Snips and Snails and Puppy Dog Tails

Posted on Fri Dec 3rd, 2021 @ 1:51pm by Senior Chief Petty Officer Jonathan Stoun & Lieutenant JG G'Rani & Lieutenant JG Mirez

2,391 words; about a 12 minute read

Mission: Episode 4 - The Fires Of Hades
Location: Cargo Bay Alpha Nine "The Chiefs Laboratory"
Timeline: Mission Day Five?

The cargo bay resembled the scene of an alien scrap yard. Pieces of old equipment, starship and station parts, tools, and a few half-eaten sandwiches were strewn about the cavernous cargo hold. A few chairs and crates that had been assembled mingled amongst the "Treasures" and the Chief sat in the middle of all of the organized chaos, feet up in a recliner, drink in one hand, PADD in the other, staring at an enigma.

Jon had one of the large ore processing machines that had been discovered moved to "His Lab" to determine what it was for and what they could learn from it. The processor sat like a puzzle, and he wanted to get to the bottom of it, and what better way than involving his team.

"Chief Stoun to the engineering group, I know that several of you are otherwise engaged, but, if anyone is free, I could use a hand in cargo bay Alpha Nine for um a team-building exercise."

Minka was the first to arrive curiously. She spotted the unseemly amount of carbs scattered around half-eaten. "You know Chief, the doc is on to you. Maybe you should try a proper meal at Niska's place. She managed to put together something rather decent the other night."

"I know, I know, but this thing has kept me busy the last few days since I had it moved." He got out of the recliner and kicked the leg rest down. "I'll try it, promise. For now, old sandwiches will have to do, I'm also trying to catch the rats that I've seen running around here in here. The Doc is going to get me on the right track one of these days." He laughed as he went over to Minka. Glad you could make it this thing has perplexed me."

G'Rani followed, the look of amusement on her face soon dropping the mirth in favor of utter disgust at the state of the expansive cargo bays condition. She was about to object at the Chief's working habits when her foot found a puddle of some greasy black oil of some kind and all that escaped her lips between gritted fangs was a yelp as she went head over heels into a pile of other debris from whatever the chief had been mangling contently for the last day or so.

Teach walked in just in time to see G'rani fall into a pile of debris, He moved quickly to assist. "Hey G'rani, are you alright? Let me help you up lass."

"Oh yeah, mind the mess. Lieutenant you good?" He walked over to help Teach and G'rani. "Didn't have the chance to really give the place a good cleaning before you all arrived."

"I don't think I have ever seen such a mess in my life." Mirez stated when she stepped into the cargo bay." The Benzite female looked around. "Why would anyone do this?"

G'rani, back on her feet thanks to Ensign Teach and picking steel wool from her scaled crest with a look of disgust at the chief she started forward once more, tentatively until something scurried past her, it appeared to have six legs, again she yelped, retreating slightly to stand behind Minka.

"They are not rats Chief... That was a Cardassian Vole!"

"Ohh... I wondered why they had six legs... I thought just long exposure to deep space. I hear Voles make some good barbeque if you can catch them. We'll add that to the list of things that need to be done." He looked at the engineers. "I mean, I haven't started naming them yet."

Minka looked on not sure whether to be bemused or annoyed that the Reth'Killan seemed to be using her as a human shield against a rodent.

"No chief. No barbequing voles. They could have viruses or anything in them," she told him. She was also sure that they were not on the doctor's diet plan.

"And you're bigger than me," she said to her superior. As usual her stoic face no one could tell if she was joking, being sarcastic, etc. "Fine ... If there's a good solid brush I'll get rid of the vermin."

Amalia finally arrived rubbing the sleep dust out of her eyes, and holding a cup of coffee in the other hand. "I may have to devise a vole trap to catch the one I found staring at me at the edge of my bed! I don't know if the thing wanted to cuddle with me or get some food. It was just there with two of its paws clasped together."

"Alright, alright, enough about the condition of the lab, I'll get it cleaned." Jon folded his arms. "Alright, the real reason I've called you here is this piece of machinery here." He kicked the metal contraption. "We need to figure out what this is, and I can't think of a better team to do it.

Mirez got closer and crouched down before it. "I've never seen such equipment before. It sure looks odd." She reached for the Tricorder at her hip, then noticed it wasn't there. She usually carried one around, but this time she'd forgotten to take it with her after the unexpected call of Chief Stoun. "Unfortunately I forgot to bring a Tricorder."

Amalia looked at Mirez, took a long drink of her coffee then handed a tricorder to her. "Here knock yourself out and give a scan." then Amalia looked over at Chief Stoun. "Looks like you've been having a bit of fun here." giving a grin.

Jon smiled as sheepishly tried cleaning up the space very nonchalantly. "Yeah, figure this is a bit of a respite from the nonsense of the station." He picked up an empty bottle. "I've done some basic analysis of it, standard Cardassian metallurgy, the same stuff they make most of their equipment and bulkheads, computer control on it is locked down. Like it just seems odd, I was going to take a plasma torch and cut it in half but I figured I'd give you all the chance to look first."

G'rani circled what looked to be a large intake valve as if it was from a Buzzard Ramscoop but why would it have been installed on a station, they had no need for that technology. The fusion reactor would have been all the station needed to provide the power it would need.

"Chief, you seen this? Some for of gas intake system do you think?"

"Yeah, that is what has perplexed me, it looks like they modified mining equipment to perhaps vaporize the minerals?" Jon had taken the accumulated bottles and wrappers and thrown them in the reclamation. "Ideas? Trace minerals from the briar patch cloud? Vaporize ore to increase the density of the final? I don't know."

Teach wandered over to look at the device. " Increase the density of the produced materials? That could come in handy! Perhaps somewhere in this heap we might find the manual for this contraption and get it working for us! "

"It does look like some sort of combination of parts," Mirez said as she studied the scan she'd performed. "Maybe some crude prototype? Though they wanted to employ Chemical Vapour Deposition then there are more straightforward ways to do that. Perhaps this was the only thing they had available at the time?"

Well if it's a bloody prototype, they'd have to have some notes or book on it. Said Teach. " I'm going to start having a look around and see if I spot anything that would help us. "

"I mean I've been known to put stuff together in a pinch, I mean shipments out this way would probably be hard to get, or if they were trying to keep it on the low, then they would be forced to do it. Teach, good idea on notes, where would you hide something like that? I don't think we've turned up anything in the search of the station, though might be something that could have been destroyed." Jon had disposed of the last of the old sandwiches and grabbed a plasma torch.

G'rani was now intrigued and her fear of the Cardassian Voles had been forgotten as her technical curiosity took hold.
"Chief... That part by your feet, the one that looks like a heating manifold... Would it, in theory, be capable of converting volatile gases into charged plasma?"

"Maybe, why would you want to do that? Backup energy system." Jon saw a Vole on the one workbench, it was sniffing one of the sandwiches that had been left as bait. He slowly moved towards the chair that he had been sitting in and grabbed a bottle. He held the neck then flung it as hard as he could towards the vole. It missed to the right, shattered glass rained like shrapnel down on the unsuspecting vole as it scurried away.

"Team, thoughts, opinions, let's hear it no matter how crazy." Jon knelt next to the port.

"Well I've got a couple of thoughts that might work", Said Teach. "First off, use it to power systems that are currently offline or bring power to areas that currently don't have any. Second, we could use it as an emergency weapon until we're able to bring the station's defense grid up to spec!"

G'rani was now circling another device that seemed to connect to the manifold and the intake and it was all starting to make sense to her now.

"Chief... This thing was designed and built to convert Metreon Gas into charge plasma with similar properties to the gaseous form... They were mining the Metreon from the Briar Patch to make directed plasma weapons... From the size of the device we are talking planet killer sized weapons!"

"How did you come to that conclusion?" Mirez asked. A weapon hadn't been on her mind while she'd looked at the weird-looking machinery, and the scan she'd done didn't offer her straightforward answers to the questions they all had as there were more than one that could be true.

"Simple, put all of these parts together and what do you get... Something similar to a Buzzard Ramscoop but with the additional components like the manifold and the controlled heating chamber... It has to be a system to convert Metreon into a form of plasma" she ran the numbers in her head and she had to admit she was no weapons specialist, "Take your average Cardassian Plasma beam weapon... This would likely charge it to two hundred and fifty percent efficiency!"

Shailyn who had been quietly watching and listening to this, "So we put it together and see what we can do with it."

Amalia looked over towards the operations officer then towards Stoun and the Assistant Chief Engineer. She watched as the vole whom Stoun chucked a bottle towards it then she jumped as she felt something crawl up her leg, she looked down and locked her gaze with the vole's beady eyes that was right there. Amalia reached down to slap the thing off of her leg and it leaped onto her hand, and ran up her arm, she yelped slapping at it with her other hand. "I would love to build a vole trap or get some cats who would eat these things!" her hand connecting with the vermin and sending it flying.

Teach itched the back of his neck and grinned as he watch the vole scurry away. " Ya want a vole trap do ya? I hear the little buggers are drawn to electro magnetic fields. How about this for and idea? We set up a cargo bay that opens into space and set up a strong electro magnetic field, let the buggers come in and vent them out. " He shrugged. " Then ya reset it for the next batch. No blood or smell to give away our trap, good idea or nay? " He thought for a few moments. " What do you think of the idea of a back up plasma power generator for the station And perhaps as a defense weapon for the station as well. you said it yourself that they might have been planning for it use in that fashion. "

Jon stood and contemplated for a moment. "Good ideas all around. Let's run a few more diagnostics on this thing see if we can fire it up, use it for our own purposes and then we can report the findings to the Captain. G'rani, Mirez, Shailyn, you're on that one. Darcy, Teach, work on the Voles. Sato, I want to turn one of the other cargo bays into a dedicated engineering bay for us, I know that the core is kind of more or less the main hub of activity for us, but, I think we could use our own space, either here or in another bay that would be more conducive. I can move my chair if needed but I think we need a better space for all of us to tinker with things, I want you to be in charge of that. Any questions?"

Teach turned to Darcy. " So lass, do ya want to give my idea a try and flush them out of the station? Or do you have any idea of your own? If so, I'd love to hear it. "

"I think you might want to pow wow with the doc chief. She might have something that can help too," Minka suggested.

Amalia looked at Minka and nodded her head, "Thanks, that sounds like a great idea Minka." she then turned to Teach, "Looks like we've got a doctor to go see. C'mon let's get moving." giving a smile.

Mirez smiled, or what was considered a smile with her race, and hoped the other recognized it as such. "I'm confident we can make it work."

"Great, thanks everyone, I'll see about getting this cleaned up in here, let me know if you need anything." Jon waved as everyone shuffled out of the room. When the crew was gone he whistled with his fingers. A vole crawled out from under one of the work benches and stood up on one its hind legs.

"You all right Frank?" Jon reached into a cabinet and handed it a piece of bread. "Stay out of trouble ok?" The Vole grabbed the bread and scurried back under the work bench.

 

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