Aoife fell into the railing of the upper level of engineering. The wooden rail caught her in the ribs like like nothing she had experienced before as bone cracked and pain shot through her body. She gripped the rail, her knuckled white with strain as she forced air into her lungs, sending a new wave of pain through her as the world spun, vision swimming with spots.

Below, a console erupted in a cascade of sparks, the detonation ripping t rough the compartment in acrid smoke of burnt electronics and zapping of plasma. Shatte ed components scattered like shrapnel, bouncing off bulkheads and clattering to the deck, mingling with the ozone ting of overloaded plasma conduits.

Over the noise she could make out shouted orders, but Aoife could barely focus on them let alone process it with the rinking in her ears. The deck shook beneath her, and the ship goraned in protest against the onslaught that hammered the hull.

With a grunt of pain she forced herself upright and bit back a curse. She was injured, but not fatally. There were those in worse shape that needed sickbay’s help, and she was needed in engineering. There as no time to nurse her hurts.

The Chief Engineer, meanwhile, was too busy barking orders at crewmates in the room until he just realized Aoi e was lying on the floor above the floor on the upper level.

He immediately pressed the combadge and yell d.  “Engineering to Sickbay, we have a...”

He trailed off as he reali ed there came no sounds, not even a beep from the combadge; he picked off the combadge from his chest and realized there was a small shrapnel pierced the combadge; it was totally broken.

“Goddammit.” He muttered before looking at a crewman. “Hey, you!” He yelled, getting the attention of the crewmate.

“Yes, sir?”

“Go to sickbay and call Doctor La…uh… never mind! Just go call a fucking nurse or a medical officer!”

The crewman nodded in acknowledgment before running out of engineering to make their way to Sickbay.

Alcraen, in the meantime, quickly made his w y up the catwalk to the upper level and knelt down beside Aoife. There was a look of concern on his face.

“You alright?” he asked, his eyes darting to the shrapnel stuck in the combadge.

Aoife sucked in a breath, pressing a hand to her ribs forcing herself upright. A sharp wince betrayed her show of stoicisim. “Just a few popped ribs,” she muttered through clenched teeth. “I’ll live.” She caught his gaze. “Don’t worry about me. We’ve got work to do.”

“Don’t be ridiculous!” Trosin yelled, looking down at his fallen assistant; her auburn hair  as a mess, and her uniform was covered in cuts and burns.  “You can’t seriously intend to continue working after all that!”

He the  reached down and put a hand on her elbow, trying to a sess the injuries Aoif had suffered. He could feel the trembling on the limbs, and the pain she suffered was too obvious enough. “You’re staying right here, and only here; I do not want you to run around like a runigai; that’ll just get you killed!”

Aoife winced. She knew she had cracked some ribs, but that was the worst of her injuries.  The cuts were superficial and would heal on their own.  “I’ve been through worse, but you’re the boss.”

Once again, the ship violently shook, and the hull groaned and popped in protest. White-hot sparks erupted from the damaged consoles, showering the engineering crew as they frantically worked to keep the ship’s systems running under the relentless barrage of enemy weapons.  Captain Talon had said she would use the Denver as a shield for the other ships — and it seemed she was good to her word.

The compuer beeped with a warning klaxon, harsher and more terrifying than the regular red alert. Aoife’s eyes were wide as her pale face was bathed in the intermittent red glow of the warning lights. Her injuries were immediately pushed to the back of her mind.

“Warning: Microfractures detected within the reaction chamber of the matter/antimatter reactor. Containment failure imminent.”

“Ver aten in des sakhn.” Trosin uttered silently, as his heart sank hearing the announcement, he had been distressed by the whole orde l he had been gone today, and now this.

A containment failure was a nightmare coming to life for Trosin, perhaps one of the worst nightmares for an engineer

“You can stand, girl?” Trosin asked his assistant laying on the ground. “The core isn’t the only thing in mortal danger ’round here!”

Aoife scowled at Trosin with murder in her eyes. Girl? Who the hell does he think he is?

“I can stand. We have to stabilize the core, or nothing else will matter,” she said, sliding down the ladder to the main level.

The engineer felt a bit annoyed and irritated after noticing the murder in Aoife’s eyes, he was too sure that the murder in her eyes was especially directed at hi  himself. What the hell did I do?

He tried to i nore the murdering glare from Aoife that was directed at him earlier, but it was too hard to ignore, He really wished that he can go and directly talk about what appeared in her eyes, but the core was the first priority.

“Good,” Trosin spoke. “We need to stabilize the core, how’s the d mage?”

Aoife didn’t look away from the diagnostic console in front of the dilithium chamber, her fingers flying over the controls. The beeping inputs formed a steady stream of sound, merging with the hissing steam, blaring klaxons, shouting engineers, and the constant rumble of the hull as it absorbed hit after hit from enemy energy weapons.

“Sixty percent of the reaction chamber has minor to moderate microfractures. Field integrity is at twenty-two percent and falling.” She hesitated just long enough to scan additional readings. “The coolant system is stable, but the reaction chamber is five hundred kilopascals above normal. We need to vent drive plasma—now!”

Trosin’s heart was beating like a drum hearing Aoife’s report, the damage was cr tical, the reaction chamber was failing, the fields are weakening, the risk of a core breach was growing by the se ond.

“Venting drive plasma is the only good choice at the time,” Trosin said, anxiety filling his words with his eyes darting on various consoles. “It’ll buy us some time.”

He moved to the nearest console and started entering commands. The computer immediately responded with the sequence of actions needed to prepare the drive plasma for venting.

Come on…come on…

Trosin’s fingers flew over the console, trying to execute all the commands to vent the drive plasma, but time seemed slow.

“How much time before the breach!?” He asked, quite panicked.

Aoife worked the console, her fingers rapidly entering commands into the panel. “Five minutes if we do—” The ship shook violently, and the hull groaned as welds popped and separated from their joints. “Correction, three minutes.  Structural integrity is failing, and shields are at twenty-eight percent and falling.”

“God fucking dammit!” Trosin yelled, now entirely panicked and washed away by anxiety.

The Chief Engineer’s panic was understandable – the ship’s situation was quite dire.”

Where are the goddamn repair crews?!” Alcraen yelled, directing the question to nobody in particular. “Those microfractures need to be fixed NOW!!!”

“Routing emergency power to the structural integrity field and purging the reaction chamber of antimatter.” Aoife responded.

“Good, good…” The engineer muttered, his hands still flying over the console.

As soon as there is only one last sequence to vent the plasma, Trosin took a breath and looked at Aoife.

“Is your combadge working perfectly!?” He asked for the last time. “I need to inform the Captain of the venting!”

She shrugged, “Don’t know.” Aoife pressed the device, “Engineering to Bridge.”

“Bridge here,”  a voice replied over the comm.

“Stand by for a report from the Chief Engineer,” Aoife said plucking her combadge off her uniform and handing it to Trosin.

“Captain! I need your permission to vent plasma from this ship!” Trosin spoke immediately when received, as he looked at the panel quickly. “The coolant system is stable, but the reaction chamber is five hundred kilopascals above normal!”

“Do it!” Rebecca’s voice replied without hesitation. “Bridge out.”

“Well, I’ll be damned.” Trosin spoke as he gave the combadge back to his assistant.

As he finished the process to expel the driving plasma. As the venting procedure began, the ship let out a low, persistent whine. For a minute, the entire ship appeared to hold its breath.

As the plasma was vented into space, the pressure in the reaction chamber progressively decreased, lowering the temperature and stress to safe levels.

But however, this step was just meant to give the ship additional time.