Mapping

Posted on Mon Oct 8th, 2012 @ 12:55pm by Captain Elsie Halliwell & Captain Alexsa Kendrick & Lieutenant Jimmy Cooper & Captain T'mpest Michaels & Crewman Sessan Birsi & Lieutenant Commander Dylan Blake

2,546 words; about a 13 minute read

Mission: Sowing the Seeds
Location: USS Ranger, Astrometics
Timeline: Mission Day 3, 1900 hrs

ON:

Elsie stepped through the parting doors to Astrometrics, T'mpest, Kendrick and Blake in tow, a waft of her crisp, subtle perfume billowing out from her dress uniform collar as she glided in to meet Lieutenant Cooper and Crewman Sessan. Nodding to both, the captain made for a console and haphazardly punched in a few controls as the 3D maps on the main viewscreen overlaid the relevant information now downloaded from the Dubai. Turning now to face T'mpest, Elsie continued the vein of conversation that they had undertaken en route from the transporter room to Astrometrics.

"I still can't put my finger on the uneasy atmosphere on that ship. Tense?" Turning to Kendrick, Elsie continued, "and I don't know how Captain Jenner usually conducts affairs on his ship, but I have to question his choice in First Officers. Have they been serving together long?"

Kendrick's mind was certainly not on the job at hand, and it appeared that she was either ignoring Halliwell or had something completely unrelated on her mind, so no answer came. After a few seconds, Commander Michaels filled the gap...

"Not that long, no," T'mpest replied. "At least according to the ship's logs--five, six years." She lowered her voice and continued. "The atmosphere is more than tense. It's as if they're hiding something."

"I'm almost convinced of it." Kendrick added not taking her eyes off the scan and survey information. "I've not known many people who I could truly think of as friends, it sort of goes with the territory, but I've known Captain Jenner on and off for a good number of years, and if you ask me, something is up. I wanted to have the opportunity to talk with him in private after the meal for lack of a better word, and it's something I'm going to be pushing very soon."

Blake chewed his cheeks as the senior most personnel spoke about the rather unsettling company they shared on the Dubai even to him, it was apparently clear something was amiss, and if the crew were hiding something he suspected it was enormous.

"The question is," T'mpest said, "Whether the glob of earwax and monster are the decoys or if they are the true problem." She looked at the others. "Either way, there is definitely something here Captain Jenner and his crew do not wish us to discover."

"Ear wax?..." Jimmy wondered what happened exactly on the Dubai, but almost immediately thought the better of it. "I'm sure I don't want to know."

Again displaced toward the rear of the main station cluster, Birsi thought differently. Events on the Dubai seemed to be influencing thoughts on Ranger's next move, and as one who'd yet to interact with the other ship, she was naturally curious as to how and why. Of course, she also wouldn't have ever guessed that earwax would feature as the key takeaway from dinner on the other ship.

"Psychology isn't my forte, but if it has something to do with how we're going to proceed. . ."

Still dissatisfied with the unease she felt with Jenner and his crew, Elsie took the precaution to bring the focus back to work and broke off her attention to the idle speculation and swiftly looked up vast Calamai Sector now brightly displayed above them. "Lieutenant?" she questioned. "Any thoughts?"

Jimmy looked thoughtfully to the image in front of them. "Well, it is where no-one has gone before, but both our own scans and the data from the Dubai seems to conclude something along the lines of 'Nothing to see here, move along.' It's such a boring, uneventful, forgotten piece of space, that it's almost suspicious - If I had anything to hide, this would be the place where I'd do it."

"The good thing is," Elsie confirmed to herself more than anyone else, "Command doesn't need us to hunt down a secret Romulan weapons' facility in the back and beyond of nowhere, but simply chart the area." She shot a look to Kendrick and then returned her gaze back to the screen. "So," she continued, tapping in another command into the console, "we need a trajectory course to begin."

Blake felt his lips tug at her comment, it had been a long time since they were able to carry out from start to finish without incident was a scientific study. Ironically the one thing the Ranger had been designed to do was the thing they'd least been able to carry out as of late due to an unexpected turn of events.

As her fingers danced over the flashing lights of the pad, the sector above them twisted and flattened into a two dimensional area displaying two Starfleet insignia indicating both the Ranger and the Dubai. Her hands continued to work as then a mustard, clearly defined net superimposed itself over where the Galaxy class starship had already charted.

"Jenner suggested firing over to the Cardassian border-side of the sector and then charting back towards Federation space... which I disagree with." She let the pregnant observation hang in the air for a moment so that her crew understood her intention. "But we need a viable alternative."

Alex thought about it for barely a couple of seconds, wondering whether to bring it up or not. "That asteroid field which was mentioned is of particular interest to me. They glazed over that area and the subject was changed very quickly when it was brought up at the dinner table and had appeared to pique our interest. It's fairly deep into the area that the Dubai has already charted though, and slightly 'North' of where they're expecting us to head."

"But if we head in that direction to start, then I'm sure that Mister Blake or the Science team," she gestured to Jimmy and Birsi with a nod of the head as she spoke directly to Alex, "could find some sort of sensor anomaly that could veer us off course enough to at least gleam a passive scan of the area. But I don't want to rock any boats or put anyone's noses out of joint from the off so we'll play this close to our chests." She sighed and then grabbed the back of her neck to ease the tension that was building. "I'm not suspicious as yet, and I can't quite put my finger on what it is, but something's not as straight forward here. It may be just that I'm used to situations unfolding into unique endings and my guard's up, but..."

"I'm sure we can 'accidentally' misalign our heading sensors a few degrees;" Jimmy said mischievously. "Let's just hope we don't bite off anything we can't chew."

Blake nodded in agreement.

"Well if the worst we have to worry about in this is a globule of Mister Fer's ear wax and an overactive imagination, I don't think we've got too much to worry about right now." Alex added absent-mindedly as she continued to stare at the map.

T'mpest had been listening to the conversation around her as she studied the 3-dimensional map of the sector. "Accidentally misaligning the sensors will be seen as an obvious sign of mistrust. However, if we were to find an anomalous reading that bore further investigation, they couldn't question our motives."

She pulled up the earlier readings from the sector and compared them to what the Dubai reported. Then she added the Romulan information. "There is enough of a discrepancy here to warrant a further look."

"There she goes again," mused Birsi, relieved that circumstances allowed her to roll her eyes freely despite actually agreeing with T'mpest. A plausible excuse for a decrepit freighter with no incentive to stay intact beyond the structural integrity field, misaligned sensors were a tougher sale for an Intrepid-class starship fulfilling her raison d'etre. Even if they bit, Dubai might then feel inclined to stay near to ensure that the 'inevitable' realignment stuck, a definite conflict with her superiors' seeming aim to keep them aside and ignorant.

Yet the grand scheme of why eluded Birsi. The 'they're acting weird' line toted by Captains Halliwell and Kendrick, as well as Commander Michaels was an ambiguous, largely perception-dependent assessment capable of occupying its own survey, but not the Neutral Zone faceoff-grade scrutiny of another Starfleet ship and crew transpiring before her by her estimation. Even if something was truly wrong, what made anyone certain it was something waiting to be backtracked into? Why *not* have Kendrick talk to the Dubai CO or do something to better substantiate their concerns? Because presently, Birsi didn't know what they needed to find in the haystack that was Calamai. A needle, a thimble, a nickel? No one knew because by her estimation, no one was particularly certain of what was missing in the first place.

Already testy from Captain Halliwell curbing of her earlier attempt to clarify the situation, the appeasement of this witch hunt by her least favorite person in the room goaded the young Bajoran into musing a three-word piece scowling, cross-armed, and most crucially, aloud.

"This is ridiculous."

Elsie remained quiet and slowly, decidedly, turned her head to the outspoken Bajoran and raised her eyebrow. "Excuse me, Crewman?" The use of her lowered rank was not intentional, but the captain wasn't so used to such interruptive outbursts.

Jimmy raised an eyebrow towards Birsi, but held his tongue to allow her to explain.

"I tried asking what happened on Dubai to get a better idea of how to help," Birsi began with a levelness that defied the blatant dissatisfaction of both her commanding officer and department head, "only to be brushed off in favor of more grasping at this conspiracy theory everyone likes, but can't substantiate. I get that instincts, intuitions, and sixth-senses were rung over there, but we can't justify turning over rocks throughout unexplored space on just those. If something really is wrong with Dubai's crew, there could be any number of reasons for it, including EVA/E. But it could also be something we won't find despite retracing their steps; an internal accident, a dispute, or just bad chemistry. . .maybe all three hit and they're trying to keep it together until they get back to port. But from where I stand, too many possibilities exist for what little context there is for how they're acting. Either way, we're dealing with our own here, and for all their quirks, they haven't threatened our safety. So unless *I've* brushed something one of you have said off, I don't see the benefit of going over their heads."

"We are not going over their heads," T'mpest replied. "Nor are we dealing with a conspiracy theory. There is something here that has made them all jittery. I will not go into the psychology behind our concern, but we felt that it bears investigation. We would like you to look at the area already explored by the Dubai and give us your opinion as to what could be the cause of their odd behavior. And," she paused and gave Birsi a conspiratorial grin, "perhaps a plausible reason for needing to give the asteroid field a second look. I think that is quite within the purview of a talented Astrometrics officer."

Birsi wasn't sure how to take T'mpest. Some of her response was reasonable and some wasn't, but the last sentence was what earned the executive officer a steely gaze in spite of her smile. Talented? Her? Birsi certainly aimed high and wasn't struggling nearly as badly as she had in tech school. Not completely over needing to revise or take her work home, Ranger's lesser regiment gave her time and freedom to develop. Increasingly able as Birsi believed herself, however, the praise failed to jibe on several levels, leaving her to ponder its sincerity.

"All right, all right," Elsie chimed in with, her hands defensively raised to broker peace and a little attention from her crew. She sighed loudly and then raised a hand to her forehead as she visibly displayed her weariness. "Maybe Crewman Sessan is correct," she conceded, drawing in another breath and allowing it to fill her lungs. "I haven't been sleeping so well these past few weeks and we're still raw from the Romulan mining fiasco we've just come through. Perhaps I am making mountains out of molehills here. We're all so tense."

"There's only one way to find out for sure," Jimmy hadn't said much up till then, because he didn't have much to say to begin with. "We head to that asteroid belt, find there's absolutely nothing wrong here, and go on with what we're here for. Everyone'd be at ease."

"And in doing so," Elsie countered, turning an exasperated face to Jimmy, "we alienate ourselves from Jenner and his crew, piquing their suspicions about our motives." She took in a breath whilst everyone remained silent... until.

"Could we not do both at the same time?" Alex asked thoughtfully. "According to their own flight plan, the Dubai is going to be snaking their way back toward to Romulan Neutral Zone and then swinging back round to cover the base and exiting the sector on a heading back to Earth. With them essentially heading in the opposite direction from either of these course headings in this proposal, we might be able to take an unchallenged detour regardless of what our jittery colleagues think."

Elsie then broke, her tone now clear and authoritative. "We'll continue as ordered and cooperate with the Dubai. We're here to chart and our ship is far more advanced than theirs when it comes to scientific exploration. Our sensors are more sensitive and wider-ranging. We'll get our chance to see what this sector has to offer without ruffling anyone's feathers." She then shot a clear and intended glance to each of her officers. "Understood?"

"Yes, ma'am," T'mpest replied.

Kendrick nodded though her thoughts were those of disappointment. She took in a light breath and turned back to the expansive Astrometrics screen and continued studying the map. From her point of view, advisements were made by all, and the captain had made a judgment call. A failing one, she thought, but that was not for Alex to say at this time. In truth, she was not entirely there herself for argument or otherwise, and as she stepped up to the platform, she continued to look on in a virtual daydream at the asteroid field they would likely not see, and while the uncharacteristic disappointment welled inside, her thoughts tried to console her general feelings, however self-serving they were.

Birsi didn't intend to play the foil; she just sought to better understand the suspicion mounted upon Dubai, going on the offensive only after it became apparent that there was more fishing than certainty. A big morale lift came of her emerging with the favored perspective, though her ungraceful presentation and knowing that plenty of time remained to be wrong kept her countenance weighted even as she said, "Understood, Captain."

OFF

 

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