Posted by Ensign Elemirre Serinde (Engineering Officer) in Main Sim - Engineering

Posted by Lieutenant Paige Garrison (Chief Engineer) in Main Sim - Engineering

Posted by Ensign Elemirre Serinde (Engineering Officer) in Main Sim - Engineering
Posted by… suppressed (11) by the Post Ghost! 👻
Chief Petty Officer Fiona pushed away from her workstation and looked around, her ginger hair swinging with her sharp motion. Spotting the Chief Engineer lurking not far from her small office the woman made a beeline for her; Fiona disliked middlemen. Often she found herself the ranking NCO on a shift and she liked it that way. “Ma’am,” she said to Paige. “Can I have a word with you?” Her Irish accent made the articulation of you being a bit of a mess sounding partially like you and partially like ye. She’d never quite purged that in her years are articling. Just a touch shorter than the Chief she caught her eye. “It’s about the sensor shadows that ships had reported in our area of concern with the mission.”
- CPO Fiona Cleare, Eng

“Of course,” Paige said turning towards Fiona. “What about them? I’m hoping we aren’t starting to see sensor shadows of our own already.”

Lt. Paige Garrison - CE

“No ma’am,” she said. “Not that I know of. I was thinking .. the typical ships going through here that were experiencing the sensor ghosts were civilian freighters. Our sensors are better than theirs. Not great but better. IF the sensor shadows are ships on the edge of their sensors could we inhibit ours to draw the ghosts in then light them up? I have to think that in the time it takes us to get there we can get a temporary boost to the sensors to help. Bekele, ah, SCPO Seifu knows the sensors and if you need any math to happen Ensign Serinde is your girl.”
CPO Fiona Cleare, Eng

“It’s definitely an idea. Though I’d think who ever is playing out here is going to see us and assume that our sensors are going be better then the freighters. It’s going to be hard to convince them that we are that blind. But you are on to something,” Paige said tapping her chin as she thought.

“If we could get a temporary boost to the sensors, even if it’s a limited window we are able to use it in. Whatever is out there is going to be testing us. We need to be looking for sensor ghosts, especially if there is one going in and out at the very edge of our range. We can turn our sensors that way and boost the power, and hope we can catch them.”

Lt. Paige Garrison - CE

Fiona chewed her lower lip. “Tricky,” she said in her Irish lilt. “It’s easier to get speed out of engines and plate polarizing with brute force. Kinda like a man. Sensors are like us ladies. Pushing in extra power doesn’t often work. We can narrow band the sensors only so far going out that much distance. Pumping in power with them has an inversely proportional effect the farther out you get and the components are a lot more sensitive. They can be pushed a little but the end components are what suffers and are a lot more delicate.” Which was her way of saying she thought that Paige’s idea was good only so far but otherwise was Leprechaun dust.
- CPO Fiona Cleare, Eng

“Fair,” Paige said as she crossed her arms and ideally tapped her fingers as she thought. “What about focusing the sensors to a narrower point? Like putting a lens in front of a light. We would have an idea of where our target is already, so we don’t need a wide view to narrow in on our target.”

Lt. Paige Garrison - CE

Fiona looked at a spot over Paige’s right shoulder. It was what she had done in her days of being a lawyer only then it was over the judge’s right shoulder. “We can only get out what has been put in. Here, let me show ya.” She brought up the sensor controls. “Sensor definition is here. We can do our work up to this point with power,” she said pointing to a spot on the sensor control. “Here is where science takes over. The narrowing of the band is right here and any foolin with that little knob at the end is their department, ah, pardon the pun. They might be able to adjust it both in programming and hardware to bring down that angle for better pinpoint looking. Right now at short range we can hit a bullseye with the sensors. But out further the field just gets wider. We can maybe help with science but I’m thinking it is mostly getting the hardware to work with any software updates.”
Fiona

“And it would be like pulling teeth to get them to understand what they need to do,” Paige muttered under her breath.

“Okay, so improving our sensors is not really going to work, unless we have some magic device sitting in the cargo hold. So back to your original idea, we find a way to disrupt our own signature, drawing these ghosts in for a closer look…” she trailed off as she started thinking of ideas to do that.

Lt. Paige Garrison - CE

“Which would be to only use rear sensors - assuming rear sensors are which have been noted to pick up these ghosts,” she said, “at say 80% capability. If the ships following can pick up notice that we are scanning they could slip in closer thinking we can’t see as far. Then when we detect it we snap sensors on to full and see what lights up?”
- Fiona

“Except we are still going to look like a Starfleet ship, and not just a freighter. Whoever is out there snooping is going to take one look at us and probably not get any closer. So how do we make ourselves look more of a tempting target. Without actually damaging the ship.”

Lt. Paige Garrison - CE

Fiona was in thought. “Do they know? This is a civilian trade route. There are only a handful of ships of ours or similar class and Starfleet is only a few years old. Maybe they don’t know the difference?” She sighed. “Really anyone would look at us and think we’re different. We’re not a huge inter-gen merchant ship crawling along. I doubt we could pass by as a civilian fat trader either . Only real hope is that they don’t think our sensor package is any different.”
- Fiona

“I’d be wary if I was hunting for a fat trading ship and a ship I didn’t recognize came by. You don’t know what kind of fight you could be walking into. From everything I’ve seen these guys are out looking for quick, easy, scores. Unless they were desperate, why would they come after us when they could wait for a more certain target?”

Lt. Paige Garrison - CE

“From what I gather not many are using this route anymore and our traders are not thick as flies by any standard. Motive and opportunity. That is the criminal mind at work. At least human criminal behavior,” she added. “We don’t know motive and are assuming foul intent as they nae bothered the Vulcans that we know of, and if they did they used their vaunted logic to remove themselves from the problem rather than solve it. But with us traveling it is opportunity. And if they have been hanging out waiting for however long then any ship can be opportunity.”
- Fiona

“I’m not quite convinced, but I feel like the Captain would take whatever advantage he could possibly get. Go ahead and run it by the science team, as we’ll unfortunately need their help to successfully pull this off. We might know how the sensors work, but we don’t exactly have the time to sit around to watch the sensors looking for a possible ghost.”

Lt. Paige Garrison - CE