Fatal Containment

Fatal Containment - Chapter 1

"Lieutenant Kinson," he began. He hadn't even shouted, but her body involuntarily jumped with the shock of surprise. She stood stiffly at attention and didn't dare look him directly in the eye. "Are you responsible for this disaster?"

"Yes, commander," she squeaked. She hated it when her voice betrayed her nervousness. It had been doing that since the academy.

Lt. Commander Connor Leary was the ship's executive officer, or XO. Commander Leary was responsible for the smooth running of the ship, all administrative functions, and the execution of every activity aboard the Dominion. Short of being the skipper, he was the highest-ranking man on the boat.

Connor waved his arm in a slow horizontal arc meant to take in a panoramic view of a compartment of the ship that should not normally be supporting a minor blizzard. He had his gaze fixed on Ms. Kinson in a stare that left no room for ambiguity concerning his level of anger at what he had walked into moments before. It was just dumb luck that the second-in-command of the boat had picked this late hour to visit engineering and he was very likely to tear a few stripes from the back of this freshly minted lieutenant to ensure this never happened again.

Everyone in the compartment found something else to do, which primarily meant disconnecting the spray nozzles that were generating near-frozen mist or disconnecting the rigged vent ports that had channeled the heat in the compartment directly out to space through the same system used to put out fires.

Connor's breath could be seen as he enunciated the words. "Are you aware, Ms. Kinson, that this ship, and this compartment, may be called upon at any given moment to go into battle, perform emergency maneuvers, enable faster-than-light acceleration, or perform nearly any other action or function that its captain may require from it?"

Cheryl continued to fix her stare straight ahead and answered meekly in the affirmative. Connor slowly circled the frightened lieutenant; his anger draining away, as he thought about how brilliantly she had hidden the components needed to pull off her bold retaliation on the ship's senior engineering officer. He came to a stop directly behind her and silently counted to five for full effect.

Lowering his voice to a menacing growl, he rendered his verdict.

"You will assist Mr. Hanson in getting this mess cleaned up and back to full and spotless readiness. Furthermore, you will never construct such an apparatus at any time in the future. Move."

To her credit, Cheryl replied with a crisp "Aye, sir," and immediately began giving instructions to the technicians removing a piece of thermal conduit that had been used to rapidly drop the compartment temperature from a comfortable twenty-two degrees Celsius to a frigid twelve degrees below the zero line.

Connor knew it would take her the better part of several hours, even with help, in spite of the fact that she had just come off her own shift. He stood observing her for several seconds as Trevor Hanson, the ship's chief engineering officer, walked over to join him.

"She did a real number on your section, Trevor," Connor said as he surveyed the slowly melting slush that had moments ago been real snow.

"Yes, sir, she did indeed," he said shaking his head to hide his grin. "Somehow, she managed to rig the fire suppression system to not only fail to signal the status board, but she was also able to drop the humidity in the compartment to the right ratio to form the ice crystals. See that port over there?" he said pointing to a thermal exhaust vent on the far side of the room.

Connor nodded.

"It's the reactor thermal exhaust vent. She rigged it to drop the vent clamp when the temperature reached the frigidity she needed by knowing exactly how it would thermally contract against its seals. That's how she created the warm air blast she needed to make the clouds."