Systems Check

Posted on Tue Sep 4th, 2012 @ 5:20pm by Lieutenant JG Ethan Kessel & Captain Benjamin Byrne & Lieutenant JG Patok Malroon

Mission: Klingons on the Starboard Bow
Location: USS Endeavour - Bridge

Whilst on his round about the ship, the Captain had spent the last few days ensuring that each of his departments knew what they were likely to be facing and what his expectations were to prepare themselves. Now, as he was heading to check in with his newly-promoted chief of operations, he saw him conversing with another freshly promoted officer in Lieutenant Kessel, one of the junior officers whom Benjamin had recognised as being crucial in resolving the final crisis that had arisen at DS19.

"Lieutenants," he said, as he approached them at the rear of the bridge.

Ethan Kessel looked up in surprise as the Captain approached. Much of his nervousness around the High command of the Ship had been worn away. He was still fresh out of the academy, but lacked the "fresh out the package" air, as some more senior officers called it. He had lost that, due to the past few weeks of facing imminent death from decrepit crystal computers... Nothing like a steady stream of people, computers or machines who wanted to kill you to break you out of the academy...

"Morning Sir!" Kessel gave to the greeting, then reconsidered "Or is it Afternoon now? I missed breakfast and have been kept busy since then at the various projects. There is always something to fix. And when there isn't there is is something to take apart and improve. To what do we owe the pleasure? Replicators on the blink again? I had one person reporting theirs was producing vast quantities of Maple syrup all over their quarters. Decimal point missing. Hot syrup everywhere. Could have been very nasty..."

“Captain,” Patok said, nodding in his direction. He was awkwardly juggling several pads in his hands, but he lingered on the mention of Maple Syrup pouring into one of the quarters, and turned back to Kessel.

“Is there any additional cleanup needed?” he asked under his breath before turning his attention back to the captain.

Benjamin chuckled at the pair as he held his hands up to Kessel's question regarding the replicators. "No, I'm not bringing you bad news of any of the ships systems," he said. "I just wanted to check in, see how the preparations for the mission are going?"

"Well most systems are green. Weapons are fully functional and engines are at around 85%. A few non-essential systems have been pushed back on the task list though to get these up and running as soon as possible. I am afraid you won't be seeing any Maple syrup for a while until we get that fixed... Shields are up and running at maximum power, and in a pinch we can use auxiliary power to give us another 30%. So the Klingons are going to be hard pressed to even scratch my baby."

He stroked some of the systems fondly. He had fully adopted the Endeavour as his personal ship, and had taken to verbally abusing any engineer who was careless with a plasma coil. Then he turned to the Captain

"I was just telling LT Malroon here. Good news. I umm... [i]borrowed[/i] a bit of tech from Deep Space 19. Some of the crystalline datacores accidentally fell into my pocket. You know? The one or two we never managed to decrypt? These things are twice the speed of our best computers - almost totally silicon in construction and no sign of any wires or datachips. I think we could find it useful for improving some of our own tech... You remember those Subfission beams? th'Ralik thought that we could use the Powerdump fission to turn all our systems into one massive cannon. Imagine all of the power in the ship directed into one blast. Precision Supernova. Chaos Transmutation... The next generation of offensive weapons, that make that quantum torpedoes look like match sticks."

He paused.

"Or that's the theory. We're many decades away from anything concrete let alone a working model. Centuries away if I can't crack this datacore. You'd think it doesn't want to be pillaged for its secrets then cannibalised for parts. Maybe I'll just turn it into an amusing Christmas decoration and be done with it... Still, the concept is sound.

But yes, all systems are green, apart from the Maple Syrup. All damage from Deep Space 19 is fully repaired."

“Considering the pressing repairs and the recent additions to the crew manifest, preparations have gone surprisingly smooth.” Patok added. “The crew has responded quickly in coordinating shore leave and duty schedules. One has a comprehensive list of crew availability organized by specialization, which should assist in optimizing assignments during the mission.” He handed one of the padds to the captain.

"Glad to hear it," the Captain said, impressed with the reports, though he wished that they'd have been able to get the engines up to 100% as well in the time they'd taken to travel from DS19 to Cestus III. It would have certainly allowed them to make a bit better time. "Once we set off we're not likely to return to Federation space or make rendezvous with a supply ship until the conclusion of the mission, so I want you to make sure that you've got every thing that you could possibly foresee a use for before we leave - Lieutenant I'd like you to make sure that the quartermaster has your full attention if he comes into any trouble in obtaining our supplies."

"Will do Sir. I'll get right on it."

“Yes Sir,” Patok said, looking closely at one of the padds he was still holding to see if there was anything he might have overlooked.

Pleased with the conversation and his instructions given, Benjamin decided to leave the two to their work. "Carry on," he said, before turning and leaving them to it.