The Officers

Chapter 2 - Oh Fuck!

~~~ What the hell is going on?

Even as the engineer was keeping a very close eye on reactor two, the bridge was dealing with the alarms. The captain looked at the communications officer, "Pass a message we're remaining at condition 3 until further notice. Inform them there is an engineering emergency which is the cause of the alarms."

She turned to the engineering officer, "Report."

He glanced at his screens before turning to her and replying, "The first reactor had a malfunction which required us to SCRAM it. To ensure it shut down we did a manual shut down also. The CHENG, Chief Engineer, has brought reactor two online and is ensuring it's not going to have the same problem. He does want the engines brought back online but slowly. If there is a similar problem, he wants to be able to shut down before anything happens. His recommendation is to start with 5% power to the engines and add 5% every five minutes until we have a problem or reach where we had been."

She nodded at all the right points, "You heard the man, bring us to 5% power and check every five minutes with him before bumping the power up some." Her eyes glanced at her console and watched the readings slowly climb to the 5% recommended. It was low speed, but they were moving again, "Comm inform the space dock of the problems and send them an info dump of everything we have. That's across the board for every system. Every time the engines increase power send another dump." They were already streaming data, but it would ensure the space dock had the most current data.

"Yes Ma'am. Sending initial dump now." He sent the information and ensured the communication links were stable and functioning. They were sending diagnostic information, but this was everything including the minor faults. If there was a question about some information being important it was being sent. It was also being dumped to a drone in case something happened after the last data dump. He didn't expect it, but it was policy.

Before the next increase of power to the engines the engineering officer on the bridge checked with the CHENG. He looked at the captain before looking at navigation, "Slowly increase power to 10%. Do 1% every ten seconds." He turned back to his boards.

Down in engineering the first reactor was being torn apart to try and find the fault. The CHENG wanted to go and help but he needed to remain at his station. Ensuring reactor two wasn't having problems was his current job. As power to the ship and the engines was slowly being increased his eyes traveled over the indicators and as of now reactor two was looking stable. The pony reactor was working well and wasn't showing any indications of problems. It was an older known model and was considered one of the best emergency reactors on the market. The thing could take a bullet and shrug it off.

One of the tech reps working on the first reactor called to get his attention, "Sir, I think we've found the problem. It looks like one of the room temp superconductor coils had a manufacturing defect. We found a micro crack in the outer housing. Do you wish to examine it?"

He scowled at what appeared to be the problem. By now the super conductor rings were well established and almost never had a problem, "I do. Down in a minute." He looked at one of the enlisted, "Pull a new conductor ring from supplies and get it up here stat. Before it goes in we are going to ensure it isn't having a problem." He called for someone to take over before he left his post.

Once he made it to the first reactor he took the viewers from the tech rep and carefully examined the crack. It couldn't be seen by normal vision and required magnification. He was frowning since the casings were incredibly durable and to have a crack was almost unbelievable. The last time he'd seen one was at the end of the wars when production quality slipped. In that case they'd had to eject the reactor core to save the ship. From what he was seeing it had been a close call for this ship. They'd managed to catch it before needing to do that. If they'd had to it would add several months to the commissioning since a new core would have to be manufactured.

"Well fuck, I want to know how this happened. It shouldn't have unless there was a manufacturing defect or some sort of contamination. Remove it, ensure it's sealed and I'll turn it over for evaluation." He was glaring at the crack before taking the viewers off and walked back to his station. As he took it back over the spare ring arrived and was settled in a test right.

"Run all tests possible. That includes the stress tests. Before it's installed I want to ensure it's working and isn't going to have a problem." He turned to the bridge link, "This is the CHENG, put me through to the captain."

When she answered he was still feeling irritated, "I have a micro crack in the port superconductor. I'm sending a message to the space dock to look into it. I'm having it secured and will turn it over as possible evidence in case it was due to manufacturing issues. I have a new one testing right now to ensure it won't have a problem. I'll update you when I have further information Ma'am." He disconnected and turned back to the boards. So far everything looked good. The power flow was stable as was the fusion reaction and hydrogen feeds. The containment fields looked good and for the moment he was content.

He'd been examining the reactor when they were edging up to 10% power. Glancing at the logs showed it had been stable and smooth. It wasn't going to be long before they moved to 15%. They'd been running at 25% when the problem started so he was going to keep a very close eye on the readout's when they started approaching that power setting.

On the bridge the next change of power occurred, and it was much like the last. Every ten seconds the navigation team would increase the power by 1%. They finally settled at the 15% power setting and everything was showing as good.

Back at the space dock they were resisting the urge to demand information. They were getting the amended data feeds and data dumps. The information was being fed to the various staff who needed the information. In a massive room they had a holoprojector of the ship. It was indicating known issues and was being updated every time there was a data dump.

The engineering team was tearing apart every bit of information from both main reactors. What was being reported was concerning. The reactors were a new design which improved the power flow by close to 30%. It was needed to power the FTL engines. If they hadn't been able to get that break through they'd have had to added two additional fusion engines. That would have increased the size of the ship by a vast amount not to mention adding crew they didn't have currently.

They did have experimental reactors which matched the ones on the ship. They were in a heavily fortified portion of the space dock in case something happened. A senior Admiral looked around, "Bring the plants online and draw power from them. Match what was being used for fusion one and two when it was activated. They took their time but eventually fusion one was fully online and running at the maximum safe level. It wasn't showing any issues as reported by the ship. It didn't take much longer before reactor two was online and was slowly being brought to full power. Much like reactor one it was working fine.

After discussing it the engineering staff were leaning towards what had happened on the ship had been one of the issues which happened with new ships. There was always going to be mechanical issues with a new ship. It was a fact of life since most systems were new as well and more advanced than an old one, "Inform the ship of what we are seeing." The Admiral ordered.

By the time the ship received the message they were running at 20% power to the engines and it was looking good. They'd decided to take an additional five minutes to move beyond that. The captain looked around the bridge, "Give it twenty seconds between the percentage change. It was when they'd hit 25% when things happened. She was going to give engineering time to deal with the reactor if there were problems. She'd been tempted to give them thirty seconds per power change.

When they hit 22% the CHENG noticed a slight power fluctuation but before he could do anything they hit 23% and the last thing he saw was a flash. Moments later between the escaping plasma and power surges the ship seemed to strain before she started to come apart at the seams. It only took a few seconds before the ship exploded.

~~~ News report

"This is Sunny Denham from the Earth reporting service. There was a reactor accident aboard the Unified Space Ship Enterprise. It appears it was an engineering issue and she was lost with most if not all hands aboard. An investigation has been started and will be reported on as information comes out about what happened. For the families there are teams reporting to them to inform them of the loss. For those lost say a prayer, howl, yowl, yip, or ask those you believe in to give them comfort." She lifted her head and let out a yowl of agony since she was a were-cat.

The end.