If you build it, they will come

Posted on 22 Jul 2016 @ 8:33pm by Rear Admiral Lirha Saalm & Captain Jonathan Holliday & Commander Allyndra illm Warraquim & Lieutenant JG Natalya Kirilova & Lieutenant JG Noah Khoroushi & Lieutenant JG Randolf Eklund & Ensign Miraj Derani & Ensign Mimi & Lieutenant Commander Ryan Alexander

2,118 words; about a 11 minute read

Mission: Episode 11 - Divinum Mundi
Location: Celes III - Landing Site Alpha, 10-298-001-20
Timeline: MD 20 - 0920 hrs

[ON]

Seven days had passed since the Semmes modules' tumultuous landings at their pre-planned coordinates. Damage to two of the habitation vessels had slowed the process of colony deployment while all available personnel had shifted their work priorities ro repair duties, and the initial colonization timeline predicted by Starfleet Command had been delayed by over a month.

Despite the challenges, however, both the Semmes and Galileo crews had been working diligently over the past week at the best of their capabilities. The functioning and undamaged modules had been successfully converted into semi-permanent life-sustaining structures, and the primary fusion reactor for the colony's power generation had been repaired and was now functioning normally.

What remained to be done was perhaps the most hands-on of all tasks, and the one that would take the most time: logistics. Equipment needed to be moved, facilities needed to be set up, provisions needed to be organized, and arable land needed to be created in order for the sustained growth and development of the mission. All of these tasks required a plethora of personnel to coordinate their efforts, and now some of Galileo's crew found themselves knee-deep in dirt, hauling cargo crates, or fixing bunks for the civilians. On the positive side, however, it was turning into a beautiful day on Celes III. All three suns were shining brightly through the atmosphere and the temperature was a warm 28-degrees Celsius. Scattered clouds earlier in the morning had broken and given way to a clear ceiling that promised an inviting day for even the most reluctant of settlers.

The generator sat in the center of a rough circle of the colony modules, conduits running from it to the modules, and more and more had added to the main trunk cables as the side modules were deployed so the whole thing looked like the axle at the centre of a giant wheel.

Jamie Moniack was sitting at the the side of the generator, watching power levels as another side module was connected. This would be a hydropoics lab - to provide food, not only in case of generator failure, but also to start the various plants they were going to attempt to modify for the harsh environments . There was barely a blip before the conduit connection flashed green, and the lights in the newly constructed outbuilding switched on.

"Thats heat and power." she said. "Does someone want to tell me why we're plumbing in hydroponics before the sodding showers?"

Though he was hampered in the heavy lifting aspects, Noah was on the ground overseeing matters and tending to the programming aspects of the set up. He grinned at the remark and shook his head. "That's scientists for you, Moniack; I've known some to camp out in their labs for weeks on end just to finish a project."

"We'll get there, don't ye worry!" Cameron replied as he appeared out of one of the newly-installed maintenance catwalks that would run the length and breadth of the finished facility.

"I've gotten the computer interface ports up and running and relayed back to the central data line - just need to put the terminals in and we're cooking with gas...THEN we can get those bloody showers up and running!"

Jamie snorted. "I better go shout at that bletherin idiot of a geo-physicist. If he's not found a place to sink the well, we can't deploy the purification plant, and you'll have nothing to plumb your terminals into."

"And I'll lend a hand with the terminals." After all, those would be his pet project as the assignment moved forward. Carefully making his way along the catwalk, he followed Cameron to the info hub.

"Aye...sounds good. You get the EPS conduit access ports ready, and I'll thread through what's left of the ODN relays to install. Then we should be able to get this damn thing interfaced...sound good?"

Cameron replied, reaching for the rest of his toolkit before heading off towards their next destination.

Ryan stretched, whipping sweat from his brow. He had just spent the better part of the day placing and calibrating the Automated Weather Observing Stations. Most of the senors he had placed just included the anemometer, temperature, pressure, and current visibility senors. Very reliable pieces of equipment, but a pain to set up and get them all linked. The most frustrating piece of equipment was the AWOS it self. IT connected to all the other sensors, plus adding it own unique senors, such as a cloud composition sensors, thunderstorm detectors, and everything the mini senors had. The issue was re calibration and getting all the sensors to talk.

Ryan sighed as he received another communication error. "Piece of junk." He said to himself as he bent back over and pulled off the side panel. He pulled out his tri-corder and ran a few scans. Be pressed a few keys before closing it and taking out a few small tools. After fiddling with some of the internal components for a few more minutes he nodded approvingly at his handy work and tried to boot that system back up.

After a few heart beats all systems came back green and the system was starting to gather proper weather data. He smiled, as he moved to hook up the solar panels and back-up batteries to the main system. Glad that he had finally figured out where the issue was.

Now was the hard part. The dig in the mud and dirt and get things set up and then open for business. Pearl had done so many of these things over the years that it seemed rote anymore. This was a bit nicer but then this world was a bit more harsh and necessity forced stronger building material.

There had been that time back on Tyrius four when it seemed like something out of an old Earth Western. The initial places had been nothing more than a few bits of lumber covered with canvas.

"Alright, were do you need me?" Pearl slogged over to the uniformed types.

Crispin Snow handed her a several meters of looped cable and what looked like a staple gun. "We're going to layer wireless power conduit cable into the out buildings. Dead simple. One big loop around the edge of each room, then the floors can go back down."

"You've got it sweetheart!" Pearl grabbed the cords.

At 1000 Hours Natalya had scheduled a short meeting with the various teams tasked with the construction of the colony. She was not the one in charge, but Natalya had been tasked with coordinating the construction efforts, and making sure every team had what they needed to do their job, no more and no less. Most of the crew knew her by now, but to many of the colonists she was an outsider... someone who was just following orders and didn't have a stake in the claim.

Few people knew that Natalya had grown up on a fresh colony world just like this one. Well... not one so hospitable. She probably knew more than a lot of people--even herself-would give her credit for.

"Good morning everyone!" Natalya tried to say cheerfully. She pointed toward a grav-sled that held a container full of cool, fresh water. "Take a moment to hydrate, it's probably going to get a bit warmer and we have a few hours to go before lunch time." She filled a water bottle and handed it off to the person closest to her.

"Two important items before I take questions, reports and concerns. First, the planned construction of the machine shop has been moved up to as soon as possible. The repairs to the damaged colony module's industrial replicator are taking longer than anticipated. The colony will be much better off with a machine shop in place just in case the Galileo gets called away unexpectedly, and the two replicators we have working overtime decide to break down."

Natalya expected that would cause some muttering and groaning, as it meant some teams would have to either hurry up what they were doing, or drop it altogether to start a new project. The next item on her agenda would probably be even more unsettling.

"Second, we have continuing concerns about possible tritium runoff from last week's reactor containment breach. The crash site has been almost fully cleansed, but we need to be absolutely sure that none of it has gotten into the nearby aquifers. I'll need a team of volunteers to help in drilling a few test wells ahead of schedule, so that we can get the colony ready to shift to local water sources as soon as possible."

Finished presenting the important bits, Natalya gestured for the others to speak up if they had anything they wanted to say.

Randy had decided to volunteer his off duty time to helping the colonists. Something Commander Kohl had said to him had struck a chord. Given his background in low-tech farming, he was probably at least as prepared as, if not more than, most of the new colonists for what they were facing on this world. He knew he could help. He had no intention of staying here, but he was certain he could at least make things here a little easier a little more quickly. He raised his hand, "I've dug wells before, ma'am. I may not be able to evaluate the tritium levels, but if you need access to the down deep, I'm your man."

Pearl ached a bit from the day but things had to get done. All this stuff had to be in place and ready before she could turn her attention to getting a string of girls and maybe a few boys in to turn a real profit.

"Don't know a thing about most of that, but pretty good at keeping things going, logistics, accounting that kind of thing. Don't take me wrong, I will pitch in with a shovel or whatever."

"Okay Lieutenant." Natalya nodded to Randolf. "I'll send you the specifics on the how and where. Let me know what you need. I'm not sure if the colony's drilling lasers are operational or not. If they aren't, we can probably use a shuttle's phaser array to do the job." By her words, she seemed to be putting Eklund in charge of the job.

Natalya looked to Pearl next. "Things might get hectic for a bit as we'll need to retask some people and possibly reallocate some of the building materials to get the machine shop started. If there's miscommunication on this then at best tempers could flare. I could definitely use your help in keeping that, or worse from happening."

A moment was spent looking around at the others. "Okay, we shouldn't have to move around too many people to get these things done. I'll have the work roster updated shortly. With that out of the way, does anyone have any questions? Or anything to report?"

Pearl knew when to keep her mouth shut but she nodded in acknowledgement.

The soft whirr of an approaching shuttle could he heard in the not-too-near distance, and a bright yellow-and-black workbee suddenly came into view as it slowly moved towards the colony site from Galileo's location. Lamar's voice sounded through the local comms grid.

"Shuttle Celeste to ground team, I brought a pair of extra arms." Almost as if to show that there were indeed arms available, he extended the mechanical servos in the craft's forward construction assembly to allow the workbee's tools to deploy. "I'm ready to pick things up and put them down all day," he added with a bit of strange enthusiasm for such a mundane task.

Pearl looked up as the craft showed and nodded her head, "Well that should make things go a bit easier."

Natalya almost looked amused, though it was more with her own oversight then the appearance of the workbee. She hadn't known that the Galileo's Brunel-class workpod featured upgraded thrusters that allowed it to operate in atmosphere as well as in the vacuum of space.

"The more the merrier!" Nat called out to Lamar. "Well I guess that's it then, unless anyone has anything to add?" She seemed poised to call and end to the meeting.

[OFF]

--

CWO2 Lamar Darius
Chief Support Craft Pilot
USS Galileo

LCmdr Allyndra illm Warraquim
Chief Medical Officer
USS Galileo

ENS Alexander, Ryan
OPS
USS Galileo

LTJG Natalya Kirilova
Chief Engineering Officer
USS Galileo

PO2 Crispin Snow
Operations Officer
&
Jamie Moniak
Colonist
NPCs by Miraj Derani

CWO2 Riley Cameron
Engineering Officer
USS Galileo
[PNPC Holliday]

LTJG Randolf Eklund
Asst. Chief of Security/Tactical
USS Galileo

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