How To Suck Vacuum

Posted on Wed Nov 11th, 2020 @ 8:46pm by Lieutenant JG C'Tirr K'Ruuras & Lieutenant Bianca Lee
Edited on on Sat Dec 5th, 2020 @ 3:29pm

Mission: Enforced Intermission
Location: Strategic Operations Office, Deck 3 Forward

"All right, Mark, Cheryl, thanks for coming in this early." Bianca smiled at the other two officers, both Ensigns, that comprised the entirety of her underling officer corps. There were an additional five enlisted personnel that were a part of the Strategic Operations section of Astraea, but they were often loaned out to Security or Operations to fill in for sick people or even just routine security patrols on the ship. These three were the real brains of this particular group, one for each of the primary shifts of the ship.

The reason for Strategic Operations was the coordination of the ships of the Fleet as well as the relevant combat strategies and detailed knowledge of the ship's operating area. Getting the right information at the right time to the right people, that liiiiiiiiitle slice of the pie between Security/Tactical and Intelligence; the Interface. "As Ah'm sure you've heard, we're headin' back towards Earth for some repairs and to pick up some new crew, so what Ah want today is the routine messaging to all relevant ships that we're passin' through and for any relevant requests to render assistance as we're doin' so."

She activated the holographic table in the room and they clustered around it, a detailed map of this section of the galaxy with their planned course, dots lighting up with ID tags indicating known friendly ship locations and color-coded with any sort of mission they were on: Brown for planet-side, Blue for scientific, purple for routine patrol, there were no red dots of combat indicators, and the ones in transit, such as Astraea, were all in green. "Consider our operations tempo to be able to respond to calls for assistance within a twelve hour sphere at warp seven, as per normal procedure. Mark, since you're on Thirds, Ah'll give you the ones furthest out for while you're on duty, Cheryl, the ones for your Seconds. Sound good?"

Brief acknowledgements and a few minutes later, the two ensigns went back off duty and Bianca took a chair near the window. This position wasn't the most active, but when they were busy, damn were they busy. If her information wasn't accurate, dead spot on, she could actually be the difference between mission success or failure, even to the point of getting everyone on board killed.

They were in warp at the moment, the starlines streaming past as she looked out, then closed her eyes, leaning back. The transit times were possibly the worst, the boredom, the quiet... The computer said something, but there was no urgency to the noise, so Bianca ignored it for a moment and took a breath, immediately turning into a wracking cough as something wasn't right with what she breathed in. She took a deep breath, but it almost felt like she was trying to suck from a vacuum hose that was in operation and her eyes bulged open as the computer, sound now tinny from the lack of oxygen in the room, spoke again, "Life support failure in this location. Evacuate immediately."

It was so... Emotionless, the computer's voice and Bianca clamped her throat and mouth shut to conserve what little oxygen she had in her lungs as her mind raced. Four and a half minutes, she could hold her breath, but that was if she'd had a full lungful of air, so this would probably be maybe two minutes before she ran out, perhaps less. Her eyes flashed to the door, closed, then stood and scrambled for it. It was a relief when it wouldn't open, strange as that sounded, because it meant that this room was closed off from the rest of the ship, because it was probably a point failure source. "Computer, open door, authorization Gettysburg." That cost her most of her remaining air and she leaned against it while the computer considered, then opened it and she fell out, already beginning to grey out. Air rushed in past her, but she rolled to clear the door even as she drew in a breath of fresh air, "Close door and seal." She gasped out and the door obediently closed.

She just lay there for about a minute, breathing, loving each and every breath, then tapped her commbadge, "Lieutenant Lee to Engineering, Kin Ah get someone up to Deck three, Strategic Ops office? Ah've got a problem up heah."

C'Tirr let out a sigh as he got newest malfunction report. It was finally starting. This virus or what ever it is has spread to the primary systems. He shook his head, the black mane that grew from his jaw swayed with the motion and his tail quivered. "Lt. Lee, this is engineering. I'm on my way." He said as he closed the channel. He grabbed his tools and took off for the Ops offices on deck 3.

Bianca remained where she was for another minute. The odds someone would come up here to the very front of the ship were minute, that's why these offices were up here, to be out of the way of all of the other functions of the ship. She did stop to listen, make sure nothing was hissing out such as air, then sat up and scooted to sit at the corner of the wall until the engineer came into view. She waved a hand to him, then brought her feet up under her, "Thanks for coming so quickly..." She waved a hand over to the door, "Life support is out in there, Ah mean so actively out that it's reversin' the flow and takin' the air out of there. Either it's an escalation of the glitches or someone's tryin' to kill me, and Ah don't think it's the last one."

The large Caitian chuckled at the accent on this human. He couldn't believe that humans, and some other races for that matter could have so many different accents. Caitians had three. The plains or desert clans, the mountains and hills clans and finally the forest or jungle clans. He himself was from the jungle clans. "You need not fret Lieutenant, I'll get to the bottom of this." C'Tirr said as he started looking at the current environmental systems in the room. "Was there anyone else still in there?" He asked. He needed to know if he needed to alert sickbay.

"No, suh, just me." Bianca shook her head, "Ah'd finished my departmental meeting about five minutes ago and Ah was the only one on duty. Ah was lucky, there was no warnin' at all, no alarm, nothin'. One minute, everythin' was just fine and then suddenly it got more difficult to breathe and then nothin' at all." She shuddered.

"Hmmm." Was all C'Tirr hummed as he accessed the terminal outside the office. His furred hands flew across the terminal as he started the environmental controls diagnostic and checked current conditions inside. He shook his head at what he saw for current conditions. He turned back to Bianca. "Your lucky you got out when you did. It's a total vacuum in there."

She nodded, realizing her accent may have cost information getting across, also understanding that she was panicking even now, which always caused her accent to get worse. She exhaled deeply, then inhaled, focusing, "I think that explains the rush of air when I opened the door. It was locked against the pressure lock and I had to override it." She stared at the wall for a moment, "It wasn't an atmosphere leak, Ah would have heard the escaping air."

"Negative, it was a malfunction in the sensors. It shows that a large fire had been detected so it activated the fire suppression protocol which is to starve it of oxygen." C'Tirr said as the diagnostics report came up.

“First time my hair’s ever been classified as a fire... Though some have said that Ah’m flame-haired!” Bianca gave an ironic grin, “But no, then this corridor would have been sealed off as well... Does it say what the source of the fire was?”

"No it didn't. I'll try to override the protocol by reinitializing the internal sensors which should reset them and viola!" C'Tirr's hand had been moving over the panel as he spoke. At the last word he pressed the final button and they were rewarded with a hiss of oxygen being pumped back into the other office. He moved to the door and the red seal light disappeared and the door opened. A rush of recycled air burst out of the room to hit C'Tirr and Bianca in the face, his jaw hair and whiskers fluttered with the breeze. "Your office as it should be. It shouldn't happen again. I noticed that once an issue has been fixed, that location and system seems to be immune." He smiled at Bianca. "Is there anything else you might still need assistance with Ma'am?"

She gave a very skeptical look at the room, "Not that Ah doubt your competence, but if it does happen again, what should Ah do? Besides get out of the room again, of course."

C'Tirr laughed. "Get out and call up. We can fix it usually. Our Engineering department are a very resourceful bunch." He said. "Anything else? Ma'am?"

"Nothin' that Ah can think of." Bianca stuck her hand out to him, "Thanks again, Ah suppose that if the room self-destructs, Ah can get a refund, right?"

C'Tirr chuckled. "Aye, I'll give you this refund if the room self restricts." He smiled as he nodded.

"Good, at least Ah'll get my money's worth!" She chuckled as she went back in to her work.

C'Tirr smiled at what he assumed was a joke. He turned and headed down the corridor towards the turbolift, his tail twisting on itself in his mirth. Within a minute, he had disappeared around a corner and out of sight.