Information

Posted on Mon Sep 10th, 2012 @ 12:42pm by Lieutenant Jimmy Cooper & Captain T'mpest Michaels & Captain Elsie Halliwell & Captain Alexsa Kendrick & Crewman Sessan Birsi
Edited on on Mon Sep 17th, 2012 @ 9:40pm

1,711 words; about a 9 minute read

Mission: Sowing the Seeds
Location: Astrometrics Lab
Timeline: Mission Day 1, 1800 hrs.

ON:

"Commander," Jimmy began immediately as T'mpest walked into the room, followed by Kendrick and Halliwell a few seconds after, "this," pointing at the screen, "is what I've found about the area up till now." The screen was filled with long range scans, recollections of the Dubai, but other than that, fairly little. "It's unchartered alright;" he added, "not a thing in sight."

T'mpest looked at the information and nodded. "Nothing new, anyway. I found an old log entry about some ancient ruins on one of the outer planets, but they were listed as uninteresting." As the log wasn't from a Federation ship, she wasn't surprised Jimmy didn't run across it. "The galaxy is littered with old ruins, most of them nothing more than rubble from crude dwellings. They may not be worth more than a quick scan."

Elsie stood, shoulder to shoulder with Kendrick; her arms crossed over her chest looking at the display screen from behind T'mpest's. For all any of them knew, the Dubai could have logged that system already but she didn't want to deflate the enthusiasm going in to greet the ship from the off. Instead, she remained silent and just nodded, allowing her senior officers to do the leg-work they had trained for.

"For the moment," Kendrick interjected, "I would have to agree. Our first priority is to link up with the Dubai and see what's left to do. There's no point in duplicating efforts."

"Now how can ancient ruins be 'uninteresting'?" Jimmy said, taking a look at T'mpest's screen. "That alone makes it worth investigating, in case they missed anything."

"I personally agree with you," T'mpest said, grinning at Jimmy. "I was simply repeating the report I found. Romulans don't generally interest themselves with ancient ruins."

"As I said in the briefing, the interests of this sector according to the Federation and the Romulans may not be, and likely aren't compatible. But more than a cursory scan by the Ranger's state-of-the-art sensor arrays as we pass through the sector may be a waste of resources and time. The final call is Captain Halliwell's of course, I'm just talking as an advisory to the mission." Alex did hold some ulterior motive to speed this process up, in that she wanted this mission to be over before it began. Travelling to and through this sector was having an unnerving effect on the very core of her being that she could not explain, after all she had never been here before, but the nervous agitation was there regardless.

"Captain," Jimmy turned, "with all due respect, but isn't the core of the Federation to 'boldly go where no-one has gone before'" - he said the last one in a slightly heavier tone - "and isn't this a perfect opportunity to get to know this system a little better? Also," turning back to T'mpest, "how did you get your hands on Romulan information?"

"My mother has contacts," she said vaguely. She turned to the two Captains. "Depending on what the Dubai's core mission is, a second scan of the area would not tax resources, nor would it be a waste of time. And, on the off chance there is anything of interest, we'd have two scans to work from and thus confirmation that there's something worth sending another team out to investigate at a later date."

"We're quibbling about a specific geographic and stellar cartographic location here," Elsie chimed in, unusually agreeing with Kendrick's insistence of haste. "This is a large sector," she added, throwing up her right hand gesturing, "and during our assistance with the Dubai, we're just following their lead. We really don't know what they've mapped or how extensively so. But we can ascertain that when we arrive. But don't worry, officers. We are explorers. And we shall explore what we can."

With that assurance, T'mpest nodded. It was the most logical plan to meet up with the Dubai so they could know what needed to be explored -- and what needed a second look.

Jimmy also nodded. "If that was all, captains?"

"Not quite," Kendrick said as she stepped toward the monitor control panel. "Although no visual or verbal comms were possible, I've received data and confirmation that the Dubai has acknowledged her orders and making her way back to meet up with us here." Alex finished, motioning to a red location dot on the screen, before ending with, "With that in mind, we should be able to rendezvous with them about eight hours ahead of schedule. This might make it the perfect spot to start preliminary scans of the area and to determine our own survey pattern, as well as finding anything more... interesting and to your liking, Lieutenant."

"I'm sure we'll find something to our liking, Captain." Jimmy didn't like the demeanor of this captain who wasn't even his captain. "I would like a summary of the Dubai's science department so we can co-ordinate our efforts as fast as possible. Captain," he faced his own captain now, "what will be the command structure? Will the senior officers of the Dubai be authorized to push me around?"

Elsie looked almost amused by her chief science officer's question and placed a firm and on his shoulder. "We have our own set of mission guidelines, Lieutenant. And these are authorised and met out by me and me alone." She paused for a second and then nodded to T'mpest. "Your existing command structure stands, Mr. Cooper. You take your orders from us."

Elsie then returned her attention to the silent Bajoran hovering just on the periphery of the discussion. "Crewman," she then darted out, "have you come across anything so far?"

T'mpest wondered why Kendrick felt it important to specify no visual or verbal comms? Was there a problem with communications here? Or another reason the Dubai was silent? Kendrick, as usual, was playing her cards close to her chest. What was the woman holding back? She flashed a glance to Halliwell, who was generally astute enough to pick up on subtleties. She then turned her attention to Birsi.

The lone enlistee was also the only person in the room not harboring reservations about Captain Kendrick, who struck her as more of a mystery than anything. It'd be a stretch to assert that the others had more seat time with her given her seclusion, but there was also something to be said for coming aboard at the twilight of her investigation. Birsi knew nothing of her timing, of course. What she did know was that the officer quartet's chatting away progressively made her feel almost as small as she did during the Taylforth mission. Though the floor was explicitly hers now, the comprehensive discussion she'd sat on the fringes of, which also more or less crowded her away from the main console, had her doubting her ability to add anything worthwhile.

"Little none of you haven't tackled in some shape or form, Captain," the Bajoran sighed, unfolding her arms. "As you all probably also already know, much of this sector has little previous reference, so there's not really a control group against which to compare characteristics. Data fidelity has been sketchier relative to most of Federation space, but not dangerously so; double-checking instruments like we should already be doing should catch any corrupted data. And before anyone asks, I've not found a way to mitigate it."

Through trained awareness, or maybe even just base paranoia, Alex could feel the crewman's eyes wash over her back. Any other situation, any other time and it wouldn't have phased her in the slightest, but now, now it made her uneasy, and it was taking all her control to not make it show.

"Have you researched where these corrupted feeds originate, crewman?" Jimmy inquired

"I've managed to isolate some spatial disturbance pockets," she answered as she turned to one of the rear main stations and toggled a corresponding graphical schematic onto the main display. "And that's about all there is to say about them. Their jamming effect has made directed scans pointless unless you want to give translating artifacts a go, and while that certainly gives them nuisance potential, I figure that if Dubai has coped, they're probably not so debilitating as to preemptively dump resources into long-range sensors. I intend to hit them with short-range scans when we get closer; hopefully, more detailed instruments and less distance will do the trick."

"How long until we reach the rendezvous point?" T'mpest asked.

"Oh, you mean you don't know everything?" Birsi mused, irony on two fronts quirking her lips askew as she ran the calculations. T'mpest and the senior entourage were standing in front of the main console, and the question, at least to her, seemed like such a trivial thing relative to working contacts for foreign information. . .even if the source was family as she'd claimed.

"Assuming everyone holds their horses on the same course and speed. . .three days, six hours."

"We'll be ready." Jimmy added.

"That gives us plenty of time to see what else we can find," T'mpest added. "I will continue to look into Romulan archives, if there's no objection."

"None whatsoever," Elsie cast of with a wave of her hand. "But we all have other duties to attend to in the meantime." Elsie paused, smiled at the other officers around her and then nodded. "If you'll excuse me I have a cleaning appointment to keep on Deck Fifteen," and with that she turned and left the briefing room.

T'mpest raised an eyebrow. A cleaning appointment? Odd.

Kendrick heard about the pedantic views and wishes of a vessel's captain ensuring their decks and bulkheads were ship-shape and all shored-up. She'd never heard of it being taken so literally before--after all, she and Halliwell had some very different views on most things, but let it slide without comment, a testament to her very different mindset being in this area. "If you'll excuse me as well, I think I better get some air." Alex added before departing the lab herself.

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