Travels of the Starfire: Oracle (Alternate)
"No, it still shows the power drain. I think it might short soon." Said Amy, the assistant engineer aboard Starfire as she examined a console on the bridge of the MSV Starfire. Jules Bisping, the ship's main engineer, looked over her shoulder at the readout.
"I'll go down and have a look at it then." The man said, turning around. As he walked towards the bridge doors, a siren suddenly began to sound.
The piercing, pulsated wail of the alert filled the bridge.
"What now?" Asked Jules, shouting over the noise.
"It shorted." Replied Amy, as she cut off power to the damaged system. The siren quieted in response.
"Great. This is just wonderful." He said, sarcastically. He walked over to another console and pressed some of it's controls, trying to find the short.
The siren had brought the ship's captain, Marcus Carey, to the bridge.
"What was that siren?" Were his first words.
"The Starfire's main power line between the reactor and hyperdrive is shorted. We're maintaining hyperspatial speed on backup power." Amy explained, as she continued to work on the nearest control panel.
"How long will it hold?"
"A few hours, less if we exit hyperspace and reenter."
Marcus was about to ask for more information, when another alarm sounded. The tone of this one was familiar to the captain, unlike the obscure 'power link failure' siren. It was the fire alarm.
Flashing Yellow lights activated on the bridge and throughout the ship, as the computer announced a fire in progress.
"Fire? Where?" Asked Marcus urgently.
"Engineering." Jules said, looking at the monitor.
"It would seem that we did not cut off power quick enough..." Amy stated calmly.
"Activate fire suppression!" The captain ordered. Jules obliged, instructing the ship's computer to dump the engineering room's atmosphere.
The computer unexpectedly refused:
[i]Fire suppression systems are not available at this time.[/i]
"What?" Jules gasped, repeating the command to the machine. It remained uncooperative.
"Why isn't it working?" Marcus asked.
Jules hurriedly spoke something unintelligible in response as he tried to activate the system manually.
The computer rejected his password to access the overrides and manual controls.
"Someone's changed the root password!" He complained.
"What?" Marcus asked.
"We're locked out of our own ship's computer system!" The engineer said.
"The fire in engineering is endangering our reactor's support systems." Amy warned.
"I'm going to open the manual release!" He said, as he ran out the bridge doors, passing the ship's first officer, Amara Var. She entered the bridge rapidly, and approached the captain.
"What's happening, captain?"
"Fire, in engineering." He replied.
"Jules is trying to extinguish it, our automatic fire suppression has failed." Amy added.
"Never a dull moment." Amara said, attempting to lighten the situation. It didn't work, unfortunately.