A Broken Puzzle

Posted on Tue Feb 15th, 2011 @ 6:39pm by Vice Admiral Iluvar & Commander Fala Awen & Lieutenant JG Malia Jacy & Ensign Bok

Mission: Episode 1.4 - "Confusion in the Cluster"
Location: Cargo Bay 1, USS Pandora
Timeline: Mission Day 02, 1458

ON: [[Cargo Bay 1, USS Pandora, Mission Day 02, 1458]]

Malia regarded the hunk of ship with a crinkled nose. It wasn't one of the larger pieces, but she knew a thing or two about bad omens, and she had no problem believing this to be one. Part of her wanted to touch it - another part of her didn't want any sort of physical contact with it however ... as though the one simple act could bring the same fate upon Pandora's crew.

The debris samples they had collected were laid out across a majority of the open space of the cargo bay deck. They ranged from pieces the size of a cargo container to a collection of pieces no larger than a tricorder. To one side, Jake (PNPC) looked up from the free-standing workstation and surveyed the room. "Everything okay, lieutenant," he asked, noting Jacy's hesitation.

"It's just sobering," Mali looked up at him, still smiling but sorrowful. "This could be us," she motioned to the piece. "Sometimes I feel like we don't ever really appreciate the days we're given." Her fingers grazed the object and her head moved slowly side to side. A deep breath later and she refocused. "Alright, Sir Engineer. Let's, as they say, get this ball rolling."

Jake nodded slowly and turned his attention back to the data now scrolling across the display of the workstation. The first thing they were going to need to do would be to finish cataloging the debris in hopes of identifying what part of the vessel it had come from. Once that was finished, they could begin their analysis of the debris itself. "Right you are," he agreed, tapping a command sequence into the workstation, "we've only got about thirty percent of this debris cataloged. Let's see if we can't identify the other seventy percent before we start putting it all under the microscope."

Niala (NPC) appeared from around the corner, "I already spotted a few I'd like to get a closer look at, but identifying it all first sounds like a good idea." At times the El-Aurian found herself a bit more hands on than usual and this was one of those times. She'd walked amongst all the debris, trying to get a feel for it. Now, though, she moved over to where the Engineer stood.

"Alright...Lieutenant Jacy, let's have you work through some of the smaller sections over here," Jake suggested, indicating with one hand the area he wanted the chief operations officer to focus on, "and if Lieutenant Rylen wouldn't mind going over our larger samples..." He paused to acknowledge the acting chief science officer as he spoke and to be sure that she was okay with her assignment.

Smiling, Niala replied, "My pleasure, Lieutenant. I saw a few intriguing ones that I think I'll start with, actually. Hopefully we'll find something of value amongst all this." She picked up a tricorder and small toolkit from where she'd left them near Jake and paused to see what else he or Malia might have to add before she delved in.

Mali was already at the offered workstation, however. Lips moving as she breathed thoughts aloud while she scanned, recorded, and prodded. Like the wolf spirit guide of her people, Mali was intent once she had a focus and as such didn't even notice she shared space with the others.

[[A Few Hours Later...]]

"Well, we certainly cannot account for all the debris with just this small sample, but it looks like we managed to get a nice variety to work with," Jake said as he studied the readouts on the workstation, "No sign of the flight recorder or the back-up. I've relayed that information to the bridge already...maybe they will be able to find it for us. Until then, what do we have?"

Mali studied her own results. "Hull, core, coil and what seems to be a rather chunky hunk of manifold." She looked up at her fellow officers.

"Any energy signatures that might help us determine who might have attacked them," Jake asked, looking up from his workstation. Starship weapons almost always left a residual trace that was rather unique to the type and sometimes origin of the weapon itself. If they could narrow down what sort of weapons caused the destruction of the transport, it might lead them to who had attacked the vessel in the first place.

"it's kind of jumbled," Mali admitted. "I wouldn't be surprised to learn that this isn't the work of one ship or another but maybe a collaborative effort?"

Jake nodded slowly. Based on the readings he was seeing on his own workstation, it was going to be pretty difficult to isolate the weapons' signatures from the rest of the background energy signatures surrounding the debris fragments. Even the computer was having a difficult time identifying anything familiar amidst all of the excess readings.

Ensign Bok had been in engineering when Ensign Rolands had told him they needed additional assistance in the cargo bay with the assessment on debris from the SS Markon. Bok saw that the team had assembled and categorized the parts. He admitted he didn't have the patience for something like this. Perhaps that's where improvement was needed. From the time he had spent with Lieutenant Warrington, Bok knew the Chief Engineer was interested in gaining a command of his own one day. Bok's aspirations were not so high. He only wanted to be in the engine room unless the opportunity to design ships came about. Perhaps the lieutenant's thoroughness was something he could learn from. After all promotion through command was not that much different than promotion within engineering. It did show a different between the two. Warrington was an engineer because he believed a familiarity with how ships run would gain him valuable experience to someday command his own ship. Bok wanted to be an engineer because he wanted to be a good engineer.

Bok knew by looking at the debris that it wasn't from any sort of weaponry they had run into. It would be of little use to try to explain to everyone how he knew that after looking at the debris for just a few moments. Besides, they would need to know the properties of the weapons in order to device a defense against them. The damage to the transport had been extensive even when considered that they were unshielded. Bok did not want to think of the Pandora ending up as so much debris in the cargo hold of another ship.

"Lt. Warrington, I would suggest that we begin scanning those parts which would have been targeted by weapons fire," Bok said. "Near the warp engines, bridge, or weapons would be the most likely places. I'd normally suggest shield generators, but I'm guessing the Markon could not get its shield to function. Other parts of the ship would be more likely to have been damaged by the destruction of the vessel so they really wouldn't tell us as much."

Looking up from the workstation again, Jake considered Bok's suggestion. "You're probably right...we'd be more likely to find stronger weapons signatures associated with those fragments that would be primary targets," he agreed as he thought about it, "I don't know how much it would help, given the background radiation from the Cluster, but it's certainly worth a shot. Lieutenant Jacy, didn't you say you'd found several engine components?"

"Sir," Mali offered in agreement. 'Or, what used to be engine components anyway." She offered her PADD to Jake for his inspection and/or to share with the Ensign if he so chose.

Jake accepted the PADD with one hand and, after confirming the lieutenant's assessment, began to nod slowly. "I concur," he said, "It's not much to work with, but at least it's a start. What do you think, ensign?"

Bok took the PADD and glanced at it. His control of his emotions was dropping. He glanced again at the PADD and lost it. "I think that this damage is not from a weapon we are familiar with. Disruptors would flatten the metal. Elyshan subspace weapons would implode it. Breen would use their energy dampening weapon on a freighter which would cause scoring...And I'm telling you something you already know aren't I, Lieutenant. I guess my patience lasted about four minutes. I apologize. Yes, these would be the components we would want to look for. We'll want to scan those pieces on the sub-atomic level."

Bok handed the PADD back meekly to Lt. Warrington.

"Thank you, Mister Bok," Jake replied, setting the PADD on the edge of the workstation, "I couldn't agree more...about scanning these pieces at the sub-atomic level. Why don't you and Lieutenant Jacy get started on that."

OFF

A JP by:

Lieutenant Jake Warrington (PNPC)
Interim Chief Engineering Officer
USS Pandora
Played by: Capt Iluvar

Lieutenant JG Niala Rylen (NPC)
Interim Chief Science Officer
USS Pandora
Played by: Cmdr Fala

Lieutenant JG Malia Jacy
Chief Operations Officer
USS Pandora

and

Ensign Bok
Engineering Officer
USS Pandora