Shuttle Project Part 2

Posted on Sun Dec 19, 2021 @ 7:19pm by Lieutenant Jaro Antos

Mission: Mission 2 - A World With A Bluer Sun
Location: Deep Space Four
Timeline: Before the start of M2

[Shuttle Bay]

Jaro Antos breathed a sigh of relief as the shuttle touched base onto the landing pad of the Hornet’sshuttle bay. He felt a slight jolt as the docking clamps engaged, locking the shuttle in place.

He began powering down the systems, dialing down power to the various systems and subsystems. He made sure that he transferred the shuttle's flight plan and sensor readout to flight ops as was standard procedure. Once this was done, he started shutting down the engines starting with the impulse engines then the warp engines.

As he was doing this the doors to the shuttle opened letting in Crew Chief ch’Thranne. The blue-skinned Andorian had his gaze squarely fixed on a large padd in his hands. The look on his face was that of bewilderment. No doubt, the Chief Petty Officer was frustrated as to what the problem plaguing the shuttle could be.

“Chief,” Antos greeted. “A bit hairy out there this time.”

“I’d say,” the Crew Chief replied, his gaze unwavering from his padd, which Antos could see was displaying the sensor readouts of the flight he had just completed.

The Chief’s antennae were moving sporadically, and his silver eyebrows were furrowed in deep thought. “I’m really not sure what’s happening Lieutenant. We’ve checked the readings repeatedly and there’s just no reasonable explanation as to the power overload of the EPS conduit.”

Antos nodded as if it were already a foregone conclusion. He had also had no warning before the overload. “Is it still starting in EPS conduit G6?”

“Yes,” ch’Thranne replied, this time looking up to face Antos. “I’m really not sure what’s going on here, but rest assured the team and I will get to the bottom of it. We’ll purge the plasma in the conduits again and this time I think we’ll do a visual inspection of the entire conduit system.”

It was a menial task but a prudent one, Antos concluded. If this issue was not addressed, then their prototype shuttle was liable to get someone killed. Heck, it had almost blown up on him not even five minutes ago as he was testing it. That would have been an unceremonious end to his Starfleet career. Thankfully, the Prophets had spared him from that premature end.

He did not envy the technicians that will be inspecting the entire EPS conduit system of the shuttle. He supposed the one saving grace is that at least it was the conduit system of a shuttle and not the ship.

“Anything you need from me Chief?” Antos asked. “I’m just finishing up my postflight check.”

“Nothing for now Lieutenant, but we might need you to help with further pilot testing if you’re up for it.”

Antos grinned as if that was even a matter up for debate.

He had already been out in the prototype shuttle, field testing it twice already in the span of two days. Both times the shuttle had mysteriously suffered a cascading power overload that threatened to blow up the ship had he not powered down the shuttle both times. Luckily, he was never far from the Hornet on both occasions, which was herself docked at Deep Space Four.

Antos and his team had been using some of their downtime at the space station to push through with their shuttle project. So far, it was not going well. The field test had always started out so well both times, but they had ended prematurely, and he had been forced to use just the shuttle’s inertia and thrusters to glide the shuttle back to the Hornet.

“Sure thing Chief,” Antos said. “They do say, the third time is the charm, right?”

“That they do,” ch’Thranne replied with a slight smile on his face though it did not touch his eyes. Antos could tell the senior NCO was still perplexed by what was plaguing the shuttle. As the individual responsible for the readiness of all auxiliary spacecrafts on the Hornet, Antos knew he bore responsibility for the safety of these craft and unexplained power fluctuations was a worry he no doubt took personally- it came with the territory.

Hopefully, the Chief knew that Antos did not blame him for what could have been catastrophic accidents.

Truth be told, he had had closer brushes with death than this field test. As a matter of fact, the two field tests could not even be deemed close brushes with death because he had been able to power down both times.

“I’ll keep you appraised on anything we learn Lieutenant.”

“Sounds good Chief, thanks.”

Antos turned to his console and resumed his postflight checks. He would also need to complete an incident report and find time to debrief with CPO Zeldana, his Flight Operations Chief. Even though they had classified the Astrae X as a prototype, which meant it was not to be placed on the ship’s active roster of auxiliary craft, Zeldana would need to be informed of the two unsuccessful tests, which for now meant the Astrae X would be blacklisted and should not be used, even in an emergency, unless it was within the defined parameters of a field test.

He was finishing the last of his postflight check when the shuttle’s comms activated, "Flight Ops to Astrae X.”

Antos opened a comms channel, “Astrae here, Jaro speaking.”

“Sir, I'm going to be taking the shuttle down to the maintenance bay. Just thought I'd give you a heads up."

"Understood," Antos answered. A few seconds later there were flashing warning lights and klaxons as the landing pad slowly began to descend a level under the shuttle bay into the maintenance sub-deck.

Antos expected the Astrae X will be out of operations for the next week or so. Visually inspecting the complete EPS conduit of the shuttle was not a quick job. Unfortunately, that would put them outside of their window for another test while they were still at Deep Space 4, which meant that their next test window would be dependent on the conditions of their next mission.

He patted the console in front of him and spoke to the shuttle as if it could hear him, "We’ll get there eventually baby, I know it."

The Astrae came to a near gentle halt in a maintenance alcove that was just underneath where the shuttle had been parked earlier. The shuttle's doors opened, and a pair of techs walked in nodding to Antos. He could see another pair of techs outside of the shuttle bringing in several equipment to begin their diagnostics and possibly repair any damages identified.

Figuring there was no sense sticking around and getting in the way, Antos picked himself up and headed out of the shuttle bay. He would stop by the lounge for a quick lunch with Aiko before heading to the Bridge to start his shift.