SD241407.03 || Joint Duty Log || LtCmdr Dahe'el & Lt Zola, CEO & AEO || "Fresh perspectives... follow your ears?"
Posted on Thu Jul 3rd, 2014 @ 10:19pm by
1,187 words; about a 6 minute read
Mission: In the Dark
=/\= USS Vindicator =/\=
The ride back up from the planet took a little while, but Almar was looking forward to it, as soon as the hatch opened he was greeted by the perfect temperature again, the teams on the planet had been gone for a while and he needed the enhanced sensors of the Discovery Class ship, trying to find them using the limited pallets of the runabout was proving to be near impossible, engineering was his first destination and the Cardassian made his way there as soon as he could.
Zola arrived upon the Vindicator to a lot of activity. She couldn't get an answer as to what was going on since everyone was busy, but she could tell there was no time to waste reporting for duty. She knew this energy level, every able hand on deck because time is of the essence.
=/\= Main Engineering, USS Vindicator =/\=
She found engineering quickly, and looked for the chief engineer. He wasn't hard to find, Cardassians stand out among hew-mons, regardless of their intent.
Almar had planted himself firmly at the master display for the sensor control grid, with both the XO and CO on the planet the Cardassian found himself in command of the ship, he's stripped all priorities from the grid and lowered the Vindicator's orbit, interference was still a problem but the enhanced pallets were managing to break through it, it was just taking time to narrow the resolution.
Zola approached, shifting her large duffel on her shoulder, and paused. He looked busy, should I really disturb him? she thought to herself, then shook her head. If I'm no help, he'll send me off, but if I am, he'll welcome the interruption... as long as I don't linger if he doesn't need my help.
"Sir?" Zola said softly as she walked up. "Lieutenant Zola reporting for duty?"
"Any good with sensors Ferengi?" the Cardassian replied without even looking, his eyes were fixed on the monitor and his hands flew across the console below with a practiced ease.
"In theory," Zola said, looking towards his display without moving closer. Due to the circumstances of her catch up training, Zola hadn't gotten much hands on practice with the newer technology yet, but considering she'd gotten into the Academy originally based upon her theoretical knowledge, she should be fine, right? "What's the challenge, sir?"
"Somewhere on that frozen hell they call a planet is our command staff, the CO and XO are down there and have been out of contact for some time." Almar replied as he stood up straight and looked over and down slightly at the newcomer, "We have to try and locate them through the interference."
Zola tilted her head back a moment to look up at the Cardassian - only for a moment though - then she dropped her eyes to the screen again. If she hadn't already spent so much time around so many tall people, she'd have been intimidated by him towering nearly a foot and a half above her.
"What's the nature of the interference?" she asked, dropping her large duffel bag from her shoulder. She half kicked it, trying to shove it out of the way, but it didn't move. "May I?" she nodded towards the console instead of assuming she'd been invited to look closer. So many other engineers didn't bother to ask in such a situation, but she'd never been able to break the manners her people cultivate, even if only to set business partners at ease.
"I can't quite isolate it, it seems to rotate and change as soon as we begin to make some headway, we've managed to clean it up and stabilise it enough to get a visual and partial lifesigns, but we cannot localise them." the Cardassian replied as he took a step back for a moment, "It seems to me that it is not a natural occurrence."
Zola nodded as she stepped up to the screen and skimmed over the data quickly. "If the interference is artificial, there's likely a pattern to how it's changing. Random number generators are never truly random anyways, so we should probably set the computer to analyzing the logs of the interference, and see if the pattern's frequent enough it can work it out. It may not pay off, but it's something that can run in the background." As she explained this, she set the computer to the task.
"How big of an area have we narrowed their locations to? A few kilometers, half the planet?" Zola had a crazy idea, and while she didn't even know if it was really possible, she was willing to take point on it and let Lieutenant Commander Dahe'el continue to focus on his current approach if he liked.
"By now, they could be anywhere on the planet," the Cardassian replied with a grimace as he bought up the last logs they had from the runabout, "We know a rough direction the team set out, but nothing definite."
Zola frowned, as that information pretty much killed her idea... but maybe if she told him what she'd been thinking of, he could find a way to change it to work? It might be too crazy though.
"I had been hoping we had a little smaller area to work with. I wanted to send in probes with microphones, really sensitive ones, listening? We'd have their heart beat patterns in their medical records, and you said it was a frozen hell down there... frozen places are usually pretty quiet." Zola shook her head with a sigh. "I'm probably just thinking with my ears too much again, it's just some people forget about more analog sources of data when jamming things."
"If we can make them small enough, then we could launch thousands of them and cover a much larger area," Almar replied as he scratched the scales on his neck, "If you get the software ready, contact the cybernetics lab with the equipment you'll need and see what they can fabricate."
"Yes sir!" Zola grinned, showing off two dainty rows of very sharp little teeth. "Right away, sir," she insisted, already starting to plan in her head how to do it as she started off. She didn't get far before she realized she'd left her duffel sitting on the floor next to the Cardassian.
"Excuse me, sir," she murmured as she spread her feet, grabbed the duffel by the strap with both hands, and quickly yanked it up from the floor. She stumbled backwards a couple steps before she got it until control, then swung it around to hang it over her shoulder and set herself spinning a couple times.
"Borrow my office if you need to, I'm going to do something to increase our chances of finding them." the Cardassian replied as he strode towards the blast doors, "I'll be on the bridge, let me know when you're ready Lieutenant... and welcome to the Vindicator." he added with a curt nod before he turned the corner towards the turbolift.
(To Be Continued...)
Lieutenant Commander Almar Dahe'el
Chief Engineering Officer
&
Lieutenant Zola
Engineering Officer
USS Vindicator
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