He was currently sharing the diagnostics room with Ensigns McAffery and P'rr's. Through the past week, however, pretty much everyone had come in. Everyone was drawing a blank. Tomorrow, Captain Bolerov was going to ask him once more what was wrong and, once again, he was going to have to say, "I don't know". Bolerov had already threatened to write him up. That was just more stress he didn't need. During this past week, Tom realized how much he missed the command style of Captain Velasquez.
"Lieutenant," the sultry purring voice of the catian pulled him out of his daydream. They had become more frequent the past few days, obviously the result of his lack of sleep.
Kelly shook his head clear. "What is it, Ensign?" he already knew the answer, but maybe...
"The rrresults of the barrrium injection analysis shows negative." She said sadly.
"Damnit!" Tom pounded the table with his fist. "What IS it?" He put his hands to his head and returned to pacing. McAffery paused for a moment, then continued with his analysis, hoping to find what has been eluding his entire department for almost a month. "It's not the power, it's not the prefire agent, it's not the catalyst, it's not the accelerator... what fried the system?"
McAffery piped up. "It has to be one of those things, Sir. There has to be a few more tests we can try. Maybe this new subatomic structure analysis on the power cable will show us something." He tried to look hopeful, but he knew this was the fourth analysis done on the cabling. The other three had already turned up negative. His hopes and dreams of proving himself invaluable to his commander were fading fast with this problem.
"I appreciate your positive outlook, ensign." Tom replied with a weak smile. He pounded his head with his hands. "Arrgh! What am I missing?"
"Parrrdon me, Sirrr," P'rr's started, "why arrre we so surrre it has to be one of those things?" She had been looking at the same data as Tom for almost a week herself, but she was trying to look at it with fresh eyes.
Tom looked at her with appreciative but tired eyes. She was still very attractive to him, in an unusual, exotic way, but his committment to Corina had convinced him it was just infatuation. He took a deep breath. "The damage analysis says so. According to the records and the damage analysis, the breakdown started with the cabling, then continued to the barium containment system. That means it either drew more power than the cables could handle in the prefire system or the barium gas somehow leaked, fedback or misfired in the accelerator, causing a chain reaction in the system that led to the cables melting."
"Could something else have caused the cables to melt?" Her question was rhetorical.
"No. The inner housing is made of trellium E and the outer housing is tritanium. Everything else was outside the housing." Tom answered absently.
"Trrrellium is unstable, yes?"
"Trellium A and B are unstable." McAffery replied. "C, D, and E are fine." He shook his head. "And the outer hull is made of tritanium."
"Oh..." she whispered dejectedly. There had been an unofficial competition in the engineering section as to who would be Tom's 'right-hand person'. She had hoped, especially after their dinner conversation so long ago, that she would be the natural choice. It was a mixed blessing to discover so many other people in engineering were also quite skilled at their jobs. She slid down in the near corner, her knees to her chin. Tom and Cliff did their best not to stare at the rather 'unladylike' position P'rr's had put herself in.
There was something about her line of questioning, though. Some small spark of information came into Tom's head from the particle physics class he took so many years ago. He couldn't quite remember the details, but there was indeed something about the trellium refinement process that didn't sit well with the energy conversion process the cannon was using. He snapped his fingers towards P'rr's' direction. "She may have something there." He spun on his heel to the central table and pushed off the papers and PADDs. "Computer; display the refinement process for trellium C." Images began flashing across the small screen.
Though only a few minutes went by, it seemed like an eternity to both P'rr's and McAffery. Eventually, Lieutenant Kelly's eyes lit up. "Dear God... that can't be it... Computer; display the atomic makeup of both trellium B and trellium C." The two pictures, more resembling artwork than a molecular diagram, filled the screen. Tom tapped the screen, then quickly fell to the floor, quickly looking at PADDs, then tossing them aside. For a moment, McAffery and P'rr's considering asking him if he wanted help. They each decided it was in their best interests to stay out of the way. After tossing six PADDs aside, he apparently found the one he was looking for. He jumped back up, began thumbing through the PADDs contents, then held it up to the computer display on the table.
Ensigns P'rr's and McAffery dared a look at what Lieutenant Kelly was looking at. Neither one was much into particle physics, so what they were looking at left them largely clueless. Tom started laughing meniacally. He showed them the PADD. "Look!" He yelled. His antics caused a few other curious engineers to poke their heads into the room. Seeing their clueless smiles, he asked, "Don't you get it?" The two looked at the discharge analysis of the cannon on the PADD, then shook their heads. "Ha ha! Come on, P'rr's! It was YOUR idea! It's the barium isotope!" They continued looking clueless, but now Tom Kelly was drawing a large crowd.