The Emperor's New Cloak

Posted on 05 Oct 2016 @ 4:36am by Lieutenant Elizabeth Marion & Lieutenant Commander Camila Di Pasquale

855 words; about a 4 minute read

Mission: Click Three Times
Location: Operations Center, Deck 7
Timeline: MD 8 || 1400 Hours

Once more the acting XO found herself en route to Operations with a PADD in her hand, barely acknowledging people as she strode down the corridor with a thousand things going through her mind. Here she was, the acting XO of an Akira class ship when she had been the Chief of Security for about a month and a half and the Assistant Chief of Security for less than two weeks before that. With a total of two years of active service, the honey blonde woman didn't think she was doing too bad for herself.

When she entered Operations, she headed over to wear a knot of people were gathered around the youthful looking brunette woman who was now the acting Chief of Operations and waited until they began to disperse on various errands before she approached the woman. "Lieutenant Marion," she said in greeting.

"Lieutenant Di Pasquale," Marion nodded to the woman in kind, "What can I do for you?"

"I need special armored civilian clothing with a mercenary cut for the upcoming mission, Lieutenant Marion," Camila said as she handed her a PADD. "The sizes for everyone is listed on here as well as the requirements."

Liz poured over the schematics of what was being asked of her and let out a 'hmm'. She'd read a few papers on protective systems before a time or two before, but they were speaking from a historical standpoint rather than from a practical application one.

"The formulas shouldn't be too hard to program into the replicators. I just..." Liz paused and her eyebrows scrunched up in a tell-tale look of confusion, "What would these even be used for? They don't seem to be for anything other than projectile style weapons. A phaser would break down the molecular bonds with very little effort..."

"Actually, if you include a supercapacitor, they could absorb quite a bit of energy," Camila said. "Graphene is incredible for what it can do. I've always wondered why uniforms weren't more efficient instead of just form fitting." There were the names and measurements for nine people on the PADD, including Marion.

Lt. Marion nodded slowly, running the numbers in her head, "I suppose if you had an underlying energy current weaving through might give it more of a dispersion effect... But if I were you, I'd want to test them on some inert objects before handing them off. Never mind the amount of tweaking that might need to be done to begin to call this design safe. This stuff is nice, as ideas go, but unless you've seen them used yourself, I know I've never seen it and I wouldn't jump on the bandwagon of untested theories without some kind of dry run."

"We plan to, but we need them by the time we reach Razmena station," Camila said. "I've looked into various types of materials to use, but graphene seemed to be the best for physical as well as energy impact. The information on the PADD only specifies for ten to one hundred nanometers thick, but a sheet of paper is a hundred thousand nanometers thick, so I'd add a bit more on just to be certain."

"Production won't take but a few hours for the numbers you've handed me," Liz explained, "I'm more worried about the lead time between now and reaching this station giving us enough time to shake the bugs out. I like to be optimistic about things and think we won't need them at all, but knowing what I know from past experience... optimism and an empty cup is worth the air inside the cup..."

"We'll have the time, Lieutenant Marion," Camila told her. "Even if we have to pull double shifts, that won't be any different from what we've been doing the past several months since I've been aboard. Was it like this on your last assignment?"

Lt. Marion sucked in a breath and let it out slowly, "I wish I could talk about some of the things I've endured being on the Arizona... Unfortunately this isn't the place and there are too many ears that probably shouldn't hear about it. But the short answer would be yes, I suppose... a very big yes..."

"Perhaps we can get together when there's room to breathe and compare notes," Camila said with a laugh. "At any rate, I'll let you get to those. I'll leave the overall look to you aside from the basics, but just make sure they'll fit all members of the away team."

Liz nodded, "As long as the sizes are right, that shouldn't be much of an issue. Unless you need anything else, I'll walk these down to the industrial replicators. I have a feeling their resolution capacity will be a boon to this project."

"Thank you, Lieutenant Marion," Camila said. "Let me know when they're ready." With that, the honey blonde woman headed out once more.

Lt. Marion nodded absentmindedly as she headed out of another doorway in the Operations Center that would take her to the replicators, her mind already desperately trying to make the whole thing make sense in her head.

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