Preparing the Tricobalts
Posted on 27 Aug 2025 @ 5:00pm by Lieutenant Commander Camila Di Pasquale & Commodore Harvey Geisler & Lieutenant Commander Joey Geisler & Lieutenant Ranul Frex & Lieutenant Zayna Ryler
2,695 words; about a 13 minute read
Mission:
Imposters Among Us
Location: Engineering Lab 7 || Deck 20
Once again, Camila found herself doing something that she never thought she'd be doing again. This time, it wasn't one tricobalt, but three. She supervised the noticeably nervous Armory officer as each of the three tricobalts were brought out carefully loaded onto hovercarts.
She took the lead, each flanked by two Security Officers, each armed with phasers and ready for anything as they made their way to Engineering where the modifications would take place. As they loaded them onto the freight turbolift, she used her overrider to prevent anyone else on other decks from using it. They did not need any interruptions. Once all three were loaded aboard, she ordered the direct route to Engineering and hoped that Lieutenant Frex would be ready to meet them, along with the others.
Joey stepped out from her office, the door sealing behind her with a whisper of air and encrypted tones. Her eyes scanned the complex ahead, empty save for one other person. She alerted the analyst on duty she would be away for a while, then stepped out into the corridor. She was already calculating contingencies. Every movement was precise as she moved, a padd clutched in one hand. Her expression gave nothing away, but she was doing her level best to keep herself together. Engineering wasn't too far, but it felt like it would take an eternity to get there.
Ranul was working down in Main Engineering, directing various Engineers to work on some crucial mission repairs to the ship. One of the biggest ones that they were working on was repairing the door to the hanger bay. It was a repair that him and Kemm had worked on together, pulling together various ideas to make sure that if something were to happen again, it wouldn't do nearly as much damage as it did the first time.
However, there were a few engineers, including Ranul, that were waiting for the incoming of three Tricobolt devices. There was quite the work list to get done. But, it would help make sure that the G90B wouldn't be able to just wreck havoc on the Black Hawk or anyone else in the region. Now, it was just the waiting game to get the devices down to Engineering with the exacting details to make sure they were up to spec.
Camila entered Engineering with her Security escort and the three tricobalt warheads on the grav carts. "Seal every entrance and exit. Computer, restrict transporter activity from this area. No one in or out that isn't authorized to be here."
Ranul looked over at Camila and said, "I take it these are what we'll be working on for the next little bit? I've placed a dampening field in place, just to make sure that they don't go off anytime while we're working on them. However, if you would like to move it to one of the Engineering labs, I've set a few up for all of us to work in. If that makes it easier for you guys?"
Ryler watched as everything was wheeled in, though she was more nose deep into the PADD she'd been looking over for hours. "Lab might be safer. We wouldn't even have a moment to think if these went off." She knew they all knew that, but at the same time, it felt like the right thing to say.
"That's the plan," Camila said as she moved with her Security forces past Ryler and Frex without skipping a beat or missing a step. "We had to come this way to transport them." She kept going with the carts loaded with the lethal subspace weapons.
Ranul walked over to one of the storage lockers that were in Main Engineering and pulled out a couple transport enhancers out of the lockers. He placed three of them around the devices that were wheeled in and adjusted their frequency and amplitude, making sure they were exactly tuned for transporting Tricobolt devices. Ranul activated the three enhancers and looked to Camila to said, "Ready to transport whenever you are. I've pulled these bad boys out to make sure they stay stable during transport. They've been known to cause trouble during transport and with them being around the warp core right now, I don't want to have them cause any trouble."
"If they do decide to cause trouble, there's a plus side," Joey began, watching the others prep the extremely deadly weapons. "No one on the ship will feel anything." Was it morbid? Perhaps. It was also true.
Ranul heard what Joey said and couldn't help but chuckle for a moment. It was a bit of a nervous chuckle as it was just acknowledging the fact that Joey was right. "You're not wrong about that. Thus, is why I'd like to get it out of my engine room and somewhere a bit more safe. I'd rather have these guys hit the right target and help us figure out more about these G90B. My team has already had to rebuild parts of the hanger bay. The rest of the ship is another story," Ranul replied as he waited for the transport to commence.
"Is Lab Seven on Deck Twenty available?" The Security Chief asked as she moved the tricobalts in the lift.
"Yeah, it should be. I've had it cleared from anyone working down there, so we can work unbothered," Ranul replied as he finished placing the transport enhancers in place and doing the last minute tune ups for them.
"Excellent, then let's get this underway," Camila said as she had the personnel load the tricobalts into the turbolift and waited for the others.
Joey looked a bit skeptical as the tricobalts were moved into the turbolift. She cleared her throat and straightened out her uniform. "I'm going to get the next one."
"Afraid that they might do something, Commander? I can attest that they're not going to do much of anything until we want them to," Ranul offered up. He looked at Joey and said, "I just ran some tests on them to make sure nothing would happen in transit."
Joey looked toward Ranul, a slow almost predatory smile spreading over her lips. "Not at all, Lieutenant. There are multiple tricobalts and personnel that need to make this journey, so I was thinking of space," she replied. "However, if you're so sure of their stability, how about you giddy up and I will gladly step aboard with everyone."
Ranul happened to see the smile on Joey's face and could help but shiver for a moment. While he trusted the devices and knew that they wouldn't blow anytime soon, that smile on Joey's face just made Ranul shutter for a brief moment. "Well, if they didn't weigh a few tons, I would totally get up onto them. Just want to make sure that the devices carrying them down't fail or anything!"
"Then I'll see you on the other side," Camila said as she closed the door. She hadn't miss the look on Joey's face either and swore it looked like she was about to tear into Lieutenant Frex. However, she would miss that particular fight as she prepared for another one. The ducks were lining up and she hoped she could kill them all with one shot.
As the freight lift came to a halt, she exited with her Security personnel flanking the grav cart on either side as she led them to lab seven. She secured it and had the tricobalts loaded up onto the tables while she waited for the others. Her mind continued to chew over the matter of G90B, their chances of success, the odds of modifying the tricobalts, and how useful the information gathered from the Karemma prisoners would be when she interrogated them.
Joey looked to Frex and Ryler after Camila and the other members of Security left them. "Looks like we're all taking the next one," she said with a grin.
As the trio waited for the next lift to make its way to them, Ranul couldn't help but see that Joey was grinning in the way that was sending shivers down his spine. As the doors to the lift opened as it returned back to their level, Ranul allowed for Joey and Ryler to get on first. Once onboard, the doors closed and made its way down to the proper place. However, Ranul just started to study Joey for a little bit.
Joey made her way toward Camila once they arrived to their destination. "This is your show, Commander. You let me know when you want me to do my part."
Camila looked at Joey. "Yes, Commander," she said. "I need sensor scrambling that will create a inversion bubble should emit phase-shifted tachyon scatter patterns, mimicking spatial noise." It was a big request, but if anyone could scramble a signal, it was the Intelligence Chief.
Zayna held up a PADD hearing about the sensor scrambling. "Nearly completed, just a few more tweaks from the science end." She handed the PADD over for an Intelligence look.
"The next few parts after all that will be to make sure this thing works and can get past the G90B sensors, as well as not harm us in the process. Tricobolt devices can pack quite the punch, so we don't want it going off underneath us or another Starfleet vessel," Ranul said as he started to look over some of the devices, as well as some of the specs that were coming through from everyone in the room.
Joey took the PADD from Ryler with a nod, her eyes already scanning the data streams cascading across the interface. The specs were ambitious—Camila’s request for an inversion bubble emitting phase-shifted tachyon scatter patterns was no small feat. But ambition was the currency of Starfleet Intelligence.
"Hmm," Joey murmured, brow furrowing slightly as she tapped through the sensor modulation algorithms. "Your scatter pattern matrix is still tuned to a standard subspace frequency. That’ll ping like a beacon to anyone within ten light-years."
The Intelligence Chief flicked her fingers across the PADD, isolating the anomaly. "Also, the inversion bubble is bleeding into the gravimetric layer. That’ll destabilize the warp field if we deploy it near a stellar body."
Joey adjusted the parameters with practiced ease, recalibrating the phase variance to mimic the natural drift of interstellar dust. "There. Now it’ll read like background radiation from a dying neutron star. No one will give it a second glance. This is why she asked me to do it in the first place."
"Thank you. Configure it into the tricobalt," Camila said as she unlocked a panel and entered her authorization code, then opened the tricobalt configuration.
Joey stepped forward, her fingers already dancing across the PADD as Camila’s tricobalt configuration interface came online. The hum of the warhead chamber filled the room with a quiet tension.
"Understood," Joey replied, her voice calm but focused. "Routing the scrambling matrix now."
She initiated the uplink, syncing the sensor inversion bubble with the tricobalt payloads. Joey embedded the phase-shifted tachyon scatter pattern into each warhead’s telemetry core, ensuring the spatial noise signature would activate precisely at launch. Her eyes flicked across the diagnostic readouts—power levels nominal, phase variance stable, gravimetric bleed contained.
"Tricobalt one is now configured with the scrambling protocol," she confirmed, locking in the final sequence. "It’ll emit a false subspace echo on detonation, masking the blast signature and mimicking a localized stellar flare. Anyone watching will think a comet hit a plasma eddy."
She lowered the padd back to her side. "Clean, quiet, and invisible. Just the way Intelligence likes it."
Camila looked at Zayna next. "Thank you, but I asked Commander Geisler to do that. Can you make certain that the quantum resonance destabilizers are working and in place on all three? I want different configurations on each one."
"Understood," Zayna stated as she checked over the destabilizers and made sure the configurations were as requested.
Camila looked at Frex next. "I want you on to synchronize the device’s quantum timer with the inversion field’s decay signature so it only detonates in G90B's proximity."
"Aye, ma'am. It shouldn't take me too long to work on getting everything synced up. I take it that we've got the inversion field decay information in the computer core, so that I can get it synced up to the proper frequency?" Ranul asked, as he started to work on getting everything in tune.
Ryler Looking over at the question. "I believe the information was in the reports about the field decay, at least I'm hoping it was.
Ranul pulled out a PADD and pulled up the information, making sure that it was the most up to date information. "Ah, yes. There it is. I just wanted to make sure that I had the most up to date information about the decay, so that we could make sure it doesn't blow up prematurely or try coming after space drift," Ranul said as he started to work with the tricbolt devices.
Joey's eyes narrowed slightly as she reviewed the quantum timer parameters on her own padd. The tricobalt devices were already humming with latent energy, and the stakes were too high for even a microsecond of miscalculation.
"Good catch," she said, her voice crisp. "The decay signature from the inversion field is volatile—if we don’t match the timer precisely, we risk detonation outside G90B’s gravitational envelope. That’s not just premature, that’s catastrophic."
She tapped into the computer core, pulling the latest telemetry from the field decay reports. "I’m overlaying the decay curve now. You’ll want to adjust the timer’s quantum sync to 0.00047 picoseconds off the standard harmonic. That’ll compensate for the gravitational lensing effect near G90B."
Joey moved to the tricobalt interface and began configuring the sensor scrambling matrix to align with the updated timing. "I’ve embedded the scrambling protocol into the payload’s activation sequence. Once your sync is locked, the device will remain dormant until it hits the decay threshold within G90B’s proximity. After that—boom, and no one sees it coming."
She glanced up at Camila. "We’re threading a needle at warp speed, but it’ll hold. Just make sure no one reroutes power from the auxiliary grid. This setup’s sensitive to phase drift."
Joey gave Ranul a nod. "Let me know when your sync is complete. I’ll run a final diagnostic before we arm the package."
Ranul had been working on getting the sync just perfect as Joey and Camila were working on their parts. It was something that needed to be precise, like Joey mentioned. Not only that, but he had to make sure that the devices didn't detonate if they got too close to one another, due to stellar drift or other factors.
Once he got the sync correct on all three devices, he looked up at Joey and Camila, saying, "We're good here on the sync. It looks like we're a go for the final diagnostics."
While the others worked, Camila went over their plans and made suggestions and added her own part in the modified tricobalts. With the temporal bubble and the subspace decay decoy, there was no chance that G90B would get a chance. She locked the console on the tricobalt controls and shut the panel down.
"Good work, everyone," she said. "Now to hope it works."
"We'll know soon enough," Joey said, offering Camila a smile. "With any luck, this will be the end of it. Do you have any further need of me at the moment?"
"No, thank you, Commander,." Camila said with a nod to Joey.
Once everyone was out, Camila arranged to have the tricobalts sent to the USS Dauntless, USS Perseus and the final one in the Black Hawk's torpedo launcher. There was no way this could fail, she mused as she headed back to make her reports.
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