The Gorn Equation

Posted on Sunday September 20th, 2020 @ 11:49am by Lieutenant Commander Paul Sharpe & Lieutenant Lazarus Kord

1,696 words; about a 8 minute read

Mission: S1-A1-Ep. 1: Spectrophobia
Location: USS Poseidon; Main Engineering, Deck 4
Timeline: Docked at Starbase 47

[ON]

During their downtime, Lazarus Kord had been frequenting the ships main engineering to assist with repairs. His background at shipyard maintenance and repair had gained him some reputation with the dockworkers on Starbase 47, though the sensitive and classified parts had been thankfully left out. They had invited the Engineering Officer - one of a very few - to continue his work or help out as he saw fit. Yesterday he had spent his entire day helping the dock team refit some sensitive power conduits, and now today he was assisting with repairs to the warp core.

His natural strength made him invaluable to the team; lifting heavy metal pieces, applying enough force to align parts, being able to break down a broken part with ease. The dockworkers mostly just directed him and assisted where they could, but Lazarus wasn't bothered in the slightest, simply happy to meet a group of folks that wanted to be around him. It was refreshing.

With a grunt, Lazarus pushed the final piece of the core into place and a dock tech was quick to take his place, using a tool to secure them together. Lazarus rubbed his hands off from whatever grime was there, turning to nod at the foreman.

"I suppose I'm going to work on some of my own projects since that's done," Lazarus said in his naturally gruff tone.

"Not a problem, Lazzy. Thanks for the assist!"

Lazarus gave a wave, heading off to his normal station some paces away. They had begun nicknaming him "Lazzy", which at first irritated the Gorn but eventually would start not to mind it. He realized these Terrans - Humans, he corrected himself - were far more friendly than the ones he was used to. So long as they didn't degrade him with pet talk he'd be fine with whatever they said.

Clacking his claws on the display, Lazarus began working on the ship's systems again in engineering. He had been toying with routing the power systems more effectively and wanted to get started back on that project.

After his tour from his Assistant Sharpe was looking around and saw a Gorn working 'a Gorn on a Starfleet ship' he thought to himself incredulously but it was different times and there had been no wars for some time and he had no issue with the Gorn, he had just never met one in a Starfleet uniform before so he shrugged and as he approached the Gorn, he was within the engineers hearing range and he did not want to startle a Gorn. "Hello, Lieutenant?..." He asked pausing mid-sentence.

At first, Lazarus didn't respond. He had believed whoever had spoken was speaking to someone else. He then remembered he was practically alone. Startled by this revelation, he turned his head quickly to look at Sharpe, noticing the rank pips and his face. The Gorn had briefed himself on, at the very least, the appearance of his new CEO.

"Lieutenant Commander Sharpe," the Gorn greeted, giving a gentle nod as he turned to face Paul. "I had believed you were on station, I apologize. I'm simply catching up on repairing the power systems since our minor overhaul."

Looking up at the tall Gorn, he held his hand out "not a problem lieutenant, pleased to meet you" he said with a smile he exaggerated it a little as he was never sure how much of a human smile would look to a Gorn, anything I can assist with Lieutenant?" he ended with a question

Lazarus carefully took the outstretched hand and shook, familiar with the custom. He was also familiar with the human smile. He tried to mimic it, however, this came out more predatory than friendly. At the end he turned back to his station, gesturing.

"I've got it almost finished up, you can review it if you like, sir," Lazarus offered. "I've rerouted most of the power from old, unstable lines to the newer ones they've installed. I think they'll last during a fight. Better than the old ones before. I'm surprised we didn't end up dead in space once we fired weapons during that nebula skirmish."

"Let me take a look at the firing control circuitry in that thing," he said and removed a small panel and looked inside, "interesting," he said and looked at Kord "has anyone thought to replace the actual board itself? Even a sturdy board like this one needs to be replaced after a time" he added indicating the new power lines connected into a well used main circuit board "if you come with me a moment I want to show you something," he said "nice imitation of a human smile you did there Lieutenant, knowing this I still felt like prey," he said with a smile as he walked to the nearest console.

Lazarus chuckled and followed, speaking as he went.

"You noticed that? Few humans take a liking to it. I appreciate your sincerity." After a moment, then, "the board? No, I never thought of that. I always ran along with the assumption it had been replaced. I suppose that's my fault."

"Never assume something in engineering has been replaced Lieutenant, especially on a ship as old as this one and not one that has been in battle, I will be making a few changes to how engineering is run, as for what I wanted to show you" he paused as he pulled up a display of some type of diagram "this is archaic way, but it is efficient, this wireframe diagram represents that board, you see the grey circuit lines, those were lines that still work, but are on their last legs, they are prey that has lost its tenderness if you will," he said using a hunter/prey metaphor, these circles in blue that run along said grey lines those are the new chips installed, then you have these broken circuits that are red and the flashing blue circles indicating new chips, well that shows that the chances of a stable connection are twenty per cent chance and eighty per cent chance they will blow. Then you have these flashing green lines, these are ones that have some micro damage to them" he paused.

"So what we need to do is to switch all functions that section serves to another unuse compatible section and replace that board with a new one and then put in those chips again and return the functions from the compatible section back to this one slowly so as the newly installed board can sync up with the rest of the ship. Have someone help you with this, you will need someone to watch this diagram to warn you if a section starts to reject a connection, this diagram will automatically reset to its green colour when the section is deactivated, I guess you will have two hours before the compatible section overloads, so I want you to do the hands-on stuff and have someone monitor this console, remember in this instance red is bad. He paused "does this system have a back up to it? Because if it does then the job is a lot simpler" Sharpe asked.

Lazarus listened intently to his superior officer's instructions. He followed the metaphor well and watched as Paul instructed him on the meanings of the diagram and the colour definitions. After he had finished, Lazarus felt at least moderately confidant that he could follow the instructions well. After Paul asked his question, he nodded in affirmation as he pointed to a bulkhead a few blocks down.

"Yes sir, right there," the Gorn replied, pointing briefly. "There are two main backup subsystems there. From what I understand all of the primary power conduits go through or at the very least near it."

After a moment he added, "Who in engineering is still here for me to have to help me, sir? I don't feel comfortable having those dock jockeys do this, they're not that familiar I don't think."

"Use whoever you want Lieutenant, I want this engine room purring like a six-week-old contented kitten, but for now switch the entire ship to battery power and shut the warp core down, I want to have me a proper look at it," Sharpe said.

"Aye, sir," replied the Gorn.

Technically, he wasn't Starfleet certified on warp core engineering. His prior experience under enslavement had taught him otherwise. He went over to a centre console, keying in the required commands to start the shutdown sequence. Once initiated the warp core's usual thrumm began to die down, slowly, over the next few minutes as Lazarus carefully watched the readout. Satisfied with what he saw, he went to another console near to the horizontal core. He observed for a minute some readouts then turned to Paul.

"The core is shutting down nominally, sir," the Gorn reported. "The anti-matter/matter process is being subverted normally and the dilithium tanks are starting to close the feed. Won't be but another twenty minutes till she's offline, but I don't recommend opening it for another two hours. This model core has been upgraded, but that could have been well over fifty years ago. She's strong though, sir." He turned back to the console, eyes scanning the readouts. Normally he'd be going to follow his orders, but his duty wasn't done until the core fully shut down.

"Of that, doubt I have none Lieutenant, but when all is done send me the report on the updates please," Sharpe said as he looked at what the Lieutenant was doing he suddenly realized that he had his work cut out for him.

"Aye, sir," Lazarus replied. "I think I can finish things here if you have to be somewhere, sir."

Thank you, Lieutenant, I have to check some computer systems after the beating this old Girl has taken I want to be sure the computers are up to spec, I will leave you to it" Sharpe said with a nod and left to let Kord get on with his task.

[OFF]

Lt Cmdr Paul Sharpe
Chief Engineering Officer

&

Lt Lazarus Kord [P: Johnson]
Engineering Officer

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