The Device

Posted on 03 Jul 2016 @ 12:57am by Lieutenant Commander Camila Di Pasquale

1,132 words; about a 6 minute read

Mission: Risky Business
Location: Armory/Torpedo Control
Timeline: MD 2 || 1600 Hours

Camila headed down to the armory with a PADD in her right hand and entered her authorization code in the doorway, then her Security clearance code and waited for the door to open. She felt a nervousness that she hadn't even felt when she faced Temerant on the T'Pring or when she had had to arrest Commander Del Rosario.

She took a deep breath and went in, her brown eyes searching out the Master-at-Arms who was busy cleaning a Type III phaser rifle and giving orders to some of the other armory officers. Everyone was extremely busy making sure that all weapons were full cleaned, checked twice and charged before being stored back in their proper places.

"Chief," Camila said as she stepped up to him. "I need your assistance."

The Chief turned the phaser he had been cleaning over to a Warrant Officer and approached the Chief of Security and Tactical. "What can I do for you, Lieutenant?" he asked as he wiped his hands on a towel to clean the lubricant off fo them.

"Your authorization is required," she said as she led him towards the back of the armory where the heavy weapons were stored behind a double thick, reinforced door.

The Master-at-Arms immediately raised an eyebrow as he followed the Lieutenant to the area where he knew the dangerous ordnance was kept. "Whatever you need, Lieutenant," he said. "Assuming, of course, that you have the authorization of the Executive Officer or the Captain." He followed protocol due to the fact that anything beyond the doors required authorization from Command to even leave the room.

"I do," Camila said as she stepped up to the door and handed him the PADD that had the authorization codes on it from the Captain.

The Chief looked it over and his eyes went wide as he saw what the authorization was for. He handed the PADD back and stepped to the door to enter his Security and authorization codes. "Your turn, Lieutenant," he said.

Camila stepped up and entered her authorization and Security codes and took another deep breath as the computer verified their access and authorization codes before the duranium alloy locks, magnetic and force field barriers deactivated. The door opened inward slowly and a feeling swept over here. When she had been the Master-at-Arms on Deep Space 11, she had never once been requested to enter that particular room of the armory and only the Chief of Tactical had access to it beyond the Command staff.

The Master-at-Arms went to a hover cart and took it to the storage pod that held the device she wanted, entering his codes again and nodded to her. He wanted to ask a thousand questions, but those questions were beyond his clearance and hoped that the Security Chief would do what she had to do and allow him to escape the room as quickly as possible. He had no desire to be there in such close proximity to the device she was there for. Being on the other side of the door was close enough for him and he hoped that he never had to be there again.

Camila went to the pod and entered her codes once again and the computer verified both of their codes once more. The storage pod clicked open and the most powerful weapon the United Federation of Planets had at its disposal revealed itself to the two of them. She had been expecting something which looked completely lethal and radiated an aura of extreme danger, but to her surprise, it looked like a normal torpedo casing.

Inside that casing, however, was a weapon that could generate ten thousand Terracochranes of explosive energy which was capable of ripping the very fabric of space/time. The last time a tricobalt device had been used was during the Dominion War and then only at a time of extreme need. Prior to that had been the report of two being used on The Caretaker in the Delta Quadrant by the USS Voyager to prevent an enemy from taking possession of it.

"Dismissed," she told the Master-at-Arms who quickly turned and headed out of the room as fast as protocol would allow him to go without breaking into a run like Red Alert had been sounded. When she was alone, she entered her authorization codes and the front panel of the device opened. She had studied the theory behind the device and how to arm and disarm one at the Academy, but that was only theory which had used computer simulations granted only in the senior year and had been a test for anyone entering the Tactical field with a track record aiming for Master-at-Arms and beyond.

The panel was just like any other interface she used a dozen times or more a day, except this one had redundancy systems which had backup systems of its own. Camila worked her way through layer after layer, entering her codes and confirming each time she made a change to activate it. When she had done everything except making it live, she activated the servo arms to remove it from the pod it had been stored in and transferred it to the hover cart the Master-at-Arms had provided for her.

Camila closed the storage pod and pushed the cart ahead of her out of the room and sealed the doors once more. Once it was sealed, she called the Master-at-Arms and two other Security personnel to attend to her. "I require your presence in transporting this torpedo to Deck Nine to Torpedo Bay Control."

"Of course, Lieutenant," the Master-at-Arms replied as the other two officers took their places, one in front of the cart and one behind. The Master-at-Arms stepped beside of her and the procession left the Armory, Camila securing each corridor and turbolift along the way with force fields. When they arrived at their destination, she secured the area before the tricobalt was secured and prepared for transport if and when the time arrived.

When the device was secured in a reinforced area there, Camila dismissed the other Armory personnel and gave specific instructions to the torpedo officers that the device was restricted access only and limited to herself, the Executive Officer and the Captain of the ship. Once the torpedo officer signed off on it and she was confident that it was secured, she left the area and went back to her office to file the official report with the Executive Officer and Captain that it was prepared.

Once that was sent, she handed duty over to an officer and headed back to her quarters with the intent of getting as inhumanly drunk as possible to forget what she had just done and what the repercussions of it could be.

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