Commanding Presence

Posted on 06 Apr 2022 @ 9:21pm by Lieutenant Commander Remington Dodd & Lieutenant Matthew Thompson & Lieutenant Serina "Reaper" Donovan & Ensign Teela Tjaansz

2,299 words; about a 11 minute read

Mission: S03 Ep 04 Captive State Part 1 (Incidental)
Location: USS Tomcat, Various locations on the ship

[ON]

Dodd was in the ready room and so wondering what was happening on the surface. If only he was able to lead the away team. But since Captain Somers was captured and Colonel Somers got assigned to find her, he was left as acting captain. He was not happy as he was looking for more action in the role of leading away teams as the XO.

He knew the ship well and would trust his crew to do their best. He needed to take advantage of this opportunity.

=/\= Lieutenant Thompson, could you please report to the ready room. =/\=

=/\= On my way Sir =/\=

Matt padded down to the ready room.

"Lt. Thompson reporting as ordered, Sir."

"How are you?" Dodd asked Thompson.

"I am fine Mr. Dodd, What can I do for you?"

"I was curious if you would like to do a survey of this sector with a small science team. You could take a shuttle and have two fighters escort you to the neighboring planets and collect some data to put in our report for this mission. This is an area that we have little data on and why not take advantage of this time while the away team does their part."

"I would be delighted, I haven't been off this ship in some time now. Do you expect hostilities? Is this area disputed, Sir"? Matt said.

"Great. I just want to have this area cataloged for our report and I felt you would be the perfect person to lead this project. I will say take a team of five besides yourself. I will assign two fighters to fly along with you as escorts. If you feel you need to do more data collection beyond what you can do from a shuttle let me know the situation and we can go from there." Dodd replied. "As soon as you have your team ready, let me know."

"What kind of system is it?" Thompson asked.

Dodd then followed the young lieutenant out of the ready room and took the captain's seat on the bridge.

=/\= Lieutenant Serina Donovan, please report to the bridge. =/\=

=/\=On my way Exec=/\= Serina said stepping into the closest lift for the ride to the bridge. A few minutes later, "Serina Donovan reporting as requested," she said.

"Thank you for coming up the bridge."

"What can I do for you, sir?" Serina said watching the stopping in front of the executive officer.

"Well, I was hoping to get you and another to fly as escorts to a science team that will be taking a shuttle out to survey the system to add data to our report to Starfleet. Would you be up for it?" Dodd asked.

"Of course.....I have the second pilot just right for the escort. You can count on us sir," Serina said. It would give her and Racine a chance to fly together again.

After Dodd got the Science Team and the fighter escort arranged for a survey of other planets in this 569701 system, He decided to get in touch with engineering.

=/\= Ensign Tjaansz, could you please come to the Ready Room when you get a chance. Dodd out. =/\=

--Engineering--

=/\=Tjaansz here,=/\= Teela said as she tapped her comm badge, her cute voice coming clearly over the line.

Teela set her PADD down and tapped the final few commands. "Okay, computer, run the diagnostic I set up for the computer system. Nicci wants me to make sure that sensor palette is working now that we found the glitch."

"Diagnostic routine accepted and initiated. Completion in 30 minutes," the computer reported.

Teela finished up a few of her other last-minute assignments and had a few of the enlisted personnel add on a few extra duties while she left. oO Engineering is definitely more complex than running a tree-home back on Akteva. Oo she thought to herself. She came from a historically tree-dwelling species with a complex family and social structure, so that was saying something.

--Bridge--

Ensign Tjaansz made it up to the bridge and exited the turbo-lift, her purple pointed tail swishing behind her as she walked.

"Ensign, Welcome come on in." Dodd stated as he saw Tjaansz coming off the turbo-lift as the ready room door was open."

"Good day, Commander," the purple ensign said in her young-sounding voice.

"I called you up for a discussion of a small request I have," Dodd stated. "I never got to do a few things in Engineering. I am hoping you can work on them when you can. Would you be up to it?"

"I'd be happy to help, sir," she replied, sounding like a little kid being given some big important job. Her soprano 1 voice had just the right timbre to it to sound younger than she was. "We finally fixed that sensor palette, so we've got resources we can put to other jobs."

"They are simple but will work wonderfully when all is done," Dodd stated. "I was going to install more holo-emitters on the ship, in the science labs and on the bridge. This would allow the EMH access to more of the ship in emergencies. I also wanted to make an isolated power supply for the EMH and the holo-emitters outside of Sickbay and the Holodecks for emergencies. What do you think? I mean I would talk to Taggert but she is on the away team and likely having some fun, as I wish I was down there. But, I am needed here. This is a task that is overall for the better of the ship and you can oversee it. Nelson says he enjoys working with you and likes your relationship with Taggert as it is sort of the way he and I are. So I felt this would be a good chance to expand your role some by giving you this project. I know you have your hands full as acting chief but I know you are resourceful and enjoy keeping busy when on duty."

"Nicci gets to have all the fun," Teela said with a little jealousy in her voice. "I'd love to see the planet and climb their trees," an Aktevan phrase meaning to get one's bearings and get a feel for a place, "but she said they'd never seen purple aliens with tails. I guess it's like the first time I saw a human. Such round little ears and no tails for balance or anything....sorry. Sometimes I spill my acorns in front of people." It was another Aktevan phrase, meaning to say more than one should at the wrong time.

"I do enjoy your approach to new ideas and your work ethic," Dodd stated. "I never have a dull time when you are involved. I say this because you make the most terrible tasks more enjoyable when working them."

Teela squinted her eyes and pouted her lips to the side in deep thought, her tail swishing side to side fitfully as she did, one hand supporting her other that tapped her chin. "Well, weight-wise, it's not going to make too much difference to the ship and the warp harmonics, since the subspace field emitters drag us deeper into subspace, but ship-wise it could be done with the right reconfiguring of the existing power and ODN systems. Someone just needs to squirrel the acorns around," she used a translated phrase from her own native Aktevan language, meaning rearranging an already tight space, though it lost a little in translation. "You can put the light doctor in on the bridge and engineering, perhaps to start, and maybe the auxiliary bridge...computer space isn't really an issue, and we can replicate a dedicated subprocessor and probably a standard 14-day power bank could work...we have a supply of isolinear chips to copy the light doctor to local memory, but having local copies may be easier in case an attack severs computer access, but have a back-end dream stream to put all the memories into the main...EMH, sorry, I was thinking in Aktevan a bit. The English word I think is something like having local memory storage, and then archiving, that's the word, to the main EMH memory database."

Teela could probably run at the mouth for a lot longer, as that was how she worked through things, talking them out loud. "Sorry, I just kind of talk things out loud a bit," she said, lowering her face and voice a little like a kid sorry for taking a cookie. "You can do it, sure. We'd just need time to test it out and make sure there's power and data so if we get attacked, a bridge copy of the light doctor, um, EMH doesn't shut off while treating a patient, and likewise for engineering and wherever else we put it. Can we install it on the bridge now? I don't want to get in the way of all the big stuff you do up here."

"I do always enjoy chatting with you, and I am glad you are on board to do this task," Dodd replied with a grin as Tjaansz always made him feel good no matter what mood he was in to start with. "I do hope this is not too much trouble for you."

"It shouldn't be too much to add on after cycling the warp coils and refreshing the warp coolant, just regular maintenance," she began, looking up and biting her lip, counting on her fingers what she had on her plate. "But we can install short-range holo-emitters at the stations along the bridge and around the center, save both power and processing time. Oh, wait! You can use the little databanks and subprocessors as a networked holo-buffer and save computer core time. Sorry, Commander," she saluted oh so seriously. "It's a doable thing, just have to divide it up into little steps so we can distribute the workload more efficiently."

The ship was in very good hands and had Dodd had the chance he would love to get his hands dirty once again in Engineering. He was sort of jealous of Tjaansz as she was still in there and enjoying it more than enough to help him feel good about his ship.

"Glad you are a part of our little ship and a friend as well," Dodd added.

"I'm glad I'm here," Teela replied with a smile as her dark purple eyes sparkled in the light. "I miss my home tree but sometimes you have to see the galaxy to appreciate what you have on your own branch, right?"

"You are so right, Teela. I do miss Betazed but never really felt at home there growing up. I have never been to the Ullian homeworld but I know I will never feel at home there either. I do consider the Tomcat my branch and my family is the crew here." Dodd stated. "I will be sure to make you a part of any future away teams that go to worlds that have a tree canopy and will not be afraid of aliens in their midst."

"Oooh, thank you!" she smiled brightly, her dark purple eyes sparkling, tail swishing behind her. "I love working with computers and all but I do love just feeling the dirt between my toes. Maybe we'll get to go to Earth sometime. Or Qo'noS. Qogh said I was welcome back any time." The last bit she said with a thinking look to her face, a finger tapping on her lips as she remembered it all.

The Shuttle was a type 9 and was equipped with several high-resolution multispectral imaging sensors for graphing planets' life forms as well as substrate and whatever else they might find.

Matt was there calibrating the sensors. "Earth is nice this time of year though you can find just about any climate you can think of there," Matt said.

"Yes, Earth is nice just about any time of year," Dodd stated. "I am going to leave you all to your duties. I just ask for a report when you are set to depart."

"Sensors are adjusted and aligned, We can go anytime we get clearance, Commander," Matt said.

"They have permission to depart as I want them to gather a much data as possible and maybe we can get a team to come out and do more exploration based upon what they collect" Dodd replied to Matt. "Just make sure to avoid any civiliztions that may be out there. We don't want to cause a scene or any incidents in unexplored territory."


------ Flight Deck ----

Serina was finishing the pre-flight checks in her fighter. She had her orders to escort the shuttle to the surface and she didn't want to get caught unprepared if something should jump off.

She finished and sat down and waited for the shuttle crew and team to arrive for their mission.

=/\= Thompson to Donovan, what's your status=/\=

=/\= Flight status is a go. Just waiting for the shuttle team to arrive. The fighter is finished with preflight checks=/\= Serina said clearly eager to get going.

=/\="We are about ready to go here too, the special sensors all check out we are just waiting on clearance from the bridge =/\=

=/\= Understood. Awaiting for clearances as well. Once we have them, I take off first then you. Hopefully we have clear skies=/\= Serina said patiently waiting for the green light.

=/\= Lieutenant Donovan we have clearance to leave launch when ready.=/\= Matt said.

=/\= Understood Commander. Launching now and away we go!=/\= Serina said and flew out first with the shuttle following.


[END]

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A post by:

Lieutenant Commander Remington Dodd
Executive Officer (Acting Captain)
USS Tomcat NCC-62114

&

Lieutenant Matt Thompson
Chief Science Officer
USS Tomcat NCC-62114

&

Lt. Serina "Hawkeye" Donovan
Command Air Group
USS Tomcat NCC-62114

&

Ens. Teela Tjaansz
Engineer
USS Tomcat NCC-62114

 

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