Biological Imperative

Posted on Wed 2nd Nov, 2016 @ 6:49pm by Lieutenant Ricardo Shepard

625 words; about a 3 minute read

Mission: Cloak & Dagger
Location: Deck 97, Science Lab 12, Biology
Timeline: MD 2, 1145

Ensign McCabe whistled tunelessly as he prepared slides for his electron microscope. He still wasn't used to working with state-of-the-art equipment here on Vanguard. Both the Hath Colony and Lovell had been more than a few years behind, and he was thrilled to finally get a posting with real equipment, as he thought of it. Now if he could just get a promotion! Six years was a long time to spend as an Ensign.

He slid the first slide under the clamps and bent to look at what he had. "Verrrry interesting," he muttered, zooming to the highest focus. "As I suspected, these - " he broke off and pulled back from the machine quickly. A wisp of smoke turned into a steady puff and became a small cloud in only seconds. Thinking fast, McCabe reached for the control panel and flipped the switch to off.

"That's a first!" he exclaimed, letting out a relieved breath. New equipment with a glitch? After waiting for a moment, he switched the microscope on again, but in less time than it took his heart to beat a dozen times, the smoke began again and he was forced to turn it off. "Well, ... crumb," he sighed.

Tapping his com badge, he called his superior officer. "McCabe to Lieutenant Collins, I have a situation in Lab 12." The Chief Science Officer had an office on the same deck, so if that's where she was, it wouldn't take her long to respond.

There was no answer to his hail until he remembered Chief Collins was on an away mission. He smacked his hand on his forehead, and thought about what else he could do. There wasn't an assistant on base yet, so ... he'd have to contact Ops directly. First, the room needed clearing.


"Computer, ventilate the room please." He looked over the microscope as the air cleared and decided this definitely called for an engineer.

"McCabe to Operations. Could I get an engineer to Deck 97, Lab 12?"

=^=I'm a little tied up at the moment. What do you have?=^= The operations chief responded.

"There's a bit of a mess down here, involving an electron microscope, sparks, and ... um, some rather pungent smoke. I'm sure it's something with the circuitry and I've ventilated the room, but I need that microscope if I'm to do any good in this lab today." McCabe tried to sound insistent without sounding bossy.

=^= O.k. I'll send Ensign Th'kavig your way to help. Perry out. =^=

"That sounds promising," McCabe said to the microscope, feeling hopeful they might still accomplish something together today.

Sahr heard the call and hurried down to the lab to see what the problem was. She was excited, and ready to get her hands dirty. She walked in and asked, "What is the problem?"

"A little smoke and sparks with my microscope. Hang on, I'll show you." McCabe reached over to the wall switch and flipped the machine on. Nothing happened for a moment, and then wisps of smelly smoke began to drift up, followed by more, and sparks before he flipped it off again. "So, that's worth a thousand words, right?" he grinned. "Think you can fix that."

Sahr saw the problem and scanned it. The problem was that the power regulator failed and needed to be realigned, she linked her tricorder and was able to align it and fix it. She said, "All done."

"Excellent, excellent," McCabe said, both cheered and puzzled. "You're quite efficient, Ensign. I'll be sure to let Lt. Shepard know how quickly you got me back in business. Have a great day!" His attention switched to the project that had been interrupted. He forgot everything and everyone else, including cleaning up the mess, as he prepared a new slide to examine.

 

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