Posted by Lieutenant Darklis Castle (Chief Science Officer) in Main Sim- Science labs

Posted by Civilian T’Pris (Scientist) in Main Sim- Science labs

Posted by Lieutenant McKenzie Lovejoy (Chief Engineer) in Main Sim- Science labs
Posted by… suppressed (18) by the Post Ghost! 👻
NE Boris Becker yawned. He hated his job. At the worst it was dull, at the best it was boring. He often wandered why he went into the Science field. He had been pushed into it of course, by his mother. He should have gone into Security, now that was a job, full of excitement. Something he desperately needed. He spun on his chair for a few minutes and then his computer pinged with a message and large file dump. This is probably for the Chief He thought. They had been expecting the files on the Romulans, specifically the tech they were using. He turned around and looked our for Darkliss or T’Priss that new Civilian.
“Umm… I have the files. If anyone is interested?” He called to the room.

GM Budgie

Bent over a viewer on the far side of the lab, Darklis was going over the sizable file of what were in the latest Holodeck duotronic updates, specifically in the AI documentation. Exciting stuff. To most, no. To her, yes. To this conservative update it was, well, not so much. Hardly toeing the line frontier stuff. Most seemed to do with the realism of the foliage and fauna of different planetary regions. Nothing to do with ‘her’ region of Wolf 359, however. Budgie interrupted her, or saved her. She would figure that out once she heard what he had to say. As a scientist he had to be the most unimaginative one she had known.

“Which, Bor? The How to Build a Better Vole Trap file? The Shen Fui for Starfleet Cabin Design file? The Basics of Binar Speak? The Historical Catalogue of Cat Memes? Bonsai for Dummies?”
- Darklis, CSO

Boris stretched lazily as he looked at the file.
“Its the technical specifications of that weird Romulan group. The ones who kidnapped that Commodore. Will I ping them over to you?” He asked.

GM Budgie

DC glanced at the documentation file and sighed. Romulans trumped upgrade specs, though really, sitting on a prickly cactus would trump looking at upgrade specs. It had begun as an exercise in anticipation of something good and ended up being subtle variances in leaves blowing in the wind. Some days a girl just did not get lucky. She looked around and settled on one of the partially sectioned off alcoves. There was space for the sectionals to make three at the far side of the lab. Currently one was partitioned. “Send it to Alcove A,” she said, shutting down the file she was looking at.

“Aye.” Boris replied yawning slightly. He tapped away and with a “ping!” the files were instantly transferred over to the Alcove A computer.
“There ya’ go!” He called when it was done.

“Thanks!” she called over. Hearing the ping she waited ..
“Is it usually this slow?” she asked Cash. “Maybe the file is large?” Seemed bizarre.

“Cash is weird,” she said.
“Heard that!” came the squeaky voice of the Ferengi, mostly hidden amongst boxes at the other end.
“Romulans are just .. different.”
“And I’m a run of the mill Whillian tube grub,” Cash said, poking his stubby head over the boxes.
“There is nothing run of the mill about you, Cash,” DC said. What were his parents thinking when naming him!? Of course she could speak for herself ..
“You’ve not tried to find out yet,” he said with a wheedling inviting tone.
“Well get your ears over here and look at this with me,” she said, “before someone accidentally packs you away in one of those crates.”

Darklis moved over to the Alcove and brought up the wall screen then took a seat on the stool at the island. On the display she linked it so she could manipulate the larger screen there. Why anyone would want to stand around a screen when one could do this? But to each their own. Cash joined her as she was bringing up the file. “Let’s see what we’ve got.”
- Darklis, CSO

The screen blinkered as it pulled up the file, slower than it probably should have. Clearly this was a system that had some.....quirks. Much like the crew. The information on the Romulan splinter group Imperial Sabre was there. More specifically the tech they were currently known to use. There was information on the vessels they were known to have available, weapons and an odd category called, “Misc”. All Darkliss and Cash would need to do is define a starting point. The computer was.....ready (just).

GM Budgie

Darklis tapped a nail against the tabletop, unconsciously willing the file to load. Cash cleared his throat. She looked over at him.
He looked at her then down to her nail then back up to her.
She looked down at her nail then up at him.
He looked at her then down to her nail then back up to her.
Suddenly, “Oh, sorry!” She stopped the tapping.
“Ears. Sensitive.”

The screen flared to life and a myriad of things came up. She was not a tactician. She was a mathematician. Her eyes flitted about. Where to start. She knew Cash was looking at her, waiting for her to pick something. She sighed. It was all the same mush to her. “Might as well start at the beginning,” she said, choosing the option to learn about the Sabre Group. While she waited for that to form she tapped her badge.

=^= Castle to T’Pris. Our data is in. Please join us in the lab. =^=
- Darklis Castle, CSO

=^=On my way, Lieutenant.=^= T’Pris said. Within five minutes the Vulcan woman entered the lab and seeing the two of them at the round table, made her way over and slid onto a stool, nodding to Cash. “How may I be of assistance, Lieutenant?”

~Dr. T’Pris

Cash let out a happy sound. “Ahhh .. like a tube grub between two swamp lilies.”
“I’ll provisionally take that as a compliment, Cash,” DC said with a sidelong glance at the all too happy look of the Ferengi. “At least until I’ve seen what a swamp lily looks like.” She was able to look at T’Pris over top of Cash’s shorter head and gave a little shrug. She had no clue what that would look like. “You know if we don’t like it we might be calling you Tubie after that.”

T’Pris just raised her eyebrows and made no comment.

She made only a quick pause.
“But .. thank you T’Pris for coming so quickly. We’ve just gotten the data on this Romulan group and have just pulled up the data on it. Cash joins us here. His specialty is meteorology and atmospheric conditions in general but seems to have a keen eye for ship condition.”
“Comes from being in used shuttle sales,” Cash muttered as though somewhat embarrassed about that.
- DC and Cash

The computer whirled to life as they requested to learn about the make up of the Imperial Sabre fleet. It brought up the page on the specifics of the fleet and the vessels Imperial Sabre were known to use it was made up of the following:

Two Red Lady type warbirds and Ten D’Deridex warbirds. Darkliss, T’Priss and Cash would see that there was also speculation on that page that there may be more and potentially one, or more Valdore type vessels. The Intelligence agent had made a note to say that it had been difficult to calculate just how many ships made up the flee owing to the cloaking technology and the fact that Imperial Sabre seemed to move their location relatively frequently. The Intelligence agent had made a note at the bottom of the page that read “formidable” in bold.

GM Budgie

T’Pris frowned as she read the list. “That’s an armada, not just a strike group. 10 D’Deridex? With this gathering of ships I would definitely think that this Sabre group must have government backing, officially or unofficially. Formidable is accurate.”

~Dr. T’Pris

The young Chief engineer was walking passed and overheard some sort of conversation. She then went by and walked in. She then looked at two other people that she doesn’t know but then again was confused. “Hello I am Lieutenant McKenzie Lovejoy Chief Engineer. I was told that there were some specs I might have to look at.” She said wondering what was going on. “However, I’m not sure what is needed to be done. I’ve just been transfered here not long so I’m learning where everyone is at.” She added with not so much of a confused look.

Lieutenant McKenzie Lovejoy
Chief Engineering Officer
U.S.S. Wolverine

T’Pris looked up at the CE’s approach and nodded in greeting, but did not speak leaving it to Castle to update the Engineer.

~Dr. T’Pris

The Lt who came in was lovely. Darklis thought her eyes were striking. She wore engineering gold which did match her introduction. Well the more the merrier. Glancing down DC thought that Cash was practically purring. “Well met, Lt Lovejoy.” An interesting name. “This is Dr T’Pris and Ensign Cash. We have just received this relating to the Romulan splinter group. We welcome your eye for ships.” Really, DC felt at the glance of these ships that she was over her head and thankful that T’Pris was there even though her initial speculation was pretty evident.

<snip>

Boris sat in silence at his desk, he had been listening to the others chat away. Then the silence had grown and was starting to become slightly uncomfortable. He coughed and then moved over to the group and saw the screen and whistled when he saw the ships.
“That’s a LOT of ships. I wander where they got those!” He exclaimed.

GM Budgie

“Lieutenant, these are the ships that make up Sabre. I was remarking that they looked more like an Armada. Is there any way to find out how they amassed them all?” She asked looking at Boris.

~Dr. T’Pris

“They are impressive. But I am wondering how they did it like that,” She said.

Lieutenant McKenzie Lovejoy
Chief Engineering Officer
U.S.S. Wolverine

“You’re right. That is more of a fleet.” She thought of the massed fleet that had been at 359 with the Borg. While larger than this group it was all Starfleet was able to muster there. This battle group - which it looked more like it was - was enough threaten any system at all. If they came en masse which system could really stop them from pillaging what they wanted - well some of the larger shipyard facilities would have defenses enough for that. But still. And THAT line of thinking was what had called her up short for speech. She had heard of the big battle. It had been the year that Costi, her brother, had been born and she grew up with images of that battle being told over and over to the point of her having nightmares of it, of the bad Borg coming for them. Ultimately they hadn’t but simply crushed the fleet and moved on as though they who lived in the system were nothing. But that had not stopped her wild imagination from running rampant. Fast forward all these years and she was still nervous about it.

“Right now we’re just examining the files we received,” she said again to Lovejoy. “That is a good question. At least 14 vessels. Each of these are formidable.” She was talking as she was thinking so the words were just coming out. “Where are the scouts and smaller ships here? Surely they don’t just stomp their way along through space like a pack of Ogres with a big club. And these ships are clubs. That isn’t how the Romulans work, is it? Aren’t they .. sneakier?” she asked, looking to T’Pris.

“Usually, yes. This is entirely unlike them. I would say it would more likely be a Klingon maneuver rather than Romulan. Romulans are rarely so…overt.”

“So then,” DC began, thinking, “Where does this leave us? Either they are simply that overt or, because they are sneaky by nature they do have a contingent of smaller vessels that are enlisted to do their covert work and are confident in that while revealing their clubs as what? A sign of intimidation? But to whom? I’m sure they are not going on intending to charge into the Federation, and if we know,” and here DC makes quotation signs with her fingers when she said ‘we’, “these ships exist then the Romulans know they exist. Wouldn’t that put a big target on their back for revealing their hand?”

“Well, to find out where they got those …” she began. Cash chimed in.
“While we’re not going to get registrations most probably, we have two things we can do.” His short fingers counted off. “First, what are their names? If we have them we can run a trace on that. Maybe if the names are unchanged we might get lucky and find out where it was built. Or where it was first seen and where and maybe in whose ownership. Second, if they’ve changed the names of captured ships like some of them might be, or purchased, each ship has its own unique signature from their engines - both warp and impulse. If we knew those that might have a match even if they changed their name.”

DC nodded. “Is that right?” she asked Lovejoy.
Cash said, “I sold ships. Take my word on it.”
DC wondered if that was something wise .. but she nodded again. “Is there anything in the files on signatures or names of these ships?” she asked, inviting the others to search while she thought, chewing her bottom lip as she stared at the ‘armada’. What did they need ‘that’ for?
- Darklis, CSO

“I mean yeah it could be right but I’m only a Chief engineer so I’m still learning all the specs. However, with these type vessels it’s all always difficult to learn them when you’re not on board. However like you said we need to know ship names.” She said.

Lieutenant McKenzie Lovejoy
Chief Engineering Officer
U.S.S. Wolverine

Cash tipped his head to one side and looked at Lovejoy as though trying to figure what it was she was saying. “How would you trace a ship?” he asked. “Say the last one you were on which you knew more about?”

“As I stated. I’m only an engineer. Now then I was a comms officer. Two different positions. Now however, we could always trace the warp signature or warp particles.” She said as she started being a smart allek.

T’Pris listened quietly while the others spoke, her eyes going to each one in turn, studying them as she absorbed what they were saying. Then she turned to the computer, “Computer, research the names of these ships and give us any history you have on them.” She ordered.

~Dr. T’Pris

Darklis, CSO

Lieutenant McKenzie Lovejoy
Chief Engineering Officer
U.S.S. Wolverine