Pursuit - Wind Up and Turn Her Loose

Posted on Tue Sep 5th, 2023 @ 5:13am by Senior Chief Petty Officer Ronson Mitchell & Commander Dean House & Lieutenant Commander Thriss Kla'ren & 1st Lieutenant Freya Score & Lieutenant Thomas Haldeman & Lieutenant Commander Bonnie "Bon-Bon" Durnell & Lieutenant Alison Haldeman

Mission: Repairs and Retribution
Location: Cardassian space
Timeline: Current-Ish

Engineering

Several hours had passed as the Sunfire warped towards Kunar, the Engineering team determined to work miracles and bring the Transwarp drive back online.

Sliding out from under the coupler unit, Bonnie wiped her sleeve across her forehead, transferring whatever grease she had from one to the other and back again. "Drive coupler is secure. I think we will get 32 pascals through that injector before she fails." Regulation was 25 so they were clearly overcompensating.

Thriss was busy with a few of the physical and cosmetic aspects of the drive where the repairs needed protected the drive's operation and everyone on the ship. "Lieutenant, if the injector fails, what is the danger to the ship?" he asked while continuing to focus on the parts he was working on.

"Weeeelllll, let's just say that if it should fail you won't have time to say goodbye." She smiled awkwardly. "The simulation showed that an injector failure would be catastrophic, cascading through every system. We would both implode and explode across at least three sectors of space simultaneously."

She spotted his suddenly worrisome look before adding, "I mean, if I had another thirty minutes I could install a failsafe compensator, but I thought we, um, no, no, it, everything will work, right?" Her confidence suddenly dropped. The maths were right, but luck was never her forte'.

"Try to get the numbers up a little more but not all the way at least not yet. We aren't any good to our people if we implode. I would like to try to get a fail safe in if we have the time for it."

She bit her lip to cover her embarrassment, "Yes sir, sorry sir." She said as she saluted with a hyper-spanner in her hand. "I'll see what I can do about a failsafe option." She added with an eighty percent chance she could actually do as requested.

Bridge

"Captain, I hope we have a plan soon, long range scanners are showing a checkpoint ahead. Looks like they are scanning ships. I bet they are hunting for something, or someone..." Of course they couldn't just get through Cardassian space without a little drama could they?

"Well so do I. We're smart enough to still get around it," Dean replied.

Ronson looked up at this new information "Will our fake transponder fool them?" He asked cautiously.

“Not if they decide to search the ship it won’t” Alison looked at Ronson, then at Dean. “It’s not like any of us look Cardassian.”

"So we need to keep them off the ship and be the most Cardassian non-Cardassian freight runner out there" Ronson smirked. "We could utilize the Holo-projectors to make the bridge look like a freighter..." He continued.

Going to need more than holo-projectors for the bridge Chief." Tom said gently. "On the off chance someone does look out a window, we don't look remotely like a freighter. We need to make the ship itself look like a freighter."

Score thought about this, "How long would it take to Replicate some of those with the Replicators down in Engineering? We Could Hook them to the Outer Hull all Around the ship, Should need some, Not tons of them, But Big ones that can cover good sized areas..."

"Perhaps the holodeck could be of use?" Sera interjected suddenly. This was not her area of forte, to be sure...but the thought of being discovered by Cardassians? Less than ideal.

"That Could Work!, But How much strain will it put on the ship?" Score said to Sera.

Sera looked thoughtful. "It should not strain the ship overmuch. The holodecks utilize a separate power supply from the main core. That is to allow for EMH backup in case of a medical catastrophe. A most...serendipitous configuration. However, whether it would be possible to utilize the technology on the bridge to make a convincing...backdrop; I do not know. Engineering was not a focus of my training."

"What if we used the shuttles to scorch the hull and said we were pirates a s stole the ship?" Ronson suggested with a shrug. Whatever they chose, getting past and checkpoints was going to be tough.

"Whatever we decide on, whether scorching up the hull to using holoprojectors we need to go ahead and do it before it is too late." Tom added.

"Agreed, So What are we doing, Scorch the Ship like It was Stolen or Use Holo Emitters" Score Asked.

All eyes turned to Dean. "Captain, what are your order" Ronson asked cautiously, knowing that half a dozen theories had just been batted around in rapid succession.

"I seriously doubt they are going to believe that we managed to steal the ship and then just waltzing through Cardassian space. The best we're probably going to get is trying to avoid as many questions as possible as well as changing every signature we can to look like a freighter. Which mean the holo idea." Dean pursed his lips. "Then we try the pirate idea if it falls back down to it. We can either way have systems look faulty or damaged, like comms being iffy. It'll show age and having been in fights. We can blame it on the Marquis."

"Aye Sir" Ronson acknowledged as he started scanning for any potential checkpoints that this region may have on place. He found one on the edge of their destination, the Kunar system.

"Ahh Sir, there's one at the Kunar system, there's a congregation of ships at what appears to be a checking station."

"well, Now How long till we reach Kunar? And How long dose it take to Replicate Holo emitters" Score asked?

"Answer to your question A - about 6 hours, which means ultimately that is the answer to question B as well" Ronson mused from his Jack-of-all-trades console.

"So..." Dean leaned forward in the chair a little bit, one elbow on the arm rest. ".......What do we do if we want to take longer to get some where."

"I don't understand..." Ronson looked confused as he turned and faced the acting captain. "Why would we want to take longer It's already been three days"

Alison was just as curious to hear that answer, she dreaded to think what their missing crew members were going through at the hands of their captors.

Dean just smiled for a moment, "We slow down. Just enough to give the needed time to get everything set up and installed."

Tom nodded in agreement. "Sure, makes sense to take the time to get everything as we need it to pull this off."

TBC