The Raging Storm Outside

[Laehval tTemarr 0]

The Raging Storm Outside

(aka Attack of the RES Firestorm)

By El’Riov Laehval t’Temarr

Daise’Engineer

 

 

 

"We've just run out of time."

 

Laehval clutched her console with her usual grim determination. Another shudder rolled through the ship, causing it to lurch unexpectedly. Gritting her teeth to keep from biting her tongue, she concentrated on rapidly keying sequences into her terminal. She was nearly bucked from her chair two or three times, but somehow managed to keep her seat. She always did.

 

Engineering was even more chaotic than usual. The normal bustling pace of her crew had elevated into a full-scale frenzy as the engineers dashed about, doing their best to keep the Talon in one piece. More than a few sported rapidly developing bruises due to their untimely encounters with consoles or equipment. Had she been watching, Laehval would have been proud to see that even those that were bleeding from minor lacerations were still selflessly continuing with their duties.

 

She was not, however, paying attention to her engineers. They were responsible enough to know what needed to be done. If they did happen across something with which they needed guidance, they would be sure to ask. In the meanwhile, she was busy with more important matters… like bellowing orders to the crew she had working on the modified shielding.

 

"WE NEED THAT SHIELDING UP IMMEDIATELY! FINALIZE THE POWER MATRIX AND INITIATE IT HNA!"

 

Though there had yet to be any confirmation that their attacker was the rogue ship RES Firestorm, Laehval had logically drawn her own conclusions. Likely, they had surprised the other ship without ever detecting them. She assumed that rather than waiting for their super-weapon to power up, the Firestorm's captain had attacked them with conventional means in order to give his ship time to compensate.

 

"Because if they had used the EPSILON, au'd be space dust right hna. Or ionic particles. Or some form of anti-proton in an eternal revolution around the imploded AQS." Muttering to herself, she waited on her team to comply with her politely phrased request.

 

"Lhhei..." A breathless Ensign staggered to her side, grasping the closest chair to keep from falling. He shoved an ISD at her as though to rid himself of the burden. "The matrix is online and all circuit pathways have been rerouted to handle the drain. Our energy reserves are at one-hundred forty percent and climbing."

 

"Menkha. I'm initiating the sequence hna. Get back to aur team and tell aur team-leader to be prepared. We've na had sufficient time to draft out a reliable power distribution system, so there will likely be blown circuits and nodes. Everything should have a backup. Au will be replacing parts to keep the system working. Any delays will cause the destruction of the Talon. Is that in any way unclear?"

 

"Ie, Lhhei! I mean ... na, Lhhei!" He gave her a very short bow and backed hastily away.

 

Sliding the ISD into the reader slot, Laehval uplinked it to the main computer and fed the remaining pieces of data into the incomplete matrix schematic. Within just a few moments, she'd started the ignition sequence. Lights and consoles in Engineering began flickering as the power drain stabilized and began to flow steadily. She was certain that similar power drains were happening all over the ship, but nothing could be done about those. All of the critical systems were protected from such outages. If the most they suffered was t'Rexan's wrath at not being able to adequately sharpen her hook-ed hand in the dark, then Laehval had done her job properly. As always, the safety of the ship and its crew came first and foremost.

 

A detailed schematic of the RES Talon appeared on the large display screen overhead. Entering a rapidly keyed sequence, she glanced up and back as the display changed layer by layer. The outline depicting the Talon’s regular shielding appeared, then three thin each came online within the original, swirling in hypnotic fashion. Those layers represented their attempt to repel, contain, or destroy the virus that the Firestorm was sure to send their way. Over the main shields came a much larger, thicker shield that pulsed as it shifted rapidly through random frequencies. She poured as much power as she dared into those shields. They would be the Talon’s only protection against the Firestorm’s energy beam weapon.

 

Where their usual shielding would attempt to block the energy beam (and fail to do so in a matter of nanoseconds), the modified shield would absorb the energy, and then recycle it to power itself and the other ship systems. Its weakness was that it would not be able to sustain itself for long. The more energy that went into it, the faster it would overload unless the overflow could quickly be siphoned away. She had several different storage systems set up to handle such overflow, but once those were full, the energy would have nowhere to go. Based on the information she’d retrieved on the Firestorm’s capabilities, she hoped that the Talon could outlast the energy beam longer than the Firestorm could outlast the power drain on its systems. Though some of the siphoned energy could be thrown back out into space through the deflector array, Laehval considered that only as a last resort.

 

Though every moment felt like an eternity, it had taken only a few minutes for her crew to put all of the new shielding into place. Luckily, the programming work that she and tr’Pexil had done earlier made everything go smoothly. Now … if they could only keep from being incinerated, her day would be a whole lot better.

Edited July 22, 2005 by Laehval tTemarr