You and Chief Griswold exit the lift and turn right. The emergency blast doors to the Engineering section are closed. Chief Griswold reaches the door first and opens by entering his code in the control panel. As soon as the two of you are clear of the doorway, the heavy metal door starts to close. You enter your code in the second door's panel. It opens the second the first door is closed and sealed.

Inside, engineers of all ranks are scrambling around. Some are furiously entering commands on control panels. Others are working opening access panels and working on whatever component or conduits require repairs. Chief Griswold quickly strides to an available workstation and begins running diagnostics and reviewing readings. You grab a passing engineer and ask them what is happening.

The engineer catches his breath before speaking. “There was an explosion when we sent power to the sublight engines for startup. Some kind of power surge ignited a trace amount of fuel in the preignition chamber for the sublight engines. A piece of shrapnel from the explosion hit the throttle control relay for the FTL engines. The relay is locked into constant acceleration and our controls are locked out.”

You release the engineer and step over to the Chief at his workstation. “What do you know Chief?”

Chief Griswold doesn't take his eyes off of the displays in front of him. “The Ensign was right. The FTL engines are accelerating us beyond normal speeds. While we are no immediate danger, the engines will eventually burn themselves out. We are traveling too fast to transition back into normal space, the ship would be instantly obliterated. The only way to stop the acceleration is to shut the FTL engines down, but we need them to transition.”

You look around at everyone else working. “Is there anything I can do to help?”

Griswold points to a medium section of conduit. “Others are trying to manually shut down the fuel flow to both engines. I need you to open that conduit and redirect the flow from the holding tanks to the exterior exhaust vents. I will activate the emergency pumps and monitor the flow from here.”

You go to the indicated conduit and remove a section of the outer covering. You type a command on the control panel that is revealed. A lever pops out below the panel. You grab hold of the lever and start to slowly turn the stiff valve attached from the left to the right. When you have the valve about halfway around, the control panel above your hand sparks wildly. Right before your eyes, the sparks flash into a rapidly growing fireball. You feel heat surrounding you as you are thrown back from the conduit. You don't feel your lifeless body hit the wall opposite the exploding conduit.

The End

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