Senior Staff Briefing (Part 1 of 2)

Posted on 15 Jan 2015 @ 5:39pm by Rear Admiral Lirha Saalm & Captain Jonathan Holliday & Lieutenant Commander Dea Mialin & Commander Norvi Stace & Commander Allyndra illm Warraquim & Commander Andreus Kohl & Lieutenant Commander Amynta Markos & Lieutenant Min Zhao & Lieutenant Asahi Kita & Command Master Chief Markum Quinn & Commander Luke Wyatt

2,824 words; about a 14 minute read

Mission: Episode 07 - Sojourn
Location: Starbase 84 - Deck 684, Conference Room
Timeline: MD 38 - 1600 hrs

[ON]

It had been a several weeks since Lirha had indulged herself with her favorite Earth drink. Bringing the warm mug of frothy hot chocolate up to her gold lips, she hesitated for a brief moment to inhale the pleasant aroma before taking a small sip. She sighed contently before licking some of the milky foam off her upper lip, then leaned back in her chair to patiently wait for several more of Galileo's department heads to arrive before she got started with the briefing. It was strange...being back on duty after almost a full month of vacation. Her recent sojourn to Rigel VII had been most relaxing, and now that she was newly wed and expecting, she almost felt like an entirely new woman.

Some things never changed, however, and as much as she'd enjoyed her leisurely holiday, duty called and there was now much to be done in preparation for Galileo's upcoming deployment. First and foremost, Starfleet had plans to upgrade several of the ship's systems, and while not usually an uncommon practice, the pending replacement of the vessel's secondary deflector array was one of the more unusual refits. Of course, this was no regular deflector array as Starfleet Command had made abundantly clear to her, and she couldn't help but feel a bit excited to be the first starship to test out this new piece of long-range sensor technology.

It had been a good leave for Dea. The rest had done her some good. Making her way to the designated conference room Mialin nodded to Commodore Saalm as she entered, "Good day Ma'am."

Striding into the conference room, Andreus Kohl was putting some effort into presenting an appearance of confidence. Not just confidence, but comfort. His uniform, highlighted with science teal, was newly replicated and adorned with shiny new Lieutenant Commander pips. His honey-brown hair was shorn very short, almost shorter than his neat beard. Inside his head, of course, Kohl hadn't yet decided if attending this meeting should feel familiar or foreign to him. Kohl had been a department head before, if briefly, when Sickbay had been understaffed during the Rojar survey. Commodore Saalm had been the one to present Kohl with a field-promotion, but Starfleet Command had decided it wouldn't be permanent. On the one hand, this wasn't an entirely new experience for Kohl, but then this senior staff was almost an entirely new group of officers than the one he'd known.

Carrying a steaming tea latte with him, Lieutenant Commander Kohl sat himself at a randomly chosen chair, somewhere in the middle. As he lowered himself into the chair, he offered a fond smile to Dea. Mialin had saved his life more than once in the Lyshan mines, and he wasn't sure if she knew it. The smile and nod Kohl shared with Lirha was a of a formal bearing. "You have my best wishes, Commodore Saalm," Kohl said warmly. "I'm sorry I missed the celebration."

Dea nodded to Kohl in return with a smile, "Hope you enjoyed your shoreleave Commander." Briefly reflecting back on recent events. She didn't consider herself a hero for what she'd done.

"It's..." Kohl started to say, but his sapphire eyes glazed over. He became at a loss for words -- at least for words he wished to share in front of the Commodore. "It's what I needed," he said at last. To Dea, he added, "I hope yours was the same."

Next to walk in was Stace, thankful to once again have purpose and direction in her service to the Fleet. She too had brought her own coffee, steam rising from her cup as she smiled her way through the doors. "Nice to see everyone," she said as her gaze shot about to the three attendees around the table. "And congratulations, Commodore." She eyed one of the empty chairs and took the one next to Kohl, scrunching her face up warmly to him like old friends as she plopped herself down into it.

In fairness, with everything that had developed over the month-long shoreleave, it was a relief for the Trill to now have order and a home. The familiar conference room of the starbase, one that she had utilised several times over the last four weeks, was now revered with a nostalgic warmth despite the fact that she was still in it. She hoped it would be one of the last and longed for the comfortable and small corridors of the Gally and knew this this briefing was the start to their return to active duty.

Unlike the others, Asahi, who arrived shortly after the Chief Science Officer, carried with him a bubbly, lime green substance in a much larger mug than he was used to. He seemed absolutely chipper, as if this project in front of him was going to be a new experience in engineering that he had never encountered before. Deflector arrays weren't the most thrilling in engineering tasks, but that never stopped Asahi from wearing that refreshed smile on his face.

Plopping himself down next to Norvi's other side, he took a giant swig of his beverage, nodding towards the others. " 'Lo all!"

"Good afternoon." John added in a matter-of-fact tone as he joined the briefing, a PADD in one hand and the other held behind his back. Silently he acknowledged his crew once again before taking a seat at the far end of the table, opposite the Commodore.

Quinn entered the room with his usual enormous mug of hot, freshly brewed coffee. "Good day, Sirs." he said as he found a seat.

Allyndra arrived and took a seat sans drink. She had gotten more or less a gist of what this meeting was about but was not sure what something like this had to do with anything in her line. She caught Kohl sitting further up and across and smiled. He looked tired, maybe worried but she hoped he was fine and mentally sent encouraging thoughts his way.

Prudence Devin looked around as she walked in, as if she owned this room. She was used to that, partly to establish herself and partly because it made her feel better. It was the small touches, like her hair pinned up or the simple pearl earrings. She carried with her a cup of tea and took a seat, giving a small smile to those around her.

Min was amongst the last of the heads to roll into the office. Taking a free seat over by Asahi, she waited for the briefing to begin.

"Sorry for my tardiness" Luke apologised coming in behind Min Luke glanced across the room and gave respectful nods towards the other Department heads and then to the command staff. Picking out the remaining unoccupied seat he sat himself down and tucked himself closer to the table placing a PaDD on the desktop ready to take notes.

"And the same for me," Markos said as she followed Luke in, frowning. She was in her uniform, hair and makeup impeccable. She looked around the room, noticing the familiar and the...other new faces. She took a seat in silence.

"Good afternoon," Lirha began with a polite nod to all of Galileo's assembled officers. "I hope your shore leave was relaxing and you were all able to enjoy yourselves for a few weeks." She paused to place her mug down on the briefing table then unclipped her PADD from her belt and began to read through the details of the upcoming installation.

"It seems we are scheduled to receive a refit of our secondary deflector array...an entirely new array, actually. Work is scheduled to commence tomorrow at 0600 and the entire process should take no longer than three days. However, I would like our engineering, operations, and science personnel to assist the dockworkers with their upgrades. I firmly believe we know our systems better than they do and I would like our people to take the lead during this refit." If it were up to Lirha, she would have Galileo's crew doing all the work while the starbase crews watched and took notes. They were no doubt competent workers, but they lacked the experience of dealing with Galileo's systems. She wasn't just a metallic starship pumped out of some assembly line; she was a living and breathing collection of finely-tuned circuitry and computer systems which needed tender love and care.

The commodore proceeded to tap several commands into her PADD which linked the slim device with the large LCARS monitor on the wall behind her. The colorful display came to life and began to show several rotating schematics of the new deflector array. "This is the new AESA sensor unit which Starfleet has recently developed. Its designation is the SDA-23 and it was developed specifically for use aboard Nova-class starships. As you can see," she continued while pointing at several of the schematics, "it has a smaller profile with reinforced alloys around the critical components, and it also contains an advanced reconnaissance and electronic warfare package including the new Mark V SSPJ."

Unapologetic if his question would be obvious, Kohl had long accepted he was likely one of the least technologically-adept officers in the room. Speaking about the active electronically scanned array, Kohl asked, "What makes the SDA-23 distinctive for the Nova class?"

Lirha nodded at the CRO's question. It was a good one, and while her expertise was not in starship systems design and implementation, she had fortunately been brought up to speed by the admiralty as to the specifics of the unit.

"As you probably already know, the Nova-class is one of the only Starfleet ship designs fitted with a secondary deflector array. Our secondary array gives us superior sensor capabilities, most specifically in regards to long-range and detailed scanning. We are able to see stellar phenomena at a greater range and take more detailed scans than any other type of starship," she explained, then paused to take a quick sip of her drink before continuing.

"The SDA-23 was developed for the Nova-class and is not compatible with any other type of starship. It was designed to fit our ship's mission profiles -- scout, survey, research, and exploration -- and is specifically planned to accommodate the Nova-class' smaller warp core.... which as our engineers and operations personnel already know, results in our ship being slightly underpowered by nature."

A wave of relief washed over Asahi as he observed the diagram in front of them, nodding at Lirha's informative responses. "Nova-class ships require finesse to maintain because of it. Weaponry is minimal to accommodate differences in the core and the flow of power. Ma'am, did you say SSPJ? Is there a chance we could get a look at the schematics before this array's installed?"

John had read a little into electronic warefare during his career, it was a cornerstone of most race's technology as soon as they became spaceborne and encountered other races. It was a system mainly involved on warships, or at least, ships better designed for combat than the simple science scout that he currently commanded, but something he could certainly see the benefit of possessing.

"I imagine we will have some access to the schematics if we are to be involved with system integration - ma'am am I correct in assuming this is a rather sensitive piece of equipment as far as it's testing goes? No pun intended"

"Yes, the details of the EW package are classified but each of you has been given authorization to view the details. The schematics should be available for each of you to review on your PADDS," Lirha nodded with confirmation to both of the questions. "This new deflector array is essentially a prototype...it has never been deployed aboard a Starfleet vessel before, and even though it is no longer in development testing, this will be its first field test."

Stace listened to the conversation intently, nodding about from question to answer and then back to question again. She took a drink of her coffee before embarking on her own line on inquiry, looking to the commodore first. "And where are we off to test the defector once it's installed, Commodore? Will it need any shakedown time or are we just straight back to active duty?"

Lirha lightly shook her head, her dark hair bobbing across the tops of her shoulders. "I am not sure how long Starfleet intends to test the array before it goes into full production. But yes, I have received our new deployment orders. I will explain them in a few moments as soon as we have finalized our installation plans," she answered to the CSO.

Quinn raised his hand slightly after hearing all the comments and questions. "I have a few friends in R 'n' D, and they tell me this new sensor system is so sensitive that it can record a stellar event from say, Earth, to as far away as the Hellaspont Nebulae, and do it in less than six microseconds. My question is how much power is it going to suck from the reactor?"

"From what I understand," Lirha began to answer, "this new array and its components have been optimized for our systems and therefore will actually be less of a drain on our EPS network than our current one. In theory we should have more power available to distribute to different systems if the deflector performs as it is designed. The key word being 'if', of course."

Allyndra sat looking at the schematics. This was not her field at all and there was little she felt she could offer. The Commodore's last statement caught her though. "And what if the if does not work?"

Asahi snorted, despite his feelings on the matter. Installing a highly experimental anything on a ship he was in charge of maintaining didn't suit him one bit. "With all due respect, ma'am..." He nodded toward Allyndra. "I have full faith that if the deflector doesn't perform the way it's supposed to, we can coax it into cooperating."

Quinn grinned at the comment. "Wouldn't be the first I've had to do that to." He looked to Asahi. "Lieutenant Kitna, I'd like to offer my engineering experience to you, when it comes to instillation of the array. I know it's not my engineering department anymore, but if we are going to put something like this new array inside this girl, I'd like to be there to help...and the wiring to the secondary array isn't to specs, Willis and I had to Scotty it." The old engineer didn't want to step on any toes, he just loved this boat more than most things in his life.

"I think that would be wise." John replied to their former Chief Engineer turned CoB. "We've had to do more than a few unusual bits of rerouting over the past couple of years - what with people trying to blow us up or assimilate us, or fill the ship up with tribbles"

Stace snorted at the captain's joke and smiled warmly to him. "And both myself and Commander Kohl would like to assist with the deflector's integration into the lab's systems. I oversaw that all of our research was safely moved to the starbase during shoreleave. - We have some long-term projects that, if lost, would mean years of work would have been in vain. - So, when we transfer them back to the Gally, I want to have full faith that everything is functioning as is needed, if that's okay." She turned to her right and scrunched her nose up at Kohl for his own input.

Taking Stace's cue, Kohl cleared his throat and began to speak to the room at large. "We've prepared a project plan with the timelines and resources we'll need to assess the functionality of the new deflector in our laboratory settings." --Kohl looked over at Stace again, and he cocked an eyebrow-- "We believe we'll be preparing for most eventualities, including the most arcane of research subjects that may be subjected to our deflector array someday."

To Be Continued...

[OFF]

--

CDRE Lirha Saalm
Mission Advisor
USS Galileo

CAPT Jonathan Holliday
Commanding Officer
USS Galileo

LCDR Dea Mialin
Chief Flight Control Officer
USS Galileo

LCDR Norvi Stace
Chief Science Officer
USS Galileo

LCDR Andreus Kohl
Chief Research Officer
USS Galileo

LCDR Allyndra illm Warraquim
Chief Medical Officer
USS Galileo

LCDR Amynta Markos
Chief Intelligence Officer
USS Galileo

Command Master Chief Markum Quinn
Chief of the Boat
USS Galileo

LT Min Zhao
Chief Operations Officer
USS Galileo

LT Asahi Kita
Chief Engineering Officer
USS Galileo

LTJG Luke Wyatt
Chief Security/Tactical Officer
USS Galileo

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