Deflectors Ahoy!

Posted on 19 Feb 2015 @ 5:39pm by Lieutenant Asahi Kita & Commander Norvi Stace & Lieutenant Min Zhao & Commander Andreus Kohl & Captain Jonathan Holliday & Lieutenant Commander Dea Mialin & Lieutenant JG Grayson Jones & Lieutenant JG Zane Neptune & Command Master Chief Markum Quinn

4,059 words; about a 20 minute read

Mission: Episode 07 - Sojourn
Location: Various Locations aboard the Starbase and the Galileo
Timeline: MD 39 :: 0952 Hours

ON

=^="I hope you don't turn this blasted thing on while we're putting the danged thing in."=^=

Asahi was, putting it nicely, livid. He despised having to work with a crew he didn't quite know, and he heard nothing about the Starbase's crew. While he was more than happy to collaborate, he would have rather said collaboration happen on anything but his precious baby. It was funny how being on a ship for a year developed attachments like that.

He eyed the hard-working engineers, both his own and that of the Starbase's. Huffing, he tapped his commbadge again. =^="Because at this rate, I wouldn't be surprised if someone's head comes off before we get it together."=^=

Over the communicator, the disembodied voice of Andreus Kohl carried into Asahi's helmet from inside the ship. "All deflector systems are dark," Kohl said in his most reassuring voice. "No one is running so much as a level five diagnostic on the dish. We won't be activating it from this end until you give the go ahead... Maybe take some deep breaths, Lieutenant? You wouldn't want to fog up your helmet."

From the bridge of the Galileo, Stace confirmed Kohl's report and relayed it through the intercom. "Deflector control from the bridge is also secure. Myself and Mr. Kohl have complete control of the system."

=^="I'm holding you both to that."=^= Asahi crossed his arms over his chest.

Not even looking up and talking through her com badge, Norvi smiled. "We wouldn't let you down, Asahi. We need that deflector too much!"

Quinn was standing inside of the gap that would be housing the newest sensor grid for the Galileo. He watched the Worker Bee's move in closer as the cranes crept the massive sensor system towards its destination. The one-time chief engineer watched from inside his Zero-G suit. "Here comes the goods. I need two engineers up here to help guide this thing in and run the connection into the grid and the power systems."

Dea monitored the installation from a workbee nearby. The goal was to let Engineering and other departments do their job unless they needed her assistance. She'd opted to be ready just in case. At the moment things were going as well as could be expected for such a complex job.

=^="Suuuuure, it's all about the deflector. I seeeeee."=^= Despite the grump, Asahi couldn't resist teasing the Science Chief.

Looking down at the console, a brief smile fluttered across the Trill's lips. "I don't particularly want to lose the Chief Engineering Officer during this installation, either, Asahi!"

Willis came up from the gap that the primary and secondary computer core connection and filter, along with the power connection feed. "Hurry up old man!" he joked at the CoB. "We are on a tight schedule, Quinn."

For the moment it appeared Dea would have a relatively simple task. Keeping here eyes and ears open just in case. She also kept a channel open to Galileo's bridge. That way she could catch any relevant updates from that side that might also possibly require her attention.

Glancing about, Asahi frowned. It seemed the rest of the engineers were busy in some form or another. Hopping off of his tiny, makeshift pedestal, the young engineer hustled himself over toward the sensor system. "Too many people crawling all over this thing, I almost can't keep track!" he joked.

Quinn chuckled. "Yeah, I wanted to keep it to just those that actually knew what the hell they were doing. Think you can direct the crane operator to lower the dish down some? Once I get it hooked to the retractor, we should be able to guide it in fairly easily."

"Mm, done and done." The tiny engineer whirled about in place, waving about wildly to get the attention of the crane operator. After an awkward, yet humorous half-performance of the YMCA in order to do so, he was directing said operator as smoothly as he could. "How're you able to tell who's what? I can't tell just on rank alone, can I?"

Quinn shrugged his shoulders while his cybernetic arm grabbed hold of the side handle to the dish while Willis began to crawl out to assist in the connection. "I've been doing this for a long time."

All the while, Grayson was working in the background, making sure his own little band of engineers were keeping out of the way, on their tasks. He was keeping an eye on the alignment of the dish out of the corner of his eye, he never trusted computers all too much when it came to things like this, he trusted Starbase crane operators and their interpretation of the computer even less. =^= "All going ok up their Chief?"=^= he asked, pressing the intercom button on his suit, making sure people knew he was available to help out at a moments notice.

Now comfortable with how the installation had been coming along, Asahi tapped his suit's button. =^="Stupendously, actually. Everyone's working hard and it's going as smoothly as it could be going along. How about on your end? Any stragglers?"=^=

=^="None, got the manifold points reinforced and the secondary inlays ready to go" =^=

Willis began to run the temporary connection into the control panel of the sensor dish. "This is the wrong connection feed we have here, guys."

Quinn looked over towards Asahi, then back to where Willis's feet were hanging out from the dish. "Do you have it in right? It's not upside down is it? Remember when we helped install the main deflector d...."

Willis shot back. "No, dammit. I'm not that stup..." suddenly an audible sigh was heard. "Shit, ehh, yeah, one second. The directions showed it umm, well it it was upside down, dammit.. There, you happy you old coot?"

Markum started laughing and looked back at Asahi. "Smart, lad he is. Just not much for common sense."

"It's in, and I have a good reading." said Willis as he backed out of the device and regained his footing, just before he helped secure the dish to the ships retractor.

=^=This is Quinn, You can start retracting the dish in. Willis has it connected to the temp power line, over.=^=

"Guess they don't go hand-in-hand, huh?" Asahi chuckled, side-eying the CoB, holding up his arms to direct the crane driver.

Watching the progress Dea continued to monitor various comm channels. That way she'd be ready if her assistance was needed. Otherwise it gave her a unique view of a very complex task. =^= I'm here if you need me. However things are looking good from this angle. =^=

Asahi nodded, turning to wave at the shuttle "Will do, Commander!"

Zane Neptune watched the installation from a viewport. He wouldn't have minded helping out but strength didn't do much on the exterior of the ship. Not having zero G training also deterred him from jumping up to help. At any rate, this was quite the sight to behold and he was interested in seeing how the ship worked, if only replacing things was what was going on.

Keval had only heard rumors, snippets of what all was involved. Nevertheless, he was eager to help. It got his mind off of his personal issues and that was what he needed. So he made his way to the office to see where he was needed.

At the aft of the Auxiliary Deflector Control compartment, Andreus Kohl had stationed himself at the foot of an LCARS interface set into the bulkhead. In the vein of the Master Systems Display, the interface showcased a cutaway diagram of the Galileo and the relevant systems within. Rather than providing an overview of all ship systems, the image was zoomed in on the deflector systems and their operational status. As promised, there was no power flowing to the auxiliary deflector system. Kohl was distracted by the PADD in his hands, which displayed the results from yet another simulation about how the deflector was going to react to the system configurations. Even so, he noticed the Andorian walking in.

"Ah! Oh, Keval, just who I need," said Kohl. When he made his declaration, Kohl waved his PADD at the passing Andorian. "Here, take a look at this?"

Keval moved closer so he could take a look at what Andreus was looking at."So what you got there boss man?" he asked.

"It's a simulation of what the computer thinks is going to happen when we turn the lights on," Kohl said in reply. He winced at Keval, self-consciously, because it was basically too late to make any more adjustments before the final connections were connected. "I can't stop thinking about what might go wrong. It's like my brain is trapped in a Mobius strip." --And to make this point, he quickly raised the widescreen PADD to show the results to Keval-- "Does this electro-plasma distribution look right to you?" Kohl asked.

Keval took a closer look, did some calculations in his head, then pulled out a PAaD. "Initially it looked a little off to me. I think it needs to be adjusted. You may want to run the numbers yourself, but I think you need to adjust the argon levels by .045 millibars."

Shaking his head, Kohl replied, "No, I think I trust your maths more than my own." Hurriedly, he turned towards the deflector systems display and tapped his fingertips on the EPS lines running into the auxiliary deflectors. He tapped and swiped through the configuration menus that appeared to make the change Keval suggested, and instruct the computer to run a new simulation.

"Thank you for your trust, let's see if I'm right." Keval said.

Having put his paranoid diversion behind him, Kohl tapped his combadge and instructed the computer to include him in the open communications channel again. Kohl asked aloud, "How's it looking out there, Asahi?"

Asahi's voice crackled from the other end. =^="Looks like everything on this end is going hunky dory. Shouldn't take too long now, and you guys can tinker internally to your hearts' desires."=^=

"Thank you, Asahi," Kohl blithely said to the communications grid. "You know there's nothing my heart desires more than a hearty tinkering. Kohl out."

Zane walked into the Auxiliary Deflector Control Compartment. He hesitated at the door, forgetting momentarily that this would be one of the primary places to have someone located in during this particular operation.

"Oh," Zane said. "Sorry if I'm interrupting anything. Is there anything I can help with?"

In his head, Kohl was riding two or three separate trains of thoughts. As soon as Zane offered his pair of hands and his pair of eyes, Kohl latched onto that opportunity for new resources, without entirely divorcing himself from his existing thoughts and plans. "Thank you, yes, thank you please," Kohl said, the words coming out in nothing like the intended order. He waved a beckoning hand at Zane, and lead him over to a free Operations management console set into the opposite bulkhead. "Technologically-speaking, we have all eyes watching the hardware installation happening outside. Internal sensors, external sensor, and the starbase sensors too," Kohl said, explaining the current status to Zane. Kohl laid the flat of his palm on the LCARS display, over top the swirl of sensor composites. "I could use another set of humanoid eyes, connected to an actual brain, watching over the proceedings," Kohl said, "And shout out if you see anything that doesn't look right to you."

"Aye," Zane said. He immediately scanned the monitors for anything out of the ordinary but decided that seeing things wouldn't jump out at that exact moment and decided to focus a little more on a couple of displays rather than the entire spread. "Anything that helps."

Kohl nodded enthusiastically. "Anything that keeps us from frying our beautiful new deflector is a world of help," Kohl said. He started to step away, but then he remembered something else. He turned back towards Zane and the Operations console, but as he approached them, he worried he was about to be over-bearing and micromanaging. Kohl turned away one more time, and then returned again. "Over here," Kohl said, as he swiped his left hand over the controls. "You can find the schematics for what the hardware connections should look like."

Zane was more than grateful for something to use as a point of reference. Movement caught his eye and he looked up, though he was far from the first one to speak.

"Oh hey, Keval," Kohl said in a eureka tone of voice. Looking back over his shoulder, Kohl said, "Keval, you'd be perfect for this too. Come help Zane out."

"Sure," the Andorian said, as he moved over to help his fellow officer.

Kohl started to walk away, and far to soon his eyes were back on his PADD rather than his direction of travel. "This!" Kohl announced. He patted the display screen on his PADD a couple times, and he said, "This, this," in time with his drum beats. "Keval," Kohl said, as he turned back, "This simulation is looking much better now. I think it's going to work."

Keval smiled, "Glad I could be of help. What else can I do?"

"Keep your eyes on the realtime sensor readings of the installation," said Kohl. He waved a hand at the Operations console behind Keval. "Shout it out if the sensors see anything hinky that the engineers might miss with the pitiful visual perception of humanoid eyes."

Keval nodded, his right antennae quirking forward. "Hinky? I haven't heard that term in a while. I'll keep an eye on everything. You can count on me."

"There are lots of terms I haven't heard in a long time around here," Zane said, smiling at Keval. "Hinky isn't even the weirdest one."

"Oh-hh," said Kohl. There was a downward lilt to his inflection, as if he were disappointed at coming in second place of the weirdness competition. He stopped, he fully stopped what he was doing, to share a lopsided smile with Zane. "What was the weirdest word?"

Still up on the bridge, Norvi Stace ran he eyes over the command readouts once more and then secured her station, she now being the only authority that could disable the lock. Looking through the power distribution of the entire ship, and the lack of it through the deflector, she tapped her combadge and hailed Commander Kohl. "Everything up here is secure, Commander. Do you have your hands full down down there or could you use an extra pair?"

"Oh, I'm always in need of hands as skilled as yours, but all we're really doing is some hand-wringing," came Kohl's reply through the communication circuit. "We're monitoring the installation from all the sensor feeds, and our last-minute simulations are coming back with promising results. There's only so much more hand-wringing we can do. What we need is the go ahead to turn the lights on."

"I'll leave you to it, then," Stace returned. "Bridge out."

Having spent the bulk of the morning in his Ready Room, John ducked out from behind his office doors and stepped onto the Bridge. It was nice to see the nerve centre of the ship so busy - obviously the deflector installation had been taking up the bulk of his crew's time, and the Captain felt an update was in order.

"Commander Stace - status report?"

The Trill spun on her heel and in the darkened bridge lights, turned to face her superior. "Captain," she nodded as she then turned back to face her console again. Releasing the security lock, she brought up the data one more time. "Commander Kohl reports deflector control secured and awaiting further instructions." She spied over the information again to check her readouts hadn't changed and then faced him again with a smile. "We're all secured up here and just waiting on the physical installation outside to be finalised. Once the maglocks are coupled, we'll begin testing the power distribution with increasing intensity. Once up to normal parameters, we'll bring it out of it safety mode and then fully connect her to the live power relays." She scrunched up her nose to him in a expectant gesture and added, "It's shouldn't be too much longer now, Sir. And then we're good to go."

John nodded in appreciation at the very thorough report from his 2XO. The process seemed to be going swimmingly, indeed there appeared to have been very little need for him to even leave his Ready Room - but now that he was here, the urge to get involved got the better of him.

"Excellent. Well done. If you don't mind I'd like to remain and observe the rest of the installation?"

"Not at all," Stace replied with a smile. Her hands quickly danced over the controls at her station without looking at the input too intently. On the viewscreen suddenly popped up an exterior view of the forward section of the Galileo from a static viewpoint. She pressed a few more buttons as the screen split into three, the static taking up most of the space and then the other two divisions comprising of one of the workerbees and Asahi's helmet camera.

"Excellent" John replied, before heading for his chair and taking his familiar place on the Bridge. Looking down at the display, he noted the presence of his crew outside the ship, and their ever-present CoB amongst them.

"Would you like some... popcorn, Captain?" she asked with a smile.

John smirked to his 2XO as she took her station - a snack wasn't the worst thing he could think of right now, it having been several hours since he had breakfast, but duty called.

"I think I'll hold off on the mid morning snack for now Commander - but I'll let you know if I change my mind."

The Captain replied before thumbing the comm controls on the arm of his chair.

=^=Holliday to Quinn - I hope you haven't scratched the paintwork out there? =^= He called out through the comm with a joking tone to his voice.

Quinn could be heard chuckling from the other end. =^=No, not this time, Captain. If I do though, Willis has volunteered to repair the damage.=^= anyone that has spent any amount of time aboard the Galileo, new of Quinn and Quinn's endless antics and practical jokes against each other, and their gross negligence of the chain of command and respect of rank when dealing with one another.

=^=Looks like the retractor operators have her secured and we just have to finish putting on a few bolts, and it'll be done. Give us, a couple minutes and then we can activate the mag-locks, I suppose.=^=

=^=Understood CoB - get the job done and then get back inside. Good luck, Holliday out. =^=

Closing the comm line John turned around to face his 2XO once again.

"Well Commander - I presume we're ready for powerup once the mag-locks are in place? This is your show - please don't let me try and ruin it."

Smiling her reply, Stace nodded and then turned back to her console, flashing her eyes at the anticipation of what was to come. Pressing the intercom, she hailed Kita. "Galileo to Engineering team. We're ready to begin the power increments on your mark."

=^="Slow and steady, but we're ready."=^= Asahi's voice crackled over the comm, with an added hum.

"Stace to Kohl. Standby. Kita has given us the go-ahead." She smiled as she turned to Captain Holliday. "Light her up, Commander."

There was a momentary delay. At first, the only sound to come over the comms was the feedback tones from the LCARS interface in auxiliary deflector control. Soon after, Kohl's disembodied voice said, "...Yes, ma'am. ...I can confirm ...Our auxiliary deflector has electro-plasma. The plasma conversion sensors confirm no difficulties at reduced plasma levels. We're beginning our level two diagnostic."

From outside the ship, atop the hull of Galileo, Quinn smiled as the deflector came online. He gave a thumbs up and Willis grinned. =^=This is Quinn, looks like it's up and running, and a only a couple bolts left as extras this time. First round is on me, gang.=^=

Up top on the bridge, Stace turned from the captain back to her LCARS readout. She confirmed both Kohl's and Quinn's assessment of the initial power-up and its stability. All was lit green across the board. She tapped in a few commands, refreshed the data feed and nodded to herself. Tapping her combadge, she continued. "Bridge to Deflector Control. You're authorised for the next power increment. Initiate on my mark." She paused for a moment and then splayed her fingers across the control panel. "Mark."

Stace's control panel flickered with new feedback, as the increased energy flowed into the auxiliary deflector. The status indicators remained green, until one of them didn't. It wasn't much longer when Kohl's voice cut in over the comms. "Stace, the plasma distribution within the deflector is unbalanced," Kohl said. "The secondary ring of subspace accelerators is siphoning off the energy from the primary ring."

The fluctuating green light caught her eye immediately as her gaze honed in onto the readout. "I've got it, Kohl," she called out as she stood, looming over the controls. He hands worked the display as though she were a concert pianist, dancing haphazardly over beeping lights with slender and graceful ease. "I'm closing out the second ring from the energy matrix. She's gonna light up like a Christmas tree while the others absorb the additional energy. Standby." She worked faster now, trying not to allow the increase in power burnout the other components. Took in a breath and hot-started the second ring again.

The lights on the display now normalised as Stace's heart was thumping in her chest trying to escape the confines of its bony cage. "What are you reading down there now, Commander?"

"Good," came Kohl's voice over the comms. "It's looking good. ...According to our diagnostics, the readings are leveling off. The deflector is operating within expected parameters."

Crackling over the comm, Asahi huffed. =^="It better be, because this thing is no laughing matter. I don't wanna have to break into 'er and make some fixes before we officially use 'er."=^=

"I was more worried about the deflector coming online fully and discharging something in your face, Lieutenant," came Stace's struggled reply. But as she gained control of her nerves. she chuckled. "But if assigning more workload to your engineering schedule is your primary concern then you have to pick your battles... and maybe get your priorities straight."

The engineer had to reel back a moment, though his tone came out nervous and uneven. =^="Er, sorry... I was thinking more on the deflector's components. If something in there's faulty, pressing the right buttons won't mean much... Didn't realize how concentrate-y you were getting over there. Apology sandwich when this is all said, done, and properly functional... ma'am?"

"Make it a drink and you're on!" came her smiley reply.

"Deal!" There was a pause as Asahi confirmed with one of the installation engineers. "... It looks like things are up and running visually as well. We should be able to call it good, unless the Chief here spotted something I'm missing?"


Asahi grinned, tapping his comm to open the channel to everyone on site. =^="Alright crew! The deflector is functional! Wrap-up your last minute fixes, but I think we can consider this project completed!"=^=

=^= "Copy that. I'll be returning to Galileo." =^= Dea reported over the comm. Briefly checking the systems readouts before turning her vehicle around to head back home.

OFF


Lieutenant Asahi Kita
Chief Engineering Officer
USS Galileo

Lieutenant Commander Andreus Kohl
Chief Research Officer
USS Galileo

Lieutenant Commander Dea Mialin
Chief Flight Control Officer
USS Galileo

Captain Jonathan Holliday
Commanding Officer
USS Galileo

Lieutenant Commander Norvi Stace
Chief Science Officer & Second Officer
USS Galileo

Lieutenant (JG) Grayson Jones
Assistant Chief Engineer
USS Galileo

Lieutenant Min Nicholas (nee Zhao)
Chief Of Operations
USS Galileo

Lieutenant JG Zane Neptune
Science Officer
USS Galileo

Command Master Chief Markum Quinn
Chief Of The Boat
USS Galileo

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