Great Minds

Posted on Thu Aug 18th, 2022 @ 8:30am by Lieutenant Alexis Ryan & Lieutenant Commander Finnley Keating VII & Lieutenant Xavier Leiko

Mission: Scylla and Charybdis
Location: Science Lab
Timeline: En route, MDO3
1913 words - 3.8 OF Standard Post Measure

"You do realize that something is going to break or go haywire if we have all three of the Athena's best people in one spot," Finn chuckled as she entered the science lab and strolled across the room to where Xavier and Alexis already stood. "I brought my homework," she said, dropping her PADD of projects on the table with a smirk.

Ryan glanced up at the interruption and offered a faint half-smile as acknowledgement, which also sufficed as a greeting for the time being. Wrenching Alexis from 'professional mode' into actually remembering how to socially interact with others was an interesting challenge, and one she would eventually possibly chastise herself to manage, particularly in regards to the Chief Engineer. The context of the woman's recent ordeal had only been fed to Ryan through the official reports and briefings but it sounded like something a tad too relatable not to eventually wind up in conversation.

For now, she gestured towards the schematics currently highlighted on the holo-terminal in front of them. "Leiko and I are just comparing notes on Avalon's 'system upgrades'. She's got an operating system I want to stick my hands right into."

"Oh she's a beaut alright," Xavier said, not taking his eyes from the display when Finn had entered. "I can see why Starfleet is so keen to protect their secrets, if the Romulans get a hold of this before we do, we can be in serious trouble." He eventually turned to face Finn, "sorry Commander, are we meant to salute you when you enter a room now?" He asked with a wide grin on his face.

"Shut it," she playfully nudged Xavier. The word commander still made her stomach lurch with guilt, but Finn at least had become good at hiding the displeasure of the rank. "From what I've read, she has some pretty advanced stuff. Some of it I think we might be able to use to our advantage in finding her. She should have a very unique power signature to keep all of that equipment running."

Sat comfortably outside their camaraderie, Ryan paid only partial attention to the exchange, the bulk of her attention focused on the rotation of deck schematics she was shuffling through to pull up the Avalon's Engineering hub. "Assuming she's still emitting anything," the scientist pointed out, pragmatic rather than pessimistic. "But in the event that she's not, it'll be like trying to find the proverbial grain of rice in the stewpot so our contingency in that scenario is pick a direction and cross our fingers."

Alex lifted her gaze to regard the pair, a faint tug of her lips sideways excusing her fatalism as exaggerated humour. "Let's worry about planning for that last."

"So assuming that the Avalon hasn't been destroyed-" Xavier said as he gave Ryan a sidewards glance, "if we configure our sensors to look for her specific energy signature, we should be able to find her? Not a bad idea." He pressed a few buttons and changed one of the displays to show a map of the search region including the trinary stars and all the planetary bodies. No small feat he thought to himself.

"This region is full of all sorts of radiation, so how do we work around that?" Xavier continued. "Are your new sensors up to the task?" He asked, turning to Ryan. "And can you keep the ship together long enough for us to complete our mission?" He questioned, this time in Finn's direction.

"I have Sh'rillil working with Bailey to address that." Having 'borrowed' the Andorian from Ops, Ryan had put Myra to good use. "They're running the last of the simulations now but we should have a reconfigured modulation to utilise that prioritises reducing that background noise. That being said, I think we'll be making manual adjustments as we go. Leah will be taking the Bridge station for that," Alexis added, crossing her arms over her chest. "I need to focus on this data retrieval once we actually find the ship."

Xavier nodded. He was happy that Sh'rillil was being put to good use, he hadn't had a chance to see what she was capable of yet, but her flexing her skills across ops and science gave him something to work on. "You may want to speak to Lieutenant Gupta too," he said tentatively. He wasn't used to telling other department heads how to run their team. "Her abilities in Stellar Cartography will be a great asset, and now that we don't have Benny anymore, I can spare more power to the sensor grid."

"She and Bailey will work in tandem. Accurately mapping the region may be beyond our capabilities," Ryan hazarded, a shoulder hunching in circumspect acceptance of their limitations. "There's a reason they chose this region to test what the Avalon's upgrades can deal with. That's another challenge we have to account for; locating this ship will mean nothing if we can't figure out how to get to her safely."

"We've already put some precautions in place. I've detailed them in there," Finn pointed to the padd she'd brought with her. "Additional shielding, modifications to account for the additional radiation...I think the Athena should hold up alright. This form of radiation however I'm not as familiar with so there may be some interactions with the ship's systems that we'll have to account for on the fly. I've got analyses running at all times to monitor any shifts in system performance and engineers ready to tackle whatever comes at us." She looked at the other two who had clearly already well coordinated their staff and tasks. "It sounds like you two have the sensors and nav covered. Do you need any engineering support?"

"Keep us in the air and try not to blow up the ship," Xavier added with a smile. "Seriously though, we are gonna have our work cut out for us. Even with all the monitoring, we could potentially lose ship systems faster than we can repair them." He ran his hand through his short hair. These were the challenges he loved, the reason he joined Starfleet and was proud to wear the uniform. "I think our best bet is peak sensor efficiency with a robust search pattern. The longer we stay in this region of space, the more we have to lose."

"No promises," Finn replied with a smirk on the topic of blowing up the ship before turning to Alexis. "I have a report from Lieutenant P'rel detailing some of the Avalon's systems and unique signatures that are of a more classified nature," she handed it directly to her per the intelligence officer's instructions. "That should help with your sensor calibrations."

A pair of raised eyebrows was Ryan's only reaction at first. It wasn't necessarily frustration at not having had the information sooner, all departments had no doubt been doing their best to extrapolate outwards from the same starting point Kane had given them. Having the report hand delivered by the Engineering Chief rather than sent directly to Sciences was, on the other hand, an extra time wastage that chipped away at efficiency. Ryan understood that the crew had perhaps got used to not being able to trust the Science Department to run effectively but the degradation in the lines of communication would have to be dealt with as a priority.

Accepting the information, Alexis chose instead to press forward. "Right. Now, about our information extraction. As per Kane's orders, our first priority is salvage. That either means finding a way to pilot the Avalon out in her entirety or accessing every last piece of hardware, and the software that powers it, and getting it on board Athena somehow. I've been working on methods to compress and transfer a copy of her operating system but I keep hitting up against a brick wall. Avalon's memory core has three times our capacity; we simply can't store everything, not without compromising our own system integrity. So I'm having to prioritise what we take and then I'll work on wiping the rest when we're on-site."

Alex glanced at Keating. "I really need Engineering's final determination on what hardware you're extracting, in the event that we can't move the ship itself. I'll have to isolate the subroutines and make sure we're not handing back a pile of scrap metal that can't be reactivated."

"Ah," Finn held up a finger. "I did say I brought my homework. It's all listed on there," she pointed to the original PADD. "It's actually the whole reason I had that report from P'rel. I needed a list of the systems the Avalon possessed and since she knew I'd be headed here afterward, P'rel asked me to give you the list as well. I'm not sure if you've met her yet, but she's not a fan of wireless communications and since I denied her request a while back for an unnecessary dedicated hardline, I think she prefers to do things the old-fashioned way when possible," the engineer chuckled as she remembered the incident where the two had first butted heads.

"Anyway, you'll find a list of everything we plan to extract in order of priority. The top priority will be classified systems, after that, we'll focus on primary systems like propulsion drives, non-classified sensor tech, etc. I've also already picked out extraction teams running in three shifts that span twenty-four hours a day. On that note," Finn looked to her two counterparts. "Any computer specialists you two can spare from your teams will be appreciated. Like you said, we don't want to haul back a pile of scape that can't be reactivated. If I can get a total of one computer specialist per team then they can ensure the system is shut down properly so we don't lose data when we pull the plug."

Ryan considered the request for a moment. "I've been working on a couple of my juniors, they'll be useful enough for the lower security extractions. Sh'rillil has shown promise," she added, looking to Xavier to confirm. "If she can manage to tone down the cooking analogies, I'd say she's capable of dealing with the sensor suite subroutines. I'll be going," Alex added, as if this was already a foregone conclusion. "We need to get Avalon's security logs, communication logs and whatever else I can find stored in her archives that either needs retaining or destroying and I can't provide any kind of forecast on that until I'm connected to her memory core."

Xavier nodded at Ryan though she had spent more time with the Andorian than he had but he appreciated the gesture nonetheless. He turned back to face Finn. "You can have anyone you need in my department, though I believe the Washingtons are the most capable in that field, though hopefully they won't be needed and we'll find the Avalon intact and safe," he added, forever the optimist. "If there's nothing else, I should probably head back to the bridge?"

"I still have a lot of testing to go on this data extraction program before it's ready," Ryan agreed, "And I need to check in with Myra to see where she's at with her sensor analysis."

"Keep me informed," Xavier said as he nodded at the ladies and left the room.