1000 – 11 Aug 2400

USS Mercy – Main Engineering

Lt Sesias entered main engineering and asked the closest crew member where the chief engineer was at. “Afternoon sir, I believe she is in her office,” as he pointed towards the glass walled office that was off to one side. 

Sesias could see the Chief Engineer pacing inside and having what looks to be a conversation with herself. “ Thank you, petty officer” “No problem, sir” 

Sesias stopped in front of the doorway and hit the chime button.

Neva stopped her laps and looked up with a smile. “Hi Lieutenant. What can I do for you?”  She set the coffee cup on the desk, resting her hand beside it.  “Just wrestling with a power anomaly. Damn things crop up like ants!” At the last sentence, she threw up her hands in annoyance. “Excuse me, Lieutenant. My Iron Lady is putting me through my paces…and stamping on my patience!” Neva shook her head slightly with downcast eyes and chuckled softly before looking back up.

“Lt. Cordon, may I have a couple minutes of your time. I would like to discuss an idea that I have that concerns power allocation to the shields.” 

Neva cocked an eyebrow and grinned a little. “You have my full attention, Lieutenant. Is my Lady not keeping Her dress on?” The grin turned into a smirk. 

Keeping her dress on?” Looked around main engineering and her office, then he looked back at the chief engineer and noticed the smirk. He raised an eyebrow at this. “ Ahh…that must be one of those human sayings that I’m not aware of in this context. As far as I am aware she is keeping her dress on, I think.”

Neva shook her head and chuckled. “Don’t feel bad, Lieutenant. Not everyone gets engineers’ jokes.”  She stepped closer to him from where she stood. “Now, this power allocation…what are you proposing?”

Sesias walked over to one of the panels on the chief engineer’s wall. “May I?” As pulled up an overlay of the USS Mercy.  Neva nodded in reply. “As you well know, the Olympic class ship, especially in the medical variant, is not meant for tactical situations. While we do have phaser banks I see them as being more defensive and close range than as actual tactical devices. But what we do have…” 

Points over his shoulder with one of his outer arms with his thumb. ”is an extremely good and fast warp drive. What I came to ask about is an idea I was having in regards to this. What would it take for us to divert the power, in certain instances, that would be allocated to the phasers to the shields? Could we move those power allocations around. Say divert the power from forward phaser A” The phaser array glows as a green dot “to the shield emitters in that area, thereby strengthening the shields in that area but still having the power to use the other phaser arrays. Or divert the power from one side, Forward and aft, to the shields. Trying to give us the extra time we would need to go to warp while taking the least amount of damage.”

She turned to the Edosian and nodded. “Yes, this can be done. I keep forgetting this is a Medical ship, not a ‘regular’ one. I’ve been kicking around such a scenario, but haven’t come up with this angle. I like it!” She looked pleased.

He stepped back from the panel to allow Lieutenant Cordon to get a closer look at his idea. “I have already brought this up to the Captain. He recommended meeting with you and going over the idea, said he would want details on the power allocation and how that would or could affect other systems and how much power would this add to the shields.”

Neva bent closer to the panel, lifting a finger to trace the readout. Her lips moved without sound, scrutinizing the proposal. She straightened and lifted her gaze to the ceiling. “Computer! Calculate the percentage of power diversion would add to the shields from the phasers.”

/The amount of power required is 20 percent/

“Computer! What will the effect of the diversion of power be to the ship?”

/The effect of the diversion of power will be a 5 percent drop in power to the non-essential systems and a 15 percent drop in power to recreational facilities/

Neva rubbed her chin. “OK, so we need to make sure all the crew are out of those places and forget getting their morning coffee while we make this change.” 

She looked over her shoulder and called out. “Laaku! Can you come over here please?”

“Yessir!” The redheaded Bajoran trotted over. “What do you need, Chief?”

“Can you set up a bypass configuration to be flipped on when it’s time to divert power from the phasers to the shields when we need a quick getaway?” The Ensign squinted his eyes for a moment at the panel readings before speaking. “Yessir, I can do that.” He straightened and looked at the Lieutenant and Chief Engineer with a frown. “The only thing to keep in mind is, if the bypass goes longer than 15 minutes, the shield emitters will fry.” Laaku’s shoulders slumped a little.

“That would make things dicey when we go to use it. I’m betting if the emitters fry, the ship will pull power any way She can to compensate.” Neva reached over and patted the Ensign’s shoulder. “Don’t look so glum, Ensign. You found a weakness I wasn’t seeing. Good job!” She gave him a winning smile. She patted his shoulder a little harder and dropped her hand.

She then looked at Lt. Seias. “OK, I think what we’ve got is enough for the Captain’s concerns. What do you think?”

“I believe that we have figured out a way to make this work. The question would be is the captain willing to risk it. I would think that 15 minutes is more than enough time for us to get away. If it takes us that long to go to warp then we have bigger problems than fried shield emitters to be worried about.” Sesias looked at the panel that they were using to formulate and brainstorm on. “ Yes, I think we have it figured out, especially if we can divert power from a particular phaser bank to the corresponding shield emitters. This way we would still have access to the phasers if they got a little to close. I believe pulling power from non essential areas is the best way to make sure we get the power we need and make sure citicical systems are not compromised.”

Sesias taps his combadge “Commander Sorek. Lieutenant Cordon and I believe we have come up with a sound idea to the question about certain tactical situations I asked the Captain during our initial meeting yesterday. I’m sending you the report now.”

Neva looked at her Ensign. “Laaku, go ahead and get going on that bypass. I’ll be back to give you a hand after the Lieutenant and I report our findings to the Captain.” The Bajoran engineer nodded and went to a duty station.