A Man of Many Talents

[Peters]

ON: <USS Tasmania, 04:48, November 24th, 2378>

Peters wasn't sure why he was awake at what his bed-side chronometer told him was an ungodly hour of the morning until he felt the ship shudder underneath him and heard the Red Alert klaxons begin to sound in the corridor outside his quarters. Only two and a half years out of the Academy, Peters was proud to have climbed to a Chief Science Officer posting on a starship, even if it was a relatively smaller ship like the Tasmania, which was an early-build Steamrunner class. Still, so far in his short career, the worst situation he'd had to deal with was a total computer lockout on the Einstein last year.

The ship shuddered again, more violently this time, prompting Peters to slide out of bed and look out the only viewport in his relatively small quarters. Still, even being small, having these quarters to himself was better than sharing with another officer, as he'd done as an Ensign. He couldn't see anything for a moment until another shudder nearly threw him off his feet. Then a blindingly-bright orange beam lanced out and illuminated the fast-moving form of a Breen attack ship. Startled, Peters jumped back and nearly fell into his closet.

"Dammit," Peters muttered. "Why can't emergencies ever happen during the day?"

"Red alert, all hands to battle stations! This is not a drill! Repeat, all hands to battle stations. This is not a drill!"

The drone of the computer's automated call to battle stations snapped Peters back to his senses and he quickly grabbed a uniform from its hanger. It took him a couple of moments to pull the pants and tunic on, not helped by the now-frequent shaking of the ship. Not wanting to be the last of the ship's Bridge officers to reach their posts, Peters ran out the door as soon as he was sufficiently dressed, pulling his jacket on as he ran down the corridor.

OFF: To Be Continued...

[Peters]

ON: <USS Tasmania, 04:54, November 24th, 2378>

Peters nearly smacked into the doors to the bridge at a full sprint, barely skidding to a halt in time to keep from smashing his face against the unyielding metal surface. It took a second for the door sensor to register his presence and for the computer to verify that he was authorized to enter the bridge, then the doors hissed open, seemingly a bit haltingly. Perhaps that large jolt that had sent Peters sprawling a moment ago had knocked the door mechanism out of alignment.

Putting that thought aside, Peters entered the bridge and went straight to the Science station. He felt bound by duty to be on the bridge during a crisis like this, but he really wasn't sure what to do other than cling to his console and keep an eye on the sensors. He'd never been through combat before. Well, that wasn't totally true. The Montana had been in a brief scuffle with some pirate while he was aboard, but the starship had been easily able to handle their opponent and Peters had been a junior officer who never even got near the bridge until months later.

Becoming a bit more aware of his surroundings, Peters saw that the Tactical console was a smoldering wreck and that the current Tactical officer had converted the Mission Ops console to control the ship's defensive systems. Captain Melnon was holding a strip of his uniform against a gash on his forehead and barking out orders, seemingly oblivious to the blue blood that was trickling between his fingers. There was no sign of the XO.

The ship lurched hard to port and the Tactical officer shouted, "Shields down to ten percent, Captain!"

"Keep firing. Engineering, I need more power to shields," the Captain shouted in return. Peters gripped his console and watched his sensor displays as the Tactical officer scored a hit on one of the Breen ships with a volley of torpedoes. That ship veered off and got out of range of the Tasmania's weapons, but the other ship swung in for another attack run.

The ship lurched hard to port again, throwing Peters out of his chair and wrenching his shoulder as he tried to hold on to his console. Pushing himself off the floor, Peters staggered back to his seat as the Captain yelled, "Engineering, where are my shields."

"Engineering's gone, sir," the young officer at Ops reported. Peters glanced over at her. She looked like she was 5 years younger than him, and looked as scared as he felt. She continued, "Hull breach on decks 5 through 7. We've lost the matter injectors, and I can't raise anyone in Main Engineering. We're lucky they didn't hit the warp core, Captain."

"Helm, keep that spot away from their fire. And someone find me an Engineer. I need shields," the Captain ordered, seeming as calm as if he were laying on a beach somewhere.

Peters couldn't believe it, but he found himself speaking up, "Captain, I think I can help out in Engineering."

That seemed to surprise the Benzite. "Mister Peters?"

"I, uh, I minored in Warp Field Theory at the Academy, sir, and took several other Engineering classes as electives. It was my original major before I switched to Stellar Cartography, sir." Peters wondered if his voice wavered as he thought it did.

"Get going," Captain Melnon replied without further question. "Shields are your first priority, life support and other critical systems second."

"Aye sir!" Peters said as he headed for the turbolift. He was secretly wondering how he'd gotten himself into this predicament.

OFF:

All characters other than Peters are NPCs.

[Peters]

ON: <USS Tasmania, 05:07, November 24th, 2378>

The sight that greeted Peters when he stepped off the turbolift on the main Engineering level nearly stopped him dead in his tracks. More accurately, it made him want to turn around, go to the shuttlebay and fly home as fast as he could. Nothing in Peters' limited prior experience prepared him for the sight of twisted equipment and bulkheads with parts of what had to be bodies scattered through-out.

He'd been lucky enough to be away from the Academy on a training cruise when the Breen had attacked Earth, and while it had taken awhile to repair the damage from that, it had at least been cleaned up by the time he'd made it back planet-side. The Golden Gate Bridge Restoration Committee still hadn't managed to get quite the right color of orange paint for the repaired components. As he stepped forward towards where the main Engineering controls should be, Peters felt his heart sink. There was a giant hole torn straight through the ship and looking down Peters could see open space beyond the glimmer of an atmospheric containment field erected by the SIF systems.

Hearing a crunching sound behind him, Peters whirled to see a white-faced crewman a few steps away. The look on the younger man's face echoed everything that Peters had been thinking since entering the Engineering section. Getting a grip on himself, Peters spoke, "Are you alright, crewman?"

"C-c-ca-castillo, sir. Crewman Anthony Castillo. I, uh... I've never seen anything like this before," the crewman managed to reply, looking and sounding shaky.

"Neither have I," Peters admitted quietly. "But we've got work to do. Where are the secondary control systems? We need to get the shields up before we're hit again." A lurch going through the ship as the helmsman did his best to avoid the enemy fire added emphasis to Peters' statement.

"Th-that w-way," Castillo gestured. Nodding, Peters grabbed him by the arm and headed that direction. "Wait," the crewman protested, "What about the Engineering crew?"

Peters found himself suddenly quite calm about the whole situation, having another member of the crew to deal with and re-assure. "We can't help them now, Crewman. All we can do is do our best to make sure the rest of us survive to give them a proper memorial. Now come on, we need to repair the shields."

OFF: To Be Continued...

Crewman Anthony Castillo (NPC)
Played by: Lt Commander Todd Peters

[Peters]

ON: <USS Tasmania, 05:22, November 24th, 2378>

"Try it now!" Peters called as the ship rocked around him again, nearly causing his makeshift repairs to the control lines to come loose. Suppressing a curse, Peters quickly tightened the connection again. He didn't want to weld the lines together until he knew the repair would work. Defense Shield Control Systems were not exactly within his area of expertise.

"No good!" Castillo called back, his voice muffled by the partial bulkhead and machinery between them. "We've definitely got activity on the command channels, but still no power being drawn into the system."

"There's gotta be a short somewhere in the system," Peters muttered as he hastily soldered the connections and pulled out his diagnostic scanner again. As if having the shields nonfunctional on a normal day wasn't bad enough, right now they were being shot at and performing ridiculous evasive maneuvers, which only increased the chances of something the Deflectors couldn't handle coming at the ship. At least, Peters assumed the maneuvers were ridiculous based on the reaction of his stomach every time the IDF systems had to struggle to catch up.

"Engineering, this is the bridge. Where the hell are my shields, Mister Peters?"

"I'm working on that, Captain. We've got control of the generator systems back, but we can't get power to them yet. I think there's a short somewhere in the lines. Give me five minutes," Peters responded, trying to sound like he knew what he was talking about.

"You've got two minutes, Bridge out."

Peters swore and tried to think quickly. He'd scanned the whole generator assembly already. He knew there was nothing wrong with the Impulse reactors or they'd have already found themselves at the Pearly gates, or whatever passed for them in each crewmember's respective religion. But somewhere between the two there was a problem... a problem as large as the gaping hole in the ship.

That was it. Why hadn't he thought of it before? He was a science officer, not an engineer, that was why. "Castillo!" Peters yelled. "Override the automatic safeties and bypass any EPS conduits that pass through sections... twenty through twenty two. Then reroute through sections nineteen and twenty three. I don't care if it gives an overvolt alarm, just ignore it."

"Yes, sir," came the rather unsure-sounding response, but Peters heard the faint bleeps and chirps of commands being entered on a console. A moment later the shield generator next to him hummed to life, much louder than Peters had ever imagined it could be. He quickly crawled out of the maintenance access and into the main work area. After he was sure the generator wasn't going to blow up on him, Peters tapped his commbadge.

"Peters to bridge, Captain, we've got shields. I make no guarantees about how strong they are, but if Helm can keep up these maneuvers they should survive any glancing blows we might take."

OFF: To be continued...

[Peters]

ON: <USS Tasmania, 05:54, November 24th, 2378>

Peters frantically worked to transfer power and control lines around damaged areas of the ship, trying not to think about what would happen if another shot from the Breen ships outside found its mark in the Engineering section. The Tasmania was dying, that much he could tell from the readouts in front of him. There was heavy damage to the primary EPS conduits, the shields were barely holding, and somehow they'd sprung a deuterium leak that Peters couldn't track down. Of course, even if he could find it, he didn't have the expertise or the staff to fix it.

"Castillo," Peters called out, "Start pumping as much of the deuterium supply as you can into the Impulse surge tanks. Once that's done, start tracking down the leak. Once we know where it is, we can figure out how the hell we're going to seal it."

Without waiting for an acknowledgment from the crewman, Peters turned his attention to the next problem on his list... keeping the engines running. He was seeing alarming operating temperature spikes in the Impulse engines, and with the Deuterium leak the Warp Core was fading fast. "Damn it, I'd give real money to have one of the regular engineers here to help out..."

The ship shuddered again, forcing Peters to grab the edge of the console to keep his balance. With a muttered swear he started feeding reserve power to the shields. He hated to drain the ship's power reserves with all the other problems they had, but if they didn't survive long enough for help to come, they wouldn't have to worry about it anyway. If they did, they could get help from the ships that rescued them.

Peters shook his head and devoutly hoped that help was on the way. The Tasmania wasn't going to last much longer on her own.

OFF: To Be Continued...

[Peters]

ON: <USS Tasmania, 06:15, November 24th, 2378>

Peters looked up with a weary expression as three columns of light coalesced in the center of the Engineering bay. Help had arrived about 10 minutes ago and the Breen ships had retreated. The captain had then told him to expect visitors. Peters had been too tired to question or argue the matter.

As the three columns of light turned into humanoid forms and then ceased glowing, Peters stood and moved towards them. The center officer, a Vulcan wearing Lt Commander's pips, stepped forward. "Greetings. Who is in charge here?"

Peters gave a mirthless grin. "If you're looking for the Chief Engineer, he's either floating in space or scattered across this system as free-floating atoms. I, uh, "inherited" the job. Lieutenant, Junior Grade Todd Peters."

The Vulcan raised an eyebrow, but did not comment on Peters statement or on the fact that he was wearing a blue uniform. "Lieutenant Commander Solak, USS Carpathia. We are here to assist you in making repairs so that the Tasmania can return to the nearest starbase."

Peters nodded. "Well, Commander, there's a lot of work to be done. The main deuterium tank has a leak, so our entire supply is currently stored in the impulse overflow tanks. Replicators and primary sensors are offline... Oh! And there's that."

Solak looked where Peters was pointing and if he hadn't been so tired, the young science officer would have sworn the Vulcan's eyes widened. The gaping hole in the ship's upper hull was a rather disconcerting site, even for a Vulcan.

"Indeed," Solak replied. "Then we will get to work. I believe, based on your appearance, that you should get some rest, Lieutenant."

"I won't argue with that," was all that Peters could come up with in reply.

OFF: To be continued...

Lt Commander Solak (NPC)
Chief Engineering Officer
USS Carpathia
played by:

[Peters]

ON: <Runabout Willamette, 1100, March 15th, 2379>

Peters sighed and tossed the small rubber ball he'd replicated the day before against the bulkhead again. It bounced off the bulkhead, then off the deck, then landed back in his palm with a loud smack. The Willamette's pilot shot him a dirty look from the helm, but said nothing. Peters didn't blame him for being annoyed, after all, it was his runabout. Still, he was bored out of his mind and it wold still be another hour before they reached Starbase 60.

He still wasn't quite sure how he'd let himself get talked into formally switching to Engineering. But after the Tasmania had limped into port and the Admiralty had tried to pin a medal on everyone who'd survived the attack, it had seemed like a good idea. Of course, that was before they'd put him through a 2 month crash-course on systems maintenance, warp field theory, and impulse reaction control.

With another sigh, and another dirty look from the pilot, Peters tossed the ball against the bulkhead again. At least, he mused, they hadn't put him straight back onto a starship. A base was bigger, but also, in theory, had a lot lower chance of all hell breaking loose. He hoped.

Still, it was a challenge, and Peters had never been able to turn down a challenge. If he ended up being a lousy Chief Engineer, chances were he wouldn't have to wait long for a transfer. 60 was, after all, a fairly major base in the region. With that thought firmly in mind, Peters tucked the ball into one of his bags and headed forward to join the pilot. Maybe the man would be better company if he wasn't afraid a dent would be put into his ship.

OFF:

[Peters]

ON: <Runabout Willamette, 1200, March 15th, 2379>

"Starbase 60, this is Runabout Willamette approaching on vector 312 mark 12, request permission to dock," the runabout's pilot said in a very bored tone as Peters gazed out the forward viewport at the starbase. It certainly wasn't the newest model in service, the basic design had been in use for over a century, but it would be his home for the foreseeable future so he wanted to get a good look at it.

The Regula class base was a common site in Federation space, having been used for Starbases, research posts, and even unmanned supply depots. This one, however, was a bustle of activity. Peters could see shuttles and runabout flitting about around the station, along with several ships orbiting the station.

The crackle of the comm interrupted Peters' ruminations and he turned to look at the speaker as the voice of the base's Traffic Control officer issued from it. "Acknowledged, Willamette, you are clear for shuttle bay five. Follow your present course until you reach two thousand meters, then standby for tractor control."

"Acknowledged," the pilot responded, still sounding bored. He closed the comm channel and turned his attention back to piloting the runabout. Peters, however, couldn't help but notice that the speaker was still crackling a bit every few seconds. He moved closer and listened. It sounded like the speaker was getting interference from something else aboard...

"You know," Peters said, turning back towards the pilot, "You might want to get this speaker checked out while you're on the base..."

<Moments later, Shuttle bay>

Peters walked quickly away from the runabout and made a note to jot down that pilot's name as soon as possible. He wanted to make sure he never had that unpleasant character for his transfer pilot again. All he'd suggested was a minor maintenance check on one speaker and the man acted as if he'd insulted his mother.

Shaking his head as he heard the runabout lift off behind him, Peters looked for the deck officer so that he could get directions to his quarters, and then to the CO's office. It wouldn't do to report in late, no matter how sensitive his pilot was.

OFF:

All characters other than Peters are NPCs

[Peters]

ON: <Starbase 60, 0800, March 16th, 2379>

Peters took a deep breath before he stepped into the Main Engineering bay of Starbase 60. This was it, the moment of truth. He'd had a crash course in engineering to fill him in on the elements of theory and implementation that he'd not learned at the Academy... now it was time to learn if "real" engineers would accept a transferred science officer as their department head.

With another deep breath, Peters stepped through the door, PADD in hand. He strode calmly to the center of the engineering bay and looked around. 60 was an older base, which meant that the primary power generation systems were not up to the same technological specifications as the ships he'd served on. They were also more powerful and there were more of them, though none were located in this area.

The room Peters stood in could be considered a control room of sorts. The actual Fusion generators were several decks down from here, but from this room the status of each of them was tracked through a dozen different performance parameters. If necessary the entire base could be run from one console in this room, but under normal circumstances each generator had three consoles dedicated to it, with additional consoles dedicated to tracking the status of various systems throughout the base. On the "back" wall of the space was a monitor that listed the current ships docked at the base, ships expected to dock soon, and the repair and refit needs of both so that engineers could be assigned to those duties easily.

Right now most of the engineers in the room were focused on the displays for one of the five generators. Looking closely at the status displays for that unit, generator number 2, it looked to Peters like it was running a bit hot and below preferred efficiency. That would certainly explain why so many of the engineers on duty were watching it. Hopefully someone would figure out the cause and institute a fix shortly. But before that happened, Peters needed to introduce himself.

"Excuse me everyone," Peters said, trying to speak loudly enough to carry across the bay without shouting. "I want to introduce myself," he continued as most of the staff turned their attention towards him, "I'm Lieutenant, Junior Grade Todd Peters, the new Chief Engineer."

OFF: To be continued.

[Peters]

ON: <Starbase 60, 1512, November 11th, 2379>

Peters had been in charge of the Engineering department aboard Starbase 60 for several months now and he was finally coming to grips with the fact that HE was the single person in charge of the people responsible for keeping the base running smoothly. To be sure, it was a challenging job at times. The base was an old design, he might even call it ancient if he didn't have a certain amount of professional pride in his charge, but she had stood the test of time. Still, there were certain maintenance issues inherent in older equipment... and that meant there was plenty to do every day to keep things running.

Unfortunately, outside of Engineering not all was going well. Peters was aware, though he wasn't sure many of the rest of the crew were, that Starfleet was preparing to commission a new starbase on the other side of the Samuel's Nebula. That base's commissioning would probably coincide with 60's decommissioning and the station itself either being scrapped or re-purposed for civilian use. Either way, it meant that many of the crew might not be aboard the station much longer and it was no great stretch of the imagination to think that Starfleet might disperse them all to different assignments and assign a new crew familiar with the newer station design to the new base when it went online.

In addition, some of the senior officers had started acting... oddly. Peters had noticed, shortly after the admiral came aboard, that Commander Dea and a couple of the department heads had started having trouble remembering recent events correctly and quickly. If pressed they would be able to come up with the right information, but it always took longer than it should for events that happened so recently. It wasn't anything major, but it made Peters uncomfortable, he just couldn't put his finger on exactly why.

"Lieutenant!" Peters heard the call come from behind him and recognized the voice of his assistant Chief, Lieutenant, JG Timothy Hendricks. He stopped walking down the corridor and turned to see Hendricks approaching with a tool case in his hands.

"What's up, Tim?" Peters asked, curious as to why Hendricks wasn't busy with the sensor recalibration he was assigned to oversee today. "Done with the sensors already?"

"Not yet, but we're close. I wanted to show you something," Hendricks said as he raised the case he was carrying. Peters gave him a quizzical look, but watched as he popped the case open. When he saw what was inside, Peters suddenly understood why he was so uneasy about the odd behavior of the senior officers.

"What the hell?!" Peters exclaimed as he kicked the case away from him, sending the parasitic bug flying down the corridor. He turned to run, but didn't even make it two steps before Hendricks slammed him into the bulkhead. Trying to catch his breath, Peters slid to the deck and turned to look up at Hendricks.

"You shouldn't have done that, Lieutenant... but you will understand soon. I'm going to-" Peters didn't let him finish. Kicking his foot out, he caught Hendricks square in the knee and heard a sickening crunch. Without waiting for Hendricks to recover or fall, Peters scrambled away and sprinted down the corridor as fast as he could go. He didn't know why or how the parasitic hive creatures had returned, but he knew that it meant big trouble for the Federation.

OFF:

Lieutenant, JG Timothy Hendricks (NPC)
Assistant Chief Engineer
Starbase 386

[Peters]

ON: <Starbase 60, 0145, November 12th, 2379>

Peters sat quietly in the Jeffries Tube junction, resisting the urge to hold his breath. He'd knocked out the internal sensors as soon as he was sure that Hendricks wasn't after him, which meant that Station Security, who he had to assume were all infected, had to perform a manual search for him rather than just scanning the base. To make the search harder he'd started a thoron radiation leak in the lower decks to mask Tricorder readings. He wasn't a doctor, but he imagined that everyone was going to have a mild sunburn by afternoon at the current rate of leakage and radiation spread. Of course, red skin was the least of his worries at the moment.

The station was under external attack, presumably by Starfleet, but Peters had no way to confirm that without giving away his position. Under the circumstances, however, Peters would prefer a Romulan invasion to takeover by the bugs. He just needed to figure out how to help the attackers without irreversibly crippling the station's defenses. For now, however, he needed to keep moving. Peters braced himself as the station shook again, then popped the hatch and looked out into the corridor.

Empty. That was good. He was trying to stick to less-travelled areas, far from critical systems. Hopefully that would be the last place security would look. He hadn't been able to secure a phaser, but he did have an Engineering toolkit, which meant he could defend himself in a pinch, even if the wounds left by a plasma welder wouldn't heal as nicely as a phaser burn would.

Peters slowly began to move down the corridor, keeping his ears open and keeping one hand on the bulkhead to keep from being thrown around when the station was hit by another volley of fire. After a few meters, Peters rounded a bend in the corridor and saw an officer he didn't recognize making his way along the next stretch. Trying to be quiet, Peters began catching up with the man.

The other officer suddenly whirled and pointed a phaser rifle at Peters. "Don't move."

Peters stood as still has he could, not really wanting to get blasted, but also ready to react if this guy tried to sic one of the bugs on him too.

OFF:

[Peters]

ON: <Starbase 60, 0150, November 12th, 2379>

Peters stood as still as possible as the other officer circled around him, the phaser pointed straight at his head the whole time. After a moment of looking at Peters' neck, the man lowered the phaser and let out a sigh. "Sorry, just had to be sure you weren't infected," he held out his hand. "Provisional Lieutenant, JG Thomas Manley, USS Hiroshima."

Peters took the offered hand warily, not sure if this Manley was trustworthy or not. "Lieutenant, JG Todd Peters, Chief Engineer."

"I'm sure you've noticed some of the other officers acting weird... I'm here to try and knock out the shields so Starfleet can get aboard and help," Manley said, matter-of-factly. "Come on, we need to get moving before one of them finds us."

<Minutes later>

"Alright," Peters said as he tapped a quick code into the door lock panel. "The shield generator for this section is in here." The door hissed open to reveal a large mass of machinery. Status indicator panels placed around the room showed blinking indicators which showed shield strength, modulation, and other information.

"OK, so how do we disable it?" Manley asked.

"Well..." Peters looked at the equipment in the room thoughtfully. He was usually more concerned with repairing these types of units, not taking them offline. "We'd start by cross-phasing the field modulators, then we'd need to shunt the energy stream from the emitter into-"

"That'll take too long," Manley said, cutting Peters off. He reached into a small pack that Peters hadn't noticed before and pulled out a small device. Pressing a button at one end down firmly, Manley looked at Peters before tossing it into the room. "I'd duck."

Alarmed, Peters dove to the deck, making sure to dive back up the corridor, away from the door. There was a loud "boom" followed by the shriek of damaged equipment and a blast of air smacked into Peters as he lay on the deck. Alarms began to wail immediately.

Picking himself up off the deck, Peters looked at Manley. "I thought you said you were a Flight Control Officer!"

"I am," Manley replied. "But do you think they'd insert a Flight Control officer into a situation like this if he didn't have certain other skills?"

"Do those skills include cleaning up the mess you just made in there?" Peters asked sarcastically.

"I believe that's your job, grease monkey. Where's the next one?"

"This way," Peters motioned down the corridor. "But if we hit every one in the same area, they're going to start tracking us by the damage trail."

"Hopefully by the time we hit one or two more they'll have bigger fish to fry," Manley answered with a grin. "And if not, I brought a couple of extra phasers. We'll be fine."

OFF:

Prov Lieutenant, JG Thomas Manley (PNPC)
Chief Flight Control Officer
USS Hiroshima