A Fine Mess-Ch. 11

A Fine Mess

By Chianna

PG - Action/Adventure/Romance
Disclaimers in part one

Chapter 11

One Mystery Solved

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As the two shuttle pods completed landing procedures, the armored doors to the bay sealed. The call to stations by the Captain came across the Comm. The Enterprise shook with the opening salvo to the battle that that they had all expected. They did not need any further incentive to hit the ground running.

As Trip, T'Pol and Travis ran onto the bridge, the well-rehearsed ballet of the junior officers making way for the senior officers to take their stations occurred. Though not a military vessel, the maneuver transpired with clockwork precision.

"Travis, I need you to run evasive maneuver delta six. Malcolm, fill the commander in on the current weapon’s situation."

The enemy craft were light, fast and maneuverable like the World War II Japanese Zeros of mid twentieth century history. The Enterprise seemed to have superior construction and weapon’s systems to its advantage. Before Malcolm had a chance to recap the armory teams lack of success, another barrage hit mid-decks on the starboard side of the ship. Though the laser cannons and torpedo controls remained lit on Malcolm’s Armory screen, the phase cannon’s controls blinked out. And this time, stayed out.

"Captain, the phase cannons are off line - again. That should do for the recap, sir."

"All right. Let’s bring the laser cannons to bear then. Trip?" Any further information was not needed as the long-time friends could just about read each other’s minds. At least when it came to situations like this.

"Got it Capt’n. Running diagnostics. Since this power drain seems to be holding longer, I think I can back track through the relay systems to pinpoint... Got it! There seems to be a broken connection in sector 5, on D deck. Just outside engineering. Whoa..." What is the correlation, Tucker thought? He reviewed repairs made in that sector. He hit on the damage made by the unidentified vessel a few months earlier that had dogged them. Destroying two subspace buoys that they had deployed, the ship had cut them off from aid and then proceeded to play cat and mouse games until, Malcolm and Trip had come up with an ingenious plan involving the currently wonky phase cannons. He had remembered reviewing the outer bulkhead damage, telling the captain that if it had hit just a little more to the...well he and much of engineering would have been vented into space. But there were no power conduits along the outer hull.

Malcolm interjected, "Whoa, indeed. Captain, we just got power back to the phase cannons. What the hell is going on?"

Travis had just taken a sharp turn to port and banked the ship when Tucker saw the phase cannon power grid light up like a Christmas tree in front of him again.

As the Chief Engineer was completing his examination, T’Pol was analyzing the smaller ships’ attack strategy. "Captain, in each of the attack runs, it seems that they are only willing to risk one ship in close attack proximity. The other two maintain some distance to provide cover fire. This strategy may work to our advantage...if we are able to get the phase cannons on line for a length of time necessary to fire at both cover ships simultaneously.

"I think I know, where you’re going with this, T’Pol." Archer glanced at the Armory Officer.

"I concur sir. It adds the advantage of surprise, since they have not seen us use our longest range weapons. They may be lulled into a false sense of security."

Just as Malcolm finished outlining this strategy, the ship took another series of hits to the starboard side. The phase cannon system went down once again. Malcolm informed the Captain.

"Alright people. You’ve presented me with an excellent plan but how can I stress enough that we need one that will actually work?"

Tucker whipped around and stared at the Captain for a moment. "Ohmygod, that’s it, Cap‘t - stress. That’s just got to be it!" He whipped around to his station.

"Tucker to engineering."

"Engineering here, Commander."

"I want a metallurgic scan of D deck from the point of the bulk head patch we made a few months ago all the way to the high bay in engineering. I need it like yesterday. Got it?" Within moments data started poring in to the bridge engineering terminal in front of the Chief Engineer. Tucker looked up for just a moment at the sub commander. Her stance during times of attack always amazed him. If he didn’t know better, he could swear that she could have been a naval officer on a man o’ war from old earth history. She always looked like she could withstand a full broadside if it came her way and still keep her feet.

As Tucker‘s attention returned back to his terminal, T‘Pol noted, "Plating efficiency is down by over fifty percent. Permission to reroute power from secondary systems to boost polarization."

"Permission granted," replied Archer. "Trip, what do we have on the report from engineering?" Archer did not like the byplay earlier about "stress" but figured his friend was only holding back a little ‘til he had the rest of the story.

"Your not gonna like this, Capt’n." Tucker was glad that his friend was looking toward the main viewer. If he turned around, he would certainly see Charles Tucker the third turn a much lighter shade of pale. "When we took that hit a few months ago, you know that we took damage to the outer bulkhead. What I didn’t catch was the damage that was caused by their weapon to the interior decks. Looks like as the energy dispersed, it weakened the structure of the metal it passed through – at the submolecular level."

"How could we not see the damage or at least a burn pattern?"

"That might just be what the intention is. Even if they loose the battle, with a weapon like this, at a later date they could win the war. Out here I’m guessing we’re gonna see a lot of different types of weapons. We only noticed the power fluctuations because the damaged paths acted like fault lines that moved when different stresses were applied. The connections would remain aligned until a structural stress would occur."

"That’s the pattern we were looking for...going to warp, direction changes and now enemy fire." Malcolm than posed, "Is there anything that we can do to guarantee the phase cannons for even just one go?"

Tucker’s eyes never left the screen in front of him as he replied, "I think I’ve got a plan, Lieutenant. Capt’n, with your permission, I like to reroute almost all functions to secondary engineering stations and evac the starboard side of engineering."

Trip was already reaching under his station to grab one of the emergency tool kits that he had squirreled away for a rainy day. This was looking like hurricane season off the Keys for sure. He continued, "If I can get down to the damaged junction, there’s a good chance to redirect the power."

Malcolm offered, "Captain, I’d like to also volunteer to assist Commander Tucker. I can get Ensign Cruz to cover for me here."

Archer noted this as the enemy vessels were lining up for another run. Before he objected to his senior weapons officer leaving the bridge, Trip put in his two cents.

"Malcolm, I really appreciate the offer." Malcolm thought for a moment that he saw a flash of regret in Trip’s face. But it was soon replaced with a rueful smile. "It’s not like it’s a Jeffries tube built for two. I’ve got it covered. Ya’ might only have a shot or two before starting to fry out some relays since my reroute will bypass the buffers in engineering. I’m think’n if I’m mak’n the effort, I’d like to have our crack shot on the job." Malcolm accepted this without comment.

"Captain, can T’Pol take over monitoring the engineering station while I’m gone?"

"T’Pol, cover the station and give me updates. Trip, keep me posted on your progress. Keep the comm open." T’Pol had moved over to Trip’s station. She looked down at the readout. Everyone else’s attention was taken by the view on the screen and the strafing shot that rocked the bridge. She scanned the report and looked back up to Tucker as he was stepping away. He could discern no emotion on her face, yet somehow he knew that she questioned his decision to not fill the Captain in on all the details of his repair mission.

Trip simply shook his head and walked off the bridge. T’Pol saw the logic in his decision. There was no one better suited to complete the task. Discussion would have only delayed this inevitable conclusion.

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Continued in Chapter 12
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