Joint Duty Log - Lt Ebonheart & Lt Zola - "For Here Am I Sitting In A Tin Can"

Posted on Thu Oct 30th, 2014 @ 10:51pm by Lieutenant Chloe Ebonheart

1,399 words; about a 7 minute read

Mission: All Hallows’

Red lights flashing, the obnoxious klaxon screaming, and it was all Zola could do to keep her focus. It didn't matter how often she'd gone through a red alert drill in the Academy, nor how many times she'd held her post through an actual emergency on a ship, red alert still jarred something to her core. Something about the frequency of the klaxon, and the harmonics of the ship materials, just made it feel like it vibrated every little bone in her body. Some ships were better than others, like on the Emperor — a small and nimble defiant class — had almost absorbed all the higher frequencies so it didn't jar the tiny woman nearly so much, but the Vindicator — all large and echoing in comparison — almost seemed to amplify the upper range of the klaxon and it jarred Zola down to the tail bone. At least she had her trusty ear plugs to help, with their high frequency noise cancellation.

She carefully and quickly made her way to the junction near the site of the breach, where she would meet Lieutenant Ebonheart from Security, and an engineering Crewman Sam Browder. It was a small breach, inside empty quarters thankfully, but there was a concern about the stability of the power in this section and the self sealing mechanism wasn't engaging. If the force field fell, the damage could easily spread, and with the battle still going outside that was a very real threat.

Chloe's ears twitched hearing someone join them. Looking up she noticed Lieutenant Zola joining them. "Welcome to the group careful it's not completely stable and we don't know how long it will hold if at all." Chloe warned the lieutenant.

"Thank you, Lieutenant," Zola returned, looking up at the half-Caitian and her gaze falling on the feline ears for a lingering moment. If the task at hand wasn't so urgent, Zola would have been curious to compare notes on the other woman's hearing. Maybe another time. Browder had his tricorder open, reading the power conduits in the area, and Zola stepped to his side to glance at the readings. "I would recommend standing back, just in case something goes wrong. Better if only two of us end up in the vacuum instead of all three. Regs have you here mostly in case of boarding parties, right?"

Chloe frowned, "True, but I'd rather be close enough in case I can grab you before you're sucked into the void of space." Chloe said checking the tether around her waist just in case. She didn't like leaving her crew members in jeopardy.

"If your reaction time's that good..." Zola murmured, considering the readings on Browder's tricorder. The ship shuddered as it took another hit, and Zola stumbled into the crewman. He braced himself against the wall with one hand, and reached out to steady Zola with his other, the tricorder tumbling to the deck. He looked to Chloe as Zola knelt down to grab the tricorder.

"Are you both okay, lieutenants?" he asked them. Zola handed him the tricorder back, practically ignoring his question as she moved to pop open an access panel.

"I'm fine thank you." Chloe said watching Zola, her reaction time was pretty good. Having risked her life before for a crew mate, Chloe wouldn't hesitate to do so again.

"Not that I doubt you have good reaction time, those Caitian reflexes... but, vacuum's fast. Like blink of an eye, woosh." Zola said absentmindedly, dropping the panel's cover to the deck and reaching into the tool bag hanging off her shoulder. Out came a hyper-spanner and a small light. When she went to put the light in her mouth, Browder moved forward to grab it from her and hold it. She nodded to him as she started poking through the guts of the panel.

Chloe sighed they didn't know how fast she could be when she needed to be after all she was still new to this crew. Moving back a bit but making sure she could still get to them if she needed to. "Is this better?" She asked her tail moving with annoyance.

"Hmm?" Zola turned and looked at Chloe, then what she was being asked seemed to process. "Oh, there's just as bad as standing right in front of the doors," Zola explained, turning back to the panel. The ship shuddered again, and she braced herself in the panel. Browder dropped the light, and went after it as the door into the quarters with the breach opened. He pulled back quickly and Zola laughed. "If the field was down, you probably wouldn't even realize it before you're in space. I just bumped the override switch when the ship shook."

Chloe braced herself as well, "His caution is not unnecessary after all even I can see the risk here." Chloe sighed moving again trying to keep everyone with in sight should she need to grab anyone.

"Oh, no doubt there's risk. I think I heard someone say something about... Romulans?" Zola looked around as she said it, as if they would come out of the shadows and grab her for even breathing their name. "It shouldn't be long at least repairing the seal. A proper patch of the breach will have to wait until after the battle." She yanked a part out of the panel, and the doors slid shut again as she reached into her tool bag to pull out a replacement.

Chloe gave a nod she didn't like being near breaches really. hopefully this one will be closed soon. even if a temporary hold until they got back to a starbase. "Damn space battles." She muttered.

"I hate the red alert the most," Zola confessed, tilting her head to the side as she poked into the panel, then she installed the new part. There was a loud thunk in the doors. "Hurts my ears." She bent over to grab the panel cover.

"I agree, it is rather loud isn't it." the feline sighed covering her ears slightly. She normally ignored the pain she felt if they were on for to long. normally rushing around kept her from noticing sometimes.

"It's really the upper range that hurts me," Zola explained, snapping the panel cover back in place. Her hyper-spanner was tucked away into the bag, and a small square box was pulled out in its place. "I'm still perfecting the design, but they've got a noise canceling device in them. Can be custom tuned for particular frequencies, so you can still hear ." She held the box out to Chloe, and turned her head to show that she had a pair in her ears. "They'll link with a PADD to configure them."

"Ma'ams? If these quarters are sealed until we can patch the hull after the battle, we need to move onto junction forty-two. There was a fire, and the RPS conduits in the area were damaged," Crewman Browder spoke up.

Chloe wondered where she could get a set of those. the feline officer gave a nod. "Lead the way Crewman Browder." Chloe said with a motion of her hand.

The crewman nodded, and started down the corridor. Zola fell into step next to Chloe as they walked. She pressed the little box into the security officer's hand.

"I haven't used that set yet, they were a backup in case something happened to the ones I'm currently using. Test them out, let me know if you find any bugs. I intend to submit them to starfleet R&D to make available to fleet personnel, particularly people like us with extended hearing ranges."

"Thanks." Chloe said deciding to test them out now by putting them into her cat ears and changing the frequency so that she could hear normally and not the loud noise of the red alert.

"So much better, right?" Zola asked with a wink, quick stepping to catch up with Crewman Browder as he pulled ahead, wanting to get to their next task quickly. These battles never lasted long, but as long as they still had a ship and no call for evacuation came across the coms, an engineer's work was never done.

"Much." Chloe smiled. She followed up the rear hoping that this space fight didn't lead to an invasion.

=/\= End Log =/\=

Lieutenant Zola
Engineering Officer
USS Vindicator

Lieutenant Chloe Ebonheart
Security Officer
USS Vindicator

Crewman Sam Browder
Engineer
USS Vindicator

 

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