All the Power!

Posted on Sat Oct 29, 2022 @ 5:29pm by Captain Toron Pax & Lieutenant Commander Elli-Navine
Edited on on Sat Oct 29, 2022 @ 5:30pm

Mission: NW 1: Dry-Docked, The Lighthouse
Location: Potemkin
Timeline: During the Battle of SB 364

She had started her day with a fresh coffee from the messhall, freshly ground beans was a smell she would forever be grateful for first thing in the morning. Hot, black and sugarless Jax had strolled into main engineering already knowing the day would only get worse. For today was the day that the last two years had been about. All those missions, the people they had met, the technology they had found; all those light years had all led here. In just hours they would engage in a battle of the like she hadn't seen since the invasion! Already two dozen ships had gathered around Starbase 364 like chicks around the Hen. It was shaping up to be one hell of a battle, through some barely understood sensor technique the Protectorate used they knew that hundreds of Tenzim ships were on their way; many of them would be small nimble fighters but there were some truly massive behemoths!

"Excuse me, did you get any extra sugar?" The Chief Engineer was sat at the next table with her chair back to back with the Warrant Officer. Seeing Jax staring off into space, she cleared her throat and repeated herself. "Ms. Greenhorn, can you pass me the sugar? I forgot to tell the replicator sweet. I said dark, but I forgot sweet."

Jax shook her head slightly, her long red hair jostling a little. She had been miles away, deep in thought, well not really she had no idea what had been going through her head but the voice of her boss cut through the noise!

"Nope" she said half turning, "Don't take sugar, spoils the taste".

"No sugar? None? Mahhh!" Elli drank her coffee the way it was and winced. "I'm not even sure I can taste anything anymore."

"Thats how you know its working" she said with a chuckle. Greenhorn swapped chairs so she was sat next to the small Chief. She liked Elli-Navine. Always with an infectious smile, and Jax thought that Elli really meant it. Not like a front she was putting on but rather a genuine happiness.

"I thought i would check in on the power control bunch during the engagement?" she expressed it as a question or request than a statement. "Ya know, just to make sure nothing goes wrong there." She did have a crush on an officer who worked there and wanted an excuse to visit. Regardless of her rank Jax was considered a ranking officer in engineering, and should generally be in the engine room... but she could help!

Elli thought about it for a moment. During ship engagements, power management was always one of the most demanding matters apart from damage control and structural integrity. "That's smart." Elli agreed. "It feels like I'm always being yelled at to deliver more power than we can feasibly generate at once. Modulating it back and forth between demands tends to be our best party trick. I'm sure they would welcome an extra hand."

Jax grinned, "Never enough power for the bridge crews shenanigans!" She considered something for a moment, her face doing the cute nose scrunching thing that happens when she's deep in thought! "We could maybe bring one of the back up reactors up to 10% above normal, use it to keep the batteries topped up?!"

"That's a very good idea. We should prestart the back up reactors anyway, saves us the re-power cycle difference if we need them, since we know we're going in hot anyway." It was one thing to talk about preparations, but Elli was doing her best not to think about the very real possibility of failure and the truth besides- they were not going to go through this fiery test with out paying some very high costs. "I'll put it on the schedule. Good thinking." She affirmed. Then she made a 'blehk' face with her tongue sticking out at her coffee. "I think I'm going to just return it and get a my usual hot cider. It's best to stick with what you love, you know?" Elli slid back out of her seat headed for the replicators again.

===Hours later===

Jax Greenhorn watched with abject horror as the bulkhead and a strip of the inner and outer hulls were ripped away before her eyes. As the hole was torn, like tearing a strip of paper, several nearby crew members were pulled through the breach into the startling bright void beyond. All happening in seconds she saw a flash of crimson light followed by the vaguely gray blur of what she could only assume to be a ship. Before she knew it there was a tug at her slim frame and her hair rushed to join the soon to be dead, even as she reached out to grip the console a flash of electric blue signaled the deployment of an containment field. The air was thin but with the noise of rapid decompression now subsided the vents could be heard in their effort to repressurise the power control room.

She released the breath she had been holding, it fogged out before her. It had turned cold. Looking around she noticed most of the surfaces had a thin sheen of melted frost, the colossal power converters and energy storage banks rapidly warming the room again now the breach was sealed. The only problem, they were still in danger if that field failed they would all be sucked to their deaths; like the five who hadn’t been lucky enough to be further into the room.

=^= Navine to Power Control! Is there anyone in Power Control! Report! =^=

Jax had just done a count, her shoulders sagged. It took a few moments for the urgent voice of Elli to cut through the sudden and almost overwhelming sadness. Slowly reaching up to her commbadge she lighting pressed it. "Jax here." she said, she was at a loose for words; what else could she say?! She didn't have the words to articulate the reality of the situation. That she had just lost 5 of her friends... four of her friends and her best friend. The person she had been crushing on for over a year now. The person she had loved for almost that long!

=^= Jax— =^= The ship shuddered as it took an impact to the shields and there was a loud whine as inertial dampeners was struggling to keep up with the wild maneuvers Danielson was pulling off at helm. Through the new window in the hull Jax was treated to a view of multiple small fighter craft lighting up the shields like a bug zapper. =^= Shield strength needs bolstered, can you take it from the phaser recharge cycle? It'll slow down our next shot, but they seem to have picked a different tactic upstairs anyway. =^=

It felt like Jax was in deep water, everything seemed to have slowed down, her mind was racing but nothing useful was coming from it. Anderson brushed past her, the contact electric to her wrecked system; but it was enough for Elli's words to sink in. "I can pull from primary charge buffer, it should lessen the effect overall" She moved over to one of the remaining consoles and quickly transferred the power from the primary phaser reserves into the shield buffer. "The power is there" she called as another blow shook the ship "It will cycle into the emitters during the next..." she rolled her eyes knowing she couldn't think of another term to use... "during the next cycle!"

"Perfect. I see the transfer coming up now. Tactical can re-distribute that where ever Helm points us next... Meantime, I need you to get the back up generators to full so we can reload the phaser banks when they finish ramming things and want to laser something again..."

Pulling herself together, she could mourn later; she would mourn later. "Aye" she said with renewed vigour and rushed to another console, it stood right in front of the blue outlined breach, the ragged hole would take some real work to repair. "I'm bringing reactors 4, 5 and 6 out of ready standby and coaxing them to full potential. There is damage to the EPS grid though, we're going to see a little drop off between generation and our systems as a result.

"We can reroute around the grid breaks."

"I'm not so sure we can." she brought up the EPS grid "We are already running on back ups in several sections. We might stress the system if we try and redirect." So much of the ship was flashing red at Jax, so much damage it was a testament to the rugged design of the Potemkin that they were even still flying, let alone still in the fight!

"Give it everything we have and I'll handle the flow regulation. We can't afford to hold back now." All major ships systems were drawing down heavily on power- Shields, Weapons, Engines, Structural Integrity Fields. "Let the damage control teams worry about the grid failures. We'll just keep them occupied picking up the slack as we reroute again."

Jax nodded, her fingers flew across the console as she pulled power from where ever she could. She was robbing Paul to pay Peter and that would come to bite her in the near future. The Massive capacitors behind her were already starting to hum and heat the room. She was pull power and flowing it through them so she could reach other system, their grid being as damaged as it was there was no easy route; but she couldn't cool the batteries quickly enough to stop damage. It was likely that they would blow out an EPS route before long, but that was for future Jax to deal with.