PMCS

Posted on Fri Mar 29th, 2024 @ 2:22pm by Lieutenant JG Toareth Rouen (née Darqa) & Lieutenant Faith Hawkins
Edited on on Fri Mar 29th, 2024 @ 2:23pm

3,152 words; about a 16 minute read

Mission: Fortuna
Location: Shuttle Bay
Timeline: Current

Toareth entered the shuttle bay. She had, in her hand, a PADD with the instructions displayed on performing a user level preventive maintenance checks and services or PMCS. Despite her official record and all that it contained, she never actually spent all that time at the Academy. Some of the most basic blocks of instruction, PMCS being one of them, were missed. Of course, actually working on a shuttle and like equipment was meant for Engineering but user level stuff was something everyone was supposed to know. There was a difference between swapping out a warp core and making sure the bolts were tight.

Opening the hatch, Toareth stepped in. She had already completed a quick walk around, looking for any obvious signs of concern. She went to the main cabin and, while reading the instructions, loosened two turnkeys in the floor and removed the floor panel, exposing the wires and gel circuitry and other areas all personnel across the gamut of Starfleet was supposed to know.

"(1) Ensure power output is stable and power flow to areas of concern has been disabled," she read. "OK, so how exactly do I...?" and she eyed a switch with the obvious markings signaling the direction of power flow. A simple twist later and the power flow was switched to, "off. OK." She went back to her PADD.

Following a tip-off, Faith arrived in the shuttle bay. She had been told someone from the Sciences division had boarded a shuttle, proceed to take it apart. No, that wouldn't do. Faith approached the shuttle, leaned in. Toareth. Her annoyance dissipated, replaced by confusion. "When I heard someone was taking a shuttle apart." began Faith, climbing into the shuttle. "...I didn't expect to find it was you."

Toareth looked up at her in a start. "Oh...I, uh..." she looked around. "I'm not taking it apart...really," she said. Toareth saw the floor panel set to the side and a few other pieces here and there. She lifted her PADD. "I was refreshing myself on the user level PMCS." She looked at the display and showed it to Faith. On the screen was the basic user level PMCS help guide.

Toareth withdrew into herself a little, almost child-like after being caught red-handed. "I might have missed that bit of instruction at the Academy."

"I see." replied Faith. The explanation was satisfactory, so she was happy for Toareth to continue. "Well, Ms Rouen. You've made a start, so you may as well finish." said Faith, gesturing towards the open hatch. "Once you're done, we'll zip it back up and go through the process again. We'll see what you remember." her tone calm, reassuring.

"Thank you," said Toareth. "This is only the..." and she scrolled to the top of the document and read, "Main Power and Life Support Systems..." she returned her attention to Faith, "portion of the PMCS. I know the whole process takes about an hour and comprises a dozen areas to check. So...uh..." Toareth looked at the time. "And I have been at this for about 30 minutes already, and still only in the first section." An obvious failing grade if this was a test. "I think I have verified the stability of this shuttle's main power and adequate life support."

She placed her PADD down and started putting the pieces back where they came from, looking at the schematic when she needed. "I learn by doing," she spoke to Faith as she continued. "You can show me something a dozen times and I may not pick it up at all. It is when I do it that I learn and understand. It is no different in medical." Toareth held a device. It looked almost similar to a Type 2 Plasma grenade but she knew that was certainly not what it was. It was definitely a coupler of some fashion. She looked it over and turned it around before her eyes whilst looking in the opening in the floor trying to find out where it was supposed to go. She turned to the schematic displayed on her PADD but was somehow missing it. "Can you help me remember where this goes?"

Learning by doing was Faith's method, too. She believed theory had its place, but did little to teach anything. Practical, hands on learning was how Faith learned and was teaching her new graduates. "It's out here we learn. The Academy only prepares us for what to expect." replied Faith, pointing to where the component lived. A pause. "Most of the time, anyway." she concluded. The Academy had not prepared Faith for the trauma of the Dominion War, the claustrophobia she now lived with. The friends she lost.

Toareth performed a mental facepalm and replaced the item in its designated location. First she had it backwards then flipped it around where it fit nicely.

"Is that a ring I see on your finger?" asked Faith, not noticing it the last time she, Toareth met.

"Oh. Yes. Rene and I...we...decided..." and her words faded away as she held her hand up showing the ring to Faith.

Faith was happy for Toareth, Rene. Genuinely. She'd yet to find her "one", but couldn't resent anyone else finding happiness. Their forever. Especially Toareth. "It's beautiful." replied Faith. "Congratulations."

"Thank you," said Toareth. "I...am still getting used to being married. Rene's my first." Given the El-Aurian condition, he probably would not be her last. She hoped, at least, that would be far into the future. Toareth did notice, however, that Faith did not don a ring, despite having a child of her own. Toareth decided not to inquire into that. Perhaps in time, after they became friends. Toareth was still getting used to that as well; the possibility of making friends, seeing as how she was going to be aboard the Britannic for the foreseeable future.

Toareth replaced the floor panel. "There." She brushed off her hands against each other. "If you would like to oversee and critique me doing a PMCS, I think I am up to it."

The subject of relationships was a sore point. It was one Faith rarely, if ever discussed. If it came up, she'd talk about it as briefly as possible. If it didn't, she didn't. "Of course." began the engineer, happy to see officers outside her department taking an interest in their PMCS. Faith's tone was relaxed, reassuring. A doctor with basic engineering knowledge was as valuable as a fully qualified engineer. "Feel free to start when ready."

"OK," said Toareth. "So, if I remember correctly..." and she immediately removed the floor panel again. "Number 1, ensure power output is stable and power flow to areas of concern has been disabled. That means," she looked down into the open area, "this switch needs to be off," she finished as she flipped it. "That is, of course, so that we do not cook ourselves while doing this. Now," Toareth laid down on the floor and reached her arm into the open, down through a set a wires. She had to feel what she was doing as this next step was something one could not see and feel at the same time. "Now, there is supposed to be a coupler down here...found it. Twisting it this way and," her hand slipped off. "Blast. Just a moment." With her body pressed to the floor, her arm down in the guts of the shuttle, Toareth looked with her eyes up to Faith. "I suppose, working in Engineering, you are used to working in tight and confining spaces."

The engineer was impressed with Toareth's progress. "Just a bit." replied Faith. Her demeanour usually changed at the thought or mention of small spaces. Not this time. Although it took some effort, Faith managed to avoid revealing her claustrophobia to Toareth. This shuttle was near her comfort level. The access hatch being open helped. "Perhaps once you're done here, you can help me change some relays." said Faith. Half in jest, half seriously. If Toareth had the time, and was interested, she'd be happy to show her.

"Of course," Toareth said. "There," she started to raise herself from the floor. "Got it," and she pulled her arm from the opening and had the couple in hand. "I am to ensure this coupler is free from corrosion, dust and other particulates." She rolled it over in her hand. "It appears optimal," and she pressed her body again to the floor and worked to replace the coupler.

Toareth went on through the steps of this particular section of the PMCS. She sat in front of the opening in the floor, legs spread wide and leaning forward, both of her hands down in the guts of the shuttle. She disconnected, observed, reconnected, logged levels of wear and tear, used the instructions displayed on her PADD to mark down what, if anything, needed to be done and, by the end of it all, she had approved the shuttle at least able to distribute power and support a shuttle crew. And she did it all in twice the time the Starfleet field manual expected it to be done in. Not to mention further PMCS to include propulsion, weapons, scanning, hull reliability, and so one.

With only the first bit completed, Toareth sat back on her hands and, "There," she breathed. "If it is all the same to you, I would like to skip the rest for now...at least until I can master this part of it...and we move on to these relays of yours.?."

Observing closely, silently, Faith was pleased to see Toareth had correctly remembered this exercise. She would rather people took their time, did it correctly. Rushing sometimes meant mistakes. "I don't see why not." said Faith, nodding. Replacing the power relays was going to be a bit more in depth than what they'd just done. "You've done well. We can try this again another time, when you feel ready." she concluded. Faith then exited the shuttle, began her journey to the repair location. Then, a thought crossed her mind. The meal. That needed to be arranged. Meredith was looking forward to it as much as Faith was. Asking about it often. "Did you speak to Rene about the meal?" she asked. Walking and talking. The perfect example of how to do two things at once.

Toareth had been following Faith the entire way to the repair location. In fact, Faith had inadvertently shown Toar something of a shortcut across the ship. "I have not had a chance to schedule anything with him yet. He is hard a work with the Security team, getting the lay of the land so to speak, as well as scheduling, protocol, things like that. I mentioned it to him. So, he knows. We just need to get our schedules together and work something out." As they pressed on, Toareth remembered, "I have not work on any relays since..." and then she realized she should not have started that thought. The one time she helped to replace relays was during her time aboard the U.S.S. Canyon; a posting that was not in her profile. Inquisitive minds would certainly become more inquisitive upon perusal. There was, however, a ship her profile did indicate her as being assigned to once, though she had never actually set foot upon that ship nor ever met any of the crew. "...since my short assignment aboard the U.S.S. Enterprise...Enterprise-Charlie that is."

Seemed fair enough, thought Faith. Schedules were always a pain to line up. "I'm sure we'll work something out." she replied, arriving at their destination. The door closed behind them. Between Faith, Toareth and the repair site was a ladder. "The repair is up here." said Faith. She composed herself. Took hold of the first rung, began to climb up the ladder. Faith was expending a lot of energy to conceal, suppress her anxiety. "Breathe, Faith. Breathe." Then, a noise. Faith froze. Her heart raced. Her breathing rapid. She zoned out.

Faith was back in the access shaft on Arundel. Trapped. No way out. Fire raged above her. Debris blocked the way down. Faith clung to the ladder rungs, which were getting warmer with the raging heat above. An inferno she had tried, failed to extinguish. Then, another explosion. The ladder was blown from its mountings. Faith lost her grip, fell. Consciousness was lost for a few minutes. When she woke, the mangled, twisted ladder was wedged above. A foot, maybe less. A pinned down Faith was trapped. This was it. She was going to die in this access shaft. Then, Faith came to. Her heart pounding, panting heavily.

They had only stopped a few seconds before Toar spoke up. "Faith." There was some movement; perhaps recognition. "Faith," she said again. Toareth could see her chest expanding, contracting, and expanding again at a quicker pace than normal, especially for someone who had climbed only three decks thusfar. Faith could not have been winded already. Something was up, but in the Jefferies Tubes, vertical even, and many meters above the nearest landing, this was no place to get into whatever this was. "Lt Hawkins," Toareth said in an official tone, then she turned a little more jovial, "unless if there was a miniaturization breakthrough in the past year, I don't see any relays here."

No. No relays here. Without speaking, Faith continued up the ladder. She knew what had just happened. It had happened before. Faith knew Toareth probably knew as well. The top of the ladder was reached, as was the destination. Faith was pleased to see the tools, parts had been left there already. "Right." began Faith, glossing over what had just happened. "I'll show you what to do. Then I want you to repeat the process." she said, unbolting, removing the panel. Faith ensured the power was isolated, then removed a relay. She made sure Toareth could see, explaining each step. Faith could do this in her sleep. It was hard to do it at a pace to instruct someone. But she managed it. "And that is how you replace a relay." concluded Faith, offering Toareth the hyperspanner. "Your turn."

"I pray," Toareth said as she took the spanner, "that there is not a time limit to do this in. More than twice the time it took you that is." She looked at the work to be done. The panel has already been removed, but that was user level work; anyone could do that. "Ok," she said as she started her work. "Isolate power," she said as she turned a lever. Then she started working with the hyperspanner.

"When I was aboard the El-Aurian transports," Toareth started as she reached her arm into the work area and continued, "we were at more than triple capacity. But," she started twisting a connector to loosen it, "when the Borg are performing a full scale invasion of your homeworld, things like ship capacity, preflight checks, and so on, fall very low on the list of priorities. When you are reduced to only the instinct of survival, then that is all that matters." She got the connector loose and set it away off to the side and started working the other end. "I was only 7 years old at the time. Well...the equivalent of a 7 year old Earth child." She stopped working long enough to look at Faith and explain that, "Us El-Aurians develop much slower than you do." She went back to work. "I was on my way home from school and was scooped up by a random stranger. I started screaming 'kidnapper. kidnapper,' but then started to realize that a bunch of children were being kidnapped, that it was not a kidnapping at all, but that people were leaving. I saw cubes and spheres in the sky thinking, 'wow those are pretty,' and then I was put into a transport."

Toareth got the other end loose and stopped briefly, to say, "I never saw my family, parents, my sister, no one I knew ever again since that day." She went back to working the relay loose. "It took a few weeks for me to realize what had happened." She thought briefly, choked up once, then pressed on, with her tale and her work. "We spent nearly 30 Earth years aboard those transports, cramped, no personal space, no privacy, rationing food and supplies." Toareth got the relay loose and started working and worming it out and away from the surrounding wires and conduits. Though she knew her difficulties from her time aboard the transport would pale in comparison, she felt she was on point when she said, "I started having nightmares, sometimes waking terrors, I grew overly anxious and found it difficult to breath, feeling myself crushed under the tight confines of the transport and the people aboard. It took a bit of study to realize there was a name for that; claustrophobia."

She had the relay in hand and was looking at it, inspecting the ends.

That was deep. Particularly when she, Toar didn't know each other well. If she was honest, Faith didn't know what to say. She'd heard all about the El Aurian crisis. It was awful. So many people displaced from their rightful home. Assimilated. Killed. Lost. Hate was something Faith reserved for exceptional cases. The Dominion. Cardassians. The Borg. Those whose sole purpose was domination. Conquering. Faith saw no point in either. She believed in coexistence. Cooperation. But no. She wasn't ready to open up. Faith knew she was claustrophobic. Talking about it, another thing entirely. "I can't imagine how awful that was." said Faith. She reached for the replacement relay. Gave it to Toareth. "Here."

Toareth took the relay, gave it a quick inspective once over, then started working it to where the other was located. "Awful?" she repeated. "Yes. But survivable." She found where the relay resided and started hooking the ends back up. "Even through tough times, times where live appeared impossible, where death was inevitable, there is nothing more important than coming through it all. Do we deserve it?" she asked as she worker her whole arm into the opening to feel about and ensure the relay was secured in its rightful position. "No. But knowing that even that could not bring about our end has to account for something." With the relay in place and secured, Toareth felt about and found the switch to return power to the relay back to normal. She switched it back on then gently pulled her arm from the opening. "There," she said while sitting back. "How's that?"

"Very good." replied Faith, nodding. Impressed. Toareth had been an excellent student. Listening, watching, putting what she'd learned into practice. Faith picked up another relay. "How about you do another one?" she asked, offering it to Toareth. "Just to be sure."

 

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