magnus' shoulder. "If we gather anyone waiting in here..." he pointed to the room that had the most shielding in the way, "... or here, that should minimise the risk while they're waiting for their lift. I could do with a closer look at those emergency panels. Can you get readings on the radiation levels from this panel? If not, I may just have to see how close I can get before my tricorder yells."

Hearing them talk as she moved out of the first room of people, Iona looked over. "You best listen to your tricorder when it yells about radiation," she said with a playfully warning tone. "Because I'm not above smacking someone for doing something stupid that gets them hurt or ill..."

Magnus looked closely at the console. The default didn’t show the radiation levels, but it didn’t take much effort to reconfigure the display. “We’re looking at four thousand five hundred milliSieverts inside the engine compartment. It decreases pretty quickly with each bulkhead. Oh, I think I found the source of the leak. Take a look.”

Liliane flipped open her communicator. "Alright, ladies," she said, "We're ready to start loading the injured crew whenever you are. It's going to get a little cramped but we can manage."

"Great, we'll start with this room," Iona said as she opened the door of the room she and Shri had first entered, waving Shri over. "We have seven for you, to begin with," she said into her communicator. Then she moved into the room and helped one of the more injured patients to his feet. As she stood, the man lost his balance and knocked Iona into one of the rusting and bent bulkheads. It was bent in such a way that her head found an angled part, getting a smear of rust across her forehead along with a goose egg just above her right eyebrow. Once she'd helped him to where someone else could assist him onto the shuttle, and she thought she was out of earshot of the others, Vrell muttered a few obscenities under her breath as she rubbed the goose egg.

Being to late to help Iona with her stumble with the patient, Shri came over and checked on the goose egg that appeared. "Want me to help with that? Can't have you hurt on top of everyone else."

"No, no, I'm fine. It was just a little bump," Iona smiled and patted Shri on the shoulder. "But thank you for your concern!"

Nodding, Shri looked back over at who they still had there. "Are we going to be able to handle all of this here?"

"Only the basics, more intense therapies will have to be done in sickbay," Vrell said, sounding much more serious than she normally did. "We can get them stable enough to move to America here, but it won't hold for too long. Maybe half an hour tops, before some of the more seriously ill patients need more than this," she wagged the hypospray to indicate the drug they'd been administering.

"So far at least it looks like we won't overload sickbay. But we need to make sure that the America crew is still good too."

"Definitely," Iona nodded. "This crew is quite small, so we don't have to worry about overloading sickbay. Even with our own crew members added in. However, this might not be an easy task either way. These people have been exposed to a lot of radiation."

Shri nodded, "So they may be in our sickbay for quite some time until this ship can be cleared of the radiation."

"Possibly, but I'm sure we can get them on their way before too long," Iona shrugged. "But, they'll be there as long as they need to be."

"Well then, I suppose we can get back to work for now." Shri smiled.

With a smile and a nod, Iona did just that. It was a seemingly endless cycle of administering the drug and sending patients to the shuttle, despite there not being many on the ship. But every time she thought they were done, they would find one or two more to treat. Eventually, though, the end of patients would come.

Brian clambered into his rad suit and towed his equipment box behind him as he followed the schematics on his display as he headed toward the warp core, aiming to keep as many bulkheads between himself and the core as he could until he was too close to avoid it. The tricorder was only bleeping periodically at the moment, the crew's side-effects having had more to do with long term exposure than the dose itself. As he neared the final corner, he paused to unpack the box - pulling out a drone with a long lead he attached to his tricorder, a wired connection meaning a lower risk of noise from the radiation than remote. As he drove it into the engineering compartment, he aimed the sensor, recording both visuals and radiation levels, at the warp core itself, looking for the origin of the leak. It was around the far side, which the drone could only just see but not reach. Scanning that part of the room, Brian frowned - there was debris on the floor beneath the fracture, but it wasn't something he recognised immediately. He'd have to collect it to analyse later, but he'd have to team it up with whatever he had to do to release the emergency panels if he wanted to minimise his own exposure.

Pulling the drone back, he directed it to the panel release controls. There was debris there too and one of the lower panels was busted open - he could see some of the damaged parts and selected what he hoped were a reasonable match from the kit he'd brought, along with enough tape and foam dispenser to - quite frankly - bodge it. He grabbed a couple of storage boxes and tipped out the contents to put the debris in. They weren't as well shielded as he'd like, but he could nest them inside the suit once he'd taken it off, at least until the shuttle could bring a proper container over.

Well, no point delaying it further, was there... He took a deep breath and carried out the plan; applying emergency sealant to the core, collecting the two sets of debris and doing what he could for the panel controls. It took slightly longer than he would have liked and the tricorder was definitely getting more insistant by the time the emergency panels finally did as they were told and slid into position.

Brian gathered his belongings and evidence and parked them at a retrievable distance away from the crew, so as not to bring unnecessary contamination with him, carried out his decontamination protocols, then headed back to rejoin the others.

Magnus saw Brian come out and helped him with his decontaminated equipment. "I take it everything is secure? No risk of a warp core breach, and the danger to the crew has passed?"

"There is a temporary fix on the breach, but the shutters are down. I can start a controlled partial shutdown from here and then complete securing it once the radiation levels have fallen enough for me to be in there for longer. It's got a pretty short half-life so I'd expect to see the levels at this end of the ship improving within the next few hours and down to a safe level for the crew to return within about eight, depending on how the final fix goes."

"How long before the ship can fly again?" Magnus asked. "If it can fly again?"

Brian thought for a moment, "With the temporary fix I've put in at the moment they can use impulse, but warp would risk blowing the seal again. Once it's completely secured, they'll be fine to use warp drive providing they only accelerate gradually, rather than going straight up to top speed. Slowly gently would be shrewd too, but not quite as critical. I'd recommend leaving the shutters down until they can get to a proper repair facility unless its absolutely necessary, though."

“Agreed,” Magnus said with a nod. “Let’s go to their bridge, and see if we can stabilize the ship’s course, and bring it alongside America.”

 

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