Getting down to business

Posted on Mon Jun 15th, 2020 @ 8:49pm by Lieutenant Commander William Gunnison & Lieutenant JG Stephanie McMillan & Chief Petty Officer Benjamin Thor

Mission: Into The Delta Triangle
Location: Main Engineering

Will headed to Main Engineering. Interestingly, this would mark one of his first visits to the area, even in all the time that he'd been on board. Upon arrival, he looked around.

"Can I help you, Lieutenant?" an engineer asked.

"Yes, I'm looking for Chief Thor and Lt. McMillan," Will said.

"The chief probably is up to his elbows in something, last I saw he went into that jefferies tube," the engineer says pointing at one of the access hatches. "The lieutenant, I'm not sure where she..."

Another hatch opened, and Stephanie swung out feet first onto the deck.

"That takes care of the EPS relays on Deck 5," Stephanie said, grabbing her tool kit, "I'm heading to join the Chief to finish the sync adjustments."

"Lt. McMillian?" Will said. "You have good timing. I was just looking for you."

Stephanie stopped and faced Will, brushing a free hand off on her pants.

"Timing's all part of the job," she said with a grin, "How can I help?"

"I don't think we've formally met," Will said. "I'm Lt. Will Gunnison, the chief of operations."

Stephanie brushed off her other hand and held it out, "Lieutenant JG Stephanie McMillan, sir. Assistant Chief Engineer," she said with a smile.

"Anyway, the captain wants us to do some prep work on both the Astraea and a couple of shuttles for the upcoming mission, so I thought I'd come to you and Chief Thor to get the ball rolling on that."

"Fair enough. I believe the Chief is on Deck 5 or somewhere about there. What's the prep work, if I may ask?" Stephanie asked, setting her tool kit down on one of the tables.

Another Jefferies tube hatch opened and Ben walked in dusting himself down. "Ahhh Will, here for the shuttles right?" he said, spotting the lieutenant.

"Guilty as charged," Will said. "Eager to get to work on 'em?"

"Not so much eager, but we certainly can get on with it now." Ben replied smiling.

"Hey, Chief." She said to her superior, before turning to the Ops Officer.

"It's not a problem at all, but again, what's the prep work we're doing?" Stephanie asked again.

"There are two objectives here," Will said. "We're heading into the Delta Triangle area, specifically the Kessik system. Officially Federation space, but also a popular smuggler and black market area, so we want to...well, not so much avoid detect as to make the locals think we're not Starfleet if they should detect us. We'll be sending in two away teams, so we're to first - and in some ways this is probably the main objective - is to disguise two of our shuttles sufficiently to make them look like either non-Starleet at a distance, or at least former Starfleet if anyone should take a closer look, by making cosmetic changes to the outer hull and making adjustments to the warp signature and transponders. Then, if possible, we work to disguise the warp signature and transponder of the Astraea so that the ship can get as close as possible to the Kessik system without arousing suspicion, to cut down on as much travel time as possible in case the ship needs to swoop in to bail out one or both away teams."

"Ah." Stephanie nodded, "Yeah, that'll be an interesting one. The shuttle will be easy enough, we'll need to make some adjustments here and there, and the external modifications will just need to be some fabrication work. As for the Astrea herself...we can make something work at long range, but our emissions aren't going to be easy to mask at close range. It's not just warp signature, we also need to look at impulse and even our shields and deflector array."

She glanced at Thor, "How do you want to tackle it?"

"Yeah the shuttles just need markings stripped, a few scorch marks added and the transponders to be made out to be on the fritz, or for ships that have been lost in the area." Ben started buying himself some time. "For the Astrea in the short term we could definitely run dark in the middle of nowhere. As for for disguising the warp signature that will take some time researching but the transponder should be easy to adjust to something like a freighter. But without changing the warp signature people checking things will notice."

Will nodded. "The shuttles should probably get the higher priority, since they're the ones that will actually be going in. The Astraea's modifications should be reasonable for the amount of time we have, with the intent of getting the ship at least a little bit closer that we'd be able to otherwise. That way, if the captain has to bring the entire ship in for any sort of rescue or any other emergency, the ship can arrive as quickly as possible. Sometimes, a matter of minutes, if not seconds, can mean the difference between success and failure."

"Well no time like the present, shall we get going?" Ben replied gesturing towards the door.

"Fair enough," Stephanie said and picked up her tool kit once more. "Let's get it going."

Will turned and headed towards the ultimate destination of the shuttlebay. The clock was ticking, and there was indeed no time like the present.