Risa bound

Posted on Wednesday February 8th, 2023 @ 7:12pm by Captain Franklin Johnson & Lieutenant Commander Paul Sharpe & Lieutenant Miles O'Connell

1,843 words; about a 9 minute read

Mission: Shore Leave
Location: Various
Timeline: Current

[ON]

The ship had finally arrived at Risa and while the crew were preparing for shore leave the level 5 diagnostic had finished its run, Sharpe read the report from both holodecks HD1 was running at a loss compared to what HD2 was.

"Interesting," Sharpe said to himself as he put these findings in his engineering report he wanted to go down to Risa, but he had to deal with this or he could never relax so he gathered his engineering tools and a hover trolley and some replacement parts and headed down to holodeck one, he was going to yank the gel packs installed and return the system to its original isolinear configuration, adding such tech to an old system was a good idea, but it ultimately proved fruitless.

He entered the turbolift and when the doors closed "holodeck one" he said and the lift whisked him to his requested destination, a short ride later he arrived and exited the lift and walked down the corridor and stopped outside HD1 and pulled off the front panel on the floor, he was glad the gel packs were just the other side of the cover panel so he disconnected their housing and the packs themselves and pulled the unit with the packs in "sorry old girl, but this will be better for you" he said to the ship and placed the heavy unit onto the hover trolley and then set about returning HD1 to its original configuration.

Then he remembered HD2 may have been changed to isolinear operations only, but the gel pack unit was still in the maintenance space, just isolated, he had been unable to carry it last time, and now he had a trolley so he was glad he had brought extra parts. returning his attention to his work he made the final connection and allowed power to run through the newly replaced sector and the hum sounded healthier, satisfied he replaced the casing and put his used tools on the trolley and headed to holodeck two.

Arriving at holodeck two Sharpe pulled the front panel off to get to the deactivated gel packs, he temporarily bypassed the surrounding circuits and disconnected the gel packs and their housing unit and with some difficulty, he managed to get the second one onto the hover trolley, he took off a new standard panel to replace the gel packs and their housing unit, then her slotted the panel in and reconnected the ODN lines and new isolinear chips up to the rest of the system and replaced the out cover on the holodeck, he was hoping by now the level 5 diagnostic would be done, the preliminary he done was only to see the performance of a gel pack operated holodeck and one that was not.

With this task done, he pushed the hover sledge forward and to the nearest lift, he pushed the sledge in and got in too and when the doors closed "engineering" he said and he took a short ride to main engineering, when the lift opened onto the level he pushed the sledge into main engineering "MILES!" he shouted, he knew his Deputy would be here as the checks had been done.

"Sir, You bellowed?" Miles stated as he come from behind the warp core as he was finalizing the buffer routine for the ship to operate under while it was to be in orbit of Risa for shore leave.

Looking at his second Sharpe simply raised an eyebrow at the man's sarcasm and ignored it "I need you to assign a team to give these gel packs a proper inspection, the one on the left is the one from holodeck one, where we had that misadventure and got looked in the one on the right is from holodeck two, I have returned the holodeck to their original upgraded version of being operated by Isolinear chips, I will check the diagnostics then I will give my report to the Captain" he said

"Sir, I will be happy to get that taken care of for you before shore leave. I hope that we can get rid of gel packs someday as they are a pain in an engineering arse if you ask me." O'Connell stated in reply to his boss.

"Excellent, off you go," Sharpe said with a small smile and entered his office and called up the diagnostics on both holodecks, which had just been completed, the test took a little longer as it was auto-paused when he disconnected the gel packs and their housings, now it had just finished and the results were better than good, this made him happy as he had good news to report to the Captain for a change.

Putting his report onto a Padd he locked his computer and left the office he looked over at O'Connell "Miles I am going to see the Captain hold down the fort will you?" He asked.

"Sir, I don't have a hand big enough to hold a fort down," Miles stated with a smirk as he could not resist the whimsy. "But I will keep engineering under control for you."

Sharpe massaged the bridge of his nose "dammit Miles, just keep an eye on engineering" Sharpe said he could not wait to get to Risa, so with that, he left engineering and headed to the nearest turbo lift, when he entered and the doors had closed "Bridge" he said and the lift whisked him up to the bridge,

==== BRIDGE/CRR ====

As the doors opened onto the bridge Sharpe exited and headed straight to the CRR he stopped outside the door, tugged his tunic down and pressed the buzzer.

The Captain was well and truly prepared for shore leave. Gone was the customary Starfleet Uniform. In its place was a casual outfit with a comfortable jacket that added some aesthetics to his look. Most of his civilian clothing could easily harken back to a simpler time with he crewed a civilian transport. His outfit matched that old, long-gone profession, but wasn't so out of date to look unappealing. Seeing Sharpe enter his Ready Room was a surprise for the Captain, who looked up in shock briefly before realizing the Chief was still on board and right in front of him.

"Ah! Mr Sharpe," greeted Franklin, taking a quick breath to calm himself from his initial shock. "I'd of swore you were gone already, almost gave me a startle. I see you're still in uniform so I suspect something is amiss?"

Sharpe tilted his head to the left and then right as he took in the Captain's off-duty clothes before straightening his head "very colourful Captain" he said in a bland voice and raised an eyebrow. "you would be correct Captain, something was indeed amiss, after our little adventure in the faulty holodeck, I checked the Holodecks both of them and the one we were in its circuits looked like over-cooked charred meat, the smell of the burnt ODN relays did not help, but I cleaned the area and replaced the damaged sections and removed the bio-neural gel packs and their housing unit and returned holodeck one to its factory specifications and whereas before there was a 10 per cent power loss, HD1 is now operating at one-hundred per cent" he paused.

"This ship was never meant to equip too many bio-neural gel packs, after testing both holodecks there was a power difference with holodeck 2 so I pulled the gel packs on that one too and returned the thing to its normal config, and that too is working at 100 per cent so the holodecks are once again fully operational, ironic I get them so now we are going on shore leave," Sharpe said "the only place that retains gel packs is the EMH system but sadly due to age and system restraints we cannot use it, installing those holo-emitters in key areas was a grand idea but a waste, but I had to solve that issue otherwise I would never settle on Risa" Sharpe finished.

"Why thank you Mr Sharpe!" the Captain replied to the compliment offered by his attire. He then listened intently to the report, nodding, and then sighing.

"I see," he replied finally, taking a long moment to process. "You're leave is more important than a task that can be best left for after your relaxation, honestly, Mr Sharpe! I am extremely grateful you are one of my crew, sir. Without you as our Chief, I doubt this old girl could ever run. That said, she is old, don't you think? I don't think I ever told anyone else this - I'm sure I did! - but Starfleet has been in the process of constructing a new Intrepid-class starship. Do you happen to know the name of it?"

The sly smirk on the Captain's face had to be a dead giveaway.

Looking blankly at his Captain and raising an eyebrow "I would assume Captain that it would be the USS Poseidon-A, a very steady ship and thank you for the compliment, I am surprised you did not ask for a Nebula, Sabre or Norway or Steamrunner Classes of ships would have served just as well, but when we return from shore leave I will see about transferring our EMH to a data storage device, then I should be able to install it into the Intrepid classes holo systems and then we can have a main EMH and back up EMH, but I have me a feeling that some tinkering would need to be done first" Sharpe said in a Vulcan-like bland tone.

"You can go ahead and do that," the Captain replied, smiling. "And I did consider a Norway class. The Commodore and I talked extensively about it. It's just too small. The Intrepid class offers more stability, room, and opportunity than the Norway class and we'd also be getting the addition of a reliable holodeck system. And the EMH system. Yes, we talked about you! I think you'd appreciate it more than anyone - well, maybe the doctor but you get my drift."

Sharpe nodded once in agreement, "well I have sorted out a pain in my rear with the holodeck, I have reported that they are now working as they should, I think I will go get packing some items for Risa time and I see you are already, so I shall leave you to it Captain" Sharpe said.

"Thank you, Mr. Sharpe. It's always a pleasure. Let's focus on enjoying this down-time. When we get back, we'll talk more. I'd like your input on a few more things," Franklin replied with a smile as he started to walk off.

With a final polite nod, Sharpe left the CRR and returned to his quarters to pack for his shore leave down on Risa, he only wished his wife could be with him, but she was probably out on a mission.

[OFF]

-----------

Captain Franklin Johnson
Commanding Officer
USS Poseidon

&

Lt Commander Paul Sharpe
Chief Engineering Officer
USS Poseidon

&

Lieutenant Miles O'Connell
Deputy Chief Engineer
USS Poseidon

RSS Feed