Changing Course

Posted on 22 Aug 2014 @ 7:26pm by Commodore Harvey Geisler & Emily Carter & Commander C. Kos & Lieutenant JG Harold Sherman & Lieutenant Hictus Dicon

1,486 words; about a 7 minute read

Mission: Pursuit
Location: USS Black Hawk, Bridge
Timeline: February 1, 2388 || 1645 hours

Commander Geisler led his XO out of the Ready Room as their meeting had concluded. Rather than moving to the Command Chair, Harvey directed himself to the Science station where Lieutenant Vex sat, hard at work. "I don't suppose you've got anything new, lieutenant?"

Vex had returned to the bridge after his trip to the Freighter X'annon with the away team to resume his duties as Chief Science Officer. As soon as he took his station he began recalibrated the sensors back to non combat settings and did a full post battle diagnostic on both the active and passive sensors. He was also using the long range sensors he monitored for the return of the pirates well he preformed his other tasks, he doubted that they would take their loss well.

He heard the door to the captains ready room open then shut but he paid it no mind, he was to engrossed in his work. Not long after he was brought back to reality by the captain standing beside him talking.

"I don't suppose you've got anything new, lieutenant?"

Vex look up at the captain from his station, “Yes and no Sir, From all the data I have collected it is obvious that one of the ships that attacked the X’annon was the one that attacked the other transport we investigated, based on the weapons signatures left on each vessels hulls. Besides that I have nothing really new on the identity attackers, each of the attacking ships was heavily modified by their crews. They all appear to be of the same base hull configuration but each has its own sets of weapons, shields, even the engines and warp signatures are vastly different from ship to ship.

"I can tell you that they know what they were doing when they left, I can’t detect any residual warp signatures or ion trails. If I didn't already know that they were hear I wouldn't be able to tell based on the sensor data.”

Vex thought for a moment than continued, “The X’annon was in proximity to the attackers longer than us, there might be some data in their sensor logs that could be use full. With your permission I would like to beam back over to the freighter and have a look at their logs.”

Harvey nodded slowly, considering the Science Officer's comments. The statements regarding the attackers and their differences were enough to fuel his curiosity, but now was not the time to encourage speculation.

"Come back with whatever you can, and peacefully." The Ferengi had already pointed out that the Black Hawk had no jurisdiction here. The last thing he wanted to do now was to start a major conflict.

Vex logged off his station signalling the assistant chief science officer to come to the bridge and take over his post and stood up. “Yes sir and thank you, I hope our little adventure bears us some fruit.”

Dicon had, since the kindly removal of its troublesome crew; been hard at work getting the X’annon space worth again. It had not been easy. His original estimate for four hours of a repair time had be laughably optimistic. From the combat sustained by the privateers, to the entire cyrosystem set up for the "cargo" the X'annon had many issues; the repair time was not estimated to take a day or two. In point of fact Dicon had to have the part of the second and third shift of Engineering working alongside him to get the thing fixed with any sort of speed.

Having finished his required sleep cycle; Dicon felt the need to inspect how the repair work was going.

"/\" Lieutenant Dicon to Commander Geisler"/\"

Harvey tapped his combadge, grateful the engineer beat him to opening communications. "Geisler here. Go ahead, lieutenant."

"/\" Sir, I request permission for an operations member or two to beam with me to X'annon to try and restart most central systems. I have most of the problems fixed but the superstructure damage will need to be fixed at a starbase, I can patch over most of the damage but I'd be hesitant to call "fix".

Also I request to change the frequency modulation of the shields. The enemy possessed Jem'Hadar weapons which featured the unpleasant ability to cut right through the shields."/\"

"Head over there with Mr. Vex and take Petty Officer Carter," he said, referring to his Yeoman. Emily had some Operations talents and Harvey hoped she'd put them to good use aboard the X'annon. "As for the shields, work with Lieutenant Noxa. I'm sure she'll have some ideas as well."

"/\" Understood Sir, thank you "/\"

Since walking onto the Bridge from Geisler's office, Mackenzie had moved to her seat in the Command area in the center of the Bridge. She had kept an ear on the conversation the Captain was having first with Vex, and then with Dicon. Thus far, she had nothing to add to the conversation and so had remained quiet, preferring instead to, first send a quick text message to Commander Sheldon instructing him to maintain fighter patrols, and then she began to look over the logs of Vex's sensor scans. Not that she doubted the Trill Science Chief's professional abilities (even if she did find him obnoxious personally), but she knew from experience that putting more eyes and minds on problems like these tended to yield a better output.

Vex turned and left the bridge entering the turbo lift. He tapped his com badge after telling the computer his destination.

“Vex to Chief Engineer Dicon and Yeoman Carter, I’ll meet you in transporter room one."

The turbo lift came to a halt and the doors slid open. He left the lift and headed down the corridor entering the transporter room a minute later. He nodded to the transporter officer well grabbing a phaser and tri-corder from the equipment lockup then took position on the pad and awaited the rest of the team.

===Sick Bay===

Lt(jg) Sherman suddenly came to in sickbay. he thought to himself why and how. He tried to set up and sudden realize his head felt like a ton of bricks. Laying back down he tried again and again he was back on his back.

===Transporter Room One===

Emily entered the transporter room, already armed with a tricorder and basic tool kit. "Afternoon, lieutenant," she said, retrieving a phaser from the lockup as well.

"Afternoon's greets to you, lieutenant. Now lets see if we can't get the freighter to fly well shall we?" Dicon withdrew a lazer cutter and a tricorder from the rack and pressed it too his belt. "Ready to fix the sectors most battered freighter?"

Dicon pressed his hand to his com badge. "/\" Dicon to Engineering "/\"

=/\= "Ensign Black here," =/\= came the voice back over the comm.

=/\= "Have the second Shift on the X'annon rotate out, also I read in their reports that the they don't have enough hull plates for the hull breaches, see about replicating more, the freighters replicators are not operable at the present time. =/\=

=/\= Dicon to Lieutenant Vex, I wish to work with you to re-modulate the shielding, in regard to the raiders weapons weapons systems, I forwarded you the tests made into that area.=/\=

"Shall we get on with it Petty Officer?"

"Yes, sir," Emily replied, joining Vex and Dicon on the Transporter platform. Once everyone was in place, the warrant officer behind the console initiated the transport. It wasn't but a moment before the team materialized on the X'annon. "Where to first, Lieutenants?" she asked both Dicon and Vex. Vex was the ranking officer, but this was certainly Dicon's baby at the moment.

"The warp core, then the computer core restart sequence and then the navigational computer circuits, come."

Dicon set off with long strides towards the aft of the ship.

Emily followed without hesitation to the engine room. Once they arrived, it was clear that the Black Hawk's engineers had been hard at work.

As Dicon checked in and issued orders to his team, Emily slipped over to one of the terminals. It was mostly unusable, with the computer in standby mode until the warp core was operational. A few key systems were still active. She began to enter commands to access those systems, hoping she'd find some early clues.

Emily wasn't sure how long she sat there, but before long she was finally able to access several logs including the flight plan. She read through the information carefully before sending them back to the Black Hawk for further study.

Satisfied at last, Emily logged out of the console and stood up to help the Engineering team. With any luck, the X'annon would be ready to get underway again by the morning.


=====

Cmdr. Harvey Geisler, CO
Lt. Cmdr. C. Kos, XO
Lt. Ezerin Vex, Science Officer
Lt. JG Harold Sherman, COO
Lt. JG Hictus Dicon, CEO
PO3 Emily Carter, Yeoman

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