Skitter Popping the Jigging Frog pt3
Posted on Sun 31st Mar, 2024 @ 12:57pm by Izwyx 'Lo
1,817 words; about a 9 minute read
Mission:
O' the Cardiff Rose
Location: WhiteStar Mining ring
Timeline: 6 months before MD1
https://sb109.sim-station.net/index.php/sim/viewpost/2302
Previously…
...the impulse engines glowed into overheating reversing the strain. Still the iron grip was maintained, her tractor emitter officer a trusty veteran of many years of service. He’d never relent, especially with the lives of so many on the line, especially if their payday was in trouble.
The captain was stalwart at the wheel, “Sepp, we have a red zone in twenty, the shuttles need to push along these routes and it’ll change the shape of their transit now.”
And now...
{Bridge- TK Haneda}
A 4-D puzzle had begun to rotate which really pushed her imagination and had lead to a plan of twisting the top, to affect the middle. Like rotating a marble stuck inside a sealed maze they had to move space around the tether in order to move it safely for teh crew inside.
“Golokaa, Koussa, can coordinate with tractor control as well, when they leave the gravity is just as dangerous, unchecked expansion is a bomb. We have to compress and keep the weight ratios within margins get it?”
Agandar nodded, relaying to the shuttle pilots her orders. He had taken a graven tone and wasn’t arguing anymore Izzy barely had time to note.
“Captain, Thermal overloads are starting to occur along primary EPS buss!”
She looked at her master display and sure enough, the tractor emitters were scaled and energized but the coolant measures couldn't keep up. Starfleet had designed this issue into phaser energy and quick charge capacitors but neither option was present just now in a civilian mining ship.
“Ok, fire up the long range transmitter and get it pinging as high as you can, eat up the thermals within the deflectors vacuum sink. Start alternating impulse engines at intervals and cycle the plasma into the lower energy states to bring it to parity.”
An angry engineer by passionate choice Golkaa huffed, “ Sure, that’ll chew up the exchange manifolds-”
She made a sharp “pssst” sound and indicated with her hands to stop talking. “Which is why you're alternating, get to it.”
Golokaa muttered a reply, “ok but when EPS loses flow rate dont come crying to me.”
“Captain?!” The Sepp was over his head, his call for the captain sounded like dread, “Spiral formation is absorbing the tractor efforts, and we are losing grip in the three vector zones and higher. Rotation is truncated to lateral shifting at best, declination slowed to 152Kp!”
Izzy closed her eyes for a split second, counting by primes to calm her thoughts. There was no magical resolution here. They were fighting gravity, and without a rocket on its ass, that gondola was a lead weight on a string ready to snap. Alternating their grips had let the gravity changes of the payload act as a diving bell but now that was also about to be swept away.
“So we need to attach grapplers before they arrive, in the yellow zone we can manage the weights of the cable arms.”
More arguing announced from the science/operations station, Koussa sounded angry and panicked, “There is no firing solution for a stars gravity well, how are we to attach-”
Sepp Agandar was also in a panic, “Captain, that’s impossible-”
“Don’t use that word or leave the Bridge, we have the crawler arms pre rigged for the probes right?
Koussa whined, “We have only two type-2 probes that can't withstand the gravity shears..
“Then hurry, before they leave the yellow zone-”
“Captain this has practically no chance of succeding-”
“Holy cows, can you all just follow the %^@#$ orders? Load them, enable the aperture arms. Now”
The Sepp worked his controls, “Ready to fire.”
“Fire on my mark.”
Hokall spoke up after many looks were exchanged, “We balk at the load now, adding the cables does not help us and only increases-”
“Orders! Koley…, program the crawlers to tie the knot as side along basket carry, tension to-”
“Are you listening at all? Captain?! the grapplers would add even more weight once attached.”
Izzy replied as fast as possible, “We will need to pull harder as well then, compensate with any non vital for our rescue and operations systems.”
A chime indicated the ratios had hit their ideal points, Izzy didnt hesitate, “Fire Grapplers.”
Sepp Agandar barely spoke out loud, “Cables Away now.”
Hokall was certain the cables would only make disastrous impacts against the gondola, Koussa saw the cables missing, Sep Agandar saw the entire array collapsing into the red zones of their chart and being crushed. Only Izwyz ‘Lo saw the endless optimism of the moment, that her vision saw the future and manifested the result.
Twin ropes tied to probes swimming upstream as a salmon encircled the Oval Gondola and spherical Cargo Shell. The two offending grappler mounts which caused all this problem in the first place were snared by the long dextrous arms affixed to them. The length and added mass of the grappler cable was a break-even with their contribution but it meant no more slipping beams or shoddy locks. It also meant the superstructure of their mother ship was well tied to the dangling morsel over a gobbling hellmouth.
Her pilot, Johep, alarmed, “We are losing position, I have nothing else to pull with Captain!”
She saw the Haneda had begun inching forward despite full reverse impulse drive. The hydrogen cloud had put grit in the road but it was still slick and leading them down the edges of a gravity slope. The grappler lines weren't really helping beyond a safety redundancy, but they now had control over the situation even in micrometers. Listening to these discussions rise into escalated tones gave her the clue to nip it once again.
She hit the ship intercoms, “Crew of the Haneda, I won't lie and say you’re the best, but I damn well expect you to rise to this occasion. We are already at redline I know but this ship is Tellarite is it not? Do you not live in the redline you timid ones, and the truest heart among you call the black zone beyond the gauge the only true limit? We are going to have to hold on through some intense pulls, we will slide and we will recover. And in… four minutes, we will have our prize. Four minutes, to save their lives, four minutes to earn the rewards of hard work. Keep the tractor systems running, keep our engines pulling, cool em off with your sweat, spit on em, pee on em I don’t care, but I am not letting fine folks like you all die. We will hold, accept no other outcomes in your imaginations, that is an order.”
The display showed several consoles fire up across the ship's officers rededicated themselves to the task at hand. A few red indicants trended to yellow, they had made it work somehow in Engineering and that was what she needed.
Sepp Agandar shouted over the rising hum of the system strain, “Continue rescue processes, shore up capacitors, focus on tractor emitters, red zone in five four three… here it comes!”
The Sepp counted from five and the lurch which robbed nearly everyone of their stable foothold made for Zero. Space itself warped as tractor emitters pushed the very same warped fields into an oblong series of arcs which ameliorated the sheer along the whole hull.
Two EPS junctions blew at the rear of the bridge, circuit breakers doing their jobs in time. She heard the damage report and Sepp Agandar’s order to respond, so Izzy maintained focus on the master board. The flickering transfer relays keeping her board active persisted over the next few seconds, her peripheral vision caught Sepp Agandar speaking tenderly about his beloved mate, stuck on the gondola.
He was distracted and by God she hated to do it, but she slapped her console to gain his attention. “Sepp? Do you plan on restoring power flows to the bridge or should I turn my display off and wing it?”
He may have understood in some innate way but the snarl he made in reply preceded the unwise internal monologue most have the sense to contain.
“You are a complicated woman to work for Captain, I’m regulating repairs, sending crew to bridge now.”
“My great appreciation for you performing adequately as Sepp.” She was poking the bear, angry was better than afraid. If anyone could handle it…
“You can do it yourself Human, I want them to live and planning their ascent is as much as i can do!”
Taking the time to handle it here and now, she stood from her seat. “I’ve had enough of your obstinate presence, every order is met with resistance, as though we are on different agendas. If your puny mind is actually helping plot their course by all means continue, but delegate man. You have many jobs, husband is just one of them or do you expect to share a bed with all of us?!”
Sepp tried to make several replies, moth agape and closed in a cycle of uncertain verbiage.
He finally uttered a small, “Your fluency is distracting sir. With your permission.”
His work was flawless, and she knew why now. It seemed almost miraculous, his work with Hokall to plot a safe course along tight bands of anti gravity. He looked to her and got an immediate approval, opening comms, “Shuttle pilots, updated push plan on the way, tractor team fifteen seconds of hold, then reduce seventeen percent-”
“Why Should I urinate on this, it makes no sense!” The hoarse voiced snaggletoother of a grizzled man, a Bajoran on a crew of Tellarites cried out in protest.
Izzy looked over her shoulder in surprise, “Whoa, hold the phone, I was just riffing Artan.”
Artan looked confused, “Am I missing some context or are you just gross?”
The Sepp was keeping the Gondola on track, Izzy indulged the man a bit, “In older war sometimes artillery or machinery on the battlefield needed coolant, and if you ran out of that coolant than it was your canteen or your bladder.”
She heard his barking laugh in response, “Ha, so I owe Judda an apology!”
Izzy chuckled despite the moment, a judder returned her attention as the strain lessened. The map was improving by the minute, a refined path and program giving much better extrapolations. Johep was able to call directions in real time to the pilots. As though fingers were directly moving the colonnade of space protected in a shell of energized plasma, the gondola stopped moving into the danger zones finally.
“Captain, Impulse Manifolds are in similar straits, at 114% safeties cant exceed 120 without blowout.”
The problem she dreaded most had arrived, only a quarter of the way to go, they were losing their engines ability to pull.
-TBC-
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