Part of USS Columbia: Sol Sub Umbra

Doing An Essential Job

Deck 23 Main Impulse Engine
January 2400
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Livvy sighed standing before the accelerator/generator.  There was carbon scoring across the main panel as something overloaded the capacitors sending electricity arcing in all directions.

“Davies take a look at and get me a full diagnostic on the driver coil assembly.   T’lal you are our parts go-fer.

The Vulcan gave her a quizzical look. “Gopher ma’am? I fail to see how I resemble a small terrestrial mammal native to Earth.”

Livvy smiled and laughed despite the seriousness of the situation. “Not gopher as in the animal,  but go for this, go for that.  You are our runner.”

The Vulcan raised an eyebrow at her still not completely following. “Humans are most illogical.”

She shrugged as she pulled off the access panel to the accelerator/generator, “We get by.”

She opened her tricorder,  but it was mostly unnecessary. The damage of burned out components was all too obvious.  A whole bank of isolinear chips were cracked,  partially melted, and blackened.  Several circuit boards showed obvious damage. 

Livvy started pulling the damaged components out and tossing them on the floor next to her while calling out the needed replacement parts.

Finally she reached the positive high-voltage terminal and she swore.  She had found the source of the problem.   That had failed and fried all the control circuits along with it.  She figured there would be damage to that component, but she didn’t expect to have to replace it. 

“Davies go with T’lal and get an anti-grav lift. We’re going to need a replacement positive high-voltage terminal from the industrial replicator.”

“Aye ma’am,” Davies said and he and T’lal trotted off to get that part. 

Livvy climbed up on the outer housing to remove the bolts holding the accelerator shield to allow her access into the inside of the assembly.   The terminal in question was too big for her to lift on her own and she positioned the shielding under it and when the last bolt had been removed the terminal fell onto the shield rolled out of the accelerator and crashed onto the deck with a heavy thump.

With the terminal removed and awaiting a new one Livvy set about rebuilding the control interface.  Opening a box of replacement isolinear chips she started pulling out damaged chips and slotting a new one in its place.  

She was halfway through the chips when T’lal and Davies returned with a replacement terminal on an antigrav lift.  Davies looked at the old terminal. “You already got the old one out? How?”

“Gravity,” she said.  “Now, let’s get the new one installed.”  She entered some commands into the anti-grav lift and it rose above the deck until it was parallel to the terminal mount. After five minutes or so and a lot of grunting and a little swearing the three of them got the terminal bolted into place.  

It took another twenty minutes to rebuild the control interface,  but Livvy smiled with satisfaction and pride as they slid the out panel home and latched it in place.  Davies had already reconfigured the driver coil assembly.   Now it was time to fire up the engine and hope that it worked. 

“Sandoval to Commander Koerner,” she said after tapping her combadge.  “Impulse engines should be functional.”