USS-Daystrom Alpha mission

[Granitehewer]

''Cardinal'' sharply bolted upright, as if the very fabric of his essence itself, was unravelling.
Waiting for his eyes to accustom themselves to the enforced dark of his quarters, ''eliminate the extraneous to focus the necessary'' afterall, he decided that it would be prudent, to assess the potential of his ''floating family'' through a series of tasks and scenarios.
Even with a mind, as unassuming and unconventional as his own, and even with the beauocracy of his diplomacy career and the dynamics of his vocation, it still would be quite a task, to evaluate and understand, the motives and allegiances of the alien elements of his crew; even this in itself was a dicotomy, innate to ''Cardinal'', for despite his heritage; he was afterall a quarter romulan; a product of a less than willing but brief union during a minor skirmish, at times, he found a greater affinity for the humans, yet at others; a sense of distance from the progeny of earth...
Thankfully his ''real family'' had expunged, nay, obliterated, any record of his romulan heritage from most, if not all, databases, and much to ''Cardinals' '' relief; the physiological symptoms, were almost none existant, the only real indicator of not being a purebreed human, was a slight elvish arch to his ears.
The Helmsman, andorian, and tholian, would prove adequate to tax, his abilities and be more than adequate as scapegoats, should anything go awry, in these profound plans of mice and of men.
''i must formerly introduce myself, that is 'Alexis' to the crew, but which poker face, must i employ, ace, heart, diamond or club?''

[Blackstar the Chakat]

After spending a few on-duty hours running diagnostics on the helm and its secondary systems, customizing hir control scheme, and playing solitare on the computer for a few hours, Blackstar decided to take some downtime in one of the civilian lounges. Shi spotted hir ship's science officer, Teaos and his staff talking about something with Slipstream theory. While not a scientist, Blackstar could usually follow along when talking with one. Shi made a note to investigate what he knew about Slipstream propulsion, the same type of propulsion shi was testing when an accident landed hir in this universe.

'Oh well,' shi thought, 'theres plenty of time to talk with him later.' Shi was more cautious in this universe since there were even fewer herms here then back in hir original universe, and many had trouble getting past the fact shi had two genders. Blackstar was hoping that hir Starfleet crewmates were going to be more tolerent, but shi hadn't really had a chance to talk with any of them. Hir staff was really just a few relief crewman who manned the helm when shi was off duty. Although helm did do a lot of work with ops there was no need to talk to him yet.

Blackstar drank a glass of a Klingon drink called bloodwine, which had a taste that hir more feral side enjoyed. After seeing no one to talk to other then the scientists Blackstar returned to hir quarters and fell asleep watching an old TV program called Stargate Infinity. Shi was looking foward to the beginning of hir ship's mission, and dreamed of the moves shi planned to show off at the first chance shi got.

[Teaos]

~~~USS-Daystrom~~~

With a metallic clank the docking clamps which had held the Daystrom in place for these past months while she was refitted released the ship. A gentle hum from the Impulse engines and thrusts at low power slowly edges the ship away from the docking bay. The Daystrom slowly passed the other ships inside the space docks massive hanger.

She revolved around on the spot to face the hanger doors and slowly increased her speed passing the Galaxy class Mainstream and Steamrunner class Sydney which were currently being serviced. As she passed the last of the ships is dock the hanger doors began opening.

Passing the doors the hull of the newly refurbished Akira class ship glistened blood red as the light of the near by red giant sun bathed the ship and station in its light. Just as the ship was several hundred meters away from the station and preparing to fully engage its impulse engines the station let go a volley of torpedoes which detonated in an arc around the ship before several of the stations phaser banks opened up and flashed around the ship in a bridge of honor. Just as the last beam died down the engines fully engaged and the Daystrom shot away into the dark.

*************

All the senior staff were on duty on the bridge as they had all wanted to be on duty or the launching of their new ship.

The view screen had shown the send off the station had given them. The captain looked over his shoulder at Lieutenant Jon his tactical officer who was smirking at the view screen. He had a feeling his tactical officer may have bribed his counterpart on the station to give them that little send away. Not that he could really blame him, the Lieutenant had been over seeing the refitting of the Daystrom for several months.

"Helm take us to heading two four seven point three full impulse till we clear the stations range then bring us up to warp seven" Captain Fletcher said as he sat himself down in his command chair relishing the fact that he finally had a command of his own.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

[Thorin]

After watching the sending off display of the Daystrom, Jon realised that Lieutenant Arkenson, tactical officer of the starbase, didn't fire the promised quantum torpedos after the initial arc. He pushed a couple of buttons on his console, and below the title of personal log, entered the words owed two quantums by Arkenson. As he typed this he noticed the Captain give him a quick glance, and hoped that it wasn't of annoyance.

As Jon began remodulating the shields to find the most effecient way of creating a two point six quintillion joule bubble of sub-atomic forces and energies, he noticed one of the shield emitters was out of alignment by 0.02%. He'd get one of his engineers onto it, he thought, as suddenly the viewscreen, showing the red giant, changed the image to stars; they flickered, began vibrating, and then shot out of the viewscreen's range. Warp speed, he thought, he had missed it.

So this was the bridge crew for the forseeable future. Captain Fletcher, Commander Rochey, Science Officer Commander Teaos, Operations Officer Lieutenant Mikey, and Helmsman Lieutenant Chakat. The rest of the senior staff were present, though, to witness the launching of the ship; Security Chief Lieutenant Deepcrush, Chief Engineer Lieutenant Seafort and Chief Medical Officer Doctor Sarin Taal. Alexis Harrison and Jack Ryson were also present, as were a number of ensigns and crewmen, who were relief officers and engineers working at secondary stations.

"Helm, how long until we reach our destination?" said Captain Fletcher, as he mused over his new crew and his new command.

"38 hours at current speed, sir" came the reply from Chakat, who was pushing buttons on the console, scanning ahead for the quickest path to the Tholian border.

The captain pushed down a button on his console, and the audible sound of a ship wide announcement could be guessed. He stood up and looked around his bridge.

"Ladies and Gentlemen, this is Captain Fletcher. This is, for the most part, a new crew on a new ship. I understand it will take us all a while to settle in and get use to the Daystrom. But I have no doubt that, even after this short while of us being together, everyone on this crew will do their utmost best, and that we will all grow together as good friends. This is a fine crew and a fine ship. I look forward to our future, and I have little doubt that it will be... interesting, at the very least. Captain Fletcher out."

The extra people on the bridge who had come to watch the relaunching of the refitted Akira exited via a turbolift, and took to their stations at various places around the ship.

The captain looked over to his first officer, "You know, I've not even seen my ready room yet", and Commander Rochey nodded in reply. If anyone else had said something similar, he would have been uninterested, but he had always a great respect for his commanding officer.

"You have the bridge, Commander", and with that he walked to his ready room and gave a quick glance back as the doors closed.

Jon thought this a good time to organise a meeting for his department, a briefing on their duties, and on the mission ahead. He looked over his left shoulder to Ensign Jones, the relief officer, who took his place at the tactical station, and Jon entered the turbo lift.

"Deck 5, Security offices". He had remembered that he still needed to meet the security chief. The turbolift came to a halt, he took a step out, turned to his left, and made his way down a corridor. He entered a room that had a large desk in the middle, with a huge display of the ship, that could be changed to show various parts of the ship from different angles as required. This was where security could activate forcefields, see where intruders are, send security teams, emergency unlock doors, and control all functions of the brigs and armouries. There were three doors in this room; one was to the corridor, one was a bulky door that had an access pannel at the side that was securely locked (the armoury), which only the command division, tactical, and security, had access to, and another one that was the office of the Security chief.

As Jon observed this, Lieutenant Deepcrush himself walked through this door to greet Jon.

"Jonathan Hewer?" Jon nodded, "Deepcrush Culley, Chief of Security".

The two men shook hands, and Deepcrush ushered Jon into his office. They sat down and began picking up various scattered PADDs as they discussed their two departments, and at times going off on tangents - mainly about the Daystrom's capabilities (of which Jon had quite a knowledge), and of her previous missions.

[Sionnach Glic]

Commander Rocheineskina, more commonly called 'Rochey' by his new crew, watched the tactical officer, Hewer, leave the bridge. He was sure that the officer had something to do with that criminal waste of ammunition moments ago. If he found even the slightest evidence that Hewer had any part in that, the consequences would be severe.
He had spent his first few hours on the ship checking over the different areas of the ship, but had not got around to everywhere he would have liked due to finding a trio of crewmen idling in the corridors. The ineficiency of this crew was appaling, he just hoped the officers knew what they were doing.
He made a mental note to check up on Engineering later on, and to go through the comms logs to see wether Hewer had had anything to do with that unesasary weapons fire.

[Granitehewer]

Cardinal, decided that loose tongues weaved golden webs, and being a spider, its' abdomen, bloated with knowledge, delicately tugging each shimmering strand, so as to goad out more light, would be prudent...with that in mind, he decided to debunk at and stay in ten forward, or wherever off duty officers loitered the most.............sleep deprivation was to him, as natural as a breeze blowing, he'd be by the bar, as long as it took, to make the necessary connections....

[Captain Seafort]

Seafort stood in the centre of Engineering, taking a moment to take in his new realm. Chief Engineer of a starship. Who'd have thought? With more than a day to go before the Daystrom arrived on station to co-ordinate the search with a Tholian heavy cruiser, he was taking the time to fine-tune the ship's main engines. Already a slight instablity had showed up in the port nacelle, and he still had to discuss the phaser power-up problems with Lt Hewer.

As he stood gazing at the warp core, a movement in the corner of his eye caught Seafort's attention - Lt Harrison, the diplomatic attache, working a console in the shadows in one corner of the room.

"Can I help you Mr Harrison?"

The diplomat jumped, startled. His hands dashed across the panel. "Chief Engineer. No, I think I can handle this by myself, thank you."

"Can I ask what you were doing then?"

'Cardinal' bristled slightly. "I'm afraid not Chief Engineer. Classified." With that, he strode briskly out of the room.

Lieutenant j.g. Wilberforce, Chief Assistant Engineer came up to Seafort as the Chief Engineer eyed the closing doors thoughtfully. "What was that about boss?"

"I'm not sure Wilbers, but keep a discrete eye on Harrison will you? There's something about him that I can't put my finger on."

[Granitehewer]

Over a prunejuice,'Cardinal' mused:

''I'm sure that my little, display of ineptitude,although perhaps too clumsily acted,would have convinced Seafort to send his peturbed lackey Wilberforce, my direction.......bring those assets to me, i'll do the moulding''

[Blackstar the Chakat]

Blackstar locked in the ship's coarse on the helm. Not having much to do shi broght up the schematics for a new ship shi had been designing. After looking it over one last time shi called a relief helmsman over and left him in charge of the helm, and downloaded the design to a PADD. Blackstar rang the chime(or the doorbell as shi prefered to call it) and the captain gave hir permission to enter.

"hello Captain. I was hoping to discuss with you, a proposal for an enhanced scout craft." Shi hands him the PADD with the designs. "I belive that if we pool the resources of several crew members we can construct a ship that'll increase our searching abilitys by over 60% at least."

Captain Fletcher scanned over the design for a minute. "It looks like a sound concept. We'll discuss it at the next staff meeting. Good work Lt. Blackstar. Is there anything else?"

"No, sir!"

"Then dismissed" The Captain watched as Blackstar left, noticing that hir tail seemed to move in a way he had associated with a happy cat, which was often refered to as 'happy tail' and wondered if that was a trait of hir species or just a coincidence. When a loud "whoopie!" came from the other side of the door he figured it was happy tail after all.

[Sionnach Glic]

Moving aside to let a rather irritated looking Lt. Harrison by, Commander 'Rochey' walked into Main Engineering. He paused for a moment to look around the room before locating Chief Engineer Seafort and heading towards him. His opinion of this ship was getting lower by the minute, he had been walking down a corridor when a console built into the wall had overloaded. Quite spectacularly.

'Report.' He said briskly, once he had reached Seafort. The Chief Engineer saluted before replying.
'Everything seems to be working fine, Sir. There is a small instability in the starboard nacelle, but we're working on it now.
'Good.' Seafort thought the Tholian had nodded, but he wasn't too sure. 'There was a power surge on deck seven a few minutes ago, are you aware of this?'
'No, Sir. We didn't hear about that before now, I'll get someone to take a look at it momentarily.'
'Good. See that you do.' The commander replied, then turned and left after taking another look around the room.

That's one more inspection done He thought as he stepped into a turbolift. Who next? He thought for a moment, then remembered he was going to check the comms logs to see if anyone had ordered the starbase to fire torpedoes needlessly. Now who's job would that be? Ah, yes. The Andorian's. Time to pay him a visit.

[Mikey]

Finishing his bridge shift at the same time as Blackstar, Mikey crowded into the turbolift with him... her... damn! He'd have to enlist the help of that so-called diplomat to get the grammar down. There was actually enough room for the two of them, but the closeness of the great furry body made it warm by Andorian standards.

"Blackstar, if I'm not mistaken? My name is M'Karn W'trisk, of the clan Trisk, but everyone calls me Mikey. Your record as a pilot preceds you - I was hoping to work on a little project with you."

Blackstar, somewhat overwhelmed by Mikey's bright skin tone and forward manner, looked up at him but said nothing.

"I'd wanted to get your expertise aboard one of our auxiliary craft, but our designers have never encountered a vertebrate with more than four limbs," he explained. "Any ideas?"

"As a matter of fact," replied Blackstar, brightening at the prospect of someone willing to help regardless of her differences from humanoids, "I just received permission from the Captain to start design and construction of an expeditionary craft."

"Great! Meet me in the aft shuttlebay at around 1930, and we can start. By the way, don't be shy around me; my people were a founding people of the Federation, and these pinkies - I mean, humans - still act like they've never seen an Andorian before." Reaching his destination before hir, he reminded hir, "1930 hours!"

Beeping at the security office door, Mikey barely waited to hear an acknowledgement before walking in. "Deepcrush," he said, "I have something I'd forgotten to give you - and Hewer! What did I want to tell you? It'll come to me... anyway, Deepcrush, I hope I'm not interrupting, but I wanted to give you these." Handing the security chief two PADDS, he said, "These are the duty rosters for the shuttlebay crew. I've noted that you and Metalhead may coordinate any excercises you wish with myself, CPO Sharkey, or the duty flight deck officer. I've instructed everyone in flight deck ops to offer you their full cooperation - the fighters have to stick together, eh?"

Turning to leave, Mikey swung back around. "I know what it was! Hewer," he said, pointing to an antenna, "one of the shield emitters feels a little out of alignment. And let me know if you need any more of the blue juice."

Walking back to the turbolift, he said casually to Deepcrush, "When you see that drone of yours, let him know that I'd love to have him as a sparring partner!"

[Blackstar the Chakat]

Blackstar smiled and swaggered a bit as shi walked back to hir quarters. That cute Andorian was interested in working on the shuttle project with hir. After taking a short shower to freshen up Shi decided to look up some articles about Andorian culture, to make sure shi didn't offend him by accident. An interesting species with a long history. Looking at the time shi decided that shi could look at his public files later.

Blackstar put on a clean uniform since shi knew that humans had a nudity taboo(which shi found confusing since they didn't make hir wear anything over hir lower body) and put a belt on that blended in with hir uniform, but allowed hir to carry a number of items. Belts are commen attire for taurs that just want some pockets.

Shi kept an eye on the time and got to the shuttlebay a few minutes early. When Mikey showed up Blackstar decided to tease him a little, "you said you'd meet me here at 1930 hrs, not 1930 hrs and 5 seconds."

"I didn't realize Chakats were so punctual."

"We're not. I'm just teasing." Blackstar gave a grin but it quickly disappered when shi remembered that many of hir teeth had a more feral look to them, and that some might condider it a threating gesture. "Since you're the one who invited me why don't you show me what you've got first?"

[Thorin]

((Think I'm in charge of the fighter pilots, if that's what you meant))

Jon thanked the Andorian as he left the room, though he did already know about the emitter. He had organised a briefing for the tactical department for 2045 hours, and was busy on a PADD noting down the topics that required discussing - already haven been allowed by Deepcrush to use his office for this task. He had fifty five people under his command, including the fighter pilots, and each one already had a duty. Jon decided to split the department into teams; twenty of these were the fighter pilots (which was much more than required for the amount of fighters they had), under the command of Lieutenant Anker Zionex, who had loved nothing more than having a vessel under his control. He had five specialists on tactical scenarios and enemy capabilities. He had another three primary shift officers, as Hewer was only required to man the tactical station himself in an emergency situation. There were another nine relief officers, who took to tactical when required, and also were stationed near, or at, the emergency bridge. Another fifteen of his subordinates were maintenance officers and tactical system engineers, who could double up as engineering staff, and were commanded by Master Chief Petty Officer Charles Nelson, a veteran tactical officer and engineer of the first Cardassian War, who Hewer had a great respect for. Two of his officers were young Ensigns; Gillieteo, a Betazed, and Smith, both who served multi-purpose roles, normally as sensor analysists, who worked closely with the science department. His final officer was the second in command of the tactical department; Lieutenant Grahame Niles, whom Jon had previously served with on the USS Exeter, and who he had ultimate trust in.

Jon finished writing up on the PADD, mused over the upcoming briefing, and then tapped his communicator.

"Hewer to Nelson, we've got a 0.02% fluctuation on shield emitter seven, and a slight power discharge on the dorsal phaser array during charge up. I'll meet you and Lieutenant Seafort in engineering in twenty minutes to sort it out."

"Understood - damned things going wrong already," came the reply.

Hewer chuckled slightly, Charles was one of the few people who he allowed little indiscrepencies to disappear with. He had, afterall, being in the service far longer than Hewer had been alive. "Hewer out."

Jon walked out of the security office and moved into the turbolift. "Deck 12, officer's quarters."

Jon walked into his quarters, and began tapping buttons on a purpose built console, so that he could use his own quarters as an office. He relayed the information on the malfunctioning systems to main engineering, picked up a tricorder, and headed back towards the turbolift, passing Chakat, the helmsman.

"Lieutenant, I understand you oversaw the design and refit of the Daystrom's tactical systems?"

"I did indeed, why do you ask?" replied Jon.

"Mikey and myself are modifying one of the Type Nines into a scout vessel. They're not particularly fast or powerful at the moment, I was hoping you could give us your insight for the weapons and shields?"

"I'd be more than willing to! Can't get enough of designing and implementing - it was a bit of a shame that the Daystrom's refit was quite hands-off, it's just too big to be using your own hammer and anvil. But a shuttlecraft, this will be interesting!"

Chakat had lost him at the hammer and anvil, but smiled and said "Brilliant! We're meeting at 1930 hours in the aft shuttlebay, to get some initial designs done."

"I'll be there", and he entered the turbolift, a big smile on his face, and tricorder in his hand. "Deck 4, main engineering."

Jon entered engineering, and observed Seafort and Nelson talking next to the master systems display. "What first?" said Seafort.

"The Shield emitter is just two decks down from here, might aswell see to that."

The three men walked towards a nearby ladder, made their way down a deck, and entered a jeffries tube. Jon began talking about his plans of the new shuttlecraft, while Seafort and Nelson took every opportunity to degrade their designers, noting that they sat at desks on starbases, and never realised the practicalities, or lack thereof, that shuttles possessed.

"Here it is," said Hewer, and they removed a pannel from the wall.

[Captain Seafort]

Seafort aimed a tricorder at the offending circuit, frowned, and punched a few buttons. Hewer peered over the engineer's shoulder at the screen.

"It looks like one of the graviton generators has been misaligned, that's what's causing the fluctuation."

Seafort punched another button.

"I'm not so sure - the backup should have kicked in if that were the case. Look at the link between the generator and the emitter array - it's corroded."

Hewer glared at the engineer. "Sir, I went over every tactical system on this ship with a fine toothcomb. I supervised every aspect of the refit. There are no corroded links on this ship."

"Look at the tricorder. It's corroded, machines don't lie."

Hewer bristled, but Nelson intervened. "Is it possible that the link is damged some other way?"

Seafort shrugged. "Don't see how. Here, hold this light." Rumaging in his toolbox while Nelson aimed the torch steadily at the panel, he removed several instruments, deactivated the shield emitter's power supply, and removed the offending graviton generator. Handing it to Hewer, he continued to root in the depths of the emitter until he found the link.

Holding it up by a clamp, he squinted in disbelief. It was in perfect condition. He peered at the tricorder again. "Must be faulty, pass me yours."

Taking the replacement tricorder from Hewer he examined the readings.

"Same as mine - transfer efficiency is less than 50%, but the thing is perfect, not a scratch. I'll replace it - you two take it up to the armoury and analyse it. You've got the specialised equipment and you're better qualified to look at parts of tactical systems."

Taking the link from Seafort, Hewer turned and crawled back down to Jefferies tube with Nelson following while Seafort, with a confused shake of his head set about digging in his toolbox for a replacement.

[Teaos]

Ensign Sternson walked into the science labs were Commander Teaos a two other of the science personal were standing round one of the work stations. The display table currently showed the local sector and all the known warp speed anomalies in the area.

"Commander" The Sternson said as she stood next to her superior officer "You were supposed to be on bridge duty over twenty minutes ago" she said as she to looked over the map of the sector.

"I'm sure they can survive with out me telling them there is nothing to report for awhile longer" Teaos said with a smirk. His bridge post was hardly a stimulating job and so long as he avoided that damn six legged fiend of a XO he should be fine. Not that he was to worried. Sharing the same rank as him there was not a lot "Rochey" could do with out the captains say so when it came to him.

"You're willingly getting on the wrong side of a Tholian? And here I was thinking you were smart" One of his enlisted men said earning a round of chuckles from the table. It had taken all or a few hours for them to work out that there commander wasn't a "By the book" type officer. Something the scientists were all very pleased about.