I need it smaller...

Posted on Fri Dec 29th, 2023 @ 12:16pm by Lieutenant Commander P’rel M.D & Senior Chief Petty Officer Thral Skrit & Lieutenant Commander Finnley Keating VII

Mission: The Trojan Horse
Location: Main Engineering
Timeline: En Route to Podreia Sigman
1554 words - 3.1 OF Standard Post Measure

"Luvvly Jubbly" the Andorian engineer exclaimed as he threw the hyperspanner in the air and caught it again. "Right - cuppa Kal-if-ee lads?" he asked the two other engineers he had corralled into assisting him fix the primary diagnostic matrix on the port lateral sensor assembly. The two Petty Officers looked at him with a blank confusion. "Jus' f'me then awight..." he muttered, walking off to the replicator and noticing that moody bitch of a Vulcan walking in and talking to the Chief. His antennae pitched slightly towards them, and though hushed he could certainly pick up most of what they were saying...

---

"You want to what now?" Finn asked, somewhat surprised with the request that P'rel had come to her with. "You want me to lower the warp profile...on the Athena. You do know we have three warp cores right?" She chuckled lightly. It was certainly a challenge to make a ship like this one into something as low profile as a stealth vessel, but Finn never backed down from a good challenge. "We can make it work...I think. I'll need some time to work out the details with the ops department, but I think we can make her pretty stealthy. How much time do I have?"

It was like a match teasingly close to a clump of dried brush; the opportunity to recall an event to antagonise Finnley. A year ago in a way which may have been considered unpleasant, but which now was merely a friendly joke termed 'banter' by her human colleagues. She could not resist, and the flame caught the brush and set it ablaze; "Perhaps, you should eject one of the cores...this may reduce our warp profile..." she quipped, raising an eyebrow an looking Finnley in the eyes.

Finn rolled her eyes, but her lips curled into a smile at the same time. "Ejecting warp cores is a skill I have mastered. However, I don't think the Captain would appreciate that answer and I'm on thin ice as it is. We'll have to find another way to make her stealthy. One that doesn't get me fired." She chuckled.

P'rel acknowledged with a short "hm", and turned to face the primary core; "perhaps..." she concluded. "We do however need to appear a much less threatening target...we need their sensors to see a Federaton starship, but not one so..." she looked for the words... "the Commodore is concerned that if we posture too aggressively, then Ta'ang will take radical action risking the hostages lives".

Finn put her hand to her chin and thought for a moment, looking towards the ground. Her mind was racking who best to pull into this discussion when suddenly she looked back up and twirled around looking for a certain blue skinned engineer. "Skrit!" She shouted across the room. "Come check this out." She waved him over and simultaneously tried to prepare her brain to translate whatever broken english was sure to come.

---

Thral was momentarily flustered as he gathered himself and pretended not to have been eavesdropping; "On mi way guv! Sorry didn't 'ear ya!" he bellowed as he slid down the access ladder against the far wall and walked over to bitch-face and the Chief. "You want mi lumpa ice on sumfin boss?" he asked, his antennae twitching between Keating and P'rel as they bristled with...he wasn't sure what to call it...confusion...?

P'rel arched an eyebrow, again, and also again made a mental note to suppress that particular cultural idiom. She looked only to Finn, hoping for a translation of sorts.

Finn wasn't entirely sure what he'd said, but assumed it didn't really matter anyway. She had called him over to do a job and that's what mattered. "Take a look at this," she slid a PADD over with warp profile requirements. "We need to essentially create a stealth mode for the Athena. A low profile warp signature. Ideas?"

Echoing Commander P'rel's joke - which he most certainly had not overheard - Thral flicked one of his cheeky smiles as he read over the PADD and said "S'pose we could eject one ov the cores guv...".

"Not an option," Finn said simply, but the annoyance in her voice was clear. It was one thing to joke amongst friends but another entirely to joke with your Chief that you didn't have a close established relationship with.

Thral shook his head, not so much in defeat but in concentration. "We could do wiv seein' what kinda sensors they 'av to be honest guv...we can lower our profiile n all, but if they've Jim Kirked some top level sensor tech we aint gonna make much diff'rence 'ere by playin' 'ow's your farver with power levels n that..." he handed the PADD back to the Chief.

P'rel looked between the two and absent mindedly fiddled with her comm badge, subconsciously perhaps trying to get the universal translator to work again. "We do not have any information at this time. We do have a Starship in proximity however, and they could launch intelligence drones to determine the sensor capability of the outpost...she looked to Keating for a contribution

"Then we'll hope for some information, but we need a plan B in case we don't get it," she put her chin in her hands, deep in thought. "What if we modify the shields to reflect a specific signature output? One that makes us look like a different type of ship."

"Yeah it's werf a butcher's 'ook guv..." he thought aloud, tapping the PADD against his arm as he thought; "only Barney though is we'd have to physically reconfigure the shield power matrix, uvverwise we'll just look like a fat n' skinny latinum dip on the passives, but one direct scan and the jig's up..."

P'rel stared at the Andorian, blinking involuntarily as she processed his speech. "If we physically reconfigure the shield power matrix, they will not be at combat strength until they can be returned to their standard configuration..." she stated, not entirely certain it ruled the plan out.

"Yeah awight but..." Thral returned, "...if we're plannin' on making a shtum bag a' toys anyway, woz the 'arm?"

"What if we relay power from the engines to a backup shield configuration? It would allow us to reflect the signature output we want, with a backup in place in case things turn south. Plus it'll drain power from the engines which will feed into the whole stealth mode. We'd have to pull in Lieutenant Leiko to work out the specifics on the power consumption," Finn suggested.

"Well yeah guv but..." Thral started, his face furrowed in concentration as he mapped out the relay pathways in his head; "Right, gonna be a loada Jim Kirk, and -" he looked at the Vulcan - "you're gonna need a Xindi Bird with the pitch n' toss, 'cos yeah guv's all seven of eights like but we're gonna 'afta pull that power from the redundant section engines aint we..."

P'rel looked at Keating, Thral, and back to Keating. "This is beyond my pain threshold" she announced flatly, before walking away to another console to bring up a comm relay to the Valiant to order the deployment of the intelligence drones.

Grinning only half was broadly on his face as he was inside, Thral shrugged at Keating. "Well someone's gonna 'afta tell 'im he aint 'avin 'is bleedin' Em-Vam this mission and I reckon it should be madam pointy dontchu?".

Finn raised a brow and a smirk slipped across her face. "You know Skrit, I don't understand half of what comes out of your mouth, but I like you," she chuckled. "Can you grab a mass spectrometer, a phase matrix recalibrator, flux coupler and an engineering kit and meet me in engineering lab 1? I'll get Lieutenant Leiko. We can set up some tests and run through the specifics on power consumption with him. Oh! And grab a tripod too."

His antennae twitched in at the joke he had already told himself in response to the Chief's request, and the grin on his face barely hid how funny he found himself. He placed his hands on his hips, and just ever so slightly tilted on one leg sending his pelvis just barely forward and through his grin said; "Er... if it's all the same to you guv, I'd rarver just keep our relationship profeshnul..."

Finn looked over, head tilted in confusion. "What?" She asked, the joke had clearly gone right over her head as her mind now focused on the task at hand. She waved her had as if to dismiss him before he even had a chance to clarify. "Just get the equipment. I'll meet you in the lab with Leiko."

Thral tutted as he was dismissed and walked away towards one of the auxillary egress doors which would lead to an adjacent storage bay. "Bleedinell..." he muttered to himself. "Don' know when they're onta good fing these lot..." he flicked his head upwards, all the while still amusing only himself, "these aint just for twitchin' abaat" he chuckled referring to his antennae as an exceptionally attractive engineer seemed to sync both course and speed with him as he walked. "Awight darlin'?" he asked, flashing his customary toothy smile.