Touring the Facilities, part 2: Engineering (part 1)

Posted on Mon Nov 27th, 2023 @ 5:01am by Captain Maho Takahashi & Lieutenant Commander Kurumi Ebisuzawa & Lieutenant Ami Rori & Captain Taiga Aisaka

1,165 words; about a 6 minute read

Mission: Operation Tokyo Return
Location: Main Engineering, Deck 14

The next stop on the tour route took Maho and Taiga deep into the Myogi's star drive section to Main Engineering. Maho had notified her new Chief Engineer that she would be turning up for an inspection of Engineering, but she had left out who would be joining her for it:

"Main Engineering is the beating heart of any starship:" Maho explained as the turbolift doors opened on Deck 14. "Even if the ship isn't state of the art and can't do crazy warp speeds because it's old, it's always humbling to lay eyes on the power a ship such as the Myogi needs to propel it well beyond the speed of light."

Taiga nodded as she followed Maho into Engineering. Compared to the Tokyo the design was much older and more cramped. "I've always had a soft spot for old ships..." she said as she ran a finger over one of the older consoles. "They remind me of a much more pacifist Starfleet."

"Quite surprising from someone quick to call anything built outside the last decade junk." Maho noted. "You know, Miyahara once had a soft spot for older ships, too: He believed that once a starship's spaceframe grew to be outdated, instead of relegating the older ships to lighter duties before eventually discarding them, they should be updated to keep up with their modern contemporaries. The whole point of Project Jomo was to prove his idea feasible."

Coffee was good. Coffee was life. Coffee plus an energy stimulant even kept the energy drain of Rori from causing her to fall in a stupor, although it didn't stop the symbiont from giving mental nudges that this was unsustainable especially given how her heart was racing from the combination. In any case, there was another day and some before she could wean herself off of it, because she'd PROMISED the Captain of progress. Her eyes shot up to the door as she was monitoring the data transfer process from the secondary to tertiary computer centers to see Captain Takahashi and someone else walk into Engineering. Ami glanced around, making sure that everyone else remained at their posts as she made one final glance at the progress bar before stepping around the console to greet her guests, quickly brushing down her uniform and skirt.

She approached the two Captains and from a respectful distance braced and gave a bow to them, "Captains, welcome to Main Engineering. Lieutenant Ami Rori at your service." It was all she could do to not speak in Japanese, but despite a slight caffeine-induced stutter, she sounded perfectly normal.

"Lieutenant, I assume you got the memo about the inspection?" Maho asked.

"Hai." (Yes) Ami replied, coming back up from her bow, "And everything is in readiness for your perusal. I can either conduct a tour of Engineering for you, or if you'd like to wander the area, I could answer any questions you may have." She smiled very slightly, not sure how this was going to go. "I would like to report that the data migration to the tertiary memory bank is nearly complete. A Level 2 diagnostic will take approximately eleven hours and I'll be able to detail a plan to repair that functionality."

"Excellent work, Lieutenant." Maho complimented her engineer. "A tour of engineering shall suffice: I hope you don't mind if Captain Aisaka here joins us for the inspection?" She gestured towards Taiga.

"Of course, that would be perfectly acceptable." Ami bowed again slighter to the visitor before making an expansive gesture towards the expansive area behind her and considered how detailed of a tour she should give. To her memory, neither Captain had been engineers prior to obtaining their commands and while they'd know about their ships, possibly even better than her when it came to Myogi for Maho for the time being.

"This is where we keep the brain and the heart of Myogi, at least the way we access the brain." Ami approached the center console backwards. "One of the upgrades that was made by the Starbase was this particular console, from the Mark 8 to the Mark 10, giving us unparalleled multi-tasking capabilities in comparison to anything our size or the next category higher. From here, we can monitor damage control in realtime, complete with diagnosis and remote action capability for triaging minor problems in the middle of combat. The ability to also sandbox potential problems as exercises complete with emulating the problem without actually taking down any actual systems gives us the chance to practice for any real life situation we can think of."

"How fast can you get her upto?" Taiga asked curiously. "It seems like you've still got an old Mark Seven warp drive installed?" She said as she looked at the core that was common used back on the 2360's.

“Yes, ma’am, we do have the Seven, with a maximum sustainable of 8.3 with Warp 9 in a pinch.” It was more a rote recitation, “But once I bring everything else up to specs, I’m going to take a good close look at her heart and see if I can optimize anything.” Ami smiled as an eye twitched involuntarily, “If it’s practical, I may see about putting in for an upgrade next time we’re in spacedock, but you know how long those can actually take to install, so we have to be careful about the timing. Otherwise, I’m going to see what I can do. Our reaction mix was off by a few percent, so I already adjusted it and we have a net increase of 8 percent power production just from that. Getting a new turn of speed may require me to fiddle with our warp field emissions and I’m not just going to toy around until I can get a bunch of simulation time in on it.”

Taiga smiled, she appreciated the enthusiasm of the Lieutenant. "I have some pull with the fleetyards. The Tokyo requires lots of maintenance, plus we push that ship through hell." She glanced over at Maho. "Look, I'll be honest. There's not much I can say, but there's a lot of very dangerous and fast enemy ships out there. You're going to need to be able to outrun them. Don't take it personally, but this ship wouldn't stand a chance against some of the stuff I've encountered. I'll put in a request for your warp core to be refitted as early as possible."

“I’d like to argue that point, Captain.” Ami said very carefully, but trying not to argue with someone willing to help, “We can be quite inventive when we need to be and Myogi doesn’t have an ounce of Quit in us. I may be new here, but I’ve seen the moxie on board and I don’t run away or give up worth a good goddamn.” She blushed slightly and bowed slightly in apology, “Sorry for the language, Captain Takahashi, Captain Aisaka.”

To be continued...

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