CEO Ens. Van "VT" Trieu

[Trieu on the Bridge]

As Van and his crew finally crawled out of the Jeffries tubes accessing one of the auxiliary corridors to the Bridge, they knew they were in for a huge mess. The door labeled "Main Bridge" was very clearly scorched, most likely due to a blown EPS conduit. He reached down and tried accessing the side panel to open the door. Nothing happened. Naturally.

Van turned around and said, "R'Kul give me a hand with this". R'Kul was an enlisted Vulcan petty officer and one of the only handful of others on-board the ship that shared Trieu's Dominion War experiences. Back then, R'Kul wasn't an engineer. Like VT, he was a soldier. But more intriguingly, he didn't serve in Starfleet or with the Federation ground forces. Rather, R'Kul served with the Vulcan Defense Forces. Despite having integrated much of their personnel and technology two centuries ago with the formation of the United Federation of Planets, it still was not uncommon for member worlds to still retain their own planetary defense forces. Mostly it was for rear-guard actions or simple patrol duty. But when the fighting with the Jem'Hadar escalated geometrically during those first few months of the war, Starfleet had to rely on resources (more like scrounging to be honest) it thought it would never have to use. Along with remnants of the Andorian Imperial Guard and the Tellarite Navy, the Vulcan Defense Forces were called into action to fight alongside Starfleet. R'Kul was drawn into action and survived several bloody engagements during the war. Which of course led him to quickly realize he wanted to re-direct his talents elsewhere after the war. But instead of remaining with the Vulcan Defense Force or even applying to the Vulcan Science Academy, he opted to join Starfleet's Corps of Engineer's Accelerated Placement Program. He wanted more hands-on training and he got exactly that when he accepted a posting as a petty officer aboard the Perseus.

Since R'Kul and Van had incredibly similar experiences, they soon became quick friends aboard ship. And of course, a close friend would notice the obvious fact: in addition to R'Kul's technical and mechanical skill, he also had tremendous physical strength. He was a Vulcan after all.

The two of them grunted as they slowly pryed open the Bridge doors. Van knew that R'Kul was doing most of the prying, but he didn't mind. He was used to it. When they opened the door finally and Van's engineering team entered the Bridge, all they could was stand there in stunned silence.

Collapsed bulkheads littered the Bridge. One of the primary conn stations near the front the ship was completely blown out. Numerous consoles seemed to be totally destroyed. There were scorch marks everywhere and the lingering smell of acrid smoke filtered through the air. His team fanned out and started assessing the damage for themselves.

Van himself walked over to the Captain's chair and activated the armrest controls. In the event of a Bridge evacuation, primary controls would be re-diverted elsewhere, in this case Main Engineering. If the Bridge was to be reactivated, it usually required a reboot of the bridge controls which had been previously locked out for security and integrity maintenance issues when they evacuated. It would be a relatively "simple" software issue. But with the damage the Bridge sustained in the attack, the primary ODN relays that connected to the Bridge and allowed it access to every other ship-wide system had either been destroyed or completely fused. These relays would have to be replaced completely and THEN the bridge controls would have to rebooted.

Van leaned back in the Captain's chair and turned to R'Kul.

"Well old friend, it looks like we'll be here for awhile. Access one of the few remaining consoles and send a shipwide communique. Per Captain's orders, every available personnel within engineering AND operations is pulling double shifts. Effective as of now. We're gonna have to throw every warm body at this if we want to have a shot at rebuilding the ODN relays from virtual scratch."

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CEO LtJg. Van "VT" Trieu
USS Perseus NCC-78168-A
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