Comparing Compactors

Posted on 09 Mar 2026 @ 4:16pm by Lieutenant JG Ryan Collingway
Edited on on 09 Mar 2026 @ 6:36pm

473 words; about a 2 minute read

Mission: Silent Inheritance
Location: Cargo Bay 3

////Cargo Bay 3/////

Ryan was soon filled in on the situation below, as quickly as possible. None of it was good. The vaccines not binding together. The infrastructure literally fighting the system it was built on and collapsing as a result. They needed solutions as fast as possible.

And likely those solutions would take a lot of work.

Transforming the massive transporter in Cargo Bay 3 into a matter reclamator was actually one of the easier tasks. It was already *built* for that purpose, among others. All they would need to do is change some of its settings around. He worked quickly on the isolionear chips with Collins.

"We can increase the limit threshold if we bypass some of the safety guardrails," Collins pointed out.

"Yeah, and we can also beam conductors into the bodies of the away team below just for fun," Ryan said. "I know it feels like a race right now, but it's going to be a marathon by the time we're done. If we get really desperate we can utilize the other cargo bays and more personnel. But we aren't going to use unsafe measures right at the start."

"Right," Collins said. "Sorry. Guess a lot of us have been running on instinct and fumes lately."

"I know," Ryan wished this wasn't happening right now either. He closed up the isolinear panel and turned on his communicator. "Ryan to Mira. Ready to test."

Mira gave him coordinates. Ryan beamed over a single component, then picked it up to examine it. His eyes widened as it began to disintegrate from the touch alone. "Holy..."

He beamed the disintigrated part into the buffering system, which filtered it and broke it down into replicator material. The reclamator than used that material to create a new conductor with non-resonant polymer insulation. He picked it up after it materialized. The conductor felt solid in his grasp, even with pressure applied to it. He scanned it with the tricorder to confirm there were no faults or degradation. "Perfect. This will work, at least for the short term."

"Now we just have to do that again a million times," Collins said.

Ryan nodded. "Tell any engineer not on duty to get some sleep while they can. We may have another long job ahead."

"Roger that. Good luck down there."

Ryan quickly summoned two damage control teams to the transporter room. All of them quickly geared up with a lot of portable transport devices, among other things. Only a short time he had gotten a stern talking to from the warden to never return back to the colony, over a problem that likely was caused from the decaying infrastructure to begin with.

Still, this was going to be his way of making it up to the colony. "Energize," Ryan said calmly.

Lieutenant (JG) Ryan Collingway
Engineering Officer
USS Arawyn

 

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