Security Evaluation

Posted on Sun Nov 6th, 2011 @ 8:22pm by Lieutenant Cedric Shepherd

952 words; about a 5 minute read

Mission: Unmasked Miners
Location: USS Ranger, Deck 9, Security Office
Timeline: 1 hour after Re-Group

Lieutenant Shepherd rubbed his face with both hands and sighed. "A mass driver?" he asked, leaning back in his chair.

"It's what makes the most sense," Ensign Rajeev was insistent, leaning forward to reach across the desk, "with that kind of size and that much accelerable ore on hand. It'd take some doing, but these sensor vanes," she waggled her fingers at the holo-image sitting atop Shepherd's desk, indicating the arced, almost clawlike protrusions that comprised half the Romulan ship, "could be rigged to hurl immense loads if the situation warranted it."

"But they'd never hit us." From his seat on the couch, Lieutenant Fletcher was incredulous, his tone crisp. "Even at railgun speeds, the projectile is too slow to match phaser-fire. What would they accomplish?"

"They could bombard the planet," LaFontaine suggested, his R softened in the drawl that was not the least of the ways in which he different from Fletcher. He put his hands behind his head and stretched out in the office's other chair. "Hold the surviving Taylforthians hostage against action from us."

"You read Heinlein, Coop?" asked Shepherd, smiling.

"Harsh Mistress is a favorite, suh," LaFontaine chuckled.

Fletcher frowned. "Heinlein's posit there was destroying population centers with a lunar mass driver," said Fletcher. "There are no population centers on Taylforth. They can't hit a moving target from the moon."

"They'd only have to hit a region," suggested Rajeev. "An accelerated projectile the size of a shuttlecraft impacting the surface of an ocean? The wave effect would be catastrophic. None of the flotillas we've detected on the surface could take a 50 meter wave broadside."

"If it came to that, though," Shepherd put in, "we could stand on station between the moon and the planet and swat the projectiles down as fast as the Romulans could fire them. We could target a moon-launched projectile without much trouble."

Rajeev considered that. "True." she said after a moment, returning to her seat on the other end of the couch from Fletcher, looking a little wilted.

"Alright," Shepherd changed the subject with a glance at the chrono display on the office wall. "We're an hour in. Given what we know about this ship, what can I take to the Captain?"

"It's a civilian platform," offered Fletcher. "Most likely a mining vessel."

"Given its design and scan specifics, it has a sensor suite as least as good as ours, intended to detect mineral traces," added Rajeev, "with extremely heavy shields and an armored hull that would allow it to function in areas of heavy debris."

"It's weaponry is light, such as it is," drawled LaFontaine. "In fact, it has no milspec weaponry, which is why its initial target lock was so different from the norm. It wasn't a target lock. It was a sensor lock."

"For, as far as we can tell, torpedoes of some kind," finished Fletcher. "Probably with shaped concussive warheads, designed to break up asteroids, but certainly capable of doing a number on a ship's hull."

"It has an energy weapon of some sort," continued Rajeev, "but it is likely a single large mining disruptor, again intended to break apart rock in search of minerals. Assuming it is a mining device, it has no effective use in a ship-to-ship engagement, as it has only rudimentary targeting control."

Shepherd added, "it's a big ship that can hold a vast amount of personnel and material. Given time and motivation, such a vessel could be turned into a battleship, with ordnance up to and including a hell of a mass driver system." He lifted a hand to acknowledge Rajeev's speculation. "But there's no evidence that it has any advanced tactical capabilities at this time."

"Correct," Fletcher nodded. "It appears that the ship's crew built it an immense docking cradle on the moon's surface, and are using it to mine the moon, rather than guard or conquer anything."

"And that crew is small. Perhaps a few dozen," put in LaFontaine. "Everything about this mining operation says it's a bunch of Romulan wildcatters taking advantage of a pre-warp civilization to make off with dilithium and other saleable minerals."

"And the transmissions from the moon base about temples in the sky?" asked Shepherd, though he knew the answer, it having been previously discussed.

"Scans indicate both Romulan and Taylforthian life signs on and in the base and the ship," Fletcher read from his PADD. "This presents two possibilities. One, the Romulans scooped Taylforthians off the planet and carried them to the moon, perhaps for use as slave labor. However, we've seen no evidence of small craft to carry off such actions. Two, given the state of Taylforth's space exploration, it's possible these lifesigns are indicative of an actual expedition from the planet, much like Earth's early Martian ventures, but now under the sway of Romulan opportunists."

"Data from the station supports the latter conclusion, albeit tenuously," put in Rajeev. "There are files from their engineering computer that appear to describe classic Warp experiments, for which they'd need dilithium. And the base computers record communications traffic between the station and a moon expedition."

"The great hope of exploration foiled by aliens," smirked LaFontaine humorlessly.

"Indeed," Fletcher added flatly.

"What else?" asked Shepherd, almost by rote.

The three junior officers looked at each other. La Fontaine shrugged.

"I believe that about sums it up, sir," said Fletcher after a moment.

"Alright. I'll start composing the report," said Shepherd, keying up the LCARS on his desk. "You three keep going through the scanlogs. I don't have to meet with the Captain for 45 minutes or so, and we may still find something."

"Yes, sir," the three replied, more or less in unison.

 

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