Replacing the Head of the Beast

Posted on 16 Mar 2015 @ 5:17pm by Commander Norvi Stace & Commander Allyndra illm Warraquim & Lieutenant JG Zane Neptune & Ensign Ibrahim Dragovic & Ensign Jaana Voutilainen & Lieutenant Oren Idris Ph.D. & Lieutenant JG Kalos Jang Ph.D. & Trisant Myrddin & Lieutenant Jared Nicholas
Edited on on 17 Mar 2015 @ 4:44pm

2,314 words; about a 12 minute read

Mission: Episode 08 - NIMBUS
Location: USS Galileo: Multi-Purpose Lab 4
Timeline: MD -3, 1100 hours

ON:

Tapping her combadge, Stace spoke through the Galileo's internal communication system to her crew. "Would all remaining Galilean science crew please report to Lab Four." She tapped her badge again to close the channel and then turned to Allyndra who was sat down at the main desk of the room.

"With myself now working from the bridge, and your being my acting First Officer, I really don't want to leave the science department without a go-to guy. I know that you wanted to head up the Research department too but can you do both or shall we see who wants to take the mantle out of this rabble who is about to join us?" Stace offered a soft smile to betray her jest and then walked over to the tray of coffee and poured herself a glug. "Anything for you?"

"I understand and it is a reasonable conclusion. I do have an idea. Oolong tea please," Allyndra replied and nodded in thank you.

Almost instantly, Tulkas came into the room. He stopped briefly as he looked at Stace and Allyndra, blinking a few times. "I was already on my way, Ma'ams." He slid over towards the side to wait formally for everyone else to arrive.

Within moments, Oren followed, his nose stuck in a paDD. Ever since learning about their involvement with the Klingons, Oren had decided to hit the books and try to review his Klingon language skills and customs. After all, no matter how little he could relate to their culture, it just wouldn't do for the ships anthropologist to be caught flat footed in front of one of the most influential races in the quadrant.

"Hi," he said informally and absentmindedly as he walked in and immediately settled against the wall, a small frown on his face as he read up on a particularly disgusting meal description in the text he was reading.

Allyndra nodded to both of them but Oren seemed too preoccupied to notice.

When the doorway opened again, Trisant Myrddin entered. The Bajoran was slurping on a sweetened cold beverage through a straw. He stopped drinking long enough to nod at Allyndra. "Congratulations, Commander, on your acting assignment," he said, as he moved to sit at one of the workstations in the centre of the room.

Before the doors could close again Ibrahim slipped through the portal, acknowledging Stace "Hello Comm - er, Captain." Spotting Allyndra, he nodded quickly. "Doctor." The other Science staff he didn't recognize, so he parked himself awkwardly in the corner, leaning on an unused console. He always felt vaguely uncomfortable in the "other" lab.

Kal had been knee-deep in designing some machines when the call to come to lab four had come out. With all the formality lately, between the inspections and everything else, it finally felt like things were getting underway. Like adventure. Still, his work would occupy much of his attention, and he wasn't sure what good he'd be during war games, but he figured it'd be fun to observe, if nothing else. Kal walked in, swallowing the last of a helping of jelly beans he'd been eating, nodding at everybody as he entered and grabbed a cup of coffee with a generous helping of sugar.

Jaana hurriedly entered the lab carrying multiple padds. She wasn't happy. When the call for another meeting came she had finally found a moment of time to sit and eat. These new responsibilities weren't giving her a hard time managing her time. She'd been reviewing details needed fro their upcoming mission. She put a few loose strains of her hair behind her ear as she put the padd on a nearby surface.

Jared who had been reading some navigation texts, lost in them would have been a better description, was one of the last to arrive.

Once everyone she was expecting had arrived, and had settled down in the chairs haphazardly dotted about the place, Stace stood up from leaning on the desk and addressed the room. "Thank you for coming everyone," she said clearly with a smile on her face. "As you are aware, with this upcoming mission some of the crew's assignments have changed. And, as such, we will need to restructure certain departments of the Galileo. For most, this will just mean that the more senior of the department steps up to the chief position. However, here in science, with Commander Kohl being assigned to another vessel, we have to do a bit of shifting around.

"Mr. Nicholas, you will be in charge of the science department in my absence on the bridge, and Ms. Voutilainen, you will continue with Commander Kohl's training and take over the Research element of the department. With the rest of you, there isn't much of a change."

Jared was surprised by the sudden promotion, but did his best to hide the surprise and his nervousness. What he wanted to say is, "Are you freaking crazy. Me in charge?" But what he said instead was, "Of course ma'am, you can count on me."

"Thank you, ma'am." Jaana mumbled.

"Commander?" Stace turned to Allyndra to continue the meeting.

"Well, if I may I have been thinking on how to detect a cloaked ship and one that might be able to stay cloaked and fire. Please bear with me in case it does not make sense. A ship no matter how well it can hide its visual and thermal presence still will possess mass. That mass as we all know will cause a curvature in space-time. As that mass moves it will cause ripples of gravitational waves moving away from the source. Now a small object, and a ship like a Raptor is by the convention of the universe pretty small, will not make much curvature or much ripple as it moves. I believe though that the new deflector and sensors might be modified to be sensitive enough to detect such small changes. I welcome your thoughts," Allyndra looked at each of the scientists.

Stace turned from Allyndra with a piqued brow and a musing, down-turned mouth as she too surveyed the collection of scientists. Allyndra was right. Cloaking technology did in fact refract light in order to render the ship invisible, but unless this new development pushed the ship out of phase, then the ship would still be physically present and abide by the universal law of physics. It was definitely a line of inquiry the Trill was eager to investigate.

Ibrahim nodded. He almost wish he came up with the idea himself. He wasn't an especially tactically-minded person, but it is an intriguing scientific solution. "My simulations with the deflector suggest that could be possible with a little re-configuration. At least with known cloaking technology; we're still completely in the dark about the Klingon's new system, right?"

"That is a concern," Stace agreed, nodding to Ibrahim with a knowing smile. "But, equally, that is why we are all here: to learn from one another's advancements in warfare and technological developments. But," she added a pause, raising a finger in the air as her eyebrow shot up to the group, "we do know that the traditional cloak drew too much power from the ship in order to successfully fire weapons and remain actively hidden, so my initial guess would be that their power management theories have moved forwards. It's too much of a delicate tech to mess around too far from the original design but they could have acquired something from elsewhere that is unrecognisable to what we know exists. We just don't know. And that is the problem in these theorising stages."

Oren listened intently, but said nothing, barely glancing away from his reading. In truth, these were moments when he deeply disliked working with other scientists in a mix like the Galileo's. His work wasn't like theirs and Oren didn't consider himself to be nearly as eclectic in his knowledge as those people devoting their lives to so called "life sciences". The bare reality was that he wasn't nearly intelligent enough to devote so much of his studies and spread himself too thin by focusing on physics, astronomy or warfare. He knew enough to connect it with his own area of expertise but for anything beyond that, well, that's what outside associates were for.

Not wanting to appear rude, he lowered the paDD and looked around the room, taking everyone in. They were good people, and they were definitely experts in their respective fields, but Oren himself never knew the fascination with the 'microworld' they obsessed over. Sure, the implementation of their research impacted society on both a small and large level, but the research itself was less that interesting to Oren. Biology, he could understand best; life was sacred and Oren was a firm believer in that, but once you got down to picking apart an organism, it turned sterile. It was Oren's love of life that made war and this little play of it sit less than easily in his gut.

"We're part of a fleet now," Trisant spoke up. It sounded as if he was only just understanding the basics of the NIMBUS exercises, but he had an idea. Building off Allyndra and Ibrahim's notions, Trisant suggested, "Captain, we have our shuttles, but we also have the other starships in our fleet now. We could use them as test subjects to experiment with deflector configurations for detecting gravitational waves as a way to locate mass."

"An excellent idea," Allyndra noted. "If we can do this then later Galileo may become the....what was that term...'Eye in the Sky' for the rest of the group."

Kal paid careful attention to what everybody was talking about, curious. He'd studied the new deflectors a bit, but most of his research ideas that he'd worked from that were barely more than sketches. His specialties weren't very applicable to the current problem, but this was what he always wanted, doing science on a ship. He'd have to read up more on what they knew of cloaking technologies.

"I agree," Stace added, bringing her fingers up to her mouth to consider the proposal. "All we have at the moment are theories, and when we get out in the field what little we do have to detect with the gravitational waves will put us at a disadvantage. Even if we know that the cloak is there and active, it may be too little to make a difference. But if we can fine-tune our theories before we get out there, that make give us an edge. Point us in the right direction rather than having to think too much on our feet when we're out there."

From where he was sitting, Trisant nodded at Stace's assertion with the pain of rememberance. He had been ordered to operate sensors in untested ways, in life-or-death scenarios, more than once, and he hadn't always been successful. Not by half.

Allyndra smiled to herself, she had not a clue really about the actual mechanics of pulling off the idea only an idea. It was heartwarming to see how ideas and thoughts began to flow.

"And what of you, Mr. Jang?"

"Well..." Kal frowned as he thought. "It's not really my specialty, but if they've really advanced with this technology, it's reasonable to assume the tachyon scanners that we used to use won't work. I think gravitational waves has potential." Maybe it was because of his field, but Kal tended to think small. "It's just an idea, but I could work on some small machines set up to work as interferometers to widen our net, so to speak. If they're small enough, they might escape notice, but if the higher gravitational wave of a cloaked ship trips them, they could report a signal back to the Galileo."

Allyndra listened carefully and then nodded, "Something like the Hulse-Taylor binary, a deviation in the measurement of the timing background. Overly much deviation and there is an object there. Using your idea one could even triangulate its exact position."

"Mr. Nicholas?" Stace referred, arching a brow as she turned to him. "Do you think that this is something that you and your team can work on en route?"

"I am sure we can, Commander," Jared responded. He was starting to feel a little more confident in his role as acting department head. Finding cloaked vessels wasn't close to his specialization, but he did have the advantage to having been a navigator, when he was a civilian, and of thinking three dimensionally. "I am sure we can put some models together. We have a good team."

Stace then nodded to Allyndra, then shot a look to both Jaana and Jared. "Good. Then I want a report in three hours on your progress and projected ETA for completion. We only have three days to get a working theory off the ground and in action so let's make this happen."

Allyndra's part was finished in this since her more limited knowledge of the actual engineering was exactly that and she caught the look from the Captain and nodded back. She was grateful that they took her idea seriously. She rose and finished her tea and went to go catch up on reports but she would be keeping an eye out especially for this progress.

[OFF]

Petty Officer Trisant Myrddin
[PNPC Andreus Kohl]
Stellar Cartographer
USS Galileo

LCmdr Allyndra illm Warraquim
Acting XO
USS Galileo

Lt. Jared Nicholas
Language Specialist/Acting Science Chief
USS Galileo

Ensign Jaana Voutilainen
Stellar Cartographer / Acting Chief Research Officer
USS Galileo

Oren Idris, Ph.D.
Archaeologist/Anthropologist
USS Galileo

Lt. JG Kalos Jang, Ph.D.
Nanoengineer
USS Galileo

Lieutenant Commander Norvi Stace
Chief Science Officer / Commanding Officer
USS Galileo

RSS Feed