=/\= Main Engineering – Deck 8 =/\=
"Shut that alarm off and contain that plasma fire!" Quentin yelled to the nearest engineer as the alarms blared and the room was foggy with smoke. "I'm on it!" the engineer called back through the smoke as they reached for an extinguisher and combated the fires. Main engineering was a disaster zone, consoles, walls, floors and ceilings were destroyed and littering the room. The normal blue hue of the warp core was now lifeless and the lights were reduced to emergency lighting making visibility difficult over the smoke from the plasma fires. The pool table itself had been cracked in half during the last attack and most of the consoles were also out.
Calhoun was still in civvies and combined with the sweat, dirt and blood made him look like a survivor of some hellish occupation. He thought to himself a moment as he took a look at his office, the glass door was shattered and the entire room was damaged. He shook his head as he managed to get the environmental systems back online long enough to vent the smoke as the engineering damage teams finished putting out the fires before they were gone again. Loosening his collar he ran over to one of the only working consoles and begun tapping away trying to get some form of response. "Main computer core is down to 60%; we've lost over four teraquads of line processing data" came a voice from behind him. "Ok, but we've got backups in cargobay one. "Cargobay one is sealed shut, problem with the magnetic door locks" came the reply. "Ok, take a team down there now and get those doors open. Take oxygen as most of the cargobays have been drained of all power" he instructed the engineer who ran off to assemble a team.
He continued to tap on the console and managed to resurrect the communications systems and two of the sensor palettes. While information would be off by rather a lot at least they would get some sort of warning. He couldn't help but pause and look at the gaping hole in the side of main engineering; a simple forcefield standing between his department and utter oblivion. It was a harrowing thought but they had to work through the fear; they needed to prepare the ship for an expected round two. Quentin's main priority was shields. Pushing as much power as they could possibly take to boost them was key in keeping the ship from falling apart. Taking power from wherever he could he was slowly building a reserve for the shields to draw from. He paused for a moment and his stomach sank as he read the warning now flashing up on his display. 'Life support power draining'.
He winced as he knew why, there wasn't enough power being generated to sustain life support on all decks. He looked around the room, there were about thirty engineers hard at work trying to fix some of the systems and damage to the ship. "Ok listen up! Team one will be staying here – everyone else evacuate the deck NOW!" he yelled as the engineers looked at him strangely but complied with the order they were given and put down their tools to head out and clear deck 8. "Team one – suit up, EVA" he ordered as he climbed over debris and headed into the store room adjacent to the main room and changed into an EVA suit himself. Once everyone was suited up he opened a comm. Link to the bridge. "Captain; we don't have enough power to sustain life support. I've evacuated everyone on deck eight; apart from the trapped stellar cartographer. I'm heading down there to assist in the rescue we have three hours to get them out… I'm shutting down life support to the deck immediately, if I don't… the entire ship will be without life support in a matter of hours" he said gravely. "By shutting down this deck it will keep the power flowing enough to sustain life support to the rest of the ship" he added before closing down link and pressing the button to switch off life support. The air would be gone in approximately three hours.
He shook his head, today was just going from bad to worse. He opened the doors to engineering. The deck was like a ghost ship, no people, limited light and debris everywhere. He activated the torches and hurried to Stellar Cartography… they were all running out of time.
Lieutenant Commander Quentin Calhoun
Chief Engineer
USS Charon
