[snip]

It was a very short time later, and once everyone needed was situated on the bridge and Glen had come up, NLt Becker spoke near one of the side stations. “..Sir station control has freed us from docking clamps, we’re free to proceed on our mission..” he reported.

NE Samson by helm added, “..At Warp 3 we will arrived at The Honey Pot in less then 20 minutes..” he added.

NE Coals by comms, then chimed in, “..DS K-5 has also forwarded access codes for the USS Trudograd as well as access control for their earlier dropped buoys, once we get closer we can tie into them for relaying back findings ourselves to K-5.” she said.

“Let’s do it!” Captain Glen, told NE Samson. “Ahead Warp factor three!”

”..Aye sir” Samson said, the Merrimack soon leaping to warp. Their short jaunt was true to the estimate and 19 minutes and 45 seconds later they arrived at the border of The Honeypot. “..Dropping from warp now sir.” Samson said.

Coals also chimed in, “..I’ve picked up the Trudograd’s first comm buoy and signal of the next one ahead into the Honeypot, they’ve accepted our access and control codes and can be used as we wish for relaying our own scans and comms back to DS K-5..” he said.

”..Shall we head in Captain?” Samson asked.

Scans of the immediate area outside the nebula showed nothing amiss, just the first buoy of the Trudograd and indications of the second in a line further inside. Helium gases were high but not a threat, though other trace gases and the rest mentioned of were in low quantities. True enough they would have problems with their shields and sensors being reduced or ineffective. They could proceed inside soon as Glen gave the order.

Max felt the ship coming to a stop and heard the engines stopping. He then wanted to reach to the bridge to verify if they were fixing to enter the nebula. He then hit is comm button on his station and said =/\=Lt Mullins to the Bridge. Are we near the nebula and we are going to turn everything off in order to go in? Please notify me so I am aware and can keep an eye on things down here. Mullins out.=/\= Mullins wanted to be in the loop of everything going on, especially once the ship entered the nebula with all the things which might go wrong. He waited to hear back from the bridge.

Glen replied to Max =/\= Captain to Engineering. Yes, we have arrived at the Honeypot. Please don’t turn everything off! If the Shields are useless and you think they may be damaged then please do power them down. Otherwise, let us proceed as normal. =/\=

Max thought the captain’s idea was much better than just turning things off to turn things off. He then responded to the captain =/\=Very well captain. I agree with you on not randomly turning stuff off. =/\= He then started hitting the combination of buttons his station to be able to get the needed alerts based on things going on or could go on with the nebula to give Max the needed warning in order to do stuff based on how the ship was affected by the nebula. He also wanted to run a diagnostic to make sure the things on the ship were in tip top working condition. He hit the buttons on the desk in order to run the diagnostic on the shields and engines without affecting the normal movement of the ship. He waited for a response from the computer on both of these items.

=/\= You may wish to first calculate the background frequency of the nebulae and synchronise the shields to better protect us. =/\= Glen tried to be helpful.

During his bedtime reading, Glen had recently read in the Starfleet Journal of Shield Engineers about the use of nanocochrane stabilisers in stabilising shield frequencies, and so allowing their synchronisation into a more dynamic configuration, with the generation of overlapping subspace fields, also known as metaphasic shielding. Unfortunately, neither the original specifications of the Merrimack, or it’s futuristic upgrades had allowed for such a thing, and Max would need to reply on old fashioned methods of synchronising the shield frequency to the Warp field itself.

Glen then instructed NE Coals, “Before we enter can we send a Com forward using the USS Trudograd’s earlier dropped buoys and is there some way of telling how far it gets before it is cut or blocked? That would give us an indication of where the problem is, if not what it is.”

“Samson,” Glen asked Helm, “plot a course into the nebula, but let’s try to use the Coms first, so await my order before going in.”

Glen asked his new CSO, “Xavier, are you happy with the composition and distribution of gases? is this as you expected? Can you do anything to improve the sensors?”

“Verity,” Glen asked his XO, “Your thoughts might be useful too?”

“If the nebula gas composition results in the loss of sensors and shields, do you think we could reroute emergency power through the Rodium deflector shell? That should compensate for any static discharge from the subspace field distortion amplifier, that we might see between the amplifier and the eight shield generators within the space frame.

• Glen, CO