Sorting Out The Mental Puzzle, Part 2

Posted on Fri Sep 1st, 2023 @ 8:53am by Captain Tristan Faust & Commander Lucy Heartfilia & Lieutenant Commander Marc Kitchner M.D. & Lieutenant T'kara & Lieutenant Commander Darrod Hanous & Lieutenant Azrel Vox & Lieutenant Shinobu Miyake & Lieutenant JG Marcel Knowles & Chief Petty Officer Meredith Corden
Edited on on Fri Sep 1st, 2023 @ 8:54am

0 words; about a 1 minute read

Mission: Mission 4: Through a Glass, Darkly
Location: Briefing Room
Timeline: M4 MD03 (2268.07.12) 0945

"If these people do have the Defiant then it warrants a problem," Lucy interjected. "We have no idea what their society is like. However the Prime Directive applies here. Our technology from our time is now in their hands. A Constitution Class is far more advanced than an NX. We can't let them just keep it, can you imagine what they could do with it in this time? Nothing would be able to stand upto it for a good hundred years, it could spark a new technological revolution."

"Is there any trace of the Defiant's warp trail?" Tristan asked, looking directly at Lucy, "Although we have no idea how long it's been, a ship of that size has to have left something. I don't suppose there's anything left of the NX-01 's computer core. A black box or anything?"

"Every ship should have a log recorder. It's possible to find it, but there's no guarantee that it recorded anything useful." Lucy replied. "As for the Defiant, we could try and find its warp trail but if it's more than twenty four hours it's likely to have faded too much to track."

The Captain nodded, "Still a warp drive of Constitution class should be fairly distinct versus the warp trails of the vessels of this time period," he said.

Darrod nodded in agreement with the XO's assessment. He hadn't really met with her yet, but he knew that was due. He picked up a spare PADD and started some back-of-the-hand math, trying to figure out warp decay rates, considering what he'd determined already and making some guesses. He looked up at the Comms officer and the XO. "We could run a low-power sector scan for their FOF beacon. All Starfleet line vessels run it on an independent power source from the main EPS line. It's an encrypted FOF and time sync signal that's made to connect every ship and starbase. The public key is the Fleet prefix, the private is ship's ID. It's possible they removed it or altered it, but I sincerely doubt anyone would if they didn't have reason to believe they were being actively hunted. If our signal is fired at a low enough power, nobody would even notice it, and we could cover the whole sector. Or,if we can spare a torpedo, I may be able to hit their warp trail with a flashcube effect and then nav team can figure out where they went."

The Defiant was out there - somewhere - and she was now a hostile vessel. By her spec, she'd be every micrometer a match to Midway, so they'd need to find a way to alter the odds. He didn't pretend that a century, give-or-take, of engineering knowledge, would give them an edge. After all, he was confident that if he landed on a Starfleet ship in the 24th century, he'd adapt. It wasn't like their tech had completely changed paradigms in a century. From the original production Warp 5 engine to now, it was basically just more efficiency, smaller parts, better energy extraction.

"Captain, if I may make a possible suggestion. The equipment used in this century is different to what we have now aboard the Midway and of course, the Defiant. It is of course backwards compatible but still has a distinctive signature when transmitting messages. I could listen out for any communications and look for this signature. It is somewhat of a long shot though if they choose to keep communications to a bare minimum." Aze suggested.

"Just so long as we keep to radio silence," Tristan responded, "I want our presence to be kept secret as long as possible. We don't need to be drawing any attention to ourselves."

T’kara listened to the conversations going on around her intently. She didn’t have any theories or relevant information for the group and thought it best to keep any conjecture or wild speculation out of the discussion. She didn’t like the possibility of having to face down a sister ship, the Defiant, in any time period, let alone one that was this foreign to everything she knew.

"We do however have an advantage," Lucy interjected. "They have a Constitution Class just like ours yes, but they don't know how to use it as we do. It's likely they haven't worked out half of the systems yet." The Blonde science officer paused for a brief moment. "I suggest an away team, disguised as their own crew. We can get their shields to lower and then our team can sabotage their ship. That should make it easier to destroy or recapture." She looked around the table at the other officers. "We should presume they have computer control, so activating the self-destruct will likely not work. However if we can take out their weapons and engines, then she'll be a sitting duck."

"Hate to break it to you, Commander, but you're putting the ox before the cart," Shinobu pointed out. "We still have to find this thing, remember?"

"I am currently scanning for that unique signature in communications but as I feared, things out there right now are as silent as, well, space. " Aze commented as she tapped her earpiece whilst tapping various coloured buttons and turning a dial on her console to try and find something that would help find the Defiant.

Darrod looked over at Aze, thoughtfully."Have you checked for any Doppler-shifted sublight frequencies?"

Her eyes almost lit up. "Oh, of course. I will make some minor adjustments and check for them. I didn't' think of that. " She replied spinning back around to her console.

Lucy pondered for a few moments. "We might also be able to pick up the Defiant's power signature." She suggested. "Compared to any other ship in this century, a Constitution Class will have a significantly higher power output. I doubt that whoever is in command of her knows how to reduce it. If we can tie in long range sensors with the navigation deflector dish, I might be able to extend our scanning range." The science officer suggested. "It would mean however diverting some of the other systems on the ship."

"There's another possibility as well," Tristan responded, "If you as a civilization had a starship from the next century what would you do with it? Sure you could deploy it on a battlefield, but think like a good government bureaucrat... You'd want it bring it back home, dissect it and classify it." He looked around the room before finishing his thought, "I have a feeling if we head towards Earth we'll find that ship."

"Well, let's head towards Earth. I would advise low warp speeds though. We don't want to bring attention to ourselves." Lucy suggested.

Darrod nodded between the XO and Captain, leaning in slightly. "Captain, Commander - as long as we stay below warp five point five, we can reconfigure the exhaust to look like NX-type vessels. If we stay between that and warp seven, I can make it look like we're a Daedalus Class starship."

"Then that's the plan for now," Tristan responded before standing up. "We will make preparations for when we find the Defiant, until then maintain Red Alert status, anything can happen over here and we need to be prepared for constant conflict." He looked around the room at the nods.

 

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