YE/D09 & 10 - Engineering

[Paul]

==

[Ian Elliot]

Ian was excited; they had a mission! Ian was also scared; he did not like this mission. Cardassians and refugees and border wars, oh my! So much for riding the high of his encounter with the Chief Medical Officer. Puffing out his cheeks like a chipmunk, he worked thoughtlessly on tuning up the engines. They’d have to be in top shape if they were going to try and slip in and slip out of the border – and using the Slipstream Drive for one or the other… but not possibly both, right? Ian admitted to himself that he felt ashamed that he didn’t know more about the SlipStream Drive. Obviously it used a hell of a lot of power, but even a Security Officer could figure that part out.

He had read about the special propulsion, of course, but even information on it was extremely limited by the Federation. Deemed too dangerous to install on new ships, and too risky to attempt to install retroactively on existing ships, slipstream technology had been boiled down to something Starfleet simply decided to ‘not pursue.’

With his task at hand second nature to him now, Ian used his idle brain power to try and remember at least the history of the unique system. The Voyager was the first to ‘discover’ it – first in the Federation, anyway. Well, first documented. They were in the Delta Quadrant. Of course. Who was the Captain? Janeway. Dang, I can’t remember her first name. Started with a…. never mind. Well, that’s gonna bug me. I think they thought it was Transwarp, at first. Like the Borg used to use. Ok, so… main deflector. Quantum field. Quantum… barrier. Yeah, that’s the tricky part. It’s… intuitive. Which is why we can’t use the computer to automatically make calculations. Voyager used it to travel a couple hundred lightyears, but couldn’t go any further because… instability? Right? Can-only-ride-the-bucking-targ-for-so-long kinda thing.

Engines still weren’t up to 100%. This irked Ian. They were at a respectible percentage, but for someone who definitely had an attention-deficient disorder, he didn’t consider the job complete until thing were literally at one-hundred percent completed. Also, suddenly he wanted cheese tortellini with alfredo sauce. Huh. He didn’t even think he was hungry.

The trick is the benamite. Ian continued in his head, pushing himself back to the soon-to-be subject at hand. On an adjacent computer, he brought up the scientific information for those crystals, knowing that his rank wouldn’t grant him the clearance he wanted/needed for the advanced almost-top-secret slipstream system. Ian knew there was much more about the system that he didn’t know, and wouldn’t get to know unless someone with higher clearance opened the files for him. That being said, he wasn’t sure how much he needed to know about the whole thing. Watch for variances. That was the key. That was the key to the whole thing. Put in the wrong calculations, and you get thrown out to space with considerable damage. Apparently it wasn’t anything like getting thrown out of a warp bubble.

A sprinkling of tube grubs might go well with the tortellinis. Though Ian was never big on Klingon food, he learned to appreciate some food of his ancestry.

What had happened to the Voyager, anyway? It returned home, the whole crew were given medals or something, and undoubtedly everyone at home would have wanted to tear the ship apart and inspect it micron by micron. Ian didn’t think it had been disassembled, though. Or if it had, it had been put back together veeeery carefully. Was it possible that it was still running even today? That was a good question. A question that was easy enough to look up.


==GM: What is the service record of the USS Voyager?==

[Jadaris]

A reptilian finger tapped Elliot's shoulder as he did his research. If Elliot looked up, he'd see his boss looking down at him with the Gorn equivalent of a raised eyebrow.

"If you really want to learn about engineering secrets, you should ask the Chief Engineer directly. I'll warn you what you're looking for is a flagged subject due to recent events, so it might be a good idea if we step into my office so you can ask your questions directly with someone who worked on the project." Jadaris rumbled.

Jadaris stepped over into his office and sat down, waiting for Elliot to follow and ask what he wanted to know.

==tag Elliot==

[GM-01]

Given that no specificity about which USS Voyager had been given, the computer began to display a summary on not one, but multiple ships.

[USS Voyager, NCC-74656
Class: Intrepid
Launched: 2371
Decommissioned: 2378
Lost in Delta Quadrant 2371-2377. Developed Quantum Slipstream Drive, Transphasic Weaponry, Deployable Ablative Armor. Now preserved as museum ship at Fleet Museum, Athan Prime.]

[USS Voyager, NCC-74656-A
Class: Lamarr
Launched: 2384
Decommissioned: CLASSIFIED
Conducted First Contact with Vau N'Akat. Participated in Romulan Evacuation. Other details restricted.]

[USS Voyager, NCC-74656-B
Class: Pathfinder
Launched: 2400
Participated in Battle of Frontier Day. Currently embarked on long-range exploratory operations in Delta Quadrant.]

[Ian Elliot]

The computer cheerfully gave Ian multiple results: USS Voyager, NCC-74656; USS Voyager, NCC-74656-A; USS Voyager, NCC-74656-B. The second result was greyed out with a warning symbol next to it that meant a clearance code was needed to access the information. Immediately, the young man was sucked in, his mind delighted that there were multiple results to investigate. He had of course meant one ship in particular, but any more information given was -in Ian’s mind- primed to sink his teeth into.

He swiped the Voyager-A off the screen, not interested in First Contacts or evacs. That could be an interesting read for later, if he somehow managed to get in the files.

He lined the first and the latest Voyagers up next to each other, as if he was a shopper comparing items. Since the first ship developed the tech, it was likely that the third version of the ship had the tech.

But now he also wanted to know about this transphasic weapons system. And ablative armor. What did the word “ablative” even mean, anyway? How quickly would the Athan Prime museum reply if he was to send an information request? Had the Voyager-B perfected or at least improved on the adjustments needed for the slipstream drive? Were they using it now? What other ships had this type of propulsion? Was there any chance the same engineers were on the Voyager-B that were on the original? What---

A finger tapped Ian on the shoulder. It was pointy. It was his boss.

The engineer didn’t know whether he wanted to take his hands off the screen or not, thinking he was in trouble. As a result, both of his hands just twitched, making a jerking motion that no doubt made him look very jumpy. “If you really want to learn about engineering secrets,” the Gorn said smoothly, “you should ask the Chief Engineer directly.”

Ian gave him a half-smile, his hands -and the rest of his body- releasing their sudden tension.

“I'll warn you, what you're looking for is a flagged subject due to recent events,”

Recent events? Huh… oh! Because of the ‘Damsel’ and… wait, no. What?

“so it might be a good idea if we step into my office so you can ask your questions directly with someone who worked on the project.”

“ ‘Worked on the project’?” Ian blurted out, his thoughts not bothering to stay inside him. He was dutifully following the Chief, and was now babbling all the half-questions that came from his curiousity of that phrase. “What project? What do you mean? On the Voyager? On another ship?” Rather than closing the door and sitting down across from the desk, he simply stood at the other chair, holding its back as he continued his incessant questions. “Were you improving it? Installing it? On this ship?”

The Ensign realized he had run out of air, which wasn’t uncommon when he got going, and he was forced to take a deep breath to replenish his lungs. Thankfully, this also left an opening for the Chief Engineer to get a word in edgewise.


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