Progress Report

Posted on Sun Jan 8th, 2012 @ 1:20am by Captain Benjamin Byrne & Provisional Lieutenant Commander Narayn Ballard & Lieutenant Commander Aeitos th'Ralik [PNPC] & Petty Officer 2nd Class Sophie Blaise

Mission: Old Relics
Location: Unidentified Space Station
Timeline: MD16 0920hrs

It had taken almost two days, and the engineering teams from the Endeavour had barely covered a fraction of the station's interior sections, but they had managed to find and power up what could be passable as some sort of command centre within the station. It was located in the centre of the station when looking along its vertical length, but only a couple of levels below where the original away team had beamed in to.

Even as Benjamin strolled into the large chamber - his usual duty jacket traded for a field jacket, which helped to better keep out the slight chill that pervaded the pressurised areas of the station, and frankly felt more comfortable to him in this environment - it was filled with engineers and even science officers working at trying to clean it up and make as many stations operational as they could.

The room was a nonagon in shape - the roughly egg-shaped room, with 9 sets of straight walls reminded him of a larger version of the floor plan of a Borg central plexus that he had seen in briefing manuals a few years ago. There were three entrances to the chamber, in an un-ended triangle shape (providing that you thought of the 'egg point' of the room to be the 'top', with the far wall seemingly the main entrance. Towards the egg point of the room, standing free of any of the walls with enough space to walk behind was what seemed to be a rectangular structure with the corner facing the main entrance cut off, with a sealed door facing the room - the engineers had presumed it to be a turbolift shaft, but had thus far been unable to open it.

To either side of the room were raised sections, splitting the chamber into two levels. The upper platforms were only wide enough to house a line of consoles and some space to walk around their operators, and were linked with the lower level by a steep set of metal stairs, with railings running either side. Benjamin watched as one of the engineers braced his hands on either one, lifted his legs and slid down them to the lower level.

The centre of the room had a large situation table in it, and directly between that and the main entrance was a short maintenance pit, flanked either side by patterns in the floor which indicated one should walk around it, and past that a pair of long, curving consoles. Without them operational, Benjamin couldn't tell from their shape which side an operator was meant to stand. There were two more sets of consoles behind and either side of the situation table, which seemed to more clearly indicate the operators were to be looking towards the main entrance. Benjamin turned and craned his neck, to see what appeared to be the fittings for a large holoscreen taking up the wallspace above the main entryway.

"Well it certainly looks like a serviceable command centre for a station like this," he commented. The whole chamber in its entirety was just a bit smaller than the selfsame room on a Stardock class station, though the captain noted that - even with a number of the consoles being of the height for one to be required for a regular humanoid - there were no chairs in the room. "How much have you managed to get operational so far?"

"We have been able to restore power to three small generators so far. It would appear that they have a relatively small power output for a station of this size, and I believe we still have many more to locate and activate. We have restored power to roughly thirty levels, but not all of the circuitry is connected, so EV suits are still needed for all sections that we haven't entered and pressurised yet. We're setting the corridors up as makeshift airlocks as we clear each section." The Andorian chief engineer was still wearing his EV suit, though the helmet was attached by a clasp to the rear of his belt, just to his left, with his gloves inside it. The white suit made his blue skin look unusually similar in its saturation.

Ballard emerged from an ante-room having removed his EV Suit and changed into his uniform. Despite the chill in the air, the Commander had pushed the sleeves up, revealing his forearms. "Captain!" He exclaimed by way of a warm greeting to his superior. "I assume Commander th'Ralik has got you up to speed?"

"Yes, he's been giving me an update on what you've gotten done so far," the Captain responded. "Thirty levels powered, and a decent portion of that pressurised."

"Good. Well, aside from all that, we've only come across small generators so far which mean that we've only been able to restore power to a portion of the station and- as such- we've only been able to cover a fraction of the station. It stands to reason that there's a bigger one somewhere but as yet, we've not been able to get an indication of where it is. I'm sure it'll turn up."

"From the scans the Endeavour's been able to make of the station thus far, we estimate the station to have about seven hundred and fifty decks total, including the two spires at either end," the Captain said, filling the XO in on the statistics they'd been able to work out. "With only thirty decks of the station powered so far, I'm not surprised that there's still a lot of ground to cover. Thirty out of seven hundred decks puts that at less then one percent of the station covered. Have you been able to learn anything else out about the station's actual purpose yet?"

The Commander stepped up to a ladder and made his way to the top, beckoning for the Captain to follow him. "I don't think we're entirely certain of what we're dealing with, certainly from an archaeological standpoint but Lieutenant Gaius and his team are beginning to make some progress with the computers with every system the engineering teams are able to pass onto them."

"That's good news. I've noticed that the universal translators seem to be having a lot of trouble with the language on these computers," Benjamin acknowledged. He was well aware of the fact that the station was essentially one large archaeological site, as he was eager to dig in and start studying it himself. "How are the engineering teams doing?"

"Everyone's doing sterling work. th'Ralik has really managed to whip these guys into shape. Given that they've never encountered any of these systems or consoles before, their work should really be commended." He stopped and leaned over the raised walkway. "Have Starfleet given us any indication of their long-term plan for the installation?"

"I've only just sent off the latest report to them," Ben responded. "So far, all I've had back is a notification from Beta Renner that Starfleet Command want to try and set up a communications line to us out here. Real time as well, which is making it tricky for them to set up. I'll need to head back on over to the Endeavour for that shortly."

Right after he announced that, his yeoman's voice could be heard over the com. "Blaise to Captain Byrne, the conference call you requested is coming in," she reported from her position on the ship. "We're ready to transport you back, when you are."

"Speaking of which..." Benjamin said dryly, as he turned and descended the ladders to the upper level. He tapped his combadge and informed his yeoman that he'd received her message. Turning back to Ballard on the upper level, he said, "keep the good work going, Commander. I'll see if I can convince Starfleet to send us some more engineers for the task." Giving a brief nod, he stepped away from the walkway into an empty space, not occupied by console nor Engineer. "Byrne to Endeavour. One to beam back."


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Captain Benjamin J. Byrne
Commanding Officer

Lt. Commander Narayn Ballard
Executive Officer

Lt. Commander Aeitos th'Ralik (PNPC)
Chief Engineer

&

Petty Officer Sophie Blaise
Captain's Yeoman
USS Endeavour