USS Spectre Compile - December 1st-31st 2011 by Alan Reading ========================================================================= Mission: Slipstream Day: 1 Stardate: 2414.03.10 (USS Spectre - Outside Laboratory 2 - ACSO, Ensign Teverine Tolqu - 16:11) (USS Spectre - Outside the Science Department, Laboratory 2 - ACEO, Ensign Remae Ktell - 16:13) (USS Spectre - Science Department - Laboratory 2 - SciO, Ens John Linskens - 16:13) (USS Spectre - Science Department - Laboratory 2 - SciO, Ens John Linskens - 16:15) (USS Spectre - Science Department, Laboratory 2 - SciO, Ens(jg) Catriona Macbeth - 16:16) (USS Spectre - Science Department - Laboratory 2 - Ensign Remae Ktell - 16:22) (USS Spectre - Outside the Science Department, Laboratory 2 - ACEO, Ensign Remae Ktell - 16:25) (USS Spectre - Science Department, Laboratory 2 - SciO, Ens John Linskens - 16:26) (USS Spectre - Captain's Ready Room - CO, Captain T'Vhor - 16:34) (USS Spectre - Ready Room - Laboratory 2 - Ensign Remae Ktell - 16:35) (USS Spectre - Captain's Ready Room – ASCO, Ensign Teverine Tolqu - 16:35) (USS Spectre - Captain's Ready Room - ACEO, Ensign Remae Ktell - 16:36) (USSSpectre - Turbo Lift 2 – ASCO, Ensign Teverine Tolqu - 16:37) (USS Spectre - Turbolift Two - ACEO, Ensign Remae Ktell - 16:38) (Station Station Echo One Zero - Deck 15, Sector 8, Surveillance hub – COUNS, Ensign, Oggie Marsh – 16:42) (Station Station Echo One Zero - Deck 15, Sector 8, Surveillance hub – ACMO, Ensign(jg), Zia Kirrin – 16:43) (Station Station Echo One Zero - Deck 15, Sector 8, Surveillance hub – COUNS, Ens Oggie Marsh – 16:45) (Station Station Echo One Zero - Deck 15, Sector 8, Surveillance hub – FO, Commander Andrew Williams – 16:55) (Station Station Echo One Zero - Deck 15, Sector 8, Surveillance hub – ACMO, Ens(jg) Zia Kirrin – 16:56) (Station Station Echo One Zero - Deck 15, Sector 8, Surveillance hub – COUNS,Ens, Oggie Marsh - 16:57) (USS Spectre - Science Department, Laboratory 2 - SciO, Ens John Linskens - 17:02) (Station Station Echo One Zero - Deck 15, Sector 8, Surveillance hub – ACMO, Ens(jg) Zia Kirrin - 17:05) (Station Station Echo One Zero - Deck 15, Sector 8, Surveillance hub – FO, Commander Andrew Williams - 17:08) (Station Station Echo One Zero - Deck 15, Sector 8, Surveillance hub – COUNS, Ens Oggie Marsh - 17:10) (Station Station Echo One Zero - Deck 15, Sector 8, Surveillance hub – ACMO, Ens(jg) Zia Kirrin - 17:11) (Station Station Echo One Zero - Deck 15, Sector 8, Surveillance hub – FO, Commander Andrew Williams - 17:13) (Station Station Echo One Zero - Deck 15, Sector 8, Surveillance hub – COUNS, Ens Oggie Marsh - 17:14) (Station Echo One Zero - Corridor – MXO, Major Bruce Kowalski - 17:14) (USS Spectre - Laboratory 2 - SciO, Ens John Linskens - 17:25) (USS Spectre - Laboratory 2 - SciO, Ens(jg) Catriona Macbeth - 17:30) (Station Station Echo One Zero - Deck 15, Sector 8, Surveillance hub – ACMO, Ens(jg) Zia Kirrin - 17:36) (Station Echo One Zero - Deck 15, Sector 8, Surveillance hub – FO, Commander Andrew Williams - 17:37) (Station Echo One Zero - Deck 15, Sector 8, Surveillance hub – ACMO, Ens(jg) Zia Kirrin - 17:39) (USS Spectre - Laboratory 2 - SciO, Ens John Linskens - 17:40) (USS Spectre - Laboratory 2 - SciO, Ens(jg) Catriona Macbeth - 17:41) (Station Station Echo One Zero - Deck 15, Sector 8, Surveillance hub – COUNS, Ens Oggie Marsh - 17:42) (Station Echo One Zero - Deck 15, Sector 8, Surveillance hub - SO, Ensign Nathanial Yates - 17:44) (USS Mithrandir - FO's Office - aCEO, Ensign Hank Stevens - 17:44) (USS Mithrandir - FO's Office - Mithrandir FO, Lieutenant Syuvik - 17:45) (USS Mithrandir - FO's Office - Mithrandir CEO, Ensign M'Elissa - 17:45) (USS Spectre - Cockpit, Shuttle "Gonzo the Great" - ACEO, Ensign Remae Ktell - 17:45) (Station Echo One Zero - Deck 15, Sector 8, Surveillance hub - COUNS, Ensign Oggie Marsh - 17:46) (Station Echo One Zero - Deck 15, Sector 8, Surveillance hub - SO, Ensign Nathanial Yates - 17:47) (Station Echo One Zero - Deck 15, Sector 8, Surveillance hub - ACMO, Ens(jg) Zia Kirrin - 17:48) (USS Spectre - Shuttle "Gonzo the Great" - SciO, Ens John Linskens - 17:55) (USS Spectre - Shuttle "Gonzo the Great" - SciO, Ens(jg), Catriona Macbeth - 17:57) (USS Spectre – Bridge – CO, Captain T'Vhor – 17:58) (USS Spectre – Bridge - Ops, Ensign Robert Smith – 18:00) (USS Spectre – Bridge - OPS, Ensign Robert Smith – 18:03) (USS Spectre - Cockpit - Shuttle "Gonzo the Great" - SciO, Ens John Linskens - 18:04) (USS Spectre - Cockpit, Shuttle "Gonzo the Great" - SciO, Ens John Linskens - 18:15) (USS Spectre - Cockpit, Shuttle "Gonzo the Great" - SciO, Ens(jg) Catriona Macbeth - 18:20) (USS Spectre - Cockpit, Shuttle "Gonzo the Great" - SciO, Ens John Linskens - 18:21) (USS Spectre - Cockpit - Shuttle "Gonzo the Great" - SciO, Ens John Linskens - 18:22) (USS Spectre - Cockpit - Shuttle "Gonzo the Great" - SciO, Ens John Linskens - 18:35) (USS Spectre - Bridge - CO, Captain T'Vhor - 18:37) (USS Spectre - Cockpit - Shuttle "Gonzo the Great" - SciO, Ens John Linskens - 18:38) (USS Mithrandir - Observation Lounge - Mithrandir ACTO, Ensign Daniel Boone - 19:04) (USS Mithrandir - SC's Office - Mithrandir SC, Lieutenant Ayehla Zyahn/FO Lieutenant Syuvik - 19:32) (USS Mithrandir - Bridge, Aux Tactical Station - ACTO Ens Daniel Boone - 19:55) (USS Mithrandir - FO's Office - Mithrandir FO, Lieutenant Syvuik - 19:57) ========================================================================= Mission: Slipstream Day: 1 Stardate: 2414.03.10 (USS Spectre - Outside Laboratory 2 - ACSO, Ensign Teverine Tolqu - 16:11) Teverine walked out the door with Remae, his sudden burst of anger had left him feeling drained and confused. ~Why the hell am I acting this way, a few months ago I wouldn’t of said boo to a goose~ Teverine had recently been going into longer and longer bouts of depression, he felt he had acted the fool, he knew almost immediately if he reported this to the CO he would be just as much to blame if not more. Teverine couldn’t fathom why he was feeling so much hatred towards Starfleet and anything associated with it, yet at the same time, he kept fighting the feeling, it seemed a different person was fighting to brake through. Teverine looked up from his thoughts as Remae asked the computer where the CO was located, Teverine looked at the Bajoran. Remae was tall and self assured by his natural demure and stance. Teverine wanted to ask his advice wanted to know what was wrong with him, yet looking at his Starfleet badge he felt another sudden flash of emotion. As they walked Teverine knew he kept glancing towards Remae. From his irritated look Remae knew it to. "Ensign, do you want to speak to me about something?" Teverine took a sigh, if he didn’t start confiding in people he knew he would never stop this spiral of decent. “Yes Ktell..” Before he could conintue Remae interceded "Please, its Ensign Remae…I didn't care for the correct use of my name until more recently but if you don't mind, I'd appreciate it Teverine knew he was being warm and freidnly and his smile assured Teverine he should say something. “Sorry Remae, I have been having some…” Teveirne paused and let out a deep breath and quickly decieded to change tact, he wasn’t ready just yet to talk about everything, this time his voice was firmer. “I handled that situation terribly didn’t I ?” (Reply Remae) Teverine nodded as Remae spoke and pondered his words for a moment. “What would you of done?” (Reply Remae) (Posted by Peter Richards) (USS Spectre - Outside the Science Department, Laboratory 2 - ACEO, Ensign Remae Ktell - 16:13) Remae was listening to Tolqu, he seemed a little embarrassed, as far as he could tell. “I handled that situation terribly didn’t I?”, he seemed to admit and the Bajoran's Counselling background took over as he assessed the Ensign for a moment. "Getting angry and losing your cool so that you began to ‘sparkle’? Well, I wouldn't say it was the best reaction not given that you're going to be encountering far worse than our favourite eccentric Science Officer.", he said before adding as they started walking towards the turbolift, "Plus, I also suspect that Ensign Linskens thrives on being on the edge, and is probably is as smart as he seems.” “What would you of done?”, he said and Remae laughed for a moment. "With Linkens thumbing nose with authority? Starfleet doesn't want mindless officers who obey orders and just do their jobs. It’s very important they do but without independent thought, what’s the point?", he said shrugging his shoulders before adding, “The CO knows that… all the good COs do.”, he said as the Ensign considered what he has said. (Reply Any) (Posted by Anthony Keen) (USS Spectre - Science Department - Laboratory 2 - SciO, Ens John Linskens - 16:13) John regarded the Ornaran as he tried to dress him down. John nearly laughed out loud. The ACSO wasn't the first one to try that and most likely would not be the last, either. The unexpected ferocity of the verbal assault made him nearly shake his head but something told him that that might not have been the wisest of moves. To give his head something to do, just so that it wouldn't shake on its own accord, John looked the ACSO up and down. When his eyes reached the Ornaran's hands, John noticed the arcs of energy erupting. ~Oooh, I forgot that he could do that," John thought with a sudden surge of total fascination. Almost instinctively he sniffed the air and nodded slightly as the nostrils stung a bit with ozone. ~Of course, energy and two atomed oxygen creates a tri-oxygen. That is *one* neat party trick. I wonder if I could learn how to do that. Hmmm, probably not. You probably need some contacts of some sort and an accumulator to build up the charge. But I guess I could have them surgically installed. I wonder how you are controlling it, though. Would it be .....~ John's thought were cut short by Cat's interruption. Not having fully grasped her response, John frowned for a second then tried the always reasonably safe: "Yes, sure. Sounds good.". Luckily Cat then turned her attention to Tevvie, allowing John to pick up his line of thoughts again. ~Now then, control mechanisms. Must be a physical signal giver there plus a flow reductor? Must have a flow reductor. You wouldn't want to wake up burnt to a crisp just because your mind was a bit active during the night. Doesn't make sense. Might be a flow controller, actually. Should give you a bonus with regards to power consumption control. But how would you build an organic flow controller?~ For just a fraction of a second John considered hitting the ACSO unconscious just so he could examine the Ornaran physiology where he expected the 'cache of goodies' to be but he then noticed the ACSO *and* Cat looking at him, Tevvie having his hand extended towards John with his tricorder in it. ~Uhhh, did I miss something?~ John tried to remember what was actually said but not really having listened, he had no clue what was expected of him. Then John remembered what had it all started off and also his suggestion that Tevvie should ask the old man. Obviously the tricorder was required for that, even if John had no idea how. ~He doesn't want me .... naaaah, that would be silly .......use a tricorder for idea transfer??? Hmmm, that would actually be rather nifty if it wasn't so ..... stupid?" John shook his head. "I'll do you one better," he said as he turned to his station and picked up a padd which he hastily cleared and entered some data on it. He then reread it and shook his head. Unless the CO was very smart, he wouldn't have a clue what John was referring to so John cleared the padd again and with the tip of the tongue between his lips John free-drew a picture on the padd of a matchstick man in a circle. John had never been good at free-hand drawing so he thought he should keep it simple. He added an arrow next to the circle and wrote down personal phase bubble next to the arrow. Then he added a bigger circle around the man and his circle and drew a bigger arrow and added the words station's phase bubble. Thinking that he must have explained the underpinning idea sufficiently, John then typed in the sixteen formulas that described the phase potential instigation using a phase coil, then describing how he was expecting to control the phase-shifting using relatively simple control mechanisms. After another thought he wrote a last sentence. 'Sequence: Get in - phase bubble on - find away team with mirror (Tolqu's idea) - get awayteam - get out.' John nodded then passed the padd over to the ACSO. "Please remember to use the phrase: please. They like that, you know? Please, Sir?" ~Now then, where were we? Oh yeah, organic flow controller.....~ (Reply by any present, any) (Posted by Adrie Geuken) (USS Spectre - Science Department - Laboratory 2 - SciO, Ens John Linskens - 16:15) John looked up from his console, somehow not able to get his mind working on the project. But he needed to get the calculations just right to be able to rig up the coils and make sure the energy flows were spot on. But John's mind was still occupied with arcing hands. He sighed and sat back. He looked around the lab and saw Cat sitting at her desk busy on her tricorder. "Uhh, kiddo?" John tried. "Did you see Tevvie arcing? Wasn't that neat? I was thinking if we could replicate that ability. But I need more data. You think I could ask Tevvie to use it on me? Just for demonstration purposes? Or ..... hmmm, you think he might find it offensive if I asked him? Maybe it's one of those silent things. You know, mum's the word and such.? I wouldn't want to upset him, you see? He's got plenty of problems already. Did I tell you that Elsie from the botbay said that he hasn't been in the gym for a very long time? And you can see that he dresses quite differently now. I think he needs help. Perhaps if you had a quiet word with him? About shocking me, I mean?" (Reply Cat, any) (Reply any present, any) (Posted by Adrie Geuken) (USS Spectre - Science Department, Laboratory 2 - SciO, Ens(jg) Catriona Macbeth - 16:16) Cat was putting the finishing touches to the first of the tricorders she was modifying when John attracted her attention. "Uhh, kiddo?" "Mhm?" Cat was concentrating on what she was doing and didn't immediately look at John to see what he wanted, but his next words grabbed her attention. "Did you see Tevvie arcing? Wasn't that neat?" Cat lifted her eyes from her task and stared at John. ~Neat? NEAT?? Yeah, so neat it was nearly terminally 'neat' for you!~ "I was thinking if we could replicate that ability," John continued, apparently oblivious to Cat's stare - something she was familiar with. When John got on a new hobby horse he rarely took notice of the person he was expounding his new ideas to. "But I need more data. You think I could ask Tevvie to use it on me? Just for demonstration purposes?" ~Demonstration of what? Whether or not there's an afterlife?~ Cat sighed to herself. No point in trying to interrupt him. Once John got an idea in his head the only way to get him to listen to what you had to say was to let him expound on it until he ran out of steam and then hope he didn't run off directly to put it into practice before you could have your say. "Or ..... hmmm, you think he might find it offensive if I asked him?" John raced on. ~Umm, yeah, most likely.~ John was still talking. "Maybe it's one of those silent things. You know, mum's the word and such.? I wouldn't want to upset him, you see? He's got plenty of problems already. Did I tell you that Elsie from the botbay said that he hasn't been in the gym for a very long time? And you can see that he dresses quite differently now. I think he needs help. Perhaps if you had a quiet word with him?" ~Finally he noticed someone outside of himself. Maybe there's hope for him yet.~ But John hadn't finished. "About shocking me, I mean?" Cat regarded John in silence for a moment. Apparently he had finished, for he had fallen silent himself and was looking at her with that kid-in-the-sweet-shop look, seemingly waiting for her response. Cat drew breath and opened her mouth to speak, then thought better of what she had been about to say. She marshalled her thoughts and opened her mouth again, only to shut it once more as she rejected her second potential answer. Finally she opened her mouth for the third time and spoke. "No." (reply John iyw) "Absolutely not." She held up her fingers one by one, ticking off her points. "One, would you ask a Klingon to hit you repeatedly with a pain stick so you could find out what it felt like? No, scrub that, *you* probably would," she added witheringly. "Two, neither you nor I know enough about Ornaran society to know whether or not discussing their abilities with outsiders is, in fact, taboo. Three, you don't know whether or not Ornarans can control the, uh, voltage of their discharge. Four, if you died then Tolqu would be in a lot of trouble and five - and this is the most important - you just said he has a lot of problems at the moment. I think you're right and if so I think the last thing he needs is a forty-plus year old kid pestering him to show off his ability as if it were a cheap party trick. So put the idea hat back in the box and concentrate on what we're supposed to be doing here. Which, in case you had forgotten, is getting ready for our little trip to the station to try to rescue our crewmates. OK?" (reply John, any) (Posted by Liz Geuken) (USS Spectre - Science Department - Laboratory 2 - Ensign Remae Ktell - 16:22) Remae made a note of the time that the Science team wanted to get underway, 18:00. That should give him the time to get the shuttle prepared with their gear and flight checks completed. Seeing he wasn't going to be a lot of use with the science-part of this mission… “Ensign Ktell if you would like to accompany me. I would appreciate your input and assistance talking to the CO.”, said Tolqu, seemingly controlling his natural abilities but not saying a lot more than that. The Bajoran sighed inwardly. Looks like they were off to speak to the CO and get permission for the 'mission' to scan around the station. ~ Ensign Ktell? ~ He thought back when he was CO of the Spectre, and how he would react if everyone came to see him to ask permission and micro-manage his senior officers. He wouldn't have been impressed and he doubt Captain T'Vhor would be too but everyone seemed to agree that was the course to take. (Reply Any) (Posted by Anthony Keen) (USS Spectre - Outside the Science Department, Laboratory 2 - ACEO, Ensign Remae Ktell - 16:25) "Computer, locate the CO.", said Remae to the computer and when the reply came in…he and Ensign Tolqu headed for the Bridge but as they walked, it seemed that the ACSO wanted to speak to Remae about something, time was short and the Bajoran had little patience with pretence. "Ensign, do you want to speak to me about something?", he said as they walked to the nearest turbolift and then he added, "Please, its Ensign Remae…I didn't care for the correct use of my name until more recently but if you don't mind, I'd appreciate it.", he said calmly and with a small smile on his face. NRPG: Peter, jump in here if you want to! RPG: (Reply Any) (Posted by Anthony Keen) (USS Spectre - Science Department, Laboratory 2 - SciO, Ens John Linskens - 16:26) "No." ~No??~ She then continued giving her reasons for her response. When the dust had finally settled again, John grinned sheepishly. "That's only two valid points," he said. "He's already in a lot of trouble, you said so yourself. So points four and five are basically the same, especially considering that I know for a fact that Ornarans can control their power-outage quite well. Oh, and it has absolutely nothing to do with electrical currents so voltage is really an incorrect term. Electrical potential is called voltage, other potentials are not. So all voltages are potentials but not every potential is a voltage. Anyway, if Tevvie did do me more harm than necessary then it would be deliberate and he would be entitled to be in trouble. Regardless of his other troubles. So there's only two points that are valid." John sighed. "But I guess I can wait a few days before asking him once he has sorted himself out. That would give me some time to do a text search on Ornaran society and their taboo's. So then there would be no counter-points anymore." John grinned. "As for the project, now that *I* sorted out this issue I can concentrate on the project again, no thanks to you, I might add. In fact I am nearly done, just need to update the last variables in the curve-mechanics equation and we should be good to go. Well, that is if I can remember what we did with those seven phase-coils that we used a month ago for an experiment. They have already been prefabbed so all I need is to design some control circuits, align them with a tricorder, attach the power packs and we're off. Twenty minutes tops. That is, if I know where they are. You haven't seen them lying around, have you? Blue-green metallic coils with a copper coloured top? Oh, never mind, I'll use the search protocol in my tricorder. See you in a short while." (Reply Cat iyw, any) (Posted by Adrie Geuken) (USS Spectre - Captain's Ready Room - CO, Captain T'Vhor - 16:34) The Captain had already gotten wind of something brewing of course, after all, a Commanding Officer without his finger on the pulse of his ship was perhaps, not a commanding Officer. As a half Vucan to boot, it was highly unlikely that anything would get past his scrutiny... well, apart from the odd Rabbit that is. Incidentally, where had that thing got to lately? The Houdini of the Spectre had proved to be a veritable pain in his hybrid side, and it had gone missing yet again!! For the moment though, there were more pressing needs than tracking down the Lagomorph and the CO could only hope that it had not managed to get itself into something critical. Almost immediately he had entered his ready room the Captain had requested a cold beverage from the replicator, a chilled fruit juice as expected, and then he had taken his seat behind his desk, his hand already moving towards the console upon it and facilitating the change of familiar Starfleet logo to that of Admiral Alexanders countenance as he appeared upon it. The Captain nodded accordingly. "Admiral", he said curtly. =/\=Captain... I trust you have good news for me=/\= Came the reply... "Our away team is still missing Sir", answered the Captain, his usual Vulcan clipped reply now in evidence as the Admiral's brow furrowed. =/\=Well, I can tell you that my own investigations as to what has 'really' been going on on Echo One Zero have drawn yet more questions... I'm not at all happy. Something is definately not right here and I have serious misgivings as to the nature of the experimentation that's been going on there=/\= The Captain quirked his head slightly, his eyebrow rising quizically. "Indeed", he said, "our own investigations seem to concur on this" The Admiral shook his head, a thought clearly forming in his mind that he appeared reluctant to vocalaize. But did anyway. =/\=What do you know of a woman named Sulia Madon?=/\= he enquired, the question clearly loaded. The Captain pondered just briefly. "If I recall Sir, Geneva comes to mind, immediately before the fleet mobilized against Admiral Doenitz", said the Captain. Alexander simply nodded, and then reached for something to his side. =/\=I'm sending you something over a secure channel T'Vhor, your eyes only for now.... Please, do not impart this to anyone else just yet=/\= The Captain nodded, and the Admiral made good his act. The message was now in transit... =/\=We will speak again Captain. Until then... I wish you luck in the return of your team. Alexander out....=/\= The screen then returned to the Starfleet logo, T'Vhor then settling back in his chair, his mind drifting to the matter of the woman, Madon. What did she have to do with this? The matter hung there for a while, filtering into his logically deductive mind as it meandered it's way through billions upon billions of synaptic junctures and unions with no real solution arising. It was then though that the annunciator sounded and the Captain bade the persons enter, Ensign's Remae and Tolqu coming to a halt on the other side of his desk, something seemingly on their minds right now. "Gentlemen, please. Take a seat", said the Captain, and the two officers duly did so before immediately bringing a plan to the attention of their CO. It seemed ambitious. The Captain though was somewhat reluctant right now to allow any more of his officers anywhere near the station... but their plan had logic, and logic was a fundamental aspect of any Vulcan's decision making processes. The mention of spatial anomolies though drew immediate concern, regardless of the respect that he held for his former Commanding officer. Remae was certainly not one that made rash decisions about anything and the Captain knew that he would have thought this one through to the nth degree. Due considerations aside, he duly informed them of his decision. "Very well, you may proceed with the plan. But you will withdraw from the vicinity of the station immediately the monitored levels rise past the threshold of danger to yourselves", said the Captain, his concern for the safety of his crew paramount in his decision making processes. (Reply Remae, Tolqu, IYW) "Report your findings to me personally", said the Captain, "do not inform anyone else before doing so and maintain discretion with all but your departmental heads" (Reply Remae, Toqu, Any) The Captain then dismissed the officers to begin their preparations, reaching for the glass upon the table as he did so and then taking another sip of the refreshing liquid as Madon, once again resurfaced in his mind.... (Reply Remae, Tolqu, Any) (Posted by Alan) (USS Spectre - Captain's Ready Room - Laboratory 2 - Ensign Remae Ktell - 16:35) After being summoned into the Ready Room, the two Ensigns began to explain the plan to the CO…the plan was to take a shuttle out and conduct an experiment or two regarding spacial anomalies near Station Echo One Zero not to go onboard and start snooping around. Remae as pretty sure most of the crew didn't know about him and T'Vhor and their history and his history as once Commanding Officer of the Spectre and that was just fine. It did, however, offer advantages to him. The CO wasn't stupid and Remae wasn't going to treat him as such but the final call was going to have to come from him for their mission. Departing at 6pm, time was running short. (Reply from T'Vhor, Tolqu, Any) (Posted by Anthony Keen) (USS Spectre - Captain's Ready Room – ASCO, Ensign Teverine Tolqu - 16:35) Teverine felt some comfort in Remae’s words and looked down with sudden guilt at his uniform’s distressing state, as the CO ushered them into his Ready Room, but the Captain seemed to more concerned with the current issues than to berate Teverine. "Gentlemen, please. Take a seat", Both Ensigns sat down and in turn explained the outline of the plan to T’Vhor, Teverine passed over the PADD with the combined work of everyone already preparing in Laboratory 2. "Very well, you may proceed with the plan. But you will withdraw from the vicinity of the station immediately the monitored levels rise past the threshold of danger to yourselves. “I will convey that to the rest of the away team Sir.” "Report your findings to me personally", said the Captain, "do not inform anyone else before doing so and maintain discretion with all but your departmental heads" Teverine looked at Remae with some concern before looking at his Captain and nodding his understanding. “Aye aye Sir.” (Reply Remae IYW) As the Captain dismissed them Teverine almost paused for a moment. Then re-considered and left heading back with Remae to inform the rest of the team of their go ahead with the mission. (Reply Remae, T’Vhor IYW) (Posted by Peter) (USS Spectre - Ready Room - ACEO, Ensign Remae Ktell - 16:36) The plan was explained and the CO seemed to consider their words but ultimately approved their plan with a warning about being safe if the station began to show signs of problems. "Aye sir.", they both confirmed and then the CO had some more instructions for their away mission. "...maintain discretion with all but your departmental heads.", T'Vhor said and Tolqu replied after giving Remae a sidewise glance but the Bajoran didn't reply but instead gave the CO a long look before simply nodding, standing and on being dismissed, departing the Ready Room back onto the Bridge and to the Turbolift. (Reply Any) (Posted by Anthony Keen) (USSSpectre - Turbo Lift 2 – ASCO, Ensign Teverine Tolqu - 16:37) As they enetered the Turbo lift, Teverine looked seriously at Ensign Remae. "It's unusual to report only to the CO maybe it's the temporal problems, we could be getting ourselves into quiet a paradoxial situation here." Teverine felt some of his dry humour returning. This had been probably the most positive he had felt in what seemed a long time. (Reply Remae) (Posted by Peter) (USS Spectre - Turbolift Two - ACEO, Ensign Remae Ktell - 16:38) The lift was whooshing its way back to the Science Lab. "It's unusual to report only to the CO maybe it's the temporal problems, we could be getting ourselves into quiet a paradoxical situation here.", he said with the hint of a smile and Remae considered it a moment, "It's probably nothing.", he said to the Ensign and added, "Go back to the others, I have some errands to run... I'll see you later on.", he said as he began his mission to collect the supplies as required by their away mission. (Reply from Any) (Posted by Anthony Keen) (Station Station Echo One Zero - Deck 15, Sector 8, Surveillance hub – COUNS, Ensign, Oggie Marsh – 16:42) "Oggie, why are you not mentioned here? They cannot have failed to notice you had vanished too." Oggie blinked then smiled weakly. "That, my dear, is a question that I have pondered too. You would think that a man of my stature could not be easily overlooked. However, I have so far only searched the general news database as that is the only source of information that will allow for a person of my limited position to retrieve data. There are many answers possible, ranging from very simple to extremely complex. Perhaps I was considered to be somehow implicated in your disappearance. Or perhaps someone high up decided that seeing my double-role on this station, it would be better to leave certain matters lie. But to understand why it was not entered in the general news I would have to have access to more discrete sources of information. No doubt, I am sure, will we learn of the reasons once we have solved this issue on this station when we can freely communicate with the universe again." Oggie rubbed his eyes. "Regardless I am still a counsellor and a pretty good one at that, if one can state that of oneself. Your family, my dear. Much more important. Your feelings, if you please. Uncle Oggie will listen and assist as best as he can." (reply Zia, any) (Posted by Adrie Geuken) (Station Station Echo One Zero - Deck 15, Sector 8, Surveillance hub – ACMO, Ensign(jg), Zia Kirrin – 16:43) Zia almost smiled to herself as Oggie seemed to neatly side-step her question. The reasons he gave for himself not being mentioned alongside Zia in the reports sounded, on the face of it, valid enough; but even (or perhaps especially) to one brought up in the household of a Rihannsu diplomat, concealment and subterfuge were familiar, indeed normal, concepts. But good Rihanna that she was, she gave no indication that she took Oggie's explanation at anything other than face value. "Regardless I am still a counsellor and a pretty good one at that, if one can state that of oneself," Oggie continued, apparently going off on a tangent to prevent further discussion of the subject. "Your family, my dear. Much more important. Your feelings, if you please. Uncle Oggie will listen and assist as best as he can." Zia smiled. "You are not in the least like ehrhe Galan, my father's brother. Which, if you knew him, you would be very glad of," she added candidly. Galan had always made it plain that he disapproved of Zia's adoption into his brother's family. NRPG: ehrhe = kin, kinsman RPG: "But my family - I have a father, a mother, and two older brothers, all of whom will be anxious for news of me. We are very close, you see," she stated simply. "And it makes me very sad to be the cause of such distress to them. What I want most is to be able to tell them that I am safe and well; to... I am not sure how you would say it but we would say flaiihe caevra-su Areinnye - to relieve their hearts from hell, as I think you Terrans call it. But that will have to wait, and since there is no help for it, I will have to be patient." She shot a glance over towards Williams, then added in an undertone, "But I wish that the commander would find a way to get us out of here soon!" She looked back at Oggie. "We Rihanna do not talk easily of our feelings to people we do not know very well. I mean no disrespect, Oggie, and perhaps if we were alone and not amongst all these other lloann'mhrahel it might be different but there are too many vaehkh here." NRPG: lloann'mhrahel = the UFP, literally "Them, from There". In this case, Zia means the other Starfleet people present. vaehkh = stranger, usually alien. RPG: (reply Oggie, any) (Posted by Liz Geuken) (Station Station Echo One Zero - Deck 15, Sector 8, Surveillance hub – COUNS, Ens Oggie Marsh – 16:45) Oggie pursed his lips as the young ensign spoke and followed her glance towards Commander Williams, still occupied by the screen in front of him. He sighed once, then licked his lips, trying to find the right words to say. He eventually smiled softly. "My dear, I remember you telling me about your background before. I can only assume that I can feel the depth of their heartaches. Never the less, you are correct, in that we are unable to correct that situation at present. But we can make a start. You see, you have received the most wonderful gift that a family can bestow on their loved ones, namely that of a stable background. It is surprising to know how many people have been less fortunate than you. However, there is a danger that lies on your path which is linked to this gift. Regardless of their love and devotion, ultimately it will be your decisions and your actions that will determine whether you will grow and blossom on foreign soil or will wither and die. Please, do not take this too directly when I speak of foreign soil, I merely mean that you are placed in a situation where your background and the lessons learnt in the past can colour your vision and distort what is really in front of you. You are not 'us' and I, my dear, am not 'them'. By accepting service in Starfleet you are now as much them as you are us. And that is the danger that I spoke of. Your perceptions will have to be amended somewhat to allow for these strange new surroundings. Now it would be utterly wrong of me, or anyone else for that matter, to demand that you forget completely where you came from. Where you came from is what has defined you into what you are now. However, I would be similar amiss if I did not impress upon you the need to be more open towards your new environment. And that includes the other persons that share these new surroundings with you. They are not 'them' nor should they ever see you as part of 'them'. One way to make sure that that will not happen is to work on your vocabulary to exchange your known expressions in Romulan with standard Federation ones." Oggie smiled encouragingly. "You, my dear, have the opportunity to gain something that very few can call their own and that is a second family. Not instead of the first, but together with the first, with additional siblings and even a father or mother figure if and when required." Oggie fell silent for a moment working on an ending line. He grunted then looked at her. "Be part of 'us' as much as you are part of your old 'us' and you will have two backgrounds to draw your wisdom and strength from and there will be no limit to your growth." Oggie smiled again, studying Zia, and wondered how she would respond. Then he grinned suddenly. "Oh, and as for Commander Williams? I think he feels the same." (reply Zia, any) (Posted by Adrie Geuken) (Station Station Echo One Zero - Deck 15, Sector 8, Surveillance hub – FO, Commander Andrew Williams – 16:55) "Oh, and as for Commander Williams? I think he feels the same." Andrew had been listening to as much as Marsh and Kirrin’s conversation as he tried to work though the systems main frame. He looked up at them and nodded. “Yes Ensign Kirrin I do and once we get out of here we will be able to get in contact with both your families again.” (Reply Kirrin, Marsh) “But first we need to get out of here. Ensign Marsh, have you found anything?” (Reply Marsh) (Reply Kirrin, Marsh, any) (Posted by Robbie Gray) (Station Station Echo One Zero - Deck 15, Sector 8, Surveillance hub – ACMO, Ens(jg) Zia Kirrin – 16:56) Zia listened intently to what Oggie had to say to her. She had to admit that it would probably have been endorsed by her family were they here. Mnhei'sahe would demand no less. She wondered how one could put the concept of mnhei'sahe into a standard Federation expression, and decided that she would need to give that a lot of thought. To Zia it was a familiar concept, but it had so much depth and meaning in one word that she thought a whole book would not be enough to express it all in a way that someone not brought up as Rihanna, or at the very least having lived amongst Rihannsu for some time, would understand it. "Be part of 'us' as much as you are part of your old 'us' and you will have two backgrounds to draw your wisdom and strength from and there will be no limit to your growth," Oggie finished. He paused, then grinned and added, "Oh, and as for Commander Williams? I think he feels the same." “Yes Ensign Kirrin I do," Commander Williams interjected, showing that he had heard at least some of their conversation, "And once we get out of here we will be able to get in contact with both your families again.” Zia blushed slightly, wondering how much exactly the Commander had overheard. "Thank you, Commander," she said quietly. "I would appreciate that." To Oggie she said simply, "I will think about what you have said. I would like to discuss things further, when we have more time." There was indeed a lot more she wanted to say, but that conversation would have to wait. Now was not the time. ~But if I do not make the effort to accept you, why should any of you make the effort to accept me?~ she thought. ~It has indeed not been the best of beginnings.~ “But first we need to get out of here," Williams continued. "Ensign Marsh, have you found anything?” Zia shot Oggie a glance, almost sure that he *had* found something else apart from what he had shown her. Of course, whether it was relevant or not to their present situation, she had no idea. But she waited intently for his response. (reply Oggie, any) (Posted by Liz Geuken) (Station Station Echo One Zero - Deck 15, Sector 8, Surveillance hub – COUNS,Ens, Oggie Marsh - 16:57) "Thank you, Commander," Zia responded to the Commander, "I would appreciate that." She then turned to him. "I will think about what you have said. I would like to discuss things further, when we have more time." Oggie nodded but before he could say anything, Williams interdicted: "But first we need to get out of here. Ensign Marsh, have you found anything?" Oggie snorted, then winked at Zia. "Of course, my dear. For you I will set aside all the time in the world, but not just yet. Thoughts are best thought through and I assume that I gave you something to ponder. Now then, Commander Williams, Oggie, if you please. I really don't do this 'Ensign this or that' business all too well. That is all well and good for command type situations but me, as counsellor, need to work at a lower, much more personal level." Oggie nodded at the Commander. "Now to your question. Have I found anything? Yes, I believe I have. Will that help us in our current situation? I'm afraid not." Oggie shot the Commander an apologetic smile. "I am not too well-versed with these security protocols and I am afraid that my clearance level leaves something to be desired. I am after all a counsellor and not some top-notch spy-hunter. So I have worked through the general news feeds without much luck. Apart from the discovery that this station was cut off from the general news network since about a week ago, I have found little of consequence. I was just about to log into the control messaging database, in the hope of finding something." Oggie shifted in his chair, hissed and then keyed in some commands. He spoke up. "This database holds copies of all commands issued on this station. You would expect it to be better secured but the hierarchy in this places seems quite different from what one could expect. I assume it is because of the silly passwords that you need to enter this place. It's all intonation, you see? The words are not important, nor is it the voice, really. Just intonation. I was told that they did it like that because that would flag up if someone was speaking the passwords under duress, which would set off all alarms and the hall that we entered through would have been blanketed with a strong sedative gas. Anyway, it looks like I am in......." Oggie was quiet for a few seconds reading through the information on the screen. He sighed as he sat up. "Nothing out of the ordinary. I feel that we may not find ........ " Oggie fell silent as he keyed in a few commands. "Eureka!" he suddenly exclaimed. "I just realised what was amiss! The information! It is not out of the ordinary, because all the out of ordinary information is not there! You see, every day the system is supposed to compile a file with activities that have been flagged up by the computer as extra-ordinary. I have seen those files! You wouldn't believe some of the stuff that goes on on a station like this! Enough to make you retire to bed with red ears! But it's gone! Yet......." Oggie keyed in a few other commands. "Yet the system still is actively logging that information. So why isn't it........." The computer beeped after some more commands and Oggie's eyes nearly popped out of his head and he abruptly sat back, making the chair creak ominously. "No," he said almost toneless. "That cannot be! I refuse to believe that! He would never .... He wouldn't have the clout. Unless ... have I been fooled? Is he not what he appears to be? No! That cannot be! Not after all the sessions that I had with him. *Nobody* is that good a liar that he can keep it up for seven months under close counselling surveillance! It simply can *not* be!" Vehemently shaking his head, Oggie suddenly noticed how the others looked at him. He shook his head again and sighed. "I guess I should explain," he said to no-one in particular. "You better sit down because it is going to be quite a long tale I have to tell." Oggie nodded. "First off, I have to take you back four years ... no, five years now. The USS Nepal was performing a mining operation on asteroids in the Thethys-band. The Commander in charge of the vessel was Captain Eduard Probie. But because there were some initial problems, the mining didn't go as smoothly as expected and the Captain was told that he had one more week and that another vessel would be sent in to take over from the Nepal after that week. Captain Probie, a rather unimaginative and studious character, felt slated and ordered his crew to speed up the extraction by any means possible and authorised the dismantling of certain safety equipment. Five days later, an accident happened with a shuttle and because of the slackening of the safety regulations it led to the death of five Star Fleet personnel. You may have read about it, it was quite a big story at the time. Anyway, as I was a counsellor examiner, I was called in to do a psychological evaluation of the man, which I did and found him so unimaginative that it was impossible that he would have thought it up himself. It turned out that he had been advised by one of his crew who had other reasons to spend as little time mining as possible. Regardless it was his commands that ultimately led to the death of the crew and he was reduced in rank and put in charge of a little used station as far away from anything as possible. That was probably because of my input as I told the investigators that Star Fleet Command was also to blame for placing an incapable commander in command and not consider his neurotic and sometimes paranoid behavioural patterns. Anyway, that was how now Commander Probie ended up on station Echo One Zero." Oggie nodded. "And that would have been it if a computer had not selected the same station for basically the same reasons to be used for a top secret experiment. So the initial project staff checked up on everybody on the station and decided against replacing the Commander with someone more capable, because that, they feared, may have led certain parties to wonder what was so special about the station. So instead, they contacted me, because I had previous knowledge of the man and sent me here to assess the Commander and make sure that he would not be a danger to the project." Oggie snorted. "As it turned out, the Commander well remembered me and his paranoid illusions had only grown in strength over the years. I was one of the conspirators that were sent to lead the good man to his downfall etcetera. I am afraid that the poor man blamed everybody else but himself, including Star Fleet who, apparently, had set a trap for him with the mining expedition. Having reported back to the project team, it was then decided, again because they did not want to alert anyone, to install a project leader in secret on the base. That was Mister Gallagher, and everyone *knew* that his name wasn't Gallagher. One of those chaps. This is his base, by the way. Anyhow, I was then called upon to keep an eye on Commander Probie and to have him direct his antipathy at me. Of course, with his rather simplistic mindset, Probie indeed latched onto me and this allowed for a relatively peaceful installation of a hydro-collector. Or so the Commander was told. The Commander at first was very suspicious but all I had to do, really, was to try and convince him to not allow the collector onto the station. So he went the other way and he never looked back nor ever bothered to see what was actually going on under his nose." Again Oggie snorted. "There is lots more, including a Romulan spy that I happened to uncover but I think you can see why I would find it very hard to believe that Commander Probie was the one who found a way to reroute a certain information file under the nose of the cream of Star Fleet secret operations. Yet the computer says that he did and the computer never lies, right?" (Reply Zia, Williams, any) (Posted by Adrie Geuken) (USS Spectre - Science Department, Laboratory 2 - SciO, Ens John Linskens - 17:02) John had just finalised updating the control circuits when Ktell entered again. The Bajoran threw an item at John who grinned when he deftly caught it. But upon further inspection of the projectile, John frowned. ~Ginger biscuits? I didn't order any ginger biscuits, did I?~ John tried to recall the 'order' then shook his head. ~Eating? At a time like this just before we are going to be making scientific history? Can you imagine? People wanting to take our holo-images for the newspapers and all they see is biscuit crumbs on our tops?~ John placed the packet on the desk just when Ktell asked: "When do we leave?". John snorted. "As soon as you give me your power packs and I connect them. Five minutes to test them then we are good to go, Kate." John grinned. "Oh, and did you get me the rod?" (reply 'Kate' (iyw), Cat (iyw), any (iyw)) (Posted by Adrie Geuken) (Station Station Echo One Zero - Deck 15, Sector 8, Surveillance hub – ACMO, Ens(jg) Zia Kirrin - 17:05) In answering Commander Williams' question as to whether or not he had found anything, Oggie had accessed the messaging database and clearly had been upset by what he found there. Almost apologetically he launched into a long story of how he had been assigned to the station, more or less to make sure that the station's CO, Commander Probie, did not interfere with the experiment being set up there. At least that was what Zia gathered from it. She thought it strange that so incompetent a man as Probie had been left in charge of a station where such important work as... (whatever it was) was taking place but then again she could understand the logic which suggested that leaving an incompetent nominally in charge of an out-of-the-way station would indicate to those outside the Federation who might be interested in such things that nothing important could possibly be going on there. It might have been handled slightly differently in the Rihannsu Star Empire but the deviousness of the move could have come right from the Tal Shiar. "There is lots more," concluded Oggie, "Including a Romulan spy that I happened to uncover but I think you can see why I would find it very hard to believe that Commander Probie was the one who found a way to reroute a certain information file under the nose of the cream of Star Fleet secret operations. Yet the computer says that he did and the computer never lies, right?" Zia's breath hissed in at the mention of a "Romulan spy" but she said nothing at that point. What she had to say was not really relevant at this point and she was mindful of the things Oggie had said to her earlier. She reminded herself that she was making an effort to fit in. However there was one useful thing she could say. "It is not strictly correct to say that the computer never lies, Oggie," Zia pointed out. "A computer only gives out information according to two things: one, the data that has been entered and two, the way it has been programmed to give that data. So whilst a computer cannot 'tell a lie' in the way that a person can, it can give incorrect or misleading data because that is either what it has been programmed to do or because incorrect or misleading data has been deliberately entered. A computer is a machine. It does not get scared. It does not get happy. It does not get sad. It does not tell the truth. It does not lie. It just runs programs." NRPG: with apologies to the writer of Short Circuit for the slight misquote, I have been wanting to use that for years! RPG: "So whatever the computer tells you, it is only giving the information it has been given within the parameters of its programming. Which means that either what it tells you is true, and Commander Probie was or is capable of a lot more than you believed, or what it tells you is false and someone else wants you to believe that of Commander Probie. In other words you are being presented with a..." she thought for a moment to find the right idiom. "A pink sardine!" she finished triumphantly. She looked from Oggie to Commander Williams. "That is correct, yes? A pink sardine?" (Reply Oggie, Williams, Any) (Posted by Liz Geuken) (Station Station Echo One Zero - Deck 15, Sector 8, Surveillance hub – FO, Commander Andrew Williams - 17:08) "So whatever the computer tells you, it is only giving the information it has been given within the parameters of its programming. Which means that either what it tells you is true, and Commander Probie was or is capable of a lot more than you believed, or what it tells you is false and someone else wants you to believe that of Commander Probie. In other words you are being presented with a..." "A pink sardine!" "That is correct, yes? A pink sardine?" Andrew nodded feeling a chill go through him as he thought about what Marsh and Kirrin were saying. Andrew nodded “Yes Ensign Kirrin it is.” He paused for a moment before speaking. “We need to find out which is right and then what that thing in the cargo bay did here.” ~and how to contact the Spectre~ (reply Marsh, Kirrin) (reply Marsh, Kirrin, any) (Posted by Robbie) (Station Station Echo One Zero - Deck 15, Sector 8, Surveillance hub – COUNS, Ens Oggie Marsh - 17:10) Oggie felt quite relieved when he noticed Zia's slight physical reaction, and more importantly her silence afterwards, to his mentioning of the spy and nodded. He was about to commend her when the Commander simply nodded to her question about the red herring and confirmed her. He regarded the Commander with a frown and nearly sighed. "Red herring, my dear," he corrected her still staring at Williams who seemed not to notice it. "Not pink salmon but a red herring." Convincing himself that the Commander must be feeling the strain of the situation at hand, Oggie decided to leave it at that. "Oh, and my dear? You make an old man very happy. You will do quite well, I am sure. It is important to accept advice and act upon it. I fear I may have a slight nasty streak in me at times. But only in the line of duty, of course. The spy that I spoke of was Vulcan, I fear, not Romulan. But I had to know. And now I know. And I am satisfied. You will do very well, I see now. And that is good, very good. Now then, now that that important matter has been laid to rest, let's concentrate on the next point of contention." Oggie looked at the Commander. "Which is right, poor old Oggie or the computer record. Since I have used all my interrogatory skills with the computer and got us this far I fear I must step back and allow someone with better knowledge and skills on the subject to take over from me. With your permission...." Oggie pushed himself out of the chair with a whimper and a grunt, then took a step back. "My dear, I trust you are more familiar with computer protocols and the like than I ever would be so if you would be so kind?" Oggie then turned towards the Commander. "Mister Williams, might I suggest that an update might be in order for your foot troops? Perhaps they could be stationed here? Or be made aware that all may not be as it is supposed to be?" (Reply Zia, Williams, Any) (Posted by Adrie Geuken) (Station Station Echo One Zero - Deck 15, Sector 8, Surveillance hub – ACMO, Ens(jg) Zia Kirrin - 17:11) "Red herring, my dear," Oggie corrected her still staring at Williams who seemed not to notice it. "Not pink salmon but a red herring." Zia was a little confused when Commander Williams agreed that 'pink sardine' was the correct phrase, whilst Oggie averred that 'pink salmon' was incorrect and 'red herring' was the correct phrase. She wondered if both Oggie and the Commander were a trifle deaf; however, she smiled and thanked Oggie for the correction, committing the phrase to memory. She smiled again when Oggie praised her although she wondered why he did. She supposed he must have heard her intake of breath when he mentioned the 'Romulan' spy, who he now stated had been Vulcan after all. Zia was beginning to find the whole situation a little surreal and wondered if that was the effect of whatever had propelled both her and Oggie forward in time or something else. She was wondering if she should run a check on herself when she suddenly realised that Oggie had stood up from his seat in front of the console and was addressing her directly, asking for her help in determining whether Oggie's assessment of Probie or the computer's record was correct. With a glance at Commander Williams to see if he objected, Zia nodded. "With your permission, Commander? I would be glad to see if I can discover anything further that might aide us in deciding whether the information on the computer log is correct or not." (reply Williams) NRPG: assuming he has no objection; if he does I will repost this next part. RPG: As Oggie suggested to Commander Williams that it might be advantageous to contact the marines who had been left by the cargo bay, and possibly bring them down to the control room, Zia slid onto the chair vacated by the rotund counsellor and looked at the controls of the console. Bringing up the file history for the files Oggie had found the information about Commander Probie in, she began to look carefully for alterations. Next she initiated a search for similar phrases in other files. Accessing the public logs of the station commander followed, and then a few carefully set-up protocols began searching all the logs for her. As it continued, she turned in her seat and spoke to Oggie. "This Commander Probie - where did he come from? In other words, was he Terran from Earth, or Terran from another planet, or starship born, or another species of hominoid?" (reply Oggie) Zia nodded. "Thank you," she said and half turned back to the screen then turned back to Oggie and Commander Williams. "This may take a little time but I think I will be able to show whether or not Commander Probie made those entries himself," she said with a nod, then turned back to the console and entered some more commands. (Reply by Williams, Oggie, Any) (Posted by Liz Geuken) (Station Station Echo One Zero - Deck 15, Sector 8, Surveillance hub – FO, Commander Andrew Williams - 17:13) "With your permission, Commander? I would be glad to see if I can discover anything further that might aide us in deciding whether the information on the computer log is correct or not." Andrew looked over to Kirrin and nodded. “Be my guest Ensign Kirrin.” "Mister Williams, might I suggest that an update might be in order for your foot troops? Perhaps they could be stationed here? Or be made aware that all may not be as it is supposed to be?" Andrew nodded and stepped away from Marsh and Kirrin as they began to discuss the situation. He quickly tapped his comm badge. “Williams to Major Kowalski” (Reply Kowalski) “Major we have found a surveillance hub in Sector 8. I am sending you the coordinates now.” He tapped his tricorder and sent the data to Kowalski. “I would like to have this area secure and if you have any technical people in your marines it would be helpful if you could send them over.” (Reply Kowalski) (Reply Kowalski, any) (Posted by Robbie) (Station Station Echo One Zero - Deck 15, Sector 8, Surveillance hub – COUNS, Ens Oggie Marsh - 17:14) "This Commander Probie - where did he come from? In other words, was he Terran from Earth, or Terran from another planet, or starship born, or another species of hominoid?" Oggie frowned. "Oh dear," he said whilst searching his memories. "Now that is an odd question. And one that at one time I am sure to have known. But now the question is: Do I still know it?" Oggie searched further and further. "Now let me see. He was .......... oh, yeah, he attended Transvaal University. That must have been in ...... oh, that doesn't matter now. He failed his entry exam into Star Fleet Academy then, a very tough year then, apparently, with plenty of good material coming through and he worked ...... ohhhh, let me think ...... oh yeah, as a data storage manager for a software firm in Capetown. The next year he made the entry ...... but what of? ..... No, gone, I am afraid. All I know is that he at one time he attended Transvaal University and got a job afterwards in Capetown. So that would strongly suggest that he is of South African comeback, so coming from Earth. It's not proof, of course, but I am pretty sure that he was born and raised there as well. Just the specifics I am unclear about. But he spent quite some time living there anyway. Does this help? Without access to the mainframe, which is down, I am afraid it's all we have." Zia nodded. "Thank you," she said and half turned back to the screen then turned back to Oggie and Commander Williams. "This may take a little time but I think I will be able to show whether or not Commander Probie made those entries himself." "Splendid," Oggie remarked, suddenly noticing the rations bar in front of Zia now. ~Oh dear.~ (Reply by Williams, Zia, Any, iyw) (Posted by Adrie Geuken) (Station Echo One Zero - Corridor – MXO, Major Bruce Kowalski - 17:14) The more that they explored the station and it's puzzles therein, the more Kowalski would rather have been up to his knees in the mudflats of Bajor fighting Cardassians, at least that was something he understood. This place was just wierd! Yates had spoken of medieval knights and bore the scars to prove that encounter, whilst he himself had come face to face with a rolling, and fully armed dustbin intent on 'Exterminating' every last one of them. None of it made sense... Looking down at the TACOM display of his III-C assault rifle, Kowalski observed the single contact upon it. Apparently it stood a little more than two inches in height, and scurried like a... well, like a rat. Which was probably what it was anyway, although how it may have got here was anyone's guess. =/\=Williams to Major Kowalski=/\= The communication had taken Kowalski's attention from the contact on his display, somewhat refreshingly it might be said. After all, something that stood only two inches from the decking was hardly going to be much of a threat now was it... or maybe it was! Who knew in this place? "Go ahead Commander", said Kowalski. =/\=Major, we have found a surveillance hub in sector 8, I am sending you the coordinates now.=/\= Kowalski shrugged his shoulders and then let out a sigh, then he switched to the map display of the TACOM, a graphical representation of the station appearing upon it as he did so. "Seems we're not far from that location anyway", said Kowalski, "what do you want us to do?" =/\=I would like to have this area secure and if you have any technical people in your marines it would be helpful if you could send them over.=/\= The MXO turned to his team, and then raised an eyebrow. "Is that wise Commander?", he queried, "I have a six man team here, I'm not keen on breaking us up right now with all of these... apparitions going on", he added. (Reply Williams) "OK, we'll all come over. Nothing but rats here anyway", said Kowalski as he raised his rifle and then sent a single pulse down the corridor at the previously logged target. The creature scurried away having obviously outsmarted the TACOM's aquisition and targetting system. Kowalski quirked his head to one side and then nodded. ~Damn, pretty smart for a fur ball ain't ya~ (Reply Williams, IYW) "OK, we'll be with you in ten. Kowalski out", said the MXO as he turned his team around and then began the trudge back to sector eight, hoping that nothing else wierd presented itself as he did so... (Reply Williams, Any on team, IYW) (Posted by Alan) (USS Spectre - Laboratory 2 - SciO, Ens John Linskens - 17:25) John checked his tricorder and with a satisfied grunt nodded. "OK, that's all done," he said. "Calibration schedules and master-slave controls uploaded to all tricorders. Mine will be the master ....... of course. Can't have too many masters on board a ship. Anyway, the tricorders are set to emit a control signal to your personal phase coils so if you want to go to a specific phase, just key in the phase coordinates. It will then request the latest calibration curve from the master and calculate exactly how much power will be required then send that signal to your power control pack. And hey presto, you'll be phased. A small discrepancy shouldn't matter too much, I think we have a window of about three milliLin of phase-potential before we are too far apart phase-wise that we can't interact with one another. Be careful, though, the powerdrain will be quite immense so we will have to use the phase-coils very sparingly. Also once you are separated in phase your tricorder won't be able to get an update from the master so you'll be basically flying 'blind' in phase. However, if that happens, just turn off the coil and you should drop back to the base-phase, in this case the station phase." John nodded at the personnel in the lab as he handed out the tricorders to all. "Familiarise yourself with the user interface before we go. You do *not* want to press the wrong button at the wrong time. Ok? In case there is a glitch, we will use the tripotasodium rod. Only stuff that will not phase in any way, shape or form so it will show up regardless of the phase that you are in. I have programmed your tricorder to search for it and display the direction to it on your readout. So we can find one another even if we get separated in phase. We won't be able to interact with one another but we will be close and the phase-coils should do the rest. Questions?" (Reply by 'Kate', 'Tevvie', Cat, room for more) John looked at the others and nodded. "Ok, let's get this show on the road then. First stop, shuttle bay!" (Reply by all, any) (Posted by Adrie Geuken) (USS Spectre - Laboratory 2 - SciO, Ens(jg) Catriona Macbeth - 17:30) John had rattled blithely through the instructions for using the modified tricorders. Cat listened enough to absorb the basic instructions, with a wry grin as John stated confidently that 'of course' his tricorder would be the master. Words like milliLin she allowed to wash over her as not necessary to understand, although she suspected that John had invented the term and was hoping someone would ask what it meant. What she needed to know was that she had a window of three of the wossnames before she was too much out of phase with the others. When she was handed a tricorder, she took it and examined it carefully, not needing John's caution about familiarising herself with the user interface. Pressing the wrong button was not something she planned to do. Fortunately (as far as Cat at least was concerned), the milli-wotsits were clearly displayed in bright red. Having finished her check she listened to the rest of what John had to say. She didn't really like the thought of 'flying blind' but hoped that she would at least be paired with someone else. Preferably someone who understood milliLin and knew what tripoasodium was. "...Questions?" John asked suddenly, and Cat realised his masterclass in using the modified tricorders was over. She reviewed the details in her head. ~Key in phase co-ordinates, watch the power-drain, turn off coil to drop back to base-phase, tripo-wossname used in case of glitch... sheesh, I hope he's not expecting many glitches... oh, wait!~ Cat put her hand up. "Uh, I have a question. If worst comes to worst and we have to make for the, uh, tripo...sodium," Cat felt quite pleased with herself for remembering the name, "what, exactly, will the phase coils do? Bring us back into phase with one another? And what if we run out of power in the meantime?" (Reply John, any present, room for more) Once all the questions from the group had been answered to John's satisfaction, he looked round at them all and nodded. "Ok, let's get this show on the road then. First stop, shuttle bay!" Cat grabbed her backpack. Along with other necessities for the trip she had also stowed in there some ration bars, a packet of ginger biscuits John had given her, and five bars of chocolate. You could, in Cat's opinion, never have too much chocolate in case of emergencies. Like not being able to get a bar of chocolate from a replicator. ~No power, no replicators,~ she reasoned. (reply any) (Posted by Liz Geuken) (Station Station Echo One Zero - Deck 15, Sector 8, Surveillance hub – ACMO, Ens(jg) Zia Kirrin - 17:36) It took Zia some twenty minutes to get a result. The first thing she had looked for was files from not long after Probie had been assigned to Echo One Zero. Then she ran a sound analysis macro against the early files which were identified as being orders from Commander Probie. Checking the results, she nodded to herself and began looking for the most recent files and ran the macro against each of them. Finally she instigated a comparison of all the results. As she waited for the final output, she reached absently for the ration bar in front of her and bit into it. By the time she had finished the bar, the result she had been waiting for was ready and she spent several minutes scrutinising it carefully. Eventually, she gave a satisfied nod and turned back to Oggie and Commander Williams. "I think I have the answer you are looking for," Zia said. "But please bear in mind I am not a linguistic expert. However, I do have an advantage neither of you possess. I am not a native speaker of Federation Standard." (reply Williams, Oggie, iyw) "You said it yourself, Oggie, although you were not talking about this. You said: 'It's all intonation, you see? The words are not important, nor is it the voice, really. Just intonation.' Do you understand?" She looked from Oggie to Williams. "Perhaps this is something neither of you would notice, really, but I notice it because Federation standard is not my first language. I learned it, first from language discs and then I practised with friends of my father at various embassies. But although I speak it well, I do not speak it as if it was my mother tongue, because it is not. For Commander Probie, however, it is his mother tongue and moreover one that he speaks with a distinct accent from... where was it you said, Oggie? Transvale? No matter, that is not important really. What is important is that he has a distinct way of speaking Federation Standard, or Anglish as some people call it. Listen!" She tapped an instruction on the interface and a voice could be heard dictating an order. Sure enough there was a distinctive intonation for various words. "This is from three years ago, not long after Commander Probie was first assigned to Echo One Zero. He speaks quite differently to both you, Oggie, and to Commander Williams. And this one," she entered another command, "this is a few months later. As you can hear, he speaks in the same way, rather... I am not sure what the correct word is but when Commander Probie says 'Lieutenant Black' it sounds like 'Lieutenant Bleck'. Do you hear it?" (reply Williams, Oggie, iyw) "It doesn't really matter even if you couldn't hear it there, look at the analysis of the sound. Both these, and many of the other files, have the same analysis. I cannot say absolutely that the speaker in these files is the same person but they are almost definitely all by someone with the same way of speaking. You would need a linguistic expert to confirm it but I am reasonably sure that is correct. There are too many similarities." She allowed them time to look at the results she showed them, several blue lines zig-zagging across the screen with identical peaks and troughs along the way. "Now look at these results, from some of the recent orders you spoke of, Oggie." Zia said, tapping in another command. The screen cleared and a different image came up; this time several red lines zig-zagged its way across the screen, again with noticeable peaks and troughs. "At first sight they look very similar, yes? And they sound quite similar too when you listen to them. But there are differences. Listen carefully to how he says 'Lieutenant Black'; it occurs three times in this section. Do you hear? A definite 'Bleck' the first time, then 'Black' the second (he was speaking rather fast there) and then the third time there is almost a hesitation before he says 'Bleck'. Only a split second but there is a hesitation." Zia regarded their faces then shrugged. "But in case you don't see the importance of that, take a look at both sets of voice analysis results overlaid." Again she tapped in a command and the red line on the screen was overlaid with the blue line she had first shown them. Whilst in some places the lines overlaid one another almost perfectly, in others there were differences, some slight but some obvious even to the untrained eye. "I am not an expert, but there is no doubt in my mind that the speaker in the later files is quite different to the speaker in the earlier files. He (or it could be she, using a synthesizer to disguise her voice as male) has obviously studied Commander Probie's way of speaking and has made a very creditable effort to imitate it. But an imitation it is. I do not know why he or she did not use a computer simulation built up of actual words spoken by Commander Probie; no doubt there was a reason why that could not be done. And to a certain extent it does not matter why. What matters is that, subject to more detailed analysis by an expert, it would appear that Commander Probie did not, in fact, issue these later orders." She looked from Williams to Oggie, and waited to hear what they had to say. (Reply by Williams, Oggie, Any, iyw) (Posted by Liz Geuken) (Station Echo One Zero - Deck 15, Sector 8, Surveillance hub – FO, Commander Andrew Williams - 17:37) "I think I have the answer you are looking for," "But please bear in mind I am not a linguistic expert. However, I do have an advantage neither of you possess. I am not a native speaker of Federation Standard." Andrew stepped closer to Kirrinn as she spoke. “What do you have Ensign Kirrin?” (Reply Marsh) "You said it yourself, Oggie, although you were not talking about this. You said: 'It's all intonation, you see? The words are not important, nor is it the voice, really. Just intonation.' Do you understand?" "Perhaps this is something neither of you would notice, really, but I notice it because Federation standard is not my first language. I learned it, first from language discs and then I practised with friends of my father at various embassies. But although I speak it well, I do not speak it as if it was my mother tongue, because it is not. For Commander Probie, however, it is his mother tongue and moreover one that he speaks with a distinct accent from... where was it you said, Oggie? Transvale? No matter, that is not important really. What is important is that he has a distinct way of speaking Federation Standard, or Anglish as some people call it. Listen!" He watched as Kirrin tapped an instruction on the interface and a voice could be heard dictating an order. Sure enough he could hear a distinctive intonation for various words. ~hmm this is not good~ "This is from three years ago, not long after Commander Probie was first assigned to Echo One Zero. He speaks quite differently to both you, Oggie, and to Commander Williams. And this one," she entered another command, "this is a few months later. As you can hear, he speaks in the same way, rather... I am not sure what the correct word is but when Commander Probie says 'Lieutenant Black' it sounds like 'Lieutenant Bleck'. Do you hear it?" Andrew listened again to the words that Kirrin had talked about and nodded. “Yes I can now hear the difference. What do you think it means” (Reply Marsh) "It doesn't really matter even if you couldn't hear it there, look at the analysis of the sound. Both these, and many of the other files, have the same analysis. I cannot say absolutely that the speaker in these files is the same person but they are almost definitely all by someone with the same way of speaking. You would need a linguistic expert to confirm it but I am reasonably sure that is correct. There are too many similarities." He looked at the results she was showing them, several blue lines zig-zagging across the screen with identical peaks and troughs along the way. "Now look at these results, from some of the recent orders you spoke of, Oggie." He watched Kirrin tapping in another command. The screen cleared and a different image came up; this time several red lines zig-zagged its way across the screen, again with noticeable peaks and troughs. "At first sight they look very similar, yes? And they sound quite similar too when you listen to them. But there are differences. Listen carefully to how he says 'Lieutenant Black'; it occurs three times in this section. Do you hear? A definite 'Bleck' the first time, then 'Black' the second (he was speaking rather fast there) and then the third time there is almost a hesitation before he says 'Bleck'. Only a split second but there is a hesitation." "But in case you don't see the importance of that, take a look at both sets of voice analysis results overlaid." Andrew watched as Kirrin tapped in a command and the red line on the screen was overlaid with the blue line she had first shown them. Whilst in some places the lines overlaid one another almost perfectly, in others there were differences, some slight but some obvious even to the untrained eye. "I am not an expert, but there is no doubt in my mind that the speaker in the later files is quite different to the speaker in the earlier files. He (or it could be she, using a synthesizer to disguise her voice as male) has obviously studied Commander Probie's way of speaking and has made a very creditable effort to imitate it. But an imitation it is. I do not know why he or she did not use a computer simulation built up of actual words spoken by Commander Probie; no doubt there was a reason why that could not be done. And to a certain extent it does not matter why. What matters is that, subject to more detailed analysis by an expert, it would appear that Commander Probie did not, in fact, issue these later orders." Andrew paused for a moment as he took in all that Kirrin had just said. “That is very good work Ensign Kirrin. Is it possible to pin point that time when the imposter started to impersonate Commander Probie?. Do you have any idea where this imposter may have come from?” (Reply by Kirrin, Marsh) (Reply by Kirrin, Marsh Any, iyw) (Posted by Robbie) (Station Echo One Zero - Deck 15, Sector 8, Surveillance hub – ACMO, Ens(jg) Zia Kirrin - 17:39) “That is very good work Ensign Kirrin," Williams said when Zia had finished. "Is it possible to pin point that time when the imposter started to impersonate Commander Probie?. Do you have any idea where this imposter may have come from?” Zia hesitated for an moment. ~Of course, ask the Rihanna about the imposter. She is bound to know about spies.~ Then she took a calming breath. ~Do not be foolish, he is just asking what you can tell from the computer logs. He is not accusing you of anything.~ Aloud, she said, "It would take some work to find the first instance, I think. If we had access to the main computer it would be a lot faster, but without that, the only thing I could suggest is to look at the first instance of 'out of character' orders from Commander Probie. For that Oggie's assistance would be invaluable as he knows the Commander well." She smiled at Oggie. "As for where the imposter may have come from, that I could not guess. You would need a trained linguist to listen to the voice files and even then I am not sure they could do it as whoever it is is imitating Commander Probie, possibly as I said earlier with the aid of a voice synthesizer. But I myself do not have the knowledge to place the imposter. There is one thing though which may be of help. I do not think whoever it may be is a born Federation citizen. There is something about some of the voice files which reminds me of the discs I used to learn the language myself... it is hard to touch it with my finger but I do not think this person learned to speak Anglish from a person. If you learn from a real person then you also learn their idiosyncrasies of speech but if you learn from a computer construct then the syntax and grammar is absolutely correct. It is also without inflexion; for that you need to practice with someone who is a native speaker of the language." Zia thought for a moment and then added, "What I am thinking is that if someone wanted to learn Anglish without asking for 'official' instruction, they might use a teaching database constructed from a translation module. They would then learn to speak the language but would not have the proper context to place inflexion alongside the grammar and vocabulary." She smiled. "A bit like the story one of my tutors at the Academy told us. He said he once had a new Vulcan pupil, who had taught himself Anglish from a computer programme, whom the tutor asked to spell the word 'fish'. The Vulcan replied, 'G.H.O.T.I.' The tutor asked the Vulcan to explain his choice as it did not make sense. The Vulcan replied that on the contrary it was entirely logical: GH as in 'rough', O as in 'women' and TI as in 'station'. You see, he understood the sounds those letters made in those words but he had no context to put them in." Zia paused then said thoughtfully, "However, I do not think that is a true story. If the Vulcan knew how to spell the words 'rough', 'women' and 'station' correctly, it seems strange that he did not also know how to spell the word 'fish' correctly. It is not logical," she added with a deadpan expression. (Reply by Williams, Marsh, Any) (Posted by Liz Geuken) (USS Spectre - Laboratory 2 - SciO, Ens John Linskens - 17:40) Cat put her hand up. "Uh, I have a question. If worst comes to worst and we have to make for the, uh, tripo...sodium, what, exactly, will the phase coils do? Bring us back into phase with one another? And what if we run out of power in the meantime?" John sighed. "Tri-poh-tah-soh-dium, an engineered metal made from three atoms of Potassium, fused with one core atom of Sodium. Anyway, the phase-coils won't do anything until you give the command to start up through your tricorder. And I will set a base phase when we reach the station. I'll set it through the master tricorder and when you get lost in phase all you have to do is to is to press go on your tricorder and select ok to use the programmed base phase. It then shoots you forward or backwards in phase until you reach the right phase after which you will re-appear to us and we will re-appear to you. You then shout something to get our attention and turn off your coil to preserve energy. You then drop to the station-phase and the rest will turn off ours and join you at the station-phase. If for whatever reason you can't link up with us, perhaps because we are at a different phase, you approach the tripotasodium rod and turn off your coil to drop down again. If we find we are missing someone, one of us will note his current phase on the tricorder, although that will probably be me, turn off my coil and meet you at the station-phase where I will update your tricorder with the previous current phase and we can jump together to that phase. Now then, if we run out of power, we'll be on station-phase and we will have to find replacement power-packs. Since you're in phase with the station, that shouldn't be too difficult. Just go to your nearest cargobay and use the emergency override to enter it an collect your new packs. Take out the old ones, slot in the new ones and search for the tripotasodium stick. Remember that when you are out of phase you *can* walk through walls, etcetera. Simple, right?" John ended, sending a stare at Cat. (Reply Cat, any present, room for more) (Posted by Adrie Geuken) (USS Spectre - Laboratory 2 - SciO, Ens(jg) Catriona Macbeth - 17:41) Cat listened to John's answer to her question carefully, making mental notes of the steps he outlined. Fortunately she had a reasonably good memory and wasn't worried about forgetting it now that John had broken it down into steps. Naturally he had not been able to resist beginning by correcting her pronunciation of the tripotasodium, but had saved himself from a withering glare by adding an explanation which not only clarified the name but gave her an aide memoire too. "... Remember that when you are out of phase you *can* walk through walls, etcetera. Simple, right?" John ended, sending a stare at Cat. "Nap wIj qam," grumbled Cat to herself under her breath. ~Simple my foot!~ Klingon was, she had found, a marvellous language to express oneself in when other languages just sounded too nice. "Got it. Now it's simple," she said aloud. ~If you're John!~ (Reply anyone else there, room for more) (Posted by Liz Geuken) (Station Station Echo One Zero - Deck 15, Sector 8, Surveillance hub – COUNS, Ens Oggie Marsh - 17:42) "It is not logical." "It is surprising to see how often Vulcans are illogical, my dear," Oggie commented with a shrug of his shoulders. "They blame us, of course. I heard one remark some time ago that logic dictated for them to behave illogical if the act of illogic behaviour would result in a desired outcome. And since the humans are quite good at illogical behaviour they feel they need to act illogical to get us to do what they wish us to do." Oggie snorted. "Which is a clear indication that pure logic behaviour does not work when illogical elements are at work, which is almost everywhere. But they don't see it that way." Oggie sniffed again. "But regardless of that little conundrum, I would know of another reason why Commander Probie could not have redirected the information. It just came to me when you explained your search results. The reason is quite simple, actually. Commander Probie does not know of this hub. It was better to keep him out of it, they felt. Which is, as they say, quite logical. You wouldn't want to increase the man's paranoia." Oggie shrugged. "Anyway, thank you, my dear, for your sterling services. But I think I can add to that." Oggie turned to Williams. "Although the commands were given in a sufficient enough way to fool the computer, as soon as people were involved, things were unravelled quite quickly. As Zia said several times, oh, and once is more than enough, my dear. You do not wish to weaken your arguments by adding disclaimers several times. You have done good work and the fact that you are nor an expert makes it all the better but mentioning that once would have been enough. Anyway, as Zia said, she is not an expert. And if an amateur can push through it ....." Oggie didn't finish the sentence. It was simple enough. But after a second he took a deep breath. "The person took therefore a risk, and quite a large one. That could be because he or she knew of the special circumstances on this station or because he or she is running out of options fast. Regardless it places him or her on board this station and because of the circumstances here I would reckon that he or she is trapped here now. Alternatively, he or she could have had a hand in it causing the problems. Quite often criminals create a situation to cover their escape. Or allow them to reap their benefits by distracting those that would normally be in his or her way." Oggie smiled weakly. "If that were not enough, as the intruder knows about this hub and has tried, and succeeded, to gain information from it, there is a good possibility that the man or woman will want to enter this place. To get his or her fingers inside the cookie-jar, so to speak." The rotund counsellor fell silent then smiled encouragingly. "But of course, Oggie could have been wrong the whole time. It happens, you know? Quite often, I am afraid." Oggie stepped closer to Zia and suddenly noticed that his priced bar had disappeared. Oggie sighed and closed his eyes for a second. He then sighed again and looked at Zia. But he didn't say what he had wanted to say. The sudden rush of anger dissipated as soon as it had come over him. It took him another second to get his bearings back. "Now then, my dear. You required Oggie's services? Just say what you want me to do and you may consider it done." (Reply by Williams, Zia, Any) (Posted by Adrie Geuken) (Station Echo One Zero - Deck 15, Sector 8, Surveillance hub - SO, Ensign Nathanial Yates - 17:44) Yates sat upon a storage crate, one leg raised, a foot casually placed onto another nearby crate as he listened intently to the conversation between the two newcomers with a somewhat guarded interest. Their little distractions by way of the odd Klingon remark annoyed him a little, why talk in code when you know those around you cannot speak the lingo? To be honest these two people bothered somewhat for their interaction with one another seemed... odd. There was no other word for it really, just... odd. Why had 'they' managed to re-emerge through whatever rip in reality that existed on this station, when no others had been able to do so? Perhaps it was just the distrusting security officer that resided within him, perhaps not, either way Yates was somewhat, on his guard now, his hackles a little raised now due to the seemingly superior attitude of the Councellor himself in regards Zia, and anyone else in the room. The Councellor though seemed a little agitated at that moment in time, his grievance seemingly aimed at the Science officer with a curious elevation of his own status to boot. "Now then, my dear. You required Oggie's services? Just say what you want me to do and you may consider it done." said Marsh with an aire of obvious superiority. It was at that precise moment though that Yates suddenly interjected, having finally had enough of the mans self important attitude. "Why don't 'you' just save us all the trouble and tell us what you want us all to do?", he asked, his head quirking now to one side as he regarded the man curiously. "I mean, you seem to have your finger on the pulse so to speak, so please.... tell us, what's wrong here and how do we put it right?" (Reply Oggie, Any) (Posted by Alan) (USS Mithrandir - FO's Office - aCEO, Ensign Hank Stevens - 17:44) Hank entered the FO's office and took a seat when the FO so instructed. Hank waited until the senior officer spoke first. Then he offered two possibilities first a slung shot effect or manually generating a door to return to their time. His head ached when he considered tome travel and it's implications. LT. Suyvik suggested something more skin to a message in a bottle. Hank considered this thought. "Well Sir, we can certainly load an isolinear chip with everything both vessels have learned so far. The trick is to figure out some way to alert 'our selves ' yo look at the bottle " Hank added pausing to come up with an idea and to allow the others ti speak. (Reply: Any Present ) Hank had a thought and voiced his idea. "We could send a message to ourselves and with its time / date stamp reflective of our current timeline. It could be triggered by a time shift distortion' Stevens added. (Reply: Any) (Posted by: Bill W.) (USS Mithrandir - FO's Office - Mithrandir FO, Lieutenant Syuvik - 17:45) "Well Sir, we can certainly load an isolinear chip with everything both vessels have learned so far. The trick is to figure out some way to alert 'our selves ' yo look at the bottle " Syuvik rose an eyebrow as the universal translator translated the last part of the sentence in a way that didn't really made sense. "Indeed Ensign, but the question is obviously how, isn't it?" added Syuvik. "We could send a message to ourselves and with its time / date stamp reflective of our current timeline. It could be triggered by a time shift distortion' Stevens added. Syuvik considered Hank proposal, but it remained vague. The ensign certainly needed some research or test before even being able to explain 'how' exactly it could be done. "Ensign, you are a graduate of starfleet, so I would not make a good first officer if I didn`t trusted your skills. Do the researches and tests you need, and Lieutenant McKenzie can help you, and send me a report. However, it would be accommodating if you could send me this report before the 1900 meeting, so that I can have an idea what you have come up with, and potentially inform the away team. I will look at it and give you my approval or not. (Reply Stevens) Syuvik nodded. "You are dismissed." (Reply Stevens) (Posted by Syuvik) (USS Mithrandir - FO's Office - Mithrandir CEO, Ensign M'Elissa - 17:45) Hank entered the FO's office and took a seat when the FO so instructed. Hank waited until the senior officer spoke first. Then he offered two possibilities first a slung shot effect or manually generating a door to return to their time. His head ached when he considered tome travel and it's implications. LT. Suyvik suggested something more skin to a message in a bottle. Hank considered this thought. "Well Sir, we can certainly load an isolinear chip with everything both vessels have learned so far. The trick is to figure out some way to alert 'our selves ' yo look at the bottle " Hank added pausing to come up with an idea and to allow the others to speak. M'Elissa sat and listened, nodding and contemplating what was being said Hank had a thought and voiced his idea. "We could send a message to ourselves and with its time / date stamp reflective of our current time line. It could be triggered by a time shift distortion' Stevens added. M'Elissa looked to Hank "Can i add that it should actually be to a third person, within starfleet, somone who can... relay, to use information and keep too much information from us, remember time is fragile, we have to keep as isolated as possible but still be able to function, (Reply: Any) (Posted by: shaylee) (USS Spectre - Cockpit, Shuttle "Gonzo the Great" - ACEO, Ensign Remae Ktell - 17:45) Ktell had been working on the shuttle's pre-flight sequencing and the task of beaming in the supplies from the Science Lab and a few other storage areas, such as weapons lockers, medical supplies and some rations. He was nothing if not prepared for the mission ahead. He also made a personal note to send a strongly worded message to Starfleet Operations regarding their new policy of naming shuttles, this one in particular irked him no end. Either it was the last day of the shuttle construction teams when this ship was commissioned or they'd simply given up on naming their constructions with any decorum! As he composed the letter in his head, the members of the away team were beginning to assemble, store their packs and take seats… John grabbed the 2nd seat next to him and the rest sat closed by in the passenger seats. John outlined their task ahead, "… then we can decide what we want to do further, ok?", he concluded and Cat jumped in. "Seems like a plan, after all, nothing can go wrong if we're staying on the shuttle and not going down to the station, right?", she said. ~ Nothing at all ~ Remae was more determined than ever to get to the station. Everyone seemed ready so he hit the comm button, "Shuttle…", he paused, sighed and the saw in the corner of his eye the commissioning plaque of the shuttle and coughed slightly, he began again, "Shuttle 56532 ready for departure.", he said and fired up the thrusters as the shuttle doors open. Deftly, he turned the shuttle and wasted no time engaging the impulse drive inside the bay. Which of course caused the shuttle to accelerate rapidly. Swiftly, they passed the doors and out into space. NRPG: Ooh, did I mentioned how many starships, shuttles, pods, and space stations I've crashing into planets, moons, and the Bajoran Wormhole? No…oh well, hang on tight! RPG: He swung the shuttle, smoothing angling the shuttle towards the coordinates that John had already given him and maintained 1/4 impulse. (Reply from Any) (Posted by Anthony Keen) (Station Echo One Zero - Deck 15, Sector 8, Surveillance hub - COUNS, Ensign Oggie Marsh - 17:46) Oggie closed his eyes for a moment as he waited for Zia to respond. The fit of anger, that had befallen him just a few moments ago for a fraction of a second, had returned and a lot stronger to boot. Oggie suddenly felt sick and confused, looking through his eyes and suddenly not understanding what he saw any more. "I mean, you seem to have your finger on the pulse so to speak, so please.... tell us, what's wrong here and how do we put it right?" Oggie's eyes suddenly flashed and a dark crimson coloured his cheeks as he looked at the security officer that had questioned him. "For the last time," he barked, " I do not know! I am not the bleeden head scientist! I am the bleeden babysitter!" Breathing heavily, Oggie turned to face the man. "You want answers! *Tough*! I don't have them. If you want answers I suggest you get off your lazy butt and start searching yourself! *I* ..............." Oggie fell silent as the fit of anger left him as quickly as it had come on. He still felt confused, as if he had been watching a badly written D-movie but that faded as well as he regained his senses. Oggie frowned for a second and saw the security officer looking at him with a strange expression on his face. ~What does he want?~ Oggie thought to himself as the recollection of what had just happened dissipated as quickly as the fit of anger that had caused it. Finally he shook his head as he turned to face Zia and cleared his throat. "I think if we search for any vocal commands from the Commander, and set them in time-order then we would ........" Oggie fell silent. "Why are you looking at me like that, my dear?" he asked. (Reply Zia, Any) (Posted by Adrie Geuken) (Station Echo One Zero - Deck 15, Sector 8, Surveillance hub - SO, Ensign Nathanial Yates - 17:47) Yates was used to attittude of course, he was a security officer after all and it was what he was trained to deal with, with an attitude the like he was now being faced with though, he had to question just one thing. How the hell had this guy managed to fool the Counsellor examination board that he had what it took to become a Councellor? Weren't Counsellors supposed to be the epitomy of calm when faced with difficult and challenging situations? It was obvious that the man had an ego, that much was evident in the way he talked, but Marsh had simply 'erupted'... Not exactly 'Counsellor like' by anyones standards. "You want answers! *Tough*! I don't have them. If you want answers I suggest you get off your lazy butt and start searching yourself! *I* ...............", he had snapped, and then he had trailed off in apparent confusion over his own outburst before then carrying on as though nothing had happened! Yates furrowed his brow and then scratched his head before shaking it in a confusion all of his own. He himself had recently faught with a medieval knight and had felt the pain of a sword, he had searched the corridors even though his feet had begun sinking into the decking plates as they apparently melted beneath him. Then to top it all, he had watched the biosigns of an invisible crewman in the stations sickbay and had requested that perhaps they bring that crewman, invisible or otherwise, along with them! If that wasn't getting off his 'Lazy' butt and searching for answers himself, then Yates had no idea what it might be. ~I think you need a vacation on Risa my friend~ he thought as the Counsellor simply returned to the problem at hand. "I think if we search for any vocal commands from the Commander, and set them in time-order then we would ........" Oggie fell silent. "Why are you looking at me like that, my dear?" he asked. (Reply Zia) Yates simply observed the discussion that followed, the question as to how they had managed to break through the reality distortion still ripe in his mind as he looked briefly to Williams, and then to his fellow compatriot Smithson, both of whom seemed elsewhere right now. Kirrin on the other hand had adapted to the situation and had attempted to calm the Counsellor down, the irony of that causing a smile to appear on Yates' face. She then suggested giving them all a check over with her tricorder, the reason for which escaped him right now. Yates nodded anyway. It was never a wise move to attempt to sidestep a medic, even a Captain knew that one! "Fine by me", said Yates, "perhaps you should begin with your friend here", he added, motioning to Marsh as he spoke. Kirrin however continued on with her first choice regardless, which just happened to be Commander Williams. "Are you ready, Commander? I promise this will not hurt a bit.", she said. For some reason though, Williams did not look at all convinced... (Reply Williams) Kirrin then carried out her tests, logging each set of results accordingly and then finally coming to Yates. "Don't tell me, this won't hurt me a bit either?", he quipped. (Reply Kirrin) Kirrin continued on as Yates began querying Marsh once again. "Mr Oggie... Marsh, whatever it is that you wish to be called", said Yates, "can I ask you this, you managed to somehow come to....", he paused, waving his arms briefly around the room as though to add substance to the argument that would follow, "THIS... from wherever it was that you initially were", said Yates. "But you've never fully explained how you did that, and if you did that then why only yourselves? ", he asked. "I'm assuming that the rest of the stations crew were with you when you went wherever it was that you all went so, why couldn't you bring them all back at the same time?" (Reply Marsh, Kirrin, Williams, Any) (Posted by Alan) (Station Echo One Zero - Deck 15, Sector 8, Surveillance hub - ACMO, Ens(jg) Zia Kirrin - 17:48) Zia jumped nervously when Oggie shouted at the Security Officer. It wasn't so much that the man hadn't been asking for it (in Zia's opinion, he had) but that Oggie, of all people, had shouted at him. She shot a glance at Williams and wondered if he would interfere, and if so, on which side he would place himself. ~I do not think these Security Officers are well-trained,~ she thought disapprovingly. ~First that woman is aggressive and threatens us and now this man is rude... But why is Oggie behaving like this? Not only is he shouting but his face is all red and he looks very angry indeed.~ But the incident seemed to be over as quickly as it had started. Having apparently finished yelling at the rude man Oggie turned back to Zia. "I think if we search for any vocal commands from the Commander," he said exactly as if nothing had happened, "and set them in time-order then we would ........" Zia just stared at him, as surprised at this sudden reversion to the Oggie she knew as she had been at the behaviour of the Oggie she didn't know. "Why are you looking at me like that, my dear?" he asked. "Are you - I mean, what..." she shook her head, trying to clear her thoughts. "That is, I think you should sit down, Oggie. I think your idea is a good one and if you sit hear it would be easier for you. And you will know better than me what dates to look at first." As she spoke she stood up and made room for him at the console. She almost patted the seat invitingly but refrained, thinking that would be treating him a little childishly. "Besides," she continued, "I need to run some checks on everyone, it is some time since we came down here and I seem to remember that Commander Williams said they had been on the station for a while and there have been some strange occurrences also, I think." Zia picked up her modified tricorder. "Commander, I will start with you if you please," she said firmly. "I will need to take readings from everyone present to see if -" she glanced at Oggie then at Yates then back to Williams - "if anything is affecting us in ways we cannot see or feel at the moment." ~Or more specifically, affecting our minds.~ "Please give me a moment to adjust this tricorder to compare the readings with base statistics for the races present as naturally I do not have access to your individual medical files." ~I wish I had a proper medical tricorder here. I am beginning to wonder if I am the only sane one on this station.~ she thought as she fiddled with the settings on the tricorder, and then she remembered the lifesigns she had seen which had seemingly appeared and vanished in an instant. ~Or then again maybe not!~ Pinning a confident expression on her face (which she was very far from feeling), she looked up at Williams. "Are you ready, Commander? I promise this will not hurt a bit." (Reply Williams, Oggie, Yates iyw, Any) (Posted by Liz Geuken) -- ACMO Ensign(jg) Zia Kirrin SciO Ensign(jg) Catriona Macbeth (USS Spectre - Shuttle "Gonzo the Great" - SciO, Ens John Linskens - 17:55) Having nestled himself in the co-pilot's seat, only due to John's insistence that he needed to be close to the instruments to keep a check on the data as it came in, John looked at the other participants. He nearly sighed when he took in Tevvie's dishevelled looks. The Ornaran had seemed withdrawn and downcast ever since his return from the CO. According to Kate they had received the backing from the CO but John wondered how the Bajoran had gone about it. He assumed that he had not told everything which would have put the ACSO in a very difficult position. ~Another difficult position,~ John mused with a pang of guilt. "OK, guys," John spoke up whilst still looking at the ACSO. "Here's the plan, slightly amended. We go in, do the measurements, close in on the phase-field boundary layer until we can't contact the ship anymore, test out the coils, re-establish contact with the Spectre and then we can decide what we want to do further, ok?" (Reply by all, any) (Posted by Adrie Geuken) (USS Spectre - Shuttle "Gonzo the Great" - SciO, Ens(jg), Catriona Macbeth - 17:57) John having bagged the co-pilot's seat, Cat squeezed herself onto one of the passenger seats behind the cockpit area. She stowed her backpack under her seat for the time being. No sense in holding it on her lap the whole way. She unclipped her tricorder from her belt and in her mind went through the whole procedure as outlined by John in the science lab. She wanted to be sure she had it right. One thing she did *not* want to do was to press the wrong button! She looked up from the tricorder as John outlined a slightly amended plan. There was no mention of actually going down to the station, instead John seemed to be suggesting that they merely tested the coils from the shuttle once they were out of contact with the Spectre, and could therefore be assumed to be close enough to the station for their results to have some validity. Once they had done that, they would re-establish contact with the Spectre and would then take it from there. "Seems like a plan," Cat said. "After all, nothing can go wrong if we're staying on the shuttle and not going down to the station, right?" (reply any who wish to comment on a statement which is the equivalent of dancing up to the face of Fate and tweaking her nose ;-) ) Permission to depart having been given from the Bridge, the shuttle moved slowly out of the shuttle-bay doors and away from the Spectre, heading towards the station to attempt to fathom some, at least, of its secrets. (Reply any) (Posted by Liz Geuken) (USS Spectre – Bridge – CO, Captain T'Vhor – 17:58) The Captain had been contemplating the curious 'eyes only' report that Admiral Alexander had sent him earlier with a certain unease. Madon was a name that he did not particularly want to hear right now for it conjured up images of Cardassian incursions, Obsidian order meddling, and odious dealings regarding something... not very nice at all. If the Cardassian female was in any way involved in what was going on here right now, then the ante had been upped somewhat. And then there were the broader connotations of that possibility. How far had the 'Infiltration' spread. Who had been compromised? Smith's voice informing him of the shuttle's readiness for launch though distracted the Captain from his thoughts and he turned towards him, the man himself seemingly trying to conceal a grin of sorts as he had made the report. What was it about that shuttle? Why did everyone react in the same way? The Captain made a mental note to investigate the history of 'Gonzo the Great' via the ships computer when the time presented itself, but if he had to hazzard a guess, then he imagined that it would involve Human humour in some form... which would of course mean that he would be none the wiser!!! "Inform Ensign Linskens that he has permission to launch", said the Captain, and Smith nodded, returning to his console accordingly and then looking to the viewscreen to observe the shuttle's transit when it eventually appeared upon it. The Captain then allowed his thoughts to drift once again to Sulia Madon... (Reply Any, IYW) (Posted by Alan) (USS Spectre – Bridge - Ops, Ensign Robert Smith – 18:00) Robert looked at the console as it beeped at him. He was informed by the shuttle bay officer that the Shuttle Linskens was on was ready. He looked over at the Captain. “Sir the shuttle “Gonzo the Great” is ready for departure.” He kept his face straight and all laughter out of his voice. (Reply T’Vhor) He nodded and tapped the console. (Reply T’Vhor, any) (Posted by Robbie) (USS Spectre – Bridge - OPS, Ensign Robert Smith – 18:03) "Inform Ensign Linskens that he has permission to launch" Robert nodded to T’Vhor. “Yes Captain.” He looked down at his console and tapped a couple of commands. “Spectre to 'Gonzo the Great'.” (Reply Linskens) “You have permission to launch. Take care out there.” (Reply Linskens) (Reply Linskens Any) (Posted by Robbie) (USS Spectre - Cockpit - Shuttle "Gonzo the Great" - SciO, Ens John Linskens - 18:04) =/\= Spectre to 'Gonzo the Great'. =/\= Linskens looked up from his screen and tapped his badge. "Hey, Rob-man! What's up?" =/\= You have permission to launch. Take care out there. =/\= John nodded as he gestured to Ktell to start up the engines. "Will do," he responded with a grin. "Taking care is my middle name .... well, my middle two names. We'll bring you a nice souvenir home. Oh, and tell the boss-man that we are very into living long and prospering." John nodded. "Oh, and we hope he is too, of course. Bye for now, we'll report if and when we have something to report." (Reply Smith/Spectre, iyw and rfm) John closed the link and nodded to himself. That had gone reasonably well. He looked out through the front window and felt himself shudder slightly. He hadn't felt this alive for a long, long time, gazing into the unknown, not knowing what was on the horizon with only your wits and buddies to see each other safe. As a figure of speech of course. Both the unknown and the horizon were currently replaced by the doors of the shuttle-bay as they slowly opened. John nodded at Ktell. "Make haste, Mister Watson," he said. "The game's afoot!" (Reply Spectre, 'Rascals', iyw and rfm, any) (Posted bt Adrie Geuken) (USS Spectre - Cockpit, Shuttle "Gonzo the Great" - SciO, Ens John Linskens - 18:15) "Can you stop here, Kate?" John asked as he peered at the readouts in front of him. He narrowed his eyes for a second before hitting the comm system. "Linskens to Spectre. First position reached, first measurements are coming in. Please send us the current sub-dimensional array results for cross-reference, thank you." They had to wait a short while but eventually the data was coming in and John checked them with an ever-increasing frown. "Linskens to Spectre, got them. Two things, phase-shift is more pronounced here than originally expected. We are 1.1 milliLin out of sync with you already. Your results however indicate we should be only 0.6 milliLin out of sync. Systems were running A-Ok when we left. Your long-range sensor results seem a bit frayed at this end though. Suggest that the field is affecting your sensor grid and that the field boundary layer is expanding away from the station. I will calculate new coordinates for stop 2 to take the discrepancy into consideration. Will send you the numbers as soon as I get them. Bye for now." Without looking up, John worked out the new coordinates and fed them back to Ktell and the Spectre. He then nodded to Tolqu. "Tevvie, I will send the results to the wall-screen near you. Please check as well. In the meantime I will ....." John fell silent as he thought things through. He finally nodded. "Need a third point, to determine which results to trust. Hang on." John hit the comm button again. "Linskens to Mithrandir. Please send us the current sub-dimensional array data for cross-reference, thank you." John smiled and explained: "The Mith is a Nova, right? Nova's got much better sensor packs so they should be less affected by the interference. But we'll see." (Reply from All, Mithrandir, Any) (Posted by Adrie Geuken) (USS Spectre - Cockpit, Shuttle "Gonzo the Great" - SciO, Ens(jg) Catriona Macbeth - 18:20) They had been underway for some 15 minutes or so, when John had asked Remae to bring the shuttle to a halt. He had then requested the current sub-dimensional array results from the Spectre to cross-reference with his own readings on board the shuttle. It took a few minutes but the data came in. After reading them, John had contacted the Spectre again, stating that the phase-shift at the shuttle's current location was more pronounced than expected, but putting that down to the phase-field affecting the Spectre's sensor grid. He had announced that the shuttle would move to a new location which would allow them to take the discrepancy into account. John had also sent the results to the screen next to Tolqu and asked him to check them too, and after a short consideration he decided that a third point would give them a better idea which results to trust. Acting on this thought immediately, John sent a message to the Mithrandir, requesting their current sub-dimensional array data so he could cross-reference that too. Closing the comm, he turned to the rest of them and explained with a smile: "The Mith is a Nova, right? Nova's got much better sensor packs so they should be less affected by the interference. But we'll see." Cat shifted in her seat. "Um, John? The Mithrandir *used* to be a Nova Class, but they recently replaced it with a Luna class using the same name. I guess by rights it should be Mithrandir-B as it's the third ship of that name in the 52nd, but then again who knows what fleet command are thinking. Perhaps they are hoping to confuse our enemies..." Her voice trailed off as she realised that her musings on the vagaries of fleet command and ship-naming were not really relevant. "Um, anyway, it's not a Nova. Luna-class science vessels are top of the range but whilst the Mithrandir-A was a dedicated science vessel, this one is configured as an explorer, so without access to their detailed specifications it's anyone's guess whether their sensor packs are as good as the -A or not. Probably not, as explorers need to be more generalist than specific." (Reply from any on Gonzo the Great, Mithrandir, Any) (Posted by Liz Geuken) (USS Spectre - Cockpit, Shuttle "Gonzo the Great" - SciO, Ens John Linskens - 18:21) "Um, John? The Mithrandir *used* to be a Nova Class, but they recently replaced it with a Luna class using the same name. I guess by rights it should be Mithrandir-B as it's the third ship of that name in the 52nd, but then again who knows what fleet command are thinking. Perhaps they are hoping to confuse our enemies..." John just eyed the female linguist, which seemed to do the trick as she then continued. "Um, anyway, it's not a Nova. Luna-class science vessels are top of the range but whilst the Mithrandir-A was a dedicated science vessel, this one is configured as an explorer, so without access to their detailed specifications it's anyone's guess whether their sensor packs are as good as the -A or not. Probably not, as explorers need to be more generalist than specific." John sighed and shook his head. "Typical," he said. "Absolutely, mind-numbing typical. Get the best science vessel currently available and what do you do? You turn it into a run-of-the-mill explorer. Like we don't have enough of those, already." John sighed again. "Well, let's hope that they at least got the latest sensor upgrades. The extra resolution would have been nice, but I guess a triangular measurement could do it as well. Any more surprises for me in store? We are trying to do a mission here, you know? And an important one at that!" NRPG: And again I feel I am forced to apologise on John's behalf. He is a scientist and science is, according to him, the only relevance in life. He means well, though. He just doesn't show it. RPG: (Reply from Cat, any on Gonzo the Great, Mithrandir, Any) (Posted by Adrie Geuken) (USS Spectre - Cockpit - Shuttle "Gonzo the Great" - SciO, Ens John Linskens - 18:22) After a few minutes of waiting for a response, John touched Ktell on his shoulder. "Let's go. If they were going to respond, they would have done so already. You've got the new coordinates, so does the Spectre. Oh, yeah, that reminds me." John tapped his badge. "Linskens to Rob-man. Please send us a continuous stream of sounds at 15, 1000 and 25000 Hertz. When we stop receiving the sounds, we know that we'll be out of contact. I will do the same from our end. Once the sounds stop we probably won't be able to receive communications either but I will trial that when we lose your sound signals. Ok?" John keyed in a few commands so that the incoming sounds were filtered out and displayed on a scope instead. Then he keyed in a few more commands. "Linskens to Rob-man. I have just started the sound sending. How does it look from your end?" (Reply by Smith, any on Spectre, any) Having finished the preparations, John pointed demonstratively at the space in front of them. "Onwards, good man! Onwards to Moriarty's hide-out and a definite mentioning in Strand Magazine!" he roared at Ktell then fell back grinning at his own joke. (Reply Smith/Spectre, 'Rascals', iyw and rfm, any) (Posted by Adrie Geuken) (USS Spectre - Cockpit - Shuttle "Gonzo the Great" - SciO, Ens John Linskens - 18:35) John looked at his screens as the shuttle plowed on through space getting closer and closer to the station, at current a mere dot on the screen. "OK," he suddenly said. "We lost the sounds. Ktell, can you stop here?" John looked over at the Bajoran then accessed the radio. "Shuttle 'Gonzo the Great' to USS Spectre. Please respond." He listened tentatively for a response but when that didn't arrive he hailed the Spectre again with the same result. "OK, as I thought. We are now phased out of communication with the Spectre. All according to plan," he added hastily when he heard a sigh behind him. "Now then, uhhhmmmm, that's not good." John tapped the console in front of him. "Nope, still the same. Oka-a-a-a-a-y, slight miscalculation on my part. We are now separated 3.53 milliLIn from the Spectre. According to my calculations it should have been 2.98356 milliLin. I'll have to redo the figures when we get home. Which reminds me. While I set up the phase-coil for a test run, I guess it is time to discuss what we are going to do next? Anyone wants the first word?" John reached for his backpack and examined the phase-coil construction carefully, ignoring everything that was happening around him. Finding the coil to be in perfect condition he looked up but as he did so, his eye caught something on the panel in front of him. "Uhhhhh, Ktell? Didn't I ask you to stop?" He looked at a few stats. "We are drifting!" he exclaimed. "Why didn't the engines?...... What the heck?" John looked up when suddenly all lights went out including the screens and lights on the console in front of him. After a second they all sprang back to life to drop out again a few seconds later. "Power failure!" John shouted. "Re-routing ........." Suddenly the darkness was cut by a soft red glow. "We're on emergency power now. Must be a phase induced thing. Ktell, why can't I hear the engines?" Suddenly the lights were back onto full strength. "That's bett.....," John started when the power went down again. John sighed audibly. "Ask a silly question ......." he remarked as the small dot on the screen was slowly getting larger and larger. "It's pulling us in," he stated. NRPG: Ok, this is where I can safely leave you in the most capable hands of our pilot Ktell, a man who can crash anything into anything. Ok, over to you. Tony. And make it memorable. 8-) RPG: (Reply Smith/Spectre, 'Rascals', any) (Posted by Adrie Geuken) (USS Spectre - Bridge - CO, Captain T'Vhor - 18:37) "Sir", said the Tactical Officer curiously, "Something is wrong with the shuttle" The Captain turned immediately of course, his attention moving from the routine armrest readouts to the situation at hand. This was the last thing they needed right now of course, especially after both K'Tell and Tolqu had assured him that the plan would work! "Explain", he snapped. For a moment though, the tactical officer was quite unable to ratify what had just occured on his sensor screen, he simply shook his head and then he stammered a response. "Umm, momentary power loss sir, then a surge.... then", said the TAC officer. "Then what?", enquired the CO, a sence of urgency in his voice now, at which point the TAC officer suddenly found his own voice once again. "The shuttle is drifting sir, it's being pulled towards the station by a force of some kind", saif the Lieutenant with a worried look upon his face. "Can we tractor the shuttle?", enquired the Captain. The TAC officer shook his head in the negative. "Our power is at minimal sir, we don't have enough to initiate a reliable lock on the shuttle", said the Lieutenant. "Unless of course, we shut down more of our key systems", he added. The Captain pondered the situation briefly, the Mithrandir was on minimal power also of course, their warp cores having been shut down to prevent interferance with the the station itself and whatever anomoly was actually occuring upon it. "Raise the shuttle, we need to find out what has occured", said the Captain, and the Tactical officer replied with a simply, 'Aye sir, attempting to raise the shuttle now' (Reply K'Tell, Linskens, Tolqu, Any) (Posted by Alan) (USS Spectre - Cockpit - Shuttle "Gonzo the Great" - SciO, Ens John Linskens - 18:38) "We are definitely experiencing some power problems," John stated with an air of expertise, which was a bit overdone as the power kept blipping and it was rather obvious. "The problem seems to be the power conduits. They seem to turn themselves on and off at random. It might be ......" John feel silent as he investigated the power routes. He cursed as the lights went out again and the screens darkened. This time it took several seconds before they turned themselves on again. "Systems restarting. Ok, systems up and stable now. Problem is with the routing. The ......" John fell silent as he traced the power systems in his head. "May be the Krillenium heads. I wonder if they ....... naah. Unless ........... ." John sighed as his mind raced through indications and counter indications, working out how to determine the exact root cause. He finally sat back and nodded to Ktell. "I am going to turn the power off and switch to emergency power instead. That has been stable so far. Which means that the power routing is ok. But without a full level diagnostics I won't be able to specify the exact reasons. I am pretty sure it is the Krillenium heads, though. No Krillenium heads anywhere in the emergency power set up. Question is, can you land this thing on only emergency power? I should be able to rig a few thrusters to work with emergency power. But no impulse drive, I am afraid." John looked at the screens as he keyed in a number of commands. He read the computer analysis and frowned. "We've increased in speed. Looks like the attraction forces are increasing the closer we get to the station. Quick and dirty, I reckon we will end up with a speed of 0.08 c once we reach the station. That's a lot of speed to control with just a few thrusters. You think you can manage that?" (Reply by Ktell, any other 'Rascals', any) John nodded. "Ok, whilst you set it up, I'll let the others know what happened. No doubt they'll have seen us go haywire and have tried to contact us even though they should know we can't communicate." John grabbed his phase coil and master tricorder and sighed. Sometimes he wished that the universe wasn't out to get him at every opportunity. It had started on the day he started his first Star Fleet assignment on the USS Nimitz. Then it had been an attack by marines on his science department, a very troublesome First Officer and a hefty time-travel at the end to boot. Not the best of starts, by all accounts. Then there was that overlapping universe that had sucked him in and spit him out again. John involuntarily shuddered at the remembrance of the utter cold that had enveloped him when the universe had spit him out and sighed again. But then he grinned. On the other hand, it also meant that John took as many precautions as he possibly could before going 'out'. He had gotten wise to the universe gunning for him and he now saw it a bit as a challenge, coming up with ways to survive the unsurvivable situations. Like his little program that he had created on his tricorder. He knew that the phase coil power usage would be quite severe so he had set out to reduce power usage as much as possible. One way to do that was to reduce the time he needed to 'burn' the coils. So he set up a routine that would crunch any message that he wanted to send 'phased', then crunch the crunched message until it was only 5 milliseconds long. Of course, the other side would have to recognise the mini-blip for what it really was, namely a highly condensed message and to take steps to un-'cruch' it several times until the original message remained. Which was unlikely to happen since John had not told anyone about his 'blipper'. But that was partly deliberate because he didn't want to have to rely on human interaction. Humans, as well as most other races, to be fair, were known to be making occasional mistakes at one time or another. So he had set up the Spectre computer to recognise the blip start and to work on the blip until an understandable message remained. The only thing that needed to happen was that the blip was to be sent through the computer. That he hadn't been able to automatise since he lacked the required authorisations. So there was still a human factor involved. But the blip would be clearly identified as created signal rather than some background noise. The length was determined, the frequency was set and there was too much structure to be classed as background noise. Mind you, you still depended on the other side to think like you thought they would think. John grinned. That was the challenge, wasn't it? John thought for a second then brought the tricorder close to his mouth and pressed a key. "Linskens to Spectre. General power failure in progress. Failure mode and cause unclear. Expectation that Krillenium heads are involved and that there was some kind of phase interference. Will add a summary of data to this message. All occupants are alive and well, shuttle en route to station at increasing speeds. Estimated time to impact: 8 minutes 40 seconds. Should survive. Will land on station to repair shuttle. Unable to receive response. Can't keep the coils operating to wait for response. Send some signal to show you hear this. Will contact you again when we have landed on the station. Do not send rescue until root cause of power failure has been established. Will look after ourselves. Linskens out." John grinned at no-one specific as he copied some of the data to his tricorder and added it to the message. "Here goes nothing," he remarked dryly as he pressed a button and the phase coil hummed for a second. John investigated his tricorder and saw that all was as expected and nodded. "Ok, now we wait. Anything you want me to do, Kate?" He grinned, feeling so alive. (Reply Smith/Spectre, Ktell/'Kate', 'Rascals', any) (Posted by Adrie Geuken) (USS Mithrandir - Observation Lounge - Mithrandir ACTO, Ensign Daniel Boone - 19:04) Boone entered the Observation Lounge and briefly looked around before assuming a seat next to the only other security officer in the room, Ens. Pendragon. In the short time Boone had been on the Mithrandir he had tried to get to know the crew, but especially those in the SEC/TAC dept. Pendragon was the only other human officer in the dept. Well, at least ¾ human. Being a quarter Betazoid made Boone a little uneasy around him but Daniel had not come flat out and asked him if he could read his mind or sense his emotions. Boone glanced over at Gryffen and realized the man was looking right at him. ~Crap, if he can read my thoughts….~ Boone was about to ask Pendragon when the CO spoke up. “Mr. Syuvik, Ensigns Pendragon and Boone for security, Dr. Shepard will go as our medical personnel, Ensign M'Elissa will go as our engineering officer to help restore power." “Are there any questions?” Alexander asked. Boone was still looking at Gryffen when the TAC officer raised his hand. “Sir, given the time continuum issues here. What are the rules of engagement if we are attacked? Do we fight back or retreat for fear of contaminating the time line if we injure of kill someone?” ~Retreat?~ Boone thought to himself, not caring if the part Betazoid in Pendragon heard it or not. (reply Captain) Daniel always got a nauseating feeling in his stomach when people started talking about time travel and contaminated timelines. He fought with the feeling as he listened to the other officers working out details for the away mission. (Reply any) (Posted by Roy Bowman) (USS Mithrandir - SC's Office - Mithrandir SC, Lieutenant Ayehla Zyahn/FO Lieutenant Syuvik - 19:32) M'elissa did a terrific job at putting in place the satellite so that they had access to this starfleet database. Since the link was established, Ayehla had been checking information on starfleet history and recent events, as well as trying to see any records of the two USS Mithrandir. If there was nothing on them, the history of the other Mithrandir and starfleet history was exactly the same than theirs. The two timeline was, or had been perfectly identical before the USS Mithrandir incident. Ayehla communicated with the first officer, Syuvik, to update him on her research. =/\= Lieutenant Zyahn to Lieutenant Syuvik =/\= Syuvik was reviewing the data and advice suggested during the meeting when he received the communication. =/\= Syuvik here. =/\= =/\= Sir, it took me some time, but thanks to Ensign M'elissa, I was able to gain access to starfleet database. I confirm that everything in their reality is exactly the same has ours. We are in our own past, there is no doubt. =/\= ~That means we won't have to worry about the real intentions of the USS Spectre crew. ~ thought Syuvik. =/\= Well done lieutenant. Is there any mention of us? =/\= asked Syuvik =/\= No, there isn't sir. It's not surprising, temporal anomalies are not something starfleet include in their public channel, It would be on starfleet intelligence private channel, but on that aspect I can't help you. Their network are far more sophisticated and secure thatnthe normal starfleet public one. =/\= replied Ayehla. Ayehla was thinking of the satellite, M'elissa use of her sister help, as well as herself using the command code of the FO of the intrepid class ship that was probably already preparing to join the enemy. They could all be the opposite of what Syuvik meant by "no illegal way", especially that it could have affected the timeline. But after thorough reflection, not only did Ayehla conclude the danger was minimal, but that she really needed to avoid those feelings of fear and guilt that had been affecting her since she had been joined. When she was in the recon platoon of the marine, she had done much worst without even questioning her decision. Doubting oneself was one of the first cause of lack of initiative and as the new chief of security and chief tactical, she really needed to gain back her composure. In those kind of jobs, one second could make all the difference. =/\= Have you anything else to report lieutenant? =/\= asked Syuvik =/\= No sir. Ayehla out. =/\= (Reply no one) (Posted by Nick) (USS Mithrandir - Bridge, Aux Tactical Station - ACTO Ens Daniel Boone - 19:55) Daniel pondered over the details he had worked out once more. He tapped a few keys to bring up the sensor schematics of the older station. It was a Lagrange type II science station. It was an antique by today’s standards but was still used by some of the lesser known Federation scientific branches. ~Old technology, new problems.~ Boone had found it odd that he had so much trouble accessing the schematics for the station when it should be just a simple search for the ship’s computer. This particular station was not on any known registries he could account for so he had to go with a general search. If this one had been modified he would have a challenge on his hands. But he believed that Ens. M’elissa’s improved sensors could also give them a means of tracking the away teams and allow her to investigate the power drain on the station at the same time. After a couple more checks he was ready to give his report to the FO. "Boone to First Officer." (Reply Syuvik) "Sir, I believe for security purposes we need to utilize Ens. M’elissa’s sensors to track the away team while on board the station. We don’t need anyone else disappearing but at least this way we can keep track of everyone." (Reply Syuvik) "I don’t anticipate any problems sir. Tricorders would not give us enough coverage to track everyone especially with the phasing possibly influencing them We can review the layout again enroute, but getting to the sensor station and out again needs to happen quickly. The shorter amount of time over there for now the better." (Reply Syuvik) "Aye sir, the sensor station is 3 decks below the docking port we will enter by. A direct route is accessible thru a series of Jeffery tubes running from Deck 2 to 5. It is our best bet with power conditions as they are. I will see you in the shuttle bay in less than an hour. We can finalize the plan then." (Reply Syvik) (Posted by Roy Bowman) (USS Mithrandir - FO's Office - Mithrandir FO, Lieutenant Syvuik - 19:57) While Syuvik was working on the away mission, he received a communication. =^=Boone to First Officer.=^= "Syuvik here." =^=Sir, I believe for security purposes we need to utilize Ens. M’elissa’s sensors to track the away team while on board the station. We don’t need anyone else disappearing but at least this way we can keep track of everyone.=^= Syuvik was amazed by the ensign semantic. Despite property stopped existing two centuries ago, it was interesting to know the association between work and property was still very strong in humans mind and choice of semantic. "Your conclusions are indeed right. I assume your expecting some problems when we will be there?" replied Syuvik =^=I don’t anticipate any problems sir. Tricorders would not give us enough coverage to track everyone especially with the phasing possibly influencing them We can review the layout again enroute, but getting to the sensor station and out again needs to happen quickly. The shorter amount of time over there for now the better.=^= Syuvik rose an eyebrow. "Ensign, accessing the station sensor are not uniquely to find the away team, but also and especially to collect specific data about the phase and temporal anomaly to be able to go back to our timeline. We will have to go there, and take the time needed to find the answers we need, otherwise, we might as well misunderstand the phenomena at stake and be sent several years back rather than in our timeline. Time travel is a very difficult achievement and one which need very precise calibration and information So, have you come with a plan to reach the station main sensor control" =^=Aye sir, the sensor station is 3 decks below the docking port we will enter by. A direct route is accessible thru a series of Jeffery tubes running from Deck 2 to 5. It is our best bet with power conditions as they are. I will see you in the shuttle bay in less than an hour. We can finalize the plan then.=^= Syuvik stopped what he was doing. "Ensign, I have absolutely no disposition for improvisation. Knowledge is fundamental. Finalize your tactical recommendation as soon as you can and send them to me. At the meeting, I intend to give a precise plan, so that no one is left in the dark and has to improvise." (Reply Boone) (Posted by Nick) =========================================================================