<< Happening as the Charon is plowing through Vulcan's atmosphere. :) >>
"SEAL THAT RUPTURE!" Neyes screamed across Engineering, managing to get the words out before he was thrown into a console. The ship was shaking like a baby's rattle, and Engineering was literally being torn to pieces. With a medic hanging off his arm, trying to keep Landon from bleeding out from the injuries to his arm and face, Neyes barked orders in a desperate attempt to keep the ship from collapsing in on itself. The Engineering crew was a flurry of people clinging to bulkheads and stable console railings. To all his efforts of maintaining strength, Landon felt a little dizzy at the loss of blood he's suffered since his injury. It was all he could do to keep from passing out completely.
"We're entering the upper atmosphere of Vulcan! Hull temperature is rising dramatically!" An Engineer yelled, "Hull Stress has reached thirty teradynes! Thirty two! Thirty Five!!" An explosion of sparks bombarded the entire engineering deck as the Charon shook violently.
"The outer hull is being sheared off! Structural Integrity is at 10 percent!!" Someone else shouted.
Landon pushed the medic away as he turned to the manual energy controls. He crossed the Engineering deck with no small amount of effort as the floor seemed to sway and heave beneath them. A few floor panels were missing incidentally, and this made his job even more difficult. "I'm going to shunt power from the warp drive directly into the field matrix! The EPS taps should hold and we'll stay in one piece! Keep those engines from blowing out! Cooling systems to maximum!" Hopefully enough power was being siphoned off the core, or else he was about to blow out every emitter on the ship.
Before he could reach the manuals, another major alarm klaxon blared through Engineering and the computer started chirping across all the consoles. "Warning Structural Integrity support has failed on decks eight through 12".
"F*ck m-" Landon barely had time to reach for something to grab onto before the deck fell out from under his feet. A series of cries and screams from the crew sounded through the room as the hull quaked with a terrifying roar beneath them. The stress of the engines on the ship had torn the structural field emitters throughout the engineering section of the hull. The entire room shifted to the left and fell downwards, tossing Neyes and the crew in those sections around like rag dolls. Just as quickly as the floor had fallen out from beneath him, the wall and everything under it came up to meet him once again. With a thud and a involuntary expulsion of his breath, Landon hit the deck.
"Uagghh... Computer! G- gg- Reinstate forced total unilateral field emitter-" He was thrown against the wall again. "UgH!! -emitter integrity support! Bypass damaged primary hull emitters!" He reached up to brace himself on something, but couldn't manage to reach anything without being smacked against the floor.
The room stopped quaking and returned to the previous violent vibration. He immediately rolled up to his feet and bee-lined it for the power control shunts. In less than a minute he had the access panel off and was slowly pulling up cylinders. They groaned in protest, but eventually gave way. The conduits beneath them came alive with a fiery blue light. A charged EPS plasma shot through them to the structural field grid, filling the room with the low thrum of the tremendous power flowing past the panel.
"We're stabilizing! Field integrity has leveled off at eight percent!"
Landon held onto a console as another blast of sparks ripped across Engineering. A fire started above the pool table, and he could see the injured beginning to pull themselves off the floor. "What's our altitude?!!" He shouted.
Someone worked a console for moment, "We're 1.7 kilometers off the surface!!!"
He was about to shout some vulgar remark about the poor piloting of the helmsman on the bridge, when a sickening crack racked the hull and threw Landon into the wall once again. The ship didn't start quaking again, but the all-too-familiar sound of creaking hull gave Landon a bad image of what had just happened.
"Don't tell me! We hit the goddamn planet!!" He shouted.
"Bridge reports we hit one of the upper mountain ranges in our path! Major structural damage to decks 9 and 10, sections 23 through 51!! The starboard nacelle was also hit in the collision, but computer ODN pathways to the internal sensors are damaged. I can't get a full report!"
"Keep the impulse engines steady! We're no doubt going to need them to clear atmo!"
The remaining moments were a tense silence as they waited for the other shoe to drop. Thankfully, all they received was word that the ship was stabilized and well on its way back up into orbit. They'd managed to stay alive and save the Vulcan people from a painful and deadly genocidal virus. Landon felt anything but thankful though, as he looked at the destroyed scene before him. A fire lit the wall directly behind him, and with the suppression system offline, it continued to blaze. There was a hole in the pool table, and there seemed to be no limit to the number of broken consoles, charred bulkheads, and darkened walls. Half the room was black, lit only by the intermittent but consistent rain of sparks cascading from the ceiling. Exposed relays and conduits hung limply from above.
"Djyaia'n xjio misodas'a..." he cursed as he removed his seared uniform jacket. His voice tired, and he smiled incredulously. "I'm going to have to rebuild this whole damned ship..."
=/\= END LOG =/\=
Ens. Landon Neyes
Chief Engineer
USS INTREPID
Various NPCS
