Patrolling

Posted on 26 Aug 2012 @ 11:17am by Lieutenant Commander Dea Mialin & Captain Jonathan Holliday & Lieutenant Kiri Cho & Chief Warrant Officer 2 Oliver Sylver & Lieutenant JG Nenokah Ral & Chief Warrant Officer 3 Lamar Darius

4,245 words; about a 21 minute read

Mission: Episode 01 - Project Sienna
Location: USS Galileo - Shuttle Bay
Timeline: MD 08 - 2030 hrs

[ON]

Dea headed for the shuttle bay. Messages had gone out to all the required personnel. She wanted to be there to brief them. This would be a short briefing so they could get on their way. However Mialin wanted to ensure they had everything in order before leaving Galileo on this one. As she entered the shuttle bay she nodded to the ground crews then waited for the rest of her team for this scout mission to arrive.

Walking with a casual stride, Lamar entered the large main shuttlebay with a loud swish of the double-doors. He took several steps on to the gray flight pad and slowly looked around, his eyes searching for Lieutenant Mialin, the flight control department head. He had never spoken to her directly before, only the occasional nod during briefings, but figured that she could probably use some extra help in patrolling the Z'Tarnis Nebula. And after all, he was rather interested in becoming a pilot, so he figured the two of them might be able to help each other. His brown eyes finally locked on to the dark-haired Trill, and he walked over to the red-collared woman and gave her a polite nod. "Mind if I tag along, Lieutenant?" he asked. "I know I'm not on the flight roster but I can give you a hand regardless." he added. Though he technically wasn't a certified pilot, he had been studying to pass his basic qualifications and had a pretty good basic understanding of all of Galileo's support craft.

"Certainly you're welcome to come along," Dea responded. "We have a busy mission a head of us. Once the others arrive we'll get going."

Nenokah strode down the corridor with purpose. This was her first time working with her new shipmates and she wasn't about to arrive late. She was grateful to be working again, after leaving the USS Voltaire. Running through the scouting mission in her head, Nenokah tried to keep her mind focused. But, try as she might, Tarkona's face kept surfacing. Just when she had accepted him, something she didn't do easily, they were separated. That just validated her reasoning against intimate relationships -- love someone and the universe takes them from you.

The doors of the shuttle bay hissed open and Nenokah stepped into somewhat familiar surroundings. Most shuttle bays looked about the same -- it brought pesky memories of the Voltaire to the forefront of her mind. She noticed two individuals standing to the side talking and walked briskly towards them. "Lieutenant Junior Grade Nenokah Ral," she announced when they look her way. She nodded to the man and woman, the only greeting one received from this young Klingon hybrid.

Dea nodded to the part Klingon as another member of the team arrived. Quickly acknowledging her new arrival with a slight smile. Glancing around the room to gather her thoughts before continuing with the briefing.

Once the work on the sensor array was as done as it could be given the situation Kiri had left to start on the next on her list. So for the last seven and a half minutes she had started to check her work on the Class 2 shuttles Virginia and Livia. Before this chaos had really started she'd worked to improve their sensors within nebulas. Since she was on the away mission list, she assumed they might well be needed. When first the Chief Flight Control Officer her assistant and the Chief of the Boat entered she was running a short diagnostic. Torn between finishing it and introducing herself she took a breath, glancing between both. The computer could handle it, with another breath she headed over to where the three of them were standing. While they talked she remained quiet, not wanting to interrupt until a chance opened up.

Sylver frowned as he walked in, trying to smoothe his uniform out. He looked around, studying everyone before grimacing as he looked around the shuttle bay. Okay, the shuttle bay had taken a beating. He frowned as he relaxed his body, rolling his shoulders.

Turning to face the entire group. "We have a Scouting mission. All four shuttles will be used for this. I'll be piloting the lead shuttle. Flight assignments are posting on the board. We're scouting the nebula so stay sharp. Relevant data has been uploaded to the flight computers for all birds.

Lamar nodded at the instructions then made his way over to the terminal to check the assignments. He noticed that he was paired up with the blue-collared woman, Ensign Cho. He had never worked with her before but had seen her around the small ship a few times, only in passing. He hoped she was qualified to operate the shuttlecraft, because he sure wasn't...at least, not yet.

Kiri didn't know anyone in the room, they were all strangers. Lieutenant Mialin was the closest and that was only by name, the other Trill worked on the other side of the bridge from her. Quietly she followed the others to the board, still not sure who she would be with, even when she knew his name. She was on the Type 9 shuttle Livia, the one she had worked on with Peers second. Reading though all the names in a second she walked over to the shuttle and walked around it. Her pre-flight checks meant a physical inspection, there were times when the computer didn't know best.

Lamar walked over to Livia and glanced silently at the smaller Trill woman before tapping the console to the door. The aft ramp deployed and he stepped inside, then casually made his way forward to the cockpit. He took a seat at the navigation console and began a start-up on the craft's systems, watching the consoles blink and come to life as he brought the small warp core online. Patiently, he waited for the science officer to finish her inspection so that they could get underway.

Her check complete, not seeing anything out of place Kiri headed inside, now seeing who Chief Darius was. Managing a weak smile she ducked her head and took her seat next to him. Turning to him she stuttered slightly at first, "Are, is. Are we ready for launch?" He was a large person, much bigger than her, slightly worrying.

"Everything looks good, just waiting on you." he replied, glancing over at her only briefly as he continued to the final checks and bring the navigation computer online. Though the Z'Tarnis Nebula had already been partially charted by Starfleet, there was still a lot of unexplored areas and the nature of Mutara Class nebulae meant that someone had to keep a constant eye on the craft's sensors.

Inhaling sharply to clear her head, Nenokah hurried over to her assigned shuttle, the Type-15. After running a quick but thorough preflight check, she heaved herself up the latter and into the pit, grimacing slightly at her momentary ungracefulness. She brought everything online with a few flicks of her wrist and was set to go.

Dea climbed into the Type 9 shuttle and finished off a quick preflight. Opening a channel to both flight control and the other pilots. "Comm check." As they ran through the process Dea readied her shuttle for takeoff. "Follow the search grid. We'll expand as needed but we don't need anyone else lost on this one. Galileo this is scout flight requesting permission for departure."

"Copy, Virginia, you are cleared to launch." came the reply from the mothership's conn officer.

"Roger that Galileo. Scout flight departing," Dea answered as she piloted her shuttle out of the bay ahead of the others. The main thing on her mind was bringing everyone home safely from this one.

"Okay," Starting an engine test and a stress test of the vessels warp core Kiri opened up the communications channel, "Shuttle Livia to Flight Control, requesting permission to launch." Waiting for the reply she turned back to Lamar, "Can you confirm our flight plan?" This would be her second shuttle flight since joining the ship, not that either had been overly complicated in theory.

With a couple taps of his fingers on the nav console, the chief switched his display to show the projected flight course for each shuttle. Seeing that everything looked good, he nodded in reply. "Path is confirmed." he replied simply, followed by the acknowledgement of launch permission from the bridge's current conn officer.

Following the steps that she'd memorised Kiri lead the shuttle out. Hovering above the floor of the shuttlebay she started to ease forward as the main bay door opened, her speed remained slow as they headed towards the shield. It shimmered and buzzed with impacts from the nebula, a louder crackle as the shuttle passed through. Holding course she passed between the two nacelle and further away from the ship before bringing it about in a long sweeping turn. Setting course she turned to Lamar, "How are our sensor readings so far?" Her own slight frame seemed much more obvious to her now they were completely alone.

A shake of his head confirmed what any Starfleet officer knew about Mutara nebulae. "The main array is having trouble penetrating through the interference. The lateral sensors aren't faring much better." he replied. "I recommend diverting power from shields and weapons and dumping it into the sensor arrays."

When improving the sensors Kiri had made sure they were able to draw power from the weapons arrays directly. In this case though, she hadn't even powered the weapons, since firing them could well be a death sentence. Shunting the power as she answered, "Increasing power via the weapons array, holding shield power in auxiliary buffers." The less energy they used the less they would show up on anyone else's sensors, they might not be the only ones looking around inside. However much power they had though she didn't expect the sensors to be very effective though, "Once we are clear of the Galileo, can you run an acoustic pulse?" While it was archaic it would be able to give them much greater range than normal sensors, though she didn't wasn't sure how useful the readings it would produce would really be.

Lamar nodded in reply as she shuttlecraft cleared Galileo and began its search pattern of the nebula. An acoustic pulse...interesting, he thought as he brought the system online and quickly prepared it for use.

Once the shuttles had departed Galileo Dea reported back to the ship. "Galileo Flight Control we're clear and entering the Nebula. Proceeding with designated search pattern." She issued orders to other shuttles in the group next, "Report any findings immediately and record them. Time is not on our side here."

Sylver looked over at Dea, who he was sharing the shuttle with. She rolled his shoulders as he watched the controls. "Nothing is showing up here yet..."

Dea nodded, "Keep your eyes open. I want to know if we get even the smallest hint of something that isn't interference." She knew this mission was like searching for a needle in a very large haystack.

While she didn't know how much time had passed since they first entered the nebula Dea checked the data being fed to the shuttle. Shifting her head to look at her flying companion for this trip, "What are your scans turning up so far?"

Sylver met her eyes and smiled weakly. "General interference from the nebula, as expected...however, we are filtering that. Just manually adjusting the frequencies a bit. Making it all sharper and clearer..." he looked back at what he was doing.

Turning her attention to Sylver for a moment Dea commented, "Understood. I didn't expect this to be a clear flight. We'll just have to dig through the soup a bit more than usual."

Back inside the shuttle Livia, the chief fired the first burst of acoustic pulses and stared at the small navigational display as he waited for the results to come in. Though it was a crude way of flying, it was at least producing a slightly-improved sensor readout of the surrounding gasses. "I can't see anything out of the ordinary but you might want to have a look." he said as he transferred his display to one of the consoles closer to the ensign.

Nodding her head Kiri passed the shuttle over to the computer for a few seconds, holding along their course. Switching her display over to the sensors she looked at the image, it was just static. A few button taps more she ran filters of different kinds across it, still nothing substantial that actually looked like it could be anything. At least it was working though, she could just about pick out the Galileo and the other shuttles. Taking control again she looked at Lamar, watching him work for a second, "Nothing yet, that's good." Kiri was relived, at least the Klingons weren't on top of them.

Lamar glanced over warily at the young Ensign. She seemed optimistic, which was good, but he was a bit more guarded. The game of cat-and-mouse with the Klingons was probably underway, and he doubted that they would sit by idly on the perimeter of the nebula and simply wait for Galileo to come out. He wanted to give her the benefit of the doubt, but based on the aggressive stance they had shown while pursing the Nova Class from Starbase 152, he had to stay alert. "Even if the Klingons are out there...we still might not detect them." he replied quietly. "Can you take us closer to the perimeter?" he asked.

She knew that, but if they were somewhere other than right next to them, something wasn't too likely to happen while she was piloting a shuttlecraft. Regarding his request though, Kiri shook her head, trying to find the right voice. The one she ended up with was still uninspiringly quiet, "We have to stick to the flight plan, in case something happens." If they lost power for some reason or were killed, staying on the flight plan would keep the ship safer, letting them know where they were, or at worse the Klingons. The closer to the edge they got, the closer they came to danger.

He grumbled to himself as she denied his request. It was probably for the best, sticking to the designated coordinates, but he was still anxious to see if and how many Klingons were still out there...waiting for them. With a nod, he resigned himself to the pre-established flight plan. "Just wanted to have a look..." he replied casually, casting a glance back over at her. "Ready to head to the next waypoint when you are."

Kiri felt bad, she knew what curiosity did, something that she spend most of her life chasing after. This was a time where doing that would be breaking the rules and might even get them killed, not allowed. Trying to focus on her job she started a course change, "Changing course to next way-point," Feeling rather confused she turned to him, "I'm sorry." He must know the risks, evaluated it in his own mind and thought it worth it, she was quashing that.

The apology seemed a bit strange, especially since it wasn't really the ensign's fault for pointing out proper procedure. Sometimes his ambition got the best of him, and thinking back on his request, it was probably for the better that they stay off the nebula perimeter. "It's okay, ma'am, I just...would rather know who and what's out there waiting for us." he replied, giving her a small sideways smile. A few more long moments passed and their shuttle slowly approached the next set of coordinates. "I'm running a few more scans of the nebula and sending out another series of pulses." he informed her, tapping his fingers across the LCARS display and once again sending the data to her console so that she could look over it.

Kiri looked over the readings and images slowly, trying to see both any objects or signs of objects. There was a tiny body of matter in the distance, a larger eddy in the nebula in the opposite direction. There were also signs that the nebula was more ionised in the direction the Galileo was travelling. There were nothing more useful than that though, "I don't see anything important, we could recommend a course change once we return." Turning her attention back to piloting she wished there bad been more time to build something to scan more thoroughly.

Dea turned to her companion for the flight. "Have our scans picked up anything yet?" So far it seemed like they were searching a whole lot of nothing, but she just wanted to confirm that feeling scientifically first.

"Not yet," he said as he frowned, watching what he was doing before taking a deeper breath. "I keep thinking I will get something, but then not. Almost as if it is being elusive on purpose..." he glanced at her and gave a weak smile.

"Agreed, I feel the same way," Dea responded in a matter of fact tone. Feeling some slight turbulence as she piloted the shuttle through a more volatile area of the nebula. Checking her displays quickly. "We're nearing last waypoint in our search pattern. One final scan then its time to head back to Galileo."

"Yes ma'am," he nodded and took a deeper breath. "Fingers crossed then."

Livia's tiny impulse engines flared briefly as they passed through some nebula turbulence, and the ensign and chief approached the final waypoint. So far, it had been a rather uneventful scouting mission, but that was probably a good thing, the chief thought. Galileo was in no shape to handle another engagement, especially in the nebula where primary shields weren't functioning. Stretching his neck from side to side, he turned to his Trill companion. "We're approaching the final waypoint...what do you say we run a final scan then head back for home?" he suggested.

Kiri was tired, she had been going since five in the morning, now it was almost midnight. While nothing much had happened, Kiri didn't like to think of it as a waste. What they were doing was mapping the interior of a mostly unexplored nebula. Exploring the unknown, at least a tiny bit of it. Overall her mood was good, even if the mission was a quiet one, she didn't know what to say to the man. He was older than her, different, he seemed normal. Nodding her head Kiri checked her course, "Very well, go ahead." She stifled a yawn with her left hand, feeling bad about appearing weak.

One final time, the chief activated the shuttlecraft's customized sensors and stared at his display as the results came back in. Again forwarding the data to the pilot's console, he glanced over at the ensign after a few moments, waiting for her analysis of the situation. From what he could see, the scope was clear on all fronts, but there was always the chance that he had misinterpreted the data. "I'm not seeing much of anything." he commented, turning his eyes back towards his console.

Kiri did so again, looking over the data and was about to finish when she saw, a something. Right on the edge of sensor range, a dot the same size of the random errors. It was quite far away but it might be something, it could be absolutely nothing at all, that was more than likely, yet. Checking it again she looked to Lamar, it was lozenge in shape, that was odd for an anomaly. She seemed slightly excited, "There might be something, maybe, if the ship were to alter its course towards it." She indicated to where it was on the very edge of the screen. It would also take them away from the more ionised part of the nebula.

Dea figured it was time to check in with the rest of her team, "This is the Virginia. All teams check in. Once we're finished with this final set of scans we're headed home."

As Ensign Cho reported the possible sensor contact, Lamar also head the flight control chief's voice crackle across the comm system asking for a status update. "This is Livia, we have a possible contact bearing 3-1-0 actual. What do you recommend?" he asked, wondering if the lieutenant wanted to investigate further or return to Galileo.

Dea listened to Ensign Cho's report, "Take a closer look quickly and report any findings to me and Galileo. After that head straight back to the ship. The rest of us will prepare to head for home since they're expecting us back shortly."

"Copy, Virginia" he responded, then closed the comm channel. "Well, you heard the lieutenant...let's go take a look." the chief said as he looked over expectantly at the sensor specialist. He was just as curious as her to find out what might lie ahead in the vast nebula.

Not at all happy about being asked to go investigate in person Kiri started to change course and transmit the changes. Moving away from the ship she started to drop speed, clearly looking very apprehensive. With each scan they got a slightly better picture, it wasn't moving and normal sensors still picked up nothing. Kiri's knees started to shake, her arms stiffening, she didn't like the way this felt. She remained silent though, as if something outside would hear her if she made a sound.

"Nervous?" he asked as he suddenly noticed the guarded and tense nature of the ensign. He had to admit, he was a bit anxious also, and turned to keep his eyes on the nebula in front of them for any signs of visual contact. The particles were so dense that he could barely see a hundred meters in front of the craft, and he hoped that the sensors were providing Kiri with enough information.

Her voice as shaky as her legs were Kiri nodded, "Yes, sorry." Forcing her legs to tense to stop them she winced as her left started to cramp. She still tried to keep working, it was getting harder though. The closer they got the less accurate the acoustic pulse system would be, standard sensors still could barely pick up anything. Whatever it was, it was close, maybe even a few tens of kilometres but it could take hours to search. That wouldn't stop her from trying though.

With he eyes turned back to the sensor display, Lamar tried his best to decipher the incoming information, yet was still unable to pinpoint the location of the source. It looked strange, like a possible energy signature, but was not emitting a steady reading. He didn't know what to make of it.

There was nothing conclusive, the sensors on the shuttle just weren't powerful enough to scan the area properly. They were blundering around on the best path she could plot, time was running out though. She was very tired, they were meant to be back at the ship sooner rather than later. It was dangerous, it felt like failure though. It was with clear reluctance that she opened the channel, looking to Lamar, "Sir, I can't find the location or find a clear scan of the object." If ordered she would keep trying, it would be faster if the ship came to look for it though.

"Roger that. You've done what you can. We're enroute back to Galileo. Rejoin the pack and head for home. You gave it your best shot. From here on out all we can do is pass the data onto our superiors. With just the shuttles our resources are limited."

While a strong part of her wanted to keep going and do her duty, more than enough of her said to return to the ship. Kiri had been up for around twenty hours now, she hadn't gotten enough sleep in three days, it was starting to not just show on her face. Adjusting course back towards the ship she let out a louder than expected sigh, looking startled at Lamar, "Sorry." They were going back in one piece, there was no sign of the Klingons, she didn't feel she had made much progress with the Petty Officer though, she only knew his name.

"Guess that's a wrap, then. Wish we had found whatever was emitting that signal, but it's probably best to report it to the XO...maybe Galileo can investigate further." Lamar replied, stretching his neck and leaning back in the chair as their mission was now complete. It didn't take long for them to come about and head for home, and the chief was looking forward to the opportunity to stretch his legs again once they docked.

[OFF]

--

Lieutenant (JG) Dea Mialin
Chief Flight Control Officer
USS Galileo

MCPO Lamar Darius
Chief of the Boat
USS Galileo
NPC'd by Lirha Saalm

ENS Kiri Cho
Science Officer/Sensor Specialist
USS Galileo

Warrant Officer Oliver Sylver
Flight Officer
USS Galileo
NPC'd by Aria Rice

LTJG Nenokah Ral
Asst. Chief Flight Control Officer
USS Galileo
NPC'd by Im'er Mor'an

RSS Feed