Tomcat Upgrades Part #1

Posted on 19 Apr 2024 @ 1:24pm by Lieutenant Commander Paul Sharpe & Lieutenant Leland Hawksley
Edited on on 19 Apr 2024 @ 1:26pm

1,912 words; about a 10 minute read

Mission: General Sim Postings
Location: Starbase 51/Various
Timeline: During the S04 Episode 01 Captive State Part 2 Mission

[ON]

After having Lieutenant Hawksley assigned to his team Sharpe arrives at the docking area where the Tomcat is berthed he is wearing old-style mechanic overalls and has his tool belt on as he stops next to Hawksley.

*Looking ahead he speaks* "She is a fine ship, would you not say Lieutenant? She should also be all but gutted by now, the drones I brought with me on the Themistocles, they make quick work," he said as parts of the outer hull of the saucer section were detached and placed through the recycler." Sharpe paused.

“My god. I had no idea the Tomcat would be gutted to this extent.” Leland breathed out as his eyes took in the view of the Tomcat being sliced and diced. “Spacecraft Structure, Command Systems, Computer Systems, Warp Propulsion Systems, Impulse Systems, Utilities and Auxiliary Systems, Communications, Transporter Systems.” Leland gawked. A deep furrow formed across his forehead, uncertain that he and Sharpe could handle this extent. What was the Starfleet Corps of Engineering Sublimation Systems doing, twiddling their thumbs? Hand it over to the two Engineers, and they’ll rebuild a whole Akira Class Vessel.

“Tactical Systems, Environmental Systems, Crew Support Systems, Auxiliary Spacecraft Systems, Flight Operations, Emergency Operation Systems…” Leland stopped in his tracks. He did not sign on for this. What was happening here?

“I have to admit.” Leland tucked the PADD in the nook of his shoulder, walking. “This will take up any time I have for shore leave, let alone planning for my child or any extracurriculars. This is… This is more than overtime. This is building a ship, Commander.” Hawksley gawked in disbelief.

"You are allowed a few days Lieutenant, the drones have to finish stripping the ship," Sharpe said then held a Padd to Hawksley "These are the list of upgrades the ship is due. You will see she will be fully converted to Bio-neural circuitry thus enhancing all systems and processing power, she will have transverse bulkheads installed, this is a hard physical backup should the emergency forcefields fail, her weapons will be upgraded and the torpedo tubes too, both in the hull and in the pod on top, the point defence micro photon torps will also be updated, with a larger saucer section personnel from Ensign/Second Lieutenant up will have individual quarters, enlisted of both branches will still bunk in fours to a room" he paused.

"I also plan to install an emergency holographic power system, originally planned for the Poseidon, but that ship would need a lot of years in spacedock to be done and the Captain did not want it, so the Tomcat gets the upgrade, plus some other upgrades, it will be fun working on her, been wanting to upgrade a ship for a long time the space frame will be straightened where it is bent and strengthened, she will have the latest warp core and systems for a ship of her class, any questions so far?" Sharpe asked.

“Many.” Hawksley stopped. “Will the deuterium storage tanks be sublimated sequentially from the EPS sub master? Will we triangulate a gamma welded hafnium tritonide handoff to the hazmat station personnel?” He began his first question by going through the retrofit listings.

"Everything will be brought up to current authorised standards in a frontline service ship" Sharpe answered not surprised at how invested the Lieutenant was in this, all Engineering Chiefs devote their time to caring for the ship they have been assigned to.

“Will auto-destruct detonators be welded into the new transverse bulkheads?” Leland took a drink from his silver mug of coffee. They finally made it to one of the many Starbase Conference Rooms. It was empty despite being used by the two overseeing the retrofits.

"Lieutenant, the auto-destruct explosives will be implanted in the space frame and throughout the systems when they are installed

Sitting at the table, Leland pulled up his attached metallic briefcase, full of Tomcat specifics and operational coding systems, drives, and core computer backups, which were placed in a safeguard with him.

Pulling out numerous PADDs excited Leland. He grinned as his now 5 o'clock shadows began to show. Just hours before, he was in Tomcat Engineering, shutting down all systems and handing control to Space Dock.

“I assume we will employ moulded gamma-expanded duranium, plasma-bonded terminium outer skins for the additional point defence photon torps?” Hawksley was excited about the new robust weapon systems being added. His eyes danced across the PADD, and he leaned back into the oversized conference chair to relax his upper shoulders.

The Point-Defence system was already part of the ship Lieutenant, it was never used, this will be an upgrade which will cut down on the reload time for each launcher, initial designs of the Akira class had a pair of fixed dual photon launchers in the Port and Starboard sections of the saucer section, but that would make the ship a bit OP, so she will have four launchers that fire forward in the saucer and two in the aft Saucer Section that fire behind. Plus the launcher system in the pod so she will be more of a torpedo boat than a flight deck carrier, but she will still retain the fighter capability" Sharpe answered.

Sharpe just simply smiled in response.

“Bioneural gel packs have had their issues in the past. I am confident that the new technology has had its bugs worked out. The past decades have seen nearly the whole fleet retrofitted with them.” Hawksley began having a hard time giving up the tried-and-true silicon optical processors. Thankfully, he was not old enough not to learn new tricks.

“I have been training the Engineering Staff over the past few months on replacements, updates, and general routine gel pack maintenance on the holodeck. A sort of primer for them.” Leland acknowledged that this change would be well overdue for the Tomcat.

“I understand that the 42 nanosecond compressed data streams will now be infused with 2.3 nanosecond superconductive hydrogailide substrate flux nodes within each gel pack. The upgrades to the Gel packs will realize an EPS savings of 7% real-time relief to the ship's core. Will we have data specialists from the Daystrom Institute oversee the primer of the new Tomcat’s computer core? I have little experience titrating a database with asymmetrical peristaltic field manipulation (APFM).” Hawksley crossed his arms on the conference table as the information regarding the new processor core for the Tomcat was pulled.

"To be honest Lieutenant, I do not trust Starbase engineers or techs, they are all good at what they do, but they build ships to spec and most of the engineers at the construction yards have no frontier experience, this is why, you and I some specialized techs and engineering drone are doing this, we will make sure this ship can handle everything or almost everything the frontier can dish out" Sharpe responded.

“Lastly, I understand we will have a complete overhaul of the Tomcats Engineering plasma chamber, complete with new EPS taps, conduits, and auxiliary fusion generators. When will these babies be installed?” Hawksley taped twice on PADD, intoning his eagerness for the installation. “I would love to oversee this.”

"You will Lieutenant, but we are some way from that, the engineering drones have to finish gutting the ship to its spaceframe and start strengthening it and installing those transverse bulkheads and the explosives for the auto-destruct should it be needed, but our next job will be on the holodeck, I want a second pair of eyes on my invention, I want to make sure I can get more than three minutes of operation out of it before it starts to go critical and I have to shut it down. So you ready to see my brainchild, Lieutenant?" Sharpe asked.

“Am I ready? You couldn’t keep me back with a team of steeds.” Hawksley’s eyes curiously glimmered. “Just what do you have up your Engineering sleeve? Whatever it is, I like it already.” Leland was well acquainted with Lt. Commander Sharpe, knowing that the man himself was an icon in the Engineering fields within the halls of Starfleet. Even though he wasn’t part of any corps or higher educational institution, it was all the better in Leland’s eyes. Commander Sharpe had everyday nitty-gritty knowledge of Engineering a Starship on the fly, lightyears out in the universe, away from any fancy tech.

“Site to site, let's do this now.” Hawksley was dressed down into his comfy civilian clothing. He wore just a pair of khaki shorts, a white T-shirt, and his trusty engineering tricorder.

"No, we will walk there El-tee, the exercise will do you good, just a little about who you're working with most of my career was as a Security Officer, albeit one with some engineering know-how, my engineering speciality is Computers and the systems that go with them, this brainchild of mine came about just over a decade ago, I was a Lieutenant Jg and I was for a short time DCEO, but the Steamrunner class I was serving on had just come out of battle or was in one, then there was I full of it I tried to activate my brainchild and almost blew the ship up and killing everyone on the ship, shaken I returned to security still dabbling in computer systems until I changed departments again to engineering and ended up as CEO on the Poseidon, I felt nostalgic to be working on such an old ship, wanted to give the ship more life, but the Captain did not want his ship to spend a long time in Spacedock, so some of the systems we will be installing in the Tomcat would have gone on that ship" Pause.

"The Miranda class spaceframe is a sound and solid construct, but updating the space frame and gut one and such would take more resources than this Retrofit will take. Speaking of you do know we have to put the Tomcat back together in a year, it is time to show the Corps of Engineers what the ship CEO and a former Security Officer can do" Sharpe said smiling "You can handle the warp jargon and find a way to make the new warp core work with an Akira class any questions?" Sharpe responded

Leland didn't know whether to think the Lt. Commander was losing his mind or a personal engineering diety. There would be no way for them to work on this. Complete it within a year. A two-man foreman job, let alone a bunch of non-Starfleet Corps of Engineers rookies?... "I think this will be tedious. I have had extensive engineering disaster training, but nothing near the level of project scale management than this."

Hawksley began the long walk across one end of the starbase to the next that would take them nearly 45 minutes to get to the engineering lab... "But, I like to think I can tackle anything I put... Er.." He eyed the Lt. Commander sceptically. "We can put our minds too, Eh." Leland broke into a jog along the concourse.

With a final nod, the pair finally arrived at the holodeck after a walk and turbolift ride...

TBC in Part #2

[OFF]

 

RSS Feed