Patreon LogoYour support makes Blue Moon possible (Patreon)

Star Trek: Iliad

The Captain’s Klingon-inspired threat drew an understated “Understood” from T’Vara in response, who inclined her head in his direction without taking her eyes from her console or breaking the flow of her typing. It was, again, difficult to tell if she had taken the threat seriously, or whether she was merely humoring him and playing along. Privately, she assumed that it was simply an empty threat intended to motivate them — but there was no logical benefit in voicing such a thought out loud. Besides, it hardly mattered; she had no intention of giving him reason for complaint.

Her typing did come to a stop a few moments later, as the Captain gave Ensign Leata her final orders to commence the drill. There was something off in his tone; a hesitation that had loosely been present for a short moment during their briefing, but now magnified considerably. The Vulcan inclined her head slightly as she looked over to her old friend, sharp eyes watching his body language from behind as he continued to speak. He was tense, unsure, kept glancing over to the Commander — ah. T’Vara understood. He was nervous, worried about causing trouble or about how this unscheduled test might be looked upon by his superiors in Starfleet Command. It was quite probable that he was picturing an unprecedented disaster that would lead to his reassignment to cargo duties on some anonymous ore hauler, or some such scenario along those lines.

Perhaps she could help with that.

“Captain.” T’Vara spoke up sharply to get his attention. “With your permission, I will contact Starfleet and Traffic Control to inform them of our intentions.”
 
Nellis's attention immediately snapped to T'Vara when she called his rank. The idea suggested by someone else to call traffic control and tell them to give them a bit of air was a sudden weight off his shoulder. Nellis felt like he could exhale a breath he didn't even know he had been holding. He was suddenly reminded that T'Vara had been a friend and could despite her emotionless exterior as a Vulcan, she seemed to be fairly good at reading him. "good idea, keep them informed."

He chalked this one up to his inexperience. In the future, he would make sure that messaging Starfleet would be on his priority list, but at least now they would have traffic control giving them a bit of a wide breath so that they could properly shake down the ship without him being further worried. He ran through the list of other things that needed to get done while they were in the Sol sector, but with that message sent, and permission given he could put his worries of citations away for the moment and focus on the other myriad of tasks he had command over from his chair. Plus he was curious about the over all performance, it felt like they still only had half a ship, so this shake down would be a good showcase of just what was missing.
 
"Right, good idea, Lieutenant." Stephens opened a channel to Starfleet Headquarters from the Tactical console he was still stationed at. "This is the Odyssey, calling Starfleet Command. Requesting permission to conduct low-yield weapons test and maneuvering exercises. Come in, please." While he was waiting, he muted the channel on the Odyssey's end and double-checked the weapons settings and power levels. "Point-defense phasers remain at minimal power. EPS distribution nominal. Captain, Commander, might I suggest we test our sensors on Jupiter Station's hydroponics bay on our way past? A standard life-forms scan should alert us to any major problems, should they exist."
 
Leata focused on maneuvering the ship but given her sensory and computational bandwidth she easily kept up with the various discussions and reactions of the bridge crew. She couldn't deny that informing the local traffic control of their intentions was a solid course of actions but her clockwise roll of the ship would have already alerted anyone paying even slight attention to their departure to expect the unexpected. Having completed her first roll she took the liberty of doing the same but in the counterclockwise direction. It might look like she was enjoying herself but she was actually taking precise calculations of any lag between the flight control inputs and the actual movements of the ship. There was always a gap between intention and reality and the more closely she could map that gap the more precisely she would be able to pilot the ship in more treacherous and less predictable situations.

It didn't take long before other craft and vessels began to give them a wider berth. It was unknown to Leata if this was due to the communication signals or the natural reaction of the pilots of lesser craft making way for the Sovereign Class starship making spaceshow type maneuvers in the relatively busy port space. Some pilots might have appreciated the extra room but for Leata it was simply a matter of changing variables, the math stayed very much the same. It wasn't lost on her that if anyone were to 'scratch' the captain's ship it would probably be her but why she would wish to be a Klingon dying in battle was lost on her.

As they approached the debris field her computations began to increase exponentially but still occupied only 38% of her processing ability. She was essentially collaborating with the ship's computer to thread a needle through the field, rejecting the ship's more conservative suggestions to simply go around the debris. There were at least 12 variations that would take them through the field unscathed but she chose another that would place several minor asteroids in their path. Nothing the deflectors, assuming they were working properly, couldn't handle but would provide logical targets for the point defense system.

"Lieutenant Commander Stephens, Conn is sending Tactical the coordinates of three asteroids in our flight path that should provide adequate target practice." Her fingers were flying over the panel as she deftly piloted the large vessel through the increasingly tightening confines of the field. The ship's course became more erratic as the need to make corrections to their trajectory to navigate the field became more prominent. She could easily calculate the fire control solution but knew that was not her purview as crew roles on the bridge were geared towards the rather small bandwidth of organic brains and nervous systems.
 
With the matter of seeking permission taken care of — and seeing that Captain Nellis had begun to relax, judging by the slight adjustment in his posture — T’Vara turned her attention towards her own duties for the exercise. Hearing the Captain and the Lieutenant Commander’s praise for her suggestion, she didn’t so much as smile, but privately she was quite pleased to hear them say it. It was, after all, her first time on the bridge of a starship; she would never say that was nervous, but she was glad to have made a successful contribution.

Even if that contribution had only been to suggest a logical course of action.

Following Lieutenant Commander Stephen’s suggestion, as the Odyssey passed within range of Jupiter Station, T’Vara commenced a scan for life-forms in Jupiter Station’s hydroponics bay. It took her a moment to narrow the range of the scan correctly; the new ship’s scanners were more powerful, and therefore more complicated, then most she’d made use of in training and simulations at the Academy. Once she had it underway, though, she was impressed by how quickly and thoroughly the system was able to handle her request. She tapped quickly through the data as it arrived. A wide variety of plantlife, a number of humans and other species, microbial life within expected parameters, one cat. One anomalous lifeform, but that could be some manner of unusual visitor, not a sign of a system error. Satisfied with that result, T’Vara sent through a short request to the station for their own data to compare, then began her analysis of their exercise while she waited.

While she was not an experienced pilot herself, T’Vara was an experienced astrophysicist. By running a simulation on her own console — inputting details about their environment, the ship’s weight and specifications, and flight data from the conn — she was able to compare the ship’s actual, observed behavior to its theoretical performance and note any anomalies. The results, at first, weren’t very surprising. Much as Stephens and P’rmess had described, the ship wasn’t in a perfect state. It had a tendency to overturn to the left, relative to the input given. The inertial dampeners still needed a little calibration; at times they were overzealous, and at others slower to react than expected. Gravimetric readings across the ship were slightly off; not enough to matter under normal conditions, but the crew might begin to feel it if they went past Warp 7 too long, or if they got too close to a powerful gravitational phenomenon. All of that was disappointing for a state-of-the-art ship, but unsurprising. What did surprise T’Vara was that, as the exercise progressed, the gap between expected and actual performance of the vessel sharply decreased. Their flight paths began to normalize; their turns became tighter, their stops more controlled. There were two immediate possible explanations. Either their engineering crew was already working to stabilize power flow and so on — unlikely, given the timeframe involved — or else their pilot was compensating in real time.

The Vulcan glanced up from her console, observing the android at their helm for a moment. If she really was making those adjustments on the fly, then her capabilities must be quite impressive. The calculations involved were quite precise. T’Vara doubted that an organic pilot, even another Vulcan, could have done so well while simultaneously handling the ship. She observed the ensign a moment longer before glancing back to her console, and —

WHAM

A sudden impact against the ship’s deflector sent a shock through the bridge. T’Vara stumbled forward, catching herself over her console. An instant later, she began furiously typing. The region around them had been clear, nothing on her sensors. What could they possibly have —

Ah.

“My apologies, Captain. It appears we have a blind spot.” The Lieutenant straightened back up, and tugged her uniform back into place with one hand. The other continued furiously typing. “Adjusting other sensors to compensate.”

One of the external cameras on section 32 of the hull seemed to be malfunctioning — and worse, whatever was wrong seemed to have tricked the computer into believing the camera was working, because it hadn’t shown any signs of a problem during her initial diagnostic. Another issue to add to Engineering’s list, along with the inertial dampeners — which, it seemed to T’Vara, had clearly overreacted to what was ultimately a minor impact. Her expression didn’t change, but she began typing even faster.

Later, she'd have to check if the deflector had been enough to keep that asteroid from scratching the hull.
 
Due to the overclocked inertial dampeners, the relatively minor impact had engaged the automated defense protocols. Shields were raised, weapons were fully charged, and the ship went to Red Alert before Stephens could even blink. "Dammit! We're flying a fucking lemon!", he shouted as he cancelled Red Alert without the Captain's prompting, a violation of protocol but he didn't think he'd be court-martialed over it. Before he brought absolutely everything back to the way it was before, he took the opportunity presented by the weapons being fully charged to blast the offending asteroid into dust with the point-defense phasers. "That's what you get for messing with the Odyssey!", he shouted, even as he brought the point-defense phasers back down to minimal power. "Ahem, targeting scanners are functioning normally, and obviously the point-defense phasers work at full power!" He flashed everyone a jaunty, winning smile.
 
Of course there would be a scorching message filed in writing and for the command staff's eyes from Engineering. "WHO FORGOT TO MENTION WEAPONS DRILL TO THE CREW??? WHERE WAS THE YELLOW ALERT???" but then it would be less all caps about the system and personel damage from the collision and the not so readily reacting - or overreacting - inertial dampeners. "Did you knew that while under yellow alert more energy and computing power would be distributed to the inertial dampeners and the structural integrity fields? It would also have got the engineers get out of the conduits..."

Later there would be a neat collection about the small problems and their fixes and repairs made to systems and the maneuvering thrusters, with a request to repairs on the bridge and the lines leading there on beta shift. P'rmess was still not accustomed to be the Chief Engineer enough to not send these up to the Second or First Officer, but act on it on her own and just file it to the archives.
 
It was probably inevitable for a new captain on a new ship to have launch jitters, Zasha told herself. But Starfleet Command had put them in the storm, taking out a unverified – by the Caves, barely *completed* - vessel on a priority mission. If Command wasn't going to play by the book, the Odyssey didn't have to, either. And she'd tell any Commodore or Admiral who gave them grief about it the same. Well, maybe a bit more diplomatically, but Ikire wasn't about to get her people hurt by …

WHAM.

… by that. That was exactly the reason. A glance back over her shoulder to the center seat as she offers an assurance, "Fortunate indeed that was detected now. That would have been unpleasant to encounter at warp velocities."

Atomizing the ship definitely fell, in Ikire's book, under 'unpleasant'. Even if the systems had avoided contact, a high energy lurch like that at warp could induce injury or even fatality.

"Ops to Engineering …" she was at that console after all, with Stephens at tac, "… everything good down there post-impact?" She bites back the snark about hoping nothing fell off the warp core. She was exec now, and that kind of banter was a bit unprofessional. Or at least, required more familiarity with the crew than current conditions allowed. They'd already dispatched extra personnel to assist after the pre-launch meeting, so there wasn't a ton of extra help available … maybe some security or logistics personnel could be shifted in the case of a true emergency.

Still, she was glad to see the weapons arrays were in order. At least in the limited testing so far. Theorycrafting regarding the sensor blind spot, she considered it might be due to a misalignment of one of the many field emitters … deflector, sensors, shielding, dampeners, artiGrav. The only thing you could really rule out at the moment was the warp field. There was a lot of complicated interplay between all the fields on a vessel of this size, and a problem with one could cause unusual contouring and distortion in the others. Anything too big would show on diagnostics, but smaller issues could easily have been missed in the absence of comprehensive testing.
 
Nellis felt his heart jump into his throat when his entire ship lurched forward, he was lucky to be secured and sitting in his chair. As his hands were able to dig into the arms to secure him so he didn't flop about like a fish, but it was still a very large shock to his system. he blinked for a moment as everything came in over time. He grits his teeth and reminded himself that this wasn't exactly any of his officer's fault, taking a few deep breaths as they realigned the sensors to get a sense of the damage to the front of the ship. He had said a lot about not wanting to scratch the ship before it was even finished, and now because of a sensor malfunction and a blindspot they had most certainly scratched her.

"Make sure the bow of the ship is clear, and then start running the deflector array at 40 percent to keep us from impacting any more large chunks of debris while we work on getting the cameras aligned and check for more blindspots." The entire reason they were the ones getting sent out early on this mission was the fact that they had unique and powerful sensors.

He tapped his combadge entering into Zasha's conversation with Engineering. "Sorry for the rough start P'rmess, but we are going to need you to make sure that the sensor array is still up to date, and run a full diagnostic, considering that the entire reason we are being dispatched was that we are trying to find a cloaked ship and we can't even see an asteroid off our side I want to make sure that our ships eyes are a top priority for the mission at hand." He made a mental note to make sure that in the future he would call for a yellow alert when running a drill.

He did feel a little bad about not calling for a yellow alert, but at least they knew the targeting systems were good, it meant that they would have a chance to hit the enemy once they found it. He turned towards T'Vara "I'd suggest checking all other exterior cameras, If there are any other blindspots we should work to find them quickly." He gave a little bit of a huff, this is starting out to be just a great time indeed.

"Other than roaming blindspots, she seems... hearty." He said looking around for a moment. "I think that is all the testing we can get away with in the heart of the federation, get us away from earth, and on our way to Rigel 3 before we end up breaking something important."

"Warp six, as soon as it's available." It was a little like running away to hide from the embarrassment. He felt like he could feel the eyes of every ship in the sector upon them. It was as if they watched Admiral Janeway trip and fall down the stairs, it made his face flush slightly red, but it was one of the reasons why they had to do this kind of shake-down.
 
"WorRrking on it. That is what a shake down courRrse is about..." P'rmess reply wasn't really calm, not enough that they pulled out the ship before the last visual calibrations could take place - after they put up the then still missing ablative armour plates -, but without the yellow alert, the basic setting was still keeping a lot of computing power for the labs. Even if they was clearly not in use!

Well, she was not a programmer, the software part was something she knew only to apply patches. But she could manually recheck the sensors. "Bridge, give me a minure for a level thrRree cascade diagnostic on the camerRras and proximity sensorRrs."

After that, she would return to monitor the warp core, and get on with her own plans.
 
"That was unexpected." Ensign Leata stated to no one in particular but had taken the initiative to bring the ship to a full stop as they assessed the damage and the blind spot. Surprise wasn't in her programming and the logic of the circumstances was rather clear in hindsight. "Sorry Captain, I'm sure that left a scratch." She wasn't prone to unnecessary communications but her observations of human crews, especially Starfleet ones, was that such niceties were often helpful in stressful situations. "If I may suggest a brief, and slow, maneuver I can record our sensor snapshots in several ship orientations and compare them in order to map out any more blindspots. It won't fix them but I can take them into account in our navigation and help Ops prioritize the work." It wasn't exactly a Starfleet SOP since they generally didn't launch ships with partially working sensors but it would allow her to anticipate potential collisions. It would be a simple thing for her positronic brain to find the discrepancies between sensor readings between the snapshots, even the ship's computer could do that. It will be much more challenging to incorporate this information in real time during a stressful encounter such as combat. But if anyone on the ship was capable of such computations, it was her.

She entered the appropriate course and speed and maneuvered the ship to make its escape from their rather blemished departure. Embarrassment wasn't in her programming either, but she could see the blush on the Captain's face well enough. Embarrassment seemed to be the only human emotion that checked off on present circumstances. Running away didn't seem the optimal response, but humans would be humans.
 
It is often believed that Vulcans are incapable of experiencing emotion. This is a myth. It is more accurate to say that Vulcans are masters of controlling their emotions. They learn to suppress them, to prevent them from influencing their actions, and they practice this suppression to such a degree that it becomes almost instinctual, to the point that the question of whether or not they can experience emotion becomes almost academic.

All of this is to say that Nellis was not the only officer aboard the bridge experiencing embarrassment in the wake of the collision. T’Vara knew, logically, that she was not to blame for the failure. She had taken every necessary precaution to ensure the ship’s sensors were working as intended, and indeed it was preferable to discover the flaw now rather than while they were underway. Still. The sensors were her responsibility, and the incident was a blemish on her first performance as a bridge officer. Further, it had clearly disturbed the Captain. It rankled.

Her reaction was, of course, much more subdued than Nellis’. T’Vara was too Vulcan to allow a momentary embarrassment to show on her face, or to unduly influence her response. It was undeniable, however, that in the moments after the collision, the science officer had redoubled her efforts. Her fingers practically flew across her console. By the time the Captain turned to suggest she check the other cameras, the work was already well underway.

“In the process of doing so, Captain,” she assured him. Her tone was as level as always, but perhaps a touch more distracted than usual as the work occupied the bulk of her attention. A small light on the console informed her that the requested data had arrived from Jupiter Station, but for the moment T’Vara ignored it. Primary visual sensors were the priority; the more esoteric aspects of their lifeform scanners could wait.

“For what it is worth — if the asteroid had been cloaked, I believe we may have detected it.”

As their departure from the system got underway, T'Vara's attention stayed on her console; continuing her analysis of the sensors, and feeding what data she could through to Ensign Leata for comparison.
 
He could never tell if T'Vara was serious, she was a Vulcan of course so if he was direct with her, he doubted she would admit to humor, but her comment about the asteroid being detected even if it had been cloaked could very easily be taken as a joke. His ensign wasn't much better as Leata informed him that there was most certainly a scratch from the impact. He sighed he knew that the asteroid had been a malfunction in their sensors, one that would be checked and found out in the next three minutes or so once P'rmess got back to him with that diagnostic. Maybe one day this would be a humorous story.

"Well, let's hope that we won't have to blindly bump into the cloaked ship when~" He received a notification from Starfleet command, and at first his blood ran cold, thinking that it was a violation or a warning from the traffic control for their unscheduled shakedown.

Checking it took a moment of courage, but reading the file he paused for a moment. "T'Vara I'm sending you some additional files, per your request from the meeting." It seemed that Rigal 3 had finished their security sweep, and sent them a few additional files, one of the men had been recognized.

Lt Junior Grade Nakkaan, was a Vulcan, and not a Romulan pretender as he had first assumed, the records showed he had a bit of a troubled history though with some points of interest.
  1. His homeworld was one of the many that had been ceded to the Cardassian Union after the border wars.
  2. He was one of the few surviving Maquis he had been pardoned of all activities under the stipulation that he be enlisted into Starfleet.
  3. He had gone missing in 2376.
So they had a former Maquis stealing a potential super weapon with the use of a cloaked ship? His eyes drifted to Zasha, he had a distinct feeling that her opinion on this information could be important but considering all of these groups were involved with Cardassia in some way he had to think this would stir up some bad emotions. In the end, though keeping secrets from the senior staff was a bad idea. "Zasha I'm sending you a copy of this as well."
 
Stephens' eyes swiveled over to Lt. T'Vara from the Tactical station. "Miss T'Vara, I do believe you just made a joke. And you as well, Ensign Leata. See? We're already cracking jokes about it. Right, Commander, are you good there for the time being, since we have no Tactical Officer at the moment?" His question was directed at Commander Zasha, but his eyebrows were raised when Captain Nellis mentioned sending something to T'Vara and Zasha. "Sir, is this something to be shared with the whole class, at some point?", he asked his Captain. While he was still relatively young--hell, they all were--Stephens had always been considered wise beyond his years. The wisdom of Chief O'Brien, that he frequently wove into his Engineering courses, only added to Stephens' own, so he was much more relaxed--apart from the outburst about flying a lemon--than some of the others, perhaps. After all, as the old saying goes, shit happens. He turned to the Engineering console and coordinated P'rmess', T'Vara's, and Leata's efforts, monitoring power flow, systems status and a dozen other things, providing adjustments and command overrides where necessary.
 
Last edited:
“You are welcome to interpret it that way if you choose, Commander.”

If T’Vara had intended for her comment to be humorous, there was nothing in her tone or expression to give it away. Her attention was still fixed on her console, her eyebrows narrowed sharply as she worked industriously to prevent a second incident. She didn’t even spare Stephens a glance, though she did incline her head slightly in his direction in acknowledgement.

The files from Rigel 3, on the other hand, demanded her full attention. When the message from the Captain came through, T’Vara broke off her ongoing analysis to quickly look over the new data. A former Maquis? Interesting. Though there wasn’t enough information there for the science officer to draw a proper conclusion, the information they did have about Lieutenant Nakkaan certainly pointed towards something other than a Romulan plot. Of course, as xenophobic as the Star Empire might be, they weren’t exactly opposed to using foreign assets when it suited their purposes…

The Vulcan gave a slight shake of her head. There were still too many unknowns around the purpose of the theft, or the identity of the others involved. Even Nakkaan’s former political beliefs could prove to be misleading; a person could change a lot in four years. On the other hand, however, that line of thought had given T’Vara idea. She closed the Lieutenant's file, and then looked to Nellis.

“Captain,” she said. “With your permission, I would like to contact Rigel 3 and ask for a list of all current or former staff who may have been aware that the device was stored there, or who might have the knowledge required to activate it. If we are unable to catch up with their ship, it would be prudent to have a secondary avenue of investigation available to us.”

Perhaps nothing would come of it, but T’Vara reasoned that additional data could not hurt.
 
"It was simply a statement of fact Lieutenant Commander." Ensign Leata replied with all the emotion of a bored shuttle pilot on a delivery run. Fingers gliding over the console as she confirmed her navigational work around would work well enough to prevent their blowing the ship to dust. "Exiting stage left at warp six Captain." She said as her finger engaged the warp engine as soon as engineering gave her the go ahead. The view screen showed the typical blue shift of light before streaking past as their warp field developed and they slipped into the gravitational field formed about the ship.

Once warp was engaged, even less of Leata's processing was needed to responsibly pilot the vessel. She listened intently to the Captain's report about their quarry. She had not been privy to the overall mission but began to fit puzzle pieces together. The fact that their presumed quarry had a history with the Maquis seemed curious and significant but she lacked context to make any connection.

"If it interests the Captain, I do have some experience with the Maquis." The ensign offered, even if it was well outside of her area of responsibility on the ship. She fully expected her request to be delegated to one of the other senior officers, but the unofficial protocol of bridge crewing was to get the Captain's attention early on and this was her chance.
 
Nellis looked at his third officer. Keoh wasn't trying to be offensive, he was controlling the flow of information through his senior staff, he didn't want to have every set of eyes on the same information all at once, but he also wasn't really hiding anything. He understood why Stephan was eyeing him like that, and after hearing Ensign chime in on the Maquis issue at hand he just sighed and relented, passing on the information to the rest of the bridge crew. At this point with their skeleton crew it seemed like it would be impossible to keep classified information classified anyway so may as well let his third officer and the massive computer sitting at navigation have a look at it as well.

"I don't want to call off the idea that Romulans are involved, but it seems that the two men had more ties to Starfleet and the Maquis than the star empire." At the same time both the men were Vulcan at least on skin level.. they could have been Romulan plants, which would make them what... quadruple spies? Spies for the Romulan empire who got put onto Maquis ships, who then became plants in Starfleet only to report back to the empire? It made Nellis go a bit cross-eyed at the moment. He had to think of something else.

"By all means contact Rigel 3, and begin coordination with their forensics team. Maybe P'rmess can help you on that front when she isn't busy patching every hole in the ship." Forensics tended to be a science where engineering often collided having an engineer's insight into the situation could be useful or he could be batting at strings like a lost kitten all he knew was that he would need a drink by the end of this shift.
 
"Captain, I think I've managed to patch the subroutine that was supposed to automatically manage power flow, but the software engineers didn't have time to upload all the program files before we had to leave Spacedock. Just let me run a level 5 diagnostic real quick...ah, everything looks good. Just let me bring it online...okay, all right, that's actually better than I could have done..." Stephens seemed to be talking more to himself now, and actually looked up with an embarrassed expression on his face. "Sorry. Looks like I don't need to focus quite as much on the Engineering console anymore, so do you want me to help P'rmess, T'Vara or do something else? Were the point-defense phasers the only offensive tactical system that needed to be calibrated? Because I can calibrate the torpedo launchers in simulation while we're at warp. Professor O'Brien and I actually wrote a holodeck program for it together, I won't even have to tie up the real systems with it except for what's needed to make the simulation, resemble what would...ah, you get the idea, Sir."
 
"Calibrate the torpedoes, make sure we can target just about anything, we don't know the size of the cloaked ship." They could be trying to find anything from the size of a Defiant class to a D'deridex warbird, honestly, he was really hoping it wasn't a Warbird, mostly because he was still holding out that small shred of hope that the Romulans weren't in someway involved with all of this. Admittedly scheming about with cloaked ships felt like a Romulan plot, but if they had to fight the Star Empire that would lead to a much larger war that the Federation was not ready for.

But if not the Romulans, then who? and why?


Captain's supplementary log, stardate 56948.9

After a day and a bit of travel, we arrived at the Daystrom Institute's secondary campus at Rigel 3. Most of the crew is tired, and the long hours worked by the skeleton crew are still being felt. Thankfully here we will be fitted for resupply, and the addition of a few new crew members. We have also been able to requisition a supply of Quantum Torpedos, and I only awoke to a singular complaint from the flight coordinators at the Sol Sector. Sadly our current first officer had to take leave of the ship, a new first officer will be joining us on the planet.

While the crew remains in orbit me and my senior staff will be heading down to the planet to speak with the ground forensics team, The Odyssey will be running scans of the system to try and find the day-old trail of the cloaked ship, but my hope is that we may be able to a way to track the stolen genesis torpedo, or find some connection that may lead us to the culprit's ultimate destination. Currently, the use of transporters to the institute is locked down as a security precaution, so I have summoned select staff to meet me in the main shuttle bay.



The Odyssey had a complement of 4 shuttles and a singular runabout each of which had been named for characters from the greek epic from which the original ship had taken its name, but the names seemed haphazardly chosen. There was the Penelope, The Athena, The Nausicaä, and the Calypso which were the newer more angular, and sleek Argo class shuttle, and then there was The Charybdis the larger, and admittedly far less comfortable to look at runabout in the back, in comparison to the newer shuttles the Danube class runabout deserved the name of the large sea beast for it was twice the size in every direction of the four shuttles that surrounded it.

Nellis was for his part put together. Freshly bathed, and showered, his red hair was comfortably tended to as he was finishing getting The Athena ready for launch.
 
While still not sure if she should be considered senior staff, or even the Chief Engineering Officer, P'rmess had her hands on resupply. Thus, 'accidentally' being in the shuttle bay just as the others gathered, but working on the incoming material by checking things with a PADD and an engineering tricorder in hand.

The last evening after work was still coursing through her mind, but thankfully her artifical tail did not showed her emotions.
 
Over the last day, thanks to the combination of T’Vara and Leata’s detailed readings and the efforts of the ship’s engineering team, the problems with the blind spot on section 32 had been resolved. The ship’s sensors were primed and ready to go. The only possible lingering problem was the anomalous lifeform reading they’d picked up from Jupiter Station, which had not appeared in the station’s own data. T’Vara hadn’t yet found the time to chase down that particular mystery — but other than that, she was confident in the state of their sensors. Which was good, because she wouldn’t be present to oversee their scans of the system herself.

“...looking for subspace variance, concentrations of tetryon particles, neutrino trails; anything that could provide useful data on the kind of cloaked vessel we’re dealing with, or the direction it departed in. Run a tachyon scan, and a multiphasic sweep over as much of the system as possible.”

T’Vara went over her instructions in detail one last time for the benefit of Ensign Denele. The ensign, to her credit, was taking this first assignment as seriously as the Vulcan; she listened intently, nodding along in understanding and not interrupting as the chief science officer repeated details that she had at this point already heard quite a number of times. However, as T’Vara reached the end of her list, she paused for a moment, then handed the ensign a PADD and added something new.

“Also, please scan for any traces of the following substances.”

A surprised look crossed the ensign’s face, but she took the PADD without complaint and read quietly through its contents. As she reached the last item, she looked up in confusion. “Protomatter? We aren’t seriously expecting to find any of that, are we?”

T’Vara inclined her head at the ensign’s question, acknowledging her confusion but keeping her face impassive. The truth was that the Vulcan wasn’t really expecting to find anything on her list — but the stolen Gensis device was old enough that it could be a little unstable, and so she’d taken the time to go through Dr. Marcus’ research and list out anything that might leave a trail to show where it had gone.

“There is a possibility,” was all she said. Her tone didn’t invite further questions, but she could see Ensign Denele was dying of curiosity anyway, so she moved on before the ensign could find time to ask. “If you do find anything, contact us at once. If any trail exists, it is likely already fading.”

“Understood, lieutenant,” the ensign, deflating. As T’Vara left the room, she looked curiously over the list one more time, then got to work programming the scanners.

—

A short time later, T’Vara arrived via turbolift in the shuttle bay. Like the Captain, she looked neatly put together. A slight darkness under her eyes hinted at the hours she’d been keeping over the last few days, and her own activities the night prior, but it was only noticeable up close; she certainly wasn’t letting it slow her down. Catching Nellis’ eye, she greeted her friend and Captain with a small nod, but she didn’t immediately head over to join him. Instead, she made her way over to P’rmess.

“Chief P’rmess. I was hoping to speak with you,” the Vulcan said, stopping a comfortable distance from where the engineer was working with her tricorder. They’d spoken on work matters several times since departing, in fact, but hadn’t been face to face since the initial briefing. “Will you be joining us on the away mission? The security team at Rigel 3 have sent us some information about their security system and the break-in, but they have been reluctant to transmit any significant details. An engineer’s perspective could be quite helpful.”
 
"Yes, Lieutenant?" the humanoid cat hibrid focused her attention on the Vulcan woman, ears turning first then as she finished what she was in the middle of, her whole head and eyes did too. Putting away the tricorder, she finally turned her whole body. "While I think that security is better qualified to look at any security logs and measures, if something broke down or was jury rigged, I can take a look. We finished as much as possible in the way of fixing the hardware of the holorooms, andseeing thatwecan't use them this time,engineering hasalittle more time to fiddle with the transporters today. Seeing that I am no extra use in any of those... But maybe I better work on the sensors on board while the senior staff fliesdown... And isn't the Captain or the First Officer supposed to stay on the ship? If we even have a first officer around somewhere..."

P'rmess was usually not for the rules, but she took her new job as part of Starfleet seriously, still remembering the main rules of the book having re-read it when she realised they was missing a Chief Engineer, and she had to fit those shoes for at least a short time.
 
With his engineering background, Stephens was more than happy to head down to the shuttlebay and help the Captain and P'rmess get the Athena ready for departure. When the latter had turned her attention to Lt. T'Vara, Stephens tapped his Captain on the shoulder, speaking so the Caitian couldn't easily overhear. "Captain, as acting First Officer, I feel it's my duty to point out when personnel issues require your direct attention. I find P'rmess to not only be competent, but capable and she also has a firm grasp of Starfleet's rules and regulations, with a healthy penchant for bending them when necessary. If you'll recall, all the great Chief Engineers shared these and more qualities. I think it's time to formalize her position, don't you? It might boost her confidence and help her feel to be more of a part of the crew." Having said his piece, Stephens stood with his hands behind his back, awaiting Nellis' response.

( @east )
 
“That is indeed the regulation,” T’Vara replied, acknowledging P’rmess’ point with a slight nod of her head. “That particular regulation is more of a guideline, however — the captain has the authority to disregard it should the situation warrant it. I suspect that Captain Nellis feels it is appropriate on this occasion, as we will be visiting a Starfleet facility and should only be absent for a short time. The ship will likely be quite safe.”

Despite her words, T’Vara was a little uncertain about that decision. She would have felt better about it if they were able to use the transporters to return quickly in the event something did come up, but she forced herself to remember that the other scientists in the crew were quite capable of handling affairs themselves. She could not be an effective senior officer if she wasn’t able to delegate.

“Besides,” the Vulcan added flatly, shooting a quick glance across the shuttle bay to where Captain Nellis and his acting first officer were quietly speaking, “I do not believe either of them would be very happy to be left behind on our first away mission.”

“In any case, I am certain you understand your capabilities best. I believe the sensors are fully operational now, but if you believe you could do more to contribute here than you could on the away team, I am sure the captain will abide by your decision. That said… if you do decide to join us, I believe he would be quite pleased to have your company.”
 
"Indeed... my company is usually quite pleasing..." P'rmess coyly replied "... I would be happy to join you ... alrRready missing CommanderRr IkirRre." she purred, now having her tail curl around her body to rest in her empty hand. "But I am surRre that we could have exciting converRrsations with Ensign Leata too."

She was not sure if the Vulcan would notice or understand the innuendo, but thankfully P'rmess had a head good enough to at least tag along the two brainiac on the ship. If they went way overboard, she could always consult with the ship's computer... PADD's was really multipurpose.

"I am curious about what security had already found, and if there is anything we could add to it down there. I am not that good with questioning people, more of a hands on perRrson."
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom