=/\= Engineering, USS CHARON =/\=
"Sir! The injectors are losing alignment! And we've got MULTIPLE hull breaches on deck four!" Someone hollered out from the second floor of Engineering.
"I got it!" Neyes cringed as another explosion racked the ship and shook the deck. Several secondary explosions popped across Engineering, scattering more debris across the room. Swinging himself around by his grip on the bulkhead, Landon brought himself up to the next console nearby. His fingers flew over the controls. This wasn't exactly what he had imagined as his first day on the job. The controls chirped as he restored primary computer control to the warp core injectors, and he visually sighed. "How are the emergency forcefields holding out?"
"They're at 50%! We had to divert power to keep the shields up! We've got atmospheric leakage! Aft shields are down!"
"This is like patching a leaky rowboat! Who's flying this thing!?" Neyes shouted, moving across to the warp core diagnostic panel. "Bridge! This is Engineering! We don't have anymore power to give you for the forward shields! At the current rate of punishment your going to blow out the emitters!"
All Landon could hear was the Ambassador Commander shouting someone over the Comm about shields and engines.
Another explosion ripped through the wall nearby. A fiery mass burst outwards and sent two crew members flying backwards onto the floor. Landon immediately looked towards the explosion with wide eyes, and his blood ran cold. The creaking of ruined, destroyed bulkhead supports moaned as a massive support beam began to inch its way downward. At this rate he'd have to evacuate Engineering. Looking at the unconscious crew beneath the beam, Landon shot across the room at a dead sprint. His feet pounding against the deck as his heart skipped a beat in his chest. Ignoring an exploding console, a piece of glass caught him in the face, cutting across his cheek and up over his forehead. Blood slipped quickly from the wound and ran down across his face like a sanguine mask. With a quick yell and clenched teeth, Neyes brought himself between the crew and the beam.
The tritanium beam cut a swath of destruction as it fell the two story distance from the ceiling of Engineering to the lower deck. Landon braced himself, and silently cursed as he realized how stupid this really was. Just as the beam was about to come crashing down on them, Landon's threw up his right arm in the hopes that the augmentation was enough to at least slow it down, and braced it with his left. The beam crashed into his hand with a sickening crash, and Neyes thought he might black out from the pain that immediately followed. A shot of mind-numbing agony rippled upwards through his arm as the beam came to a grinding halt against the force of the empowered armature. He felt a ligament snap in his arm, followed by something breaking. The muscles in his arm clenched around themselves and the augmentations seemed to lock into place. He screamed out, but couldn't hear it. He knew he was crying, but couldn't feel it.
Although he couldn't open his eyes to see it, someone had quickly ran over and pulled the two unconscious officers to safety.
Damnit, Neyes, he thought to himself, You've gone and destroyed your lonely night partner.
A flickering blue field sparkled in front of Neyes. He looked in a dizzy haze at the dancing flecks of energy flailing around in front of him, between him and the beam, above his hand. A forcefield.
No. He shook his head and desperately tried to regain his clear mind. He felt someone grab him and pull him off and away from the beam, which he could now tell was being held up by an emergency forcefield someone had put in place to hold it up, and to get him out from under it. As soon as he was clear, the forcefield dropped... and so did the beam.
"Ensign Neyes! Sir!" Landon could hear them screaming them, but he couldn't concentrate enough to understand. The pain in his arm was deafening. He felt the floor come up to meet him as another hit shook the ship, taking him and the man holding him up down.
He grabbed out at the medkit under the pooltable, right near his head. Even though he couldn't remember what it's name was, he knew that the damned painkiller was red. Red hypospray bottle. He pushed open the medkit box and injected himself with the anesthetic. He suddenly felt the room come back into focus, and his vision cleared.
"Sir, let me stop the bleeding on your face." The engineer insisted, holding Neyes down and taking the hypospray out of his hand.
"I won't argue with you." Landon managed. He then realized he couldn't move his right arm. "Are they ok?" He asked the young man, a fire back-lighting his figure.
"You kept them safe, sir. Now stop moving." Landon was again pushed against the deck, and a dermal-regenerator lit up across his slashed face.
Landon began to settle down against the deck, confident that the crew could manage to get along without him for just a second or two. He couldn't very well bleed all over the controls, after all. "Just get it done quick. I'm fairly positive the Ambassador Commander is trying to destroy Charon in the most total and complete way he can. I'm surprised he hasn't just rammed us into the damned Romulans at this point."
A whir of energy charged in the warp core as the Engineering crew felt the ship go into and then immediately out of warp. Just enough to cover a few thousand kilometers, but enough to notice.
"ALL ENGINES FULL REVERSE! EMERGENCY DECELERATION! ALL DECKS BRACE FOR COLLISION AND ATMOSPHERIC ENTRY."
Landon shot up. "Dui'xine JADA ne'LAMONT!" He fumed.
=/\= To be continued =/\=
Ens. Landon Neyes
Chief Engineer
USS CHARON
