***
As the turbolift began moving, Megan Rossum leaned forward, studying her reflection in the polished door. “Hmph,” she muttered, tilting her head to the side and inspecting her injuries closer. She opened and closed her mouth, resisting the urge to wince at the stab of pain, making certain that the purple mass of bruises and cuts weren't going to do anything troublesome.
Relatively satisfied with the inspection, she straightened up, waited for the lift to come to a halt, and stepped out on to the bridge, finding her Captain currently standing in front of the viewscreen and talking to an Andorian she assumed was the Frozen Summers captain. "I'd prefer to get you out of the area sooner rather than later," the Orion was saying. "And while the Jeff Wayne may not be able to meet up and help you, we still have options-" she glanced over in Rossums direction as the Engineer approached, staying out of view of the viewscreen camera, and was unable to contain a surprised squeak. "What happened to you?" she asked, shifting conversations mid-sentence.
Failing to completely suppress an amused smirk at catching her Captain off-guard, Rossum stepped into the camera's field of view. "Got knocked around by the turbulence earlier," she answered with a shrug. "It happens. Aside from hurting like hell, it’s fine.” Recognizing her Captain wasn’t really buying that claim, she quickly changed the subject. “Anyway, you wanted to see me ma’am? Or should I let you finish?”
Shaking her head, Priss gestured towards the viewscreen. “Captain Shral, this is Senior Chief Rossum, my head of engineering.” He nodded in polite greeting. “Chief, the Captain and his crew are doing what they can, but it seems the damage to the Frozen Summer’s warp drive was a bit more extensive than first thought.”
“We don’t have much in the way of spare parts, and some of what those torpedoes broke, our replicators can’t manage,” Shral replied. “Not with the kind of precision we need to get a proper warp field.” A scowl formed as he shrugged. “And my own chief engineer is worried that there’s still damage we haven’t found, as if there wasn’t already enough to keep us occupied.”
“Constructive paranoia is something of an occupational hazard for engineers Captain,” Rossum commented with what she hoped looked like a friendly and reassuring smile, before glancing at Captain Hanagawa. “Load up a shuttle with a damage control party, quality replicator and parts?” she mused. That got a confirming nod from the redhead, and she looked back towards the viewscreen. "Sir, if your chief engineer could provide us with a basic list of confirmed damage, it should help us get a head start on replicating parts."
Dropping back into his chair, Shral gave the woman an amused look. “I should warn you Chief, when I ask Lucas for that, he’s almost certain to start finding things these… Hirogen, wasn’t it? He’ll find things the Hirogen didn’t break and try and add those to the list.”
Her smile widened into a rather painful grin, and it clearly wasn’t pleasant to look at, given the way Shral twitched, but Rossum couldn’t help it. “I wouldn’t worry too much about it Captain. My people have been doing this for a while. I’ll tell them to try and find the right balance of generous and realistic when making repairs.” Her optimism had the desired effect, as the Andorian on the screen visibly relaxed, and she turned towards her Captain. “I’ll get started on arranging that now ma’am.”
Priss nodded. “Stay on the bridge if you can,” she replied. “We need to discuss a few things once I finish with Captain Shral.”
Nodding in reply, the engineer moved towards the back of the bridge, letting her Captain return to the conversation. She noticed that the Exec was already calling to have a shuttle prepped for launch, so she focused on the people she was sending. Once she was far enough away from the viewscreens microphones, she tapped her commbadge. "Rossum to Gugus. Let M'ven's team finish on the generator. I want your team down in the shuttlebay in ten minutes. Away mission, repairing a damaged Sled-class Andorian freighter. You should have a preliminary list of damage by the time you launch. Oh, try and be a little generous with replicating parts, could you?" she added.
"Sure thing Chief. Mind if I poach Webber?" a male voice replied.
"Only if he's finished that inventory," she answered. "Rossum out." Pausing by the comm station, she leaned over Aunlez’s shoulder. “When the Frozen Summer sends us their list of damage, forward a copy to Lieutenant Gugus.”
“You got it Chief,” the younger woman assured her. Satisfied, the engineer stepped back, taking a datapad out and quickly skimming through the latest updates from her damage control teams. That only took her a few moments, but when she looked up, she saw the viewscreen shifting to the default view of the local starscape, and the Captain turning away from it to look at her.
Guessing the question in the Orions gaze, Megan quickly nodded. “Got a team on the way to the shuttlebay now,” she assured her.
Commander Aniri looked up from her own work. “The Delta will be ready by the time they get down there,” she added.
Priss didn’t reply right away, her expression thoughtful as she looked over Rossum. “If you’d like skipper,” the engineer continued, mildly confused, “I’ve got a damage report ready for you.”
“Good, but while you do that…” Walking over towards the turbolift, Priss retrieved the medical kit mounted on the wall before turning back towards Megan. “Be honest,” she continued with a tone of amused patience, “you haven’t gone anywhere near the Infirmary or a medic yet, have you?”
Scratching the back of her head with one hand, Rossum winced. “Well, no. I mean, it’s only some bruising, and I’m pretty durable…” her attempt at justifications trailed off as the Captain simply looked at her, amusement clearly fading.
Opening the kit, Priss gestured at a vacant seat. “Sit down and let me have a look at you,” she ordered. The older woman quickly obeyed, while the Captain flipped open the medical tricorder. “Now then, your report?”
Suppressing a sigh, and admitting to herself that she’d known all along she wasn’t going to just leave without the Captain either checking her personally or ordering her to the Infirmary, Rossum collected her thoughts and began. “I got confirmation on the way up that all crew members have been located,” she said, going for the hardest part first. “Current count is eleven dead. I know T’Paar’s got several in emergency surgery right now, but I don’t have the numbers there.” She pretended to ignore the pained expression that flickered over her Captains face, as the unwritten rules of the service dictated. Instead, she moved on with her report, keeping both of them distracted.
“Damage on the port side isn’t too bad. Hull breaches have already been found and sealed off. We’re replacing the physical armor now, and it looks like the phaser arrays core elements are fine. Those torpedoes made a mess of a lot of the EPS conduits and the beam emitters themselves, but we can replace those out of spare parts. Current estimate is that we can run startup tests in about thirty minutes, and if that works out, you’ll have portside weapons back at full strength within the hour.”
Nodding in satisfaction, Priss took a hypospray from the medical kit, slotted a drug ampule into it, and pressed it against Megans neck. “That’ll help with the pain and swelling,” she said. “What about the starboard side? And our warp drive?”
Rubbing at her neck where she’d been injected, the engineer sighed. “That’s the problematic part. We’ve identified most of the hull breaches and are sealing them off, we’ll be replacing the armor after that. The primary shield generator on that side is completely gone. That boarding party planted at least one bomb inside the generator itself, and that took out the entire room and the one below it. Also caused some minor damage to the power systems in the area, got Molly tracking them down.” Working her jaw for a moment, she noted with some satisfaction that the pain was indeed fading. “No question about it, we’ve got to replace the whole damn thing. Hell, we’re going to have to build a new floor. Now, we’ve got some spare parts in storage, but most of it’s going to have to be replicated, and it’s finicky enough that it’s gonna take a while… Could be six, seven hours at least before we can try powering up. Maybe more, if we run into more problems.”
Expression darkening at that one, Priss ran the tricorder over the womans face one last time. “Understood. I’ll have our other shields expanded if needed, but if there’s more trouble lurking out under that jamming field, I might be calling you about shortcuts.” Rossum didn’t quite keep the annoyance from her face, but the green-skinned woman diplomatically ignored it. “And warp?”
“Not as bad as shields,” she replied in relief. “For the most part, it’s replacing burnt out warp coils, draining, patching and repressurizing the EPS conduits in the area, checking the software and recalibrating the warp fields. Nothing disastrous, and I’ve got some extra people down there helping. We won’t look pretty, but the last estimate that I got was a little under three hours.” She twitched her shoulders in a faint shrug. “Aside from that, the rest of it is relatively cosmetic.”
Smirking slightly, Priss snapped the tricorder closed. “And I could say the same about you,” she replied. “Despite the mess you made of yourself, your skull is fine. Implants appear to be undamaged as well, although frankly, I’m not as familiar with them as I’d like. You’re fine for the moment… although I am going to have T’Paar schedule you for a proper checkup once the critical cases down there are dealt with.”
Ignoring her subordinates dismay at being dragged into the infirmary, Priss stepped over to the sensor officers station, gesturing for the other woman to follow her. “We’ve been running heavy scans on the Hunter Escort since the shooting stopped,” she explained. “I’d like your opinion on what we’ve found.”
Leaning past Lieutenant Siysye, Chief Rossum studied the display for a moment, opened her mouth, reconsidered, looked at the displays again, then decided to go with her initial assessment anyway. “They’re screwed Skipper,” she said bluntly. The Captain raised one eyebrow, and the engineer matched it with an amused smile. “No amount of shielding, inertial dampening or structural integrity fields is going to hold that thing together if they try even a single grav of acceleration. Hell, the stress marks on the nacelle pylons alone suggest they’ll rip clean off, assuming they don’t vortex the moment they put power into them again.” She rapped a knuckle against the power readings scrolling down a side window. “That’s emergency battery power, no bet, and it’s dropping pretty damn fast. Twenty minutes, twenty-five if they turn off everything else, and they’re gonna lose their environmental shielding. That looks like a hanger bay here-” She tapped a section towards the aft of the ship, “But its doors are wide and open and depressurized. It’s big enough for three shuttles if they’re all wedged in tight, but I can’t imagine they’ve got the EV suits to get everyone left aboard.”
Considering that, Priss glanced at Siysye. “See if you can get a surveillance drone in near that hanger, could you Lieutenant? Best to know if they do try and make an exit.”
“Aye ma’am.”
Letting him work, Priss looked up at Rossum again. “We’ve tried hailing them, but so far, no response. Commanders Aniri and Shinko are planning a boarding action at the moment, but I’d prefer we give them one last chance to surrender before we go in shooting. Any suggestions on how we can get through to them?”
Frowning thoughtfully, Megan looked over the sensor scans again. External communications would likely have been destroyed when the ship was crippled, and she’d put her own money on the internal comm systems being at least severely damaged as well. Unfortunately, she had no way of knowing if the Hirogen regularly carried independent comm devices, so they couldn’t just send a signal booster over and hijack those to issue the Captains demands. Although, they had captured the boarding party that had blown up the shield generator. Surely their equipment would work.
A thought occured to her, and she leaned past Siysye to rotate the map, considering the materials the Escort was made of. With shields and jamming fields offline, beaming through monotanium with Starfleet-grade transporters was doable. Taking a moment to think it through, Megan smiled, noting to herself that it was indeed less painful then earlier, then looked towards her Captain. “I think I’ve got a way.”
***
As the turbolift began moving, Megan Rossum leaned forward, studying her reflection in the polished door. “Hmph,” she muttered, tilting her head to the side and inspecting her injuries closer. She opened and closed her mouth, resisting the urge to wince at the stab of pain, making certain that the purple mass of bruises and cuts weren't going to do anything troublesome.
Relatively satisfied with the inspection, she straightened up, waited for the lift to come to a halt, and stepped out on to the bridge, finding her Captain currently standing in front of the viewscreen and talking to an Andorian she assumed was the Frozen Summers captain. "I'd prefer to get you out of the area sooner rather than later," the Orion was saying. "And while the Jeff Wayne may not be able to meet up and help you, we still have options-" she glanced over in Rossums direction as the Engineer approached, staying out of view of the viewscreen camera, and was unable to contain a surprised squeak. "What happened to you?" she asked, shifting conversations mid-sentence.
Failing to completely suppress an amused smirk at catching her Captain off-guard, Rossum stepped into the camera's field of view. "Got knocked around by the turbulence earlier," she answered with a shrug. "It happens. Aside from hurting like hell, it’s fine.” Recognizing her Captain wasn’t really buying that claim, she quickly changed the subject. “Anyway, you wanted to see me ma’am? Or should I let you finish?”
Shaking her head, Priss gestured towards the viewscreen. “Captain Shral, this is Senior Chief Rossum, my head of engineering.” He nodded in polite greeting. “Chief, the Captain and his crew are doing what they can, but it seems the damage to the Frozen Summer’s warp drive was a bit more extensive than first thought.”
“We don’t have much in the way of spare parts, and some of what those torpedoes broke, our replicators can’t manage,” Shral replied. “Not with the kind of precision we need to get a proper warp field.” A scowl formed as he shrugged. “And my own chief engineer is worried that there’s still damage we haven’t found, as if there wasn’t already enough to keep us occupied.”
“Constructive paranoia is something of an occupational hazard for engineers Captain,” Rossum commented with what she hoped looked like a friendly and reassuring smile, before glancing at Captain Hanagawa. “Load up a shuttle with a damage control party, quality replicator and parts?” she mused. That got a confirming nod from the redhead, and she looked back towards the viewscreen. "Sir, if your chief engineer could provide us with a basic list of confirmed damage, it should help us get a head start on replicating parts."
Dropping back into his chair, Shral gave the woman an amused look. “I should warn you Chief, when I ask Lucas for that, he’s almost certain to start finding things these… Hirogen, wasn’t it? He’ll find things the Hirogen didn’t break and try and add those to the list.”
Her smile widened into a rather painful grin, and it clearly wasn’t pleasant to look at, given the way Shral twitched, but Rossum couldn’t help it. “I wouldn’t worry too much about it Captain. My people have been doing this for a while. I’ll tell them to try and find the right balance of generous and realistic when making repairs.” Her optimism had the desired effect, as the Andorian on the screen visibly relaxed, and she turned towards her Captain. “I’ll get started on arranging that now ma’am.”
Priss nodded. “Stay on the bridge if you can,” she replied. “We need to discuss a few things once I finish with Captain Shral.”
Nodding in reply, the engineer moved towards the back of the bridge, letting her Captain return to the conversation. She noticed that the Exec was already calling to have a shuttle prepped for launch, so she focused on the people she was sending. Once she was far enough away from the viewscreens microphones, she tapped her commbadge. "Rossum to Gugus. Let M'ven's team finish on the generator. I want your team down in the shuttlebay in ten minutes. Away mission, repairing a damaged Sled-class Andorian freighter. You should have a preliminary list of damage by the time you launch. Oh, try and be a little generous with replicating parts, could you?" she added.
"Sure thing Chief. Mind if I poach Webber?" a male voice replied.
"Only if he's finished that inventory," she answered. "Rossum out." Pausing by the comm station, she leaned over Aunlez’s shoulder. “When the Frozen Summer sends us their list of damage, forward a copy to Lieutenant Gugus.”
“You got it Chief,” the younger woman assured her. Satisfied, the engineer stepped back, taking a datapad out and quickly skimming through the latest updates from her damage control teams. That only took her a few moments, but when she looked up, she saw the viewscreen shifting to the default view of the local starscape, and the Captain turning away from it to look at her.
Guessing the question in the Orions gaze, Megan quickly nodded. “Got a team on the way to the shuttlebay now,” she assured her.
Commander Aniri looked up from her own work. “The Delta will be ready by the time they get down there,” she added.
Priss didn’t reply right away, her expression thoughtful as she looked over Rossum. “If you’d like skipper,” the engineer continued, mildly confused, “I’ve got a damage report ready for you.”
“Good, but while you do that…” Walking over towards the turbolift, Priss retrieved the medical kit mounted on the wall before turning back towards Megan. “Be honest,” she continued with a tone of amused patience, “you haven’t gone anywhere near the Infirmary or a medic yet, have you?”
Scratching the back of her head with one hand, Rossum winced. “Well, no. I mean, it’s only some bruising, and I’m pretty durable…” her attempt at justifications trailed off as the Captain simply looked at her, amusement clearly fading.
Opening the kit, Priss gestured at a vacant seat. “Sit down and let me have a look at you,” she ordered. The older woman quickly obeyed, while the Captain flipped open the medical tricorder. “Now then, your report?”
Suppressing a sigh, and admitting to herself that she’d known all along she wasn’t going to just leave without the Captain either checking her personally or ordering her to the Infirmary, Rossum collected her thoughts and began. “I got confirmation on the way up that all crew members have been located,” she said, going for the hardest part first. “Current count is eleven dead. I know T’Paar’s got several in emergency surgery right now, but I don’t have the numbers there.” She pretended to ignore the pained expression that flickered over her Captains face, as the unwritten rules of the service dictated. Instead, she moved on with her report, keeping both of them distracted.
“Damage on the port side isn’t too bad. Hull breaches have already been found and sealed off. We’re replacing the physical armor now, and it looks like the phaser arrays core elements are fine. Those torpedoes made a mess of a lot of the EPS conduits and the beam emitters themselves, but we can replace those out of spare parts. Current estimate is that we can run startup tests in about thirty minutes, and if that works out, you’ll have portside weapons back at full strength within the hour.”
Nodding in satisfaction, Priss took a hypospray from the medical kit, slotted a drug ampule into it, and pressed it against Megans neck. “That’ll help with the pain and swelling,” she said. “What about the starboard side? And our warp drive?”
Rubbing at her neck where she’d been injected, the engineer sighed. “That’s the problematic part. We’ve identified most of the hull breaches and are sealing them off, we’ll be replacing the armor after that. The primary shield generator on that side is completely gone. That boarding party planted at least one bomb inside the generator itself, and that took out the entire room and the one below it. Also caused some minor damage to the power systems in the area, got Molly tracking them down.” Working her jaw for a moment, she noted with some satisfaction that the pain was indeed fading. “No question about it, we’ve got to replace the whole damn thing. Hell, we’re going to have to build a new floor. Now, we’ve got some spare parts in storage, but most of it’s going to have to be replicated, and it’s finicky enough that it’s gonna take a while… Could be six, seven hours at least before we can try powering up. Maybe more, if we run into more problems.”
Expression darkening at that one, Priss ran the tricorder over the womans face one last time. “Understood. I’ll have our other shields expanded if needed, but if there’s more trouble lurking out under that jamming field, I might be calling you about shortcuts.” Rossum didn’t quite keep the annoyance from her face, but the green-skinned woman diplomatically ignored it. “And warp?”
“Not as bad as shields,” she replied in relief. “For the most part, it’s replacing burnt out warp coils, draining, patching and repressurizing the EPS conduits in the area, checking the software and recalibrating the warp fields. Nothing disastrous, and I’ve got some extra people down there helping. We won’t look pretty, but the last estimate that I got was a little under three hours.” She twitched her shoulders in a faint shrug. “Aside from that, the rest of it is relatively cosmetic.”
Smirking slightly, Priss snapped the tricorder closed. “And I could say the same about you,” she replied. “Despite the mess you made of yourself, your skull is fine. Implants appear to be undamaged as well, although frankly, I’m not as familiar with them as I’d like. You’re fine for the moment… although I am going to have T’Paar schedule you for a proper checkup once the critical cases down there are dealt with.”
Ignoring her subordinates dismay at being dragged into the infirmary, Priss stepped over to the sensor officers station, gesturing for the other woman to follow her. “We’ve been running heavy scans on the Hunter Escort since the shooting stopped,” she explained. “I’d like your opinion on what we’ve found.”
Leaning past Lieutenant Siysye, Chief Rossum studied the display for a moment, opened her mouth, reconsidered, looked at the displays again, then decided to go with her initial assessment anyway. “They’re screwed Skipper,” she said bluntly. The Captain raised one eyebrow, and the engineer matched it with an amused smile. “No amount of shielding, inertial dampening or structural integrity fields is going to hold that thing together if they try even a single grav of acceleration. Hell, the stress marks on the nacelle pylons alone suggest they’ll rip clean off, assuming they don’t vortex the moment they put power into them again.” She rapped a knuckle against the power readings scrolling down a side window. “That’s emergency battery power, no bet, and it’s dropping pretty damn fast. Twenty minutes, twenty-five if they turn off everything else, and they’re gonna lose their environmental shielding. That looks like a hanger bay here-” She tapped a section towards the aft of the ship, “But its doors are wide and open and depressurized. It’s big enough for three shuttles if they’re all wedged in tight, but I can’t imagine they’ve got the EV suits to get everyone left aboard.”
Considering that, Priss glanced at Siysye. “See if you can get a surveillance drone in near that hanger, could you Lieutenant? Best to know if they do try and make an exit.”
“Aye ma’am.”
Letting him work, Priss looked up at Rossum again. “We’ve tried hailing them, but so far, no response. Commanders Aniri and Shinko are planning a boarding action at the moment, but I’d prefer we give them one last chance to surrender before we go in shooting. Any suggestions on how we can get through to them?”
Frowning thoughtfully, Megan looked over the sensor scans again. External communications would likely have been destroyed when the ship was crippled, and she’d put her own money on the internal comm systems being at least severely damaged as well. Unfortunately, she had no way of knowing if the Hirogen regularly carried independent comm devices, so they couldn’t just send a signal booster over and hijack those to issue the Captains demands. Although, they had captured the boarding party that had blown up the shield generator. Surely their equipment would work.
A thought occured to her, and she leaned past Siysye to rotate the map, considering the materials the Escort was made of. With shields and jamming fields offline, beaming through monotanium with Starfleet-grade transporters was doable. Taking a moment to think it through, Megan smiled, noting to herself that it was indeed less painful then earlier, then looked towards her Captain. “I think I’ve got a way.”
***