Mercenary Analysis

Posted on Sat May 26, 2018 @ 11:25am by Lieutenant Martha Cusack

Mission: Falling Star
Location: Main Armoury
Timeline: MD34 || 08:00

Martha decided to set herself up in the main armoury that morning. Clutching her cup of tea she walked into the armoury – which was surprisingly quiet – and proceeded over to the main console to begin work. The battle yesterday was still fresh in her mind and Martha had been instructed to keep an eye out for any more mercenary attacks.

She first decided to work on finding any weaknesses in their opponents. It was possible – but not a certainty – the mercenary group which attacked the Triumphant had more than one Breen cruiser and Centaur-class destroyer.

Martha logged onto the console and took a sip of her tea before instructing the computer of what she wanted to do.

“Computer – bring up the specifications of the Breen cruiser dating from the Dominion war and list any known weaknesses” Martha said.

The computer started its work. Martha had managed to get some scans of the two larger attack units yesterday – the Breen cruiser and the Centaur-class – which she hoped would come in useful in her first task of the day.

Before Martha’s time on the Triumphant began her last encounter of a mercenary starship had been interesting to say the least. The Orion crew of the Klingon Bird-of-Prey had done such a poor job of upgrading its tactical systems they contributed to their own downfall. Martha was a part of the Operations department at the time although she was selected to aboard to apprehend the crew.

Martha did bear in mind that mercenaries always used whatever they could get their hands on and it wasn’t necessarily manufactured by their own species. She did feel however it was worth checking – just in case.
With the computer’s work done it was clear weaknesses of the Breen cruiser weren’t going to be very easy to find.

“Computer – correlate this information with the scans taken of the Breen cruiser yesterday” Martha instructed.

Whilst the computer worked Martha read through her department’s rota which she had been working on yesterday afternoon. She always liked to double check it to make sure it was correct before sending it out. She glanced up briefly every ten or fifteen seconds to see the computer’s progress on the analysis. Just as she finished reading the rota – satisfied it was correct – the computer confirmed the analysis was complete.

“Let me see…” Martha muttered to herself.

Preferring to look for it herself Martha slowly rotated the schematic on the screen firstly on a horizontal axis and then vertical. Just as she began to start looking at the horizontal axis again Martha found something she thought would be useful.

“Interesting” Martha commented.

Martha had discovered that whilst everything on the Breen cruiser had been updated there was one unfortunate oversight its owners had made. The impulse manifolds were vulnerable as the shielding had not been upgraded in those areas. Whilst not an easy target due to the excellent agility of the Breen cruiser it was something the Triumphant could use to disable it – or any others the mercenaries possessed – more quickly.

Martha then repeated the process for the Centaur-class and took some more notes. She then decided to take a closer look at the tactics employed by the mercenaries. Fortunately there was someone Martha knew could help her – one of her Tactical Officers who was extremely capable when it came to analysing alien tactical formations.

The Chief Tactical Officer scanned the armoury to see if Lieutenant Hughes was present – and after a few moments she was pleased to see that he was. Martha locked the console she was using and proceeded to the human male to ask for his help.

“Mr Hughes – are you free? I need your help with something” Martha asked.

Robert Hughes was a 45-year-old Lieutenant who had passed up promotions and offers of a new challenge at Starfleet Tactical to remain in space. His skill had built over two decades by spending his free time studying formations from various battles and picking out similarities in other encounters with that species.

“Of course. What is it?” Robert asked.

Martha replied. “I’d like to have a look in detail at the formation used by the mercenaries yesterday to see if there’s anything we can predict for next time”

“Sure – I’ll be with you in a moment” Robert responded.

Robert finished his work – inputting the information from a count of the Triumphant’s ordnance weapons into the database – and then turned off the console. Martha then gave the Lieutenant a smile before leading him over to the console she was working on previously.

With any luck they would find some more information that would be useful for the next encounter.