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Trojan Horse #58, 59 - "The gravity of the situation"[USS Pegasus, Lounge, just after Wulffie volunteered for a couple of choirs] -=[On]=- <Nice guy, that Wulffie...> Evans thought, after the beast had accepted the chores without as much as a grumble. <Too bad I had to give him the most sucky job...Meh, I'll make it up to him somehow...> he added as an afterthought. Crawling through secured jeffries' tubes was not his idea of fun... Evans started to work on his end of the restoration again. He still had a lot to do in 15 minutes. So much, in fact, that he was quite positive, that he would need at least another day or so. He sighed, and just went on. He looked around for a miracle, and was actually surprised that there were none... <That's odd... Normally some idiotic chain of events would have either solved our every problem, or completely screwed us over by now...> Kitty wandered back into the lounge, still yawning slightly, but looking significantly more awake.. and significantly closer to normal. She was wearing her uniform, the stains washed out, a couple tears being the only sign of the ordeal in Engineering. She'd pulled her hair back into a ponytail and looked a fair bit more like Chief Engineer than she had in the past hours. She spotted Evans as she entered and smiled softly. "Ah, finally, there you are..." Evans added with a grin. "I was expecting a miracle by now..." he added, not making any sense except to himself. He allowed a small break to hug his girlfriend, and immediately turned back to work. "I think I liked the tanktop and shorts better, but you're right.. This is indeed a little less distracting... A lot to do, a lot to do, a lot to do..." Kitty smiled and returned the hug. "Finally? I just went out for a cup of coffee and that's what I get?" she joked. Then she chuckled, but blushed a little. "Pretty soon I'll be able to go change back into that outfit you like so much and get some sleep.. somewhere. But for now, I thought maybe it would be better if I met the Lantree's chief engineer in uniform. What's left to do?" "Everything..." Evans sighed. "It's true, the impossible does take a while longer..." "We've got all our available people trying to replace conduits. There's just nothing to replace them With. We've got enough to make the connections, technically, theoretically, but weapons and shields.. you know, they need a certain percentage of integrity to function properly, and we just don't have the integrity." Kitty sighed. "What if we just plain can't do it?" "Yeah, I think this one's got us grounded..." Evans answered. "...Grounded... You know, I was joking about that floorplating earlier, that we still seem to have artificial gravity for the most part... I've been breaking my head over this for a few hours now... Is there anything we can do with the gravity plating?" "Well, artificial gravity doesn't need the same level of integrity, you know. If it fails periodically, here and there, it isn't a big deal. If the phasers get a power disruption in the middle of firing..." Kitty frowned, looking fixedly at the functioning replicators. "That's one safety I don't plan on overriding." "Yeah, but I mean, would it be possible to use the gravity plating in the lesser used corridors as conduits? They are designed to handle quite large amounts of energy... We could use standard issue power stabilizors at both ends, regulating the powerflow into and out of the plating... It would essentially completely eliminate the conduit problem. The corridor in question would have to be evacuated and labeled off-limits, to prevent nasty accidents due to heavily shifting gravity... But we'd have weapons, at least..." Kitty blinked and shifted her gaze to his, looking back at him for a moment, but not directly focussing on him. She ran all the possibilities through her head, closing her eyes for a moment. Then she blinked and looked back at him, her eyes lighting up. "How long would it take to implement?" she asked him. "Eh, we would have to choose the corridor, and just disconnect it from the gravity system. We need to place a stabilisor on one end and one on the other... Each job would take 10 minutes, but can be done simultaneously, if we were with three people..." Evans pointed to himself, "One," then to Kitty "Two, " then thought just a split second, and turned around. "LETEK! Get over here!" Kitty chuckled. "Aye aye sir," she said. "Ready to assist." Evans was about to explain the plan to Letek, when suddenly the computer console in the room started to emit an intruder alertsound. "Ok, here's the pl... What the hell?!" Evans exclaimed in response. He trotted up to the console, and saw a picture of Wulffie with the word 'Danger!!!' superimposed on it, in large blinking letters. "What's that thing going on about?" Kitty blinked, hurrying up to join him, looking at the console. "Danger?" "Does it suddenly think that Wolfman is a threat?" Letek added as his two cents. "Why would the computer have chosen him in the first place, then?" Evans added. At this, the message slightly changed to "In danger!!!" Kitty blinked again and started to move. "Well, we've got to help him.." she said, promptly heading for the door, moving before her brain finished working through this new information. She had no clue how to help.. she didn't even have her phaser on her.. but she was determined to go anyways. "Hold it, Kitty, we don't even know where he is, excactly! Computer, show us the location of G'Ulf-fey!" Evans added. The console changed immediately, zooming in on a particular part of the corridor. However, before they could act, the mugshot of Wulffie appeared on screen again, with the word "safe" superimposed in a smaller non-blinking font, at the bottom. At the same time, Evans' combadge chirped... =/\= G-ulf-fey, to Evans, Bewarre therre seems to be morre problems than you told me about, and some of them are deadly... =/\= was heard, however, before Evans had a chance to answer, the channel closed again. "What the hell is going on here?!" Evans almost yelled out. "Is he safe, or isn't he?" Kitty halted in midstride, now entirely confused. "What's going on here?" "Computer, locate and assess G'ulf-fey... Evans asked again. "Lieutenant G'ulf-fey is in jeffries' tube 52a, and healthy." the computer answered. "Why is there an image of a steak and a baked potato on the console suddenly?" Letek observed. Kitty frowned. "I think this thing is more than a bit.. twitchy. Hold on..." She quickstepped back over to the console, typing in some commands. "Well, no wonder. There's a malfunction in that computer node nearest his location... I'm surprised it's active at all. Well, it looks like it's shorted itself out, so I don't think it'll happen again." "This is all just too spooky..." Evans said, with a good deal of worry in his voice. "Okay, let's see if we can put our floorplating plan working. Everyone know what to do? Oh, and watch your backs, please... Even better, let's get some people to do that for us..." Evans added once again. " =/\=Security team to the lounge on the double. We need three escorts... Oh, and send a medical and security team to Jeffries' tube 52a to assist G'ulf-fey. He might not need your help at all, or require it badly...=/\= -=[Off]=- Abusing even more essential parts of the ship to destruction: Lt. Kathleen 'Kitty' Black Chief Engineering Officer USS Pegasus Lt. Jg. Ronald Evans Chief Operations Officer USS Pegasus |
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