Tick. Tick. Tick.

[Annabelle O'Halloran 0]

Juno.....the ship was called Juno. If ever a ship was misnamed, it was the Juno. The name elicited images of snow covered landscapes and below freezing temperatures, icy blue skies and bald eagles..and most of all.. fresh air. Debbie found the reality of life on the Juno a stark contrast to the locale after which it was named. The ship was dark, hot and worst of all, it stunk to high heaven. Some of that was due to the current crisis but Deb suspected the air on this rust bucket was always below standard.

 

She could only guess what the situation was like elsewhere on the ship but in engineering, things were desperate and growing worse by the moment. There were eight crewmen in engineering. Six of them were injured but not seriously. In fact, Deb thought a couple of them were capable of assisting their shipmates who were trying to help Wade Knight route more power to the failing containment field. The fact they continued to hug the floor and carry on like they were dying spoke volumes about their characters. It also brought into question the ethos of the rest of the crew. But there really wasn't time to ponder such things. Deb was no expert, but even she could see this ship was on borrowed time. The question was, how much longer could the Juno hold on.

 

Commander Ridire had requested she check on the status of the ship's engines. She resisted the urge to remind Aidan she wasn't an engineer deciding instead to give it her best shot. And one of the slightly injured floor huggers was going to help her. She walked over to them, eying them carefully, trying to decide which one would volunteer when the com from Anna came in.

 

"Doctor, I'm seeing a rise in radiation seepage as the containment field weakens further. Are you reading the same?"

 

While awaiting Debbie's response, Anna heard Commander Ridire ask if the Reaent had the equipment aboard that could safeguard the freighter's cargo if Wade was able to get the engines operational. Keeping the neutral tone to her voice as she answered in the affirmative wasn't difficult but she was glad that both Ridire and the freighter's CO (whose name, logs showed, was Sten Angstrom) weren't looking directly at her. It would have been obvious, she was sure, from her expression that the idea of actually leaving the degraded Triceron canisters with this bottom line yahoo and his disaster of a ship was abhorrent to her. The Juno was a disgrace!

 

"Radiation," whispered Deb, opening her tricorder. The radiation level was definitely on the rise. But how fast was it rising? How long before the radiation forced them off the ship? She glanced at the engines several meters away. Even from a distance, she could see an eerie cloud of something ominous leaking from the housings. She lightly kicked the middle aged man with the handlebar mustache. "Come with me," she ordered and started to walk away. She took three steps before turning around to find her volunteer still hugging the floor. "Now," she barked, clearly annoyed. "Unless you want to find out what real pain feels like."

 

"Anna," she said calmly as she tapped her comm badge. "I'm aware of the radiation levels. I'll get back to you shortly after we do a more thorough study of these leaky engines."

 

"Understood." Anna commed back, resisting the urge to say 'good luck' and that she'd keep her fingers crossed. That smacked of desperation. They weren't desperate. Yet. But close, though. Turning in her seat, she overheard Angstrom tell Ridire, "I'm just a poor scrub trying to make a buck." Spinning back to face the console, she tightened her jaw and glared at the ship's maintenance logs glowing on the screen. She'd already transferred them to the Reaent and as she scrolled through them, it became obvious that they should have begun with 'Once upon a time...' since they appeared to be just so much malarkey. Critical maintenance checks had not been performed in timely fashion. How the hell had they passed an inspection that would have qualified them to subcontract for ordnance disposal? The ship had been treated shamefully. It had been allowed to deteriorate almost past the point of redemption and if Wade wasn't successful, the odds were that this was the Juno's swan song.

 

As they approached the Juno's dilapidated engines, Deb hoped her tone of voice hadn't betrayed her concern She knew Aidan was on the bridge with Anna. It wouldn't due for him to think she was nervous much less scared. But she was....at least a little scared anyway. He would be too if he could see these engines.

 

"What's your name?" she asked the reluctant volunteer. "And what's your position on this ship?"

 

"Pallu," came the terse reply.

 

"Pallu what?" asked Deb.

 

"Just Pallu."

 

"I'm Dr. Matthews. What's your job on the Juno?"

 

"Second engineer."

 

"Oh thank heaven," mused Deb silently. "At least he's an engineer." Then another thought crossed her mind. "Are you licensed?"

 

No answer. When she turned to face him, Pallu was tugging on one side of his mustache. Her heart sank. "You're not licensed, are you?"

 

"Not really," he answered with a shrug.

 

"Then how can you be a....." She stopped in mid sentence. It was quite obvious the Juno's captain had little if any respect for maritime rules and regulations. The engineering chief probably wasn't licensed either. It was a moot issue anyway. All she could do was make lemonade out of this huge lemon.

 

"When did your engine problems arise," she asked, trying to maintain a civil tone. "What happened when they began to fail."

 

"Don't know," answered Pallu. "I wasn't here."

 

Deb took a step closer to the man and crossed her arms in front of her. "Then who was here and where is he?"

 

Again, silence. "Who was down here when the engines started to fail? demanded Debbie. To her surprise, Pallu took a step back. Obviously, he could tell she was annoyed.

 

"Nobody," came the quick reply.

 

She was speechless, a condition Deb rarely ever suffered from. It took a moment for her to wrap her brain around this startling revelation. "You're telling me," she started slowly, her tone deadly. "Nobody was in here to monitor these engines when you're carrying high explosives that require a containment field.?

 

He nodded and took another step back.

 

"Is the chief engineer one of those men on the floor over there?" she asked in a low voice.

 

Pallu stepped back again and shook his head. "No," he finally replied. "I haven't seen him in a few hours?"

 

Deb slowly moved away from the man thinking it was probably wise to put some distance between them before she stabbed him with a scalpel or something. She swallowed a couple of times and then tapped her comm badge. "Anna, do me a favor," she said, her voice as calm as she could manage. "Have someone page the chief engineer and get him down here."

 

The containment field around the Triceron had slipped another 3% per the latest scan, Anna read and fought back the sudden stab of fear that they were running out of time. Hearing Debbie's voice, she tapped her comm, answering in disbelief (although why anything that smacked of incompetence and dereliction of duty on this ship had the power to surprise her, she didn't know.) "The ship's chief engineer isn't down there with you? Unbelievable. According to the maintenance logs, which are suspect to say the least, his name is Lanak Haust. I'm going to do an all call over the ship's communication system for him to get his butt down there. Is it possible though, that he was injured in the initial explosion that happened before we transported over?"

 

"He may have been injured," replied Deb, "but he isn't down here. The second engineer claims Mr. Haust wasn't here when the engines started failing." She paused a second before dropping the other bomb. "Nobody was here. Mr....Pallu, the second engineer claims he hasn't seen Mr. Haust for hours. We're not waiting for him but it would be nice to have him down here."

 

Anna nodded in understanding, even though Debbie couldn't see her and she kept her voice low in response, very aware that Juno's CO was not too far away, still engaged with Ridire in the kind of fencing that meant Reaent's XO wasn't getting any answers to his questions. "Deb, I'll put a call out for him now." Toggling a switch on the grimy control board, she requested that Chief Engineer Lanak Haust get down to Engineering on the double. Of course, he'd never heard her voice before, none of this crew had. Anna doubted he would do more than try and get a hold of Angstrom and demand to know what was going on. Haust had to know he had biologically degraded and unstable Triceron sitting in the hold. Maybe he didn't know the explosive yield was over 6,000 gigatons but he had to figure it would make a pretty big bang. She wondered if he'd been scared witless.

 

She and Pallu were now standing in front of the main engineering console. Deb reminded herself once again that she wasn't an engineer. So, maybe it wasn't as bad as it looked. Red lights blinked on several panels while muted alarms tried to warn of the impending disaster. Digital pressure readings were on the high side of normal and rising steadily as Deb and Pallu stood there watching.

 

"How long?" asked Deb, glancing at her volunteer.

 

"An hour," came his immediate response. "Maybe less."

 

He may have been a third rate engineer but Deb tended to believe him. The look of fear in his eyes convinced her things were as bad, if not worse, than she expected. She looked back at the pressure readings and tapped her comm badge. "Anna, please inform the Commander that Juno's second engineer believes these engines have no more than an hour of life.....maybe less. Personally, I think it's less."

 

"I know Wade's still working on trying to stabilize the containment field," Anna commed back, while slowly turning her seat to see how the conversation going on behind her was progressing. "He needs to assess those engines, but I will tell the Commander what the Juno engineer thinks..." Anna waited a beat, before smiling a little and adding, "..and that you think he's an optimist. I am sure Reaent has identified and locked onto every biosign on this ship so evacuation can be done within minutes."

 

Deb glancing over to where Wade was feverishly working to restore a modicum of stability to the containment field. "I hope you're right, " she replied to Anna. "Let's pray the engines give us a few minutes warning before they go." She was about to say something else when an ominous hiss erupted from behind her. Pallu ran toward the engines and stabbed a couple of buttons on the console. The hissing sound diminished to a mere squeal. "Anna, I'm going to ask Wade to take a look at these monsters. Maybe he has some magic up his sleeve to keep them going. I'll get back to you." With that, Deb closed the com and hurried toward Mr. Knight uncertain what was most critical.....the containment field or the antique engines.

 

Anna didn't tap her comm badge as she murmured, "Let's hope so," in response to Deb's hope that the engines might give enough of a warning to make escape possible and that Wade had a little magical ability up his sleeve. She rose from the console to go tell the Commander what Debbie had reported and it was only then that she noticed that Sten Angstrom had disappeared, leaving her and Ridire alone on the Bridge. It didn't seem like a positive development.