Mission Briefing

Posted on Mon Dec 10, 2018 @ 7:38pm by Commodore Michael Aravan & Captain Madelina Weisz & Lieutenant Colonel S'er'in'e & Lieutenant Commander Arrda & Lieutenant Martha Cusack & Lieutenant Commander Kelani Tetanal & Lieutenant Commander Alex Rho & Lieutenant JG Logan Hunter & Master Chief Petty Officer Thomas Barnes
Edited on on Fri May 3, 2019 @ 9:23pm

Mission: On Slippery Ground
Location: Ready Room
Timeline: MD 1 || 1000 Hours

After the last of the department heads entered the ready room, Commodore Aravan activated the LCARS on the table at which everyone sat and looked at each of the officers. "Thank you all for coming so quickly," he said. "We've received our new orders."

"Admiral Breckenridge seems to have gone light on us this time," he said with a smile. "We'll be escorting a ship to a base in the Badlands which is carrying new bioneural gel packs for a project which is being worked on. Needless to say, any time anything new comes out, the enemy always finds out about it. Our job is to keep the ship and cargo safe."

"The Badlands isn't and never have been a good place, so I want all and any suggestions on navigating through it and keeping our sensors up and effective. Security, I want a specialist team sent to the other ship when it arrives here to provide added security and to ensure that things go smoothly in case anyone decides to try to get it for themselves."

"The Badlands?" Tom wondered aloud, his eyebrows shooting up with surprise. "How long has the Federation had a presence out there?" Of course, he was interested in hearing more about this unnamed base or project. The fact that neither of them were named suggested to him an air of secrecy.

Kelani was quiet for a moment, then asked, “No information was given about the project?” After a moment’s thought, she said pensively, “Perhaps if we knew their appearance at least, we could fabricate some inert copies to place on the transport, and we carry the actual ones aboard Triumphant?”

"Yes, the Badlands," Michael repeated Barnes. "As for how long we've had a presence there, I'm afraid that's classified, Master Chief," he said. "Our job is just to provide an escort."

He turned his attention to the Science Chief. "That's not possible. The freighter is specifically geared to carry the cargo, but we could replicate some fake ones."

S'er'in'e listened and only slightly peaked for what appeared to be a much easier mission than those prior, experience however taught him that seldom was the simple appearance of anything at the first glance. Escort taskings were easy, Point A to Point B. Only the cargo was the variable as to how interested others would be and foolish or brave to take on the Triumphant.

Martha sat back and listened for a few moments before speaking.

"I will try and modify the sensors or come up with another solution to compensate for the anomalies in the area. It's also worth considering that raiders could hide in the plasma storms - so it could end up being very difficult to detect a potential ambush" Martha said.

"Playing Fek'lhr's advocate for a moment," said Alex. "I'm certain that whatever we replicate would have to be specific enough to fool all kinds of sensors. As it is a classified project, would we even have access to those specifications? And then what engineer would have clearance to replicate it?"

"There's one problem with that idea," Master Chief Barnes spoke up. "Bio-neural gelpacks and circuitry can't be replicated. the gel and the neural fibers have to be grown to certain specifications and done so in a specialized environment. For all of her bells and whistles, the Triumphant herself doesn't have the ability or resources to recreate those."

"It would all depend on how well they looked at the packs," Michael said. "Would you be able to modify some existing packs, Mister Barnes with the help of Science and Medical?"

The newly minted engineer thought for a second before replying. "We certainly could," he answered at last. "But it'll mean having to take some non-essential systems offline to do so. Whatever gel packs we'd be replacing from the cargo ship need to remain stored, and not replace what we're using already."

Logan was reviewing the data regarding conditions in the Badlands. He was concerned for how the fighters would be able to operate. He gave an audible sigh as he realized only the Valkyrie squadrons had a good chance of sustainable flight operations for the mission.

"Do it, Mister Barnes," Michael said. "Use anything and everything you need. Lieutenant Stone, I want every piece of navigational information about the Badlands ever recorded plotted in and every possible vector we can take. The coordinate to the base will be sent to the helm."

"Aye, sir," Tom confirmed, using his padd to draw up a list he could allocate gelpacks from.

Zeke rubbed the back of his neck, "That's a lot of navigation charting sir," he wondered if the Commodore was aware of just how tall an order that was before shifting forward in his seat, "Permission to access Starfleet's astronomical database and any matching recorded ship logs for other vessels that have flown around in there?"

"Granted," Michael said, expecting no less.

Arrda frowned. A specialist team, for guard detail. That implied that the commodore already knew of or suspected trouble of a specific type. But what type? "Commodore, is there a specific problem that you want covered?"

Maddy had opted to sit quietly thus far, but couldn't continue doing that any longer. She cleared her throat. "There is no problem to speak of aside from wanting to add some extra Security, Lieutenant. That's not to say we won't run into any issues, but let's not go borrowing trouble before it presents itself to us."

Arrda had not been intending to 'borrow trouble' per se; he had simply been clarifying the request so that he could gather the appropriate team for the job. He turned his gaze to Captain Weisz. "I apologize if that was the impression I gave, Ma'am. Thank you for the clarification." He then turned his gaze down to his PADD, beginning to think on whom he could send... or whether he should go himself to lead the team.

Logan cleared his throat. He felt a bit overwhelmed for being in his first senior staff meeting, especially with the news he was going to be adding to the meeting. "Um, I hate to say this, but...we are only going to have less than half of the air wing available for flight operations in the Badlands."

"Why is this, Mister Logan?" Michael asked. "We have one hundred and fifty fighters on the ship and I know nowhere near half of them was involved in the mercenary attack at the bottleneck in Romulan space."

Logan swallowed the lump forming in his throat. "The Badlands and the Bottleneck have very different conditions sir. The Razors are light interceptors. Their aerospace frames just can't take the stress of the conditions found in the Badlands. There is also a problem fielding the Gryphons too, their avionics package is so sensitive that the plasma storms can cause an overload. The Valkyries are the only assets that are suitable for flight and combat operations in the Badlands."

"I see," the Commodore responded. "Have them operate in half hour shifts only while on patrol. The Badlands is an exhausting place even for an experienced pilot and I don't want them out of visual range of the ship."

Logan gave a single nod of his head. The grounding of a good portion of the air wing was a significant impact on over all combat efficiency, but the Valkyrie starfighters were formidable combat platforms. "Thirty minute combat sorties, aye sir."

"Colonel S'er'in'e, I want your Marines scattered throughout the ship in fire teams. Make certain that every deck has at least two ready to go in case of boarders and repeat in every fifteen minutes when we enter the Badlands."

"Understood." S'er'in'e answered. "To add, with the compromised capability of the fighters could we not use the Victorious to compliment or in some way supplement?" The ship was a vessel of its own, armoured, insulated, fully capable as he saw it for the rigours of what the Badlands could throw at them.

"Excellent idea, Colonel," Michael said. "Would you prefer to command it again?"

"I would." The large feline replied glad the idea met with approval. "Unless you have another." Hoping this time wpuld be better than the last.

"I don't."

"Doctor Giovanni, I want all of Medical on full alert. The Badlands are home of desperate people and we'll make a nice target with or without the freighter to protect."

"Understood." Antonio spoke listening to orders being issued to those that were in attendance. It was not often he was able to get out of Sickbay for meetings like this so it was good to see faces to the positions they filled.

"Lieutenant Rho, I'll need Intelligence to dig up files on every incident of piracy in the Badlands since Voyager and tell me if you find any patterns. I'll also need a moment of your time after the meeting," Michael told the Intel Chief.

Alex nodded. "That, we can do easily," he replied. He and Jacob could compile that information decently enough. Hell, Jacob could do it by himself. But since there were classifications involved, he wanted to be around in case anything should pop. Rho nodded to the Commodore as an acknowledgement of his request to remain after the dismissal.

Michael looked at his fiery redheaded Executive Officer. "As valuable as you are to me here on the ship, Captain Weisz, I need you more on the Victorious. I have a feeling that Security is going to be very busy on the ship. I want you on the Victorious as Security because of your service history."

"You know I'll do what's needed of me, Commodore," the redhead stated, casting a glance in the Marine CO's direction. She knew his stance on working with Security, but Maddy was a force to be reckoned with. Her gaze went back to Michael as she silently found herself hoping the Caitian would protest. "The Victorious is in capable hands."

The Commodore looked at the Master Chief after Maddy answered. "Master Chief Barnes. I have a feeling the Victorious is going to need you more than the ship will, so I'm assigning you to it as well."

Tom's eyebrows instantly shot upward. After his time of service aboard the Triumphant, it sounded like he was finally able to get off the ship for something besides a few hours of shore leave. He smiled at the Commodore and replied, "Thank you, Commodore. I look forward to it." His only regret was that he hadn't much time yet in the ship's Engineering. Though, that would come soon enough.

"If there's no other questions, dismissed," Michael said. "Prepare Victorious for launch in one hour."

The only question Arrda could think of was not really something the commodore needed to answer for him. He stood, gave a nod to the man, and left to prepare himself and his team.

Martha had nothing further to add to the briefing. She stood up from her seat and then made her way out of the room to begin working on her schedule for the day.

Alex remained seated and watched as the others began making their way out. He had his suspicions as to why he was asked to stay, but did not voice them. Rather, he waited to have them confirmed or not in his follow-up meeting.

Kelani nodded respectfully to the Commodore and rose, already planning the supplementary scans and analyses she would perform during the mission as she left the briefing.