Briefing The Senior Staff

Posted on Thu Apr 9th, 2020 @ 6:10pm by Commodore Phoenix Lalor-Richardson & Captain Gary Taylor & Lieutenant Commander Aurelia Taylor & Lieutenant JG Gallia Norris & Commander Sthilg & Lieutenant Colonel Azhul Naxea & Commander Arrianna Salannis an Vantar & Ensign Kara Hoffman & Lieutenant Commander Alicia Kelea-Salik & Lieutenant Casper Thornhill

Mission: Season 3: Episode 4: Cause and Effect
Location: Briefing Lounge
Timeline: MD 1, 11hoo
2413 words - 4.8 OF Standard Post Measure

Their orders had been delivered. Phoenix sighed as she read them. A 5 month journey deep in Alpha Quadrant Space, no wormhole permitted, to chart and scan systems past the Void. Her crew were being recalled as she stood in the Observation Lounge and awaited her Senior Staff.

And for once, due to the combative nature of some of her crew, she had assigned seating for them. Each place had a name plaque. Gary and her would be at opposite ends with the rest spaced between them. She had even invited Vaii to the meeting as she was currently acting in the role of head fighter pilot when Gary was busy.

Alicia arrived at the briefing PADD in hand, just incase she needed to take any notes. She’d stopped by her office enroute to check her schedule just incase she needed to reschedule any appointments. Arriving at the lounge she smiled politely as she entered and took a seat. “Good Morning Captain.”

Next through the door was the big gorn who was sipping from a mug of some meaty soup. " Good morning captain, lieutenant." He said as she took his seat.

“Good Morning Doctor” Alicia smiled warmly as she looked towards her Gorn colleague.

Gary came in next, Seeing the others he greeted them. "Good morning Captain, Doc and you as well Lieutenant." As he then took his eat at the table.

“Good Morning to you as well Commander” Alicia smiled warmly as she looked in Taylor’s direction.

Naxea entered the ready room with some apprehension--something she wasn't used to and this being the first meeting since she had been captured, she ignored the looks from others and simply took her seat. "Captain," she said in recognition as she sat down in her chair.

Phoenix smiled in welcome at the incoming officers and waited for the rest to show.

Arrianna walked in with a tray containing a book and two cups of tea. She sat down and set one at a chair for Anje.

Lia entered and headed for Gary's end of the table, she glanced at Phoenix. "Morning Captain, and hello to everyone else. I take it we're about to bugger off to some godforsaken end of the Galaxy, and engage in some pointless exercise that Star Fleet has deemed important". Sitting down she looked back at Phoenix, "Bet we get ourselves into some other action, which will be much more exciting". Giving a large grin as she spoke, she adjusted her PaDD's for ease of use.

Casper walked in a little quicker, he thought he was going to be late for some reason. Quickly scanning the room he nodded to everyone as he found his seat and proceeded towards it. Sitting down he placed the PaDD down to the right of him and sat back scanning the Senior staff that had already arrived saying the name of them in his head to ensure that he was a hundred percent correct who they were in his head. He was confused on one of them as he hadn't seen her before, he concluded that she may have been a new transfer.

Kara was the next to walk in. She nodded to the captain. "Good morning Cap'n, commander and to you all." Walking down the row of chairs, she found one with her name on it. "Awful fancy nameplate, love it. Can a' meetings have our names like this?" She joked, sitting down.

Anje came in behind Kara, her short hair held in place by an elastic headband in the same shade of purple as her uniform. Turning to Hoffman she spoke, "Good morning, Lieutenant. Where is your lovely fiance this morning?"

Arrianna picked up one of the cups of tea she was reserving and placed it before Anje, complete with sugar cubes and a slice of lemon.

"Oh, thank you." Anje smiled, placing a cube of sugar and the lemon into her tea and taking a long draw off of it, "Oh, that is just lovely."

Kara's aforementioned 'lovely fiance' was next to enter, her uniform jacket askew as there had just been a toddler crawling on it a minute prior, "Sorry, Cap'n, had te get Tay off te the sitter was what slowed me down." Gallia explained, taking a seat beside Kara and whispering, "Good mornin', ma love."


Once everyone was seated Phoenix moved to stand at the head of the table. She picked up a PADD that was there. "Thank you all for coming. Starfleet Command had deemed us ready for departure and with our new engine, purring like a kitten thanks to Lieutenant Hoffman's team, we can get underway. To where? To the Gamma quadrant, sans wormhole. We are to use our new drive to go past Cardassian space and proceed to the area of space known as the Void. To get to the Void it will take us 4 days at top Warp Speed." She pressed a button and on the table appeared a holographic representation of their flight path.
"Once at the Void, which for those of you who are unaware, is known as such because no ship can fly through it at Warp or even with our new engine. We will be spending 7 days at Impulse following the beacons through. During this time, our shielding will need to be at peek efficiency due to the temporal currents that swirl through the Void."

Phoenix looked around at the officers assembled. "Medical will need to make sure every person on this ship is fitted with sub-dermal trackers while we are in the Void. Not many ships have gone through it, and come out with their complete compliment intact." She looked at the CMO. "You can start with everyone in this room and then your team and then the rest of the crew. You will have until we get there to make sure everyone is fitted properly and the trackers linked to Operations." She picked up a box off her seat and handed it to Sthilg. "These are the ones for the Command Staff. The rest are being delivered to Medical."

The gorn nodded as he picked up the box, opened it and began loading the subdermal trackers into the implantation gun. " I'll ssstart with you captain. May i asssk that we take on sssome more medical sssuppliesss before we leave." He said as he stood up from his chair.

"Already underway Commander. The supplies are being placed in Cargobay 6. And are under lock and key. Keyed only to you, Lt. Commander Norris and your assistant chief." Phoenix held out her arm to the doctor.

tag Doc

"Security and Marines, I would like you both working together to increase patrols around the ship while we are in the Void."

Nodding her head Lia glanced at Phoenix, "I'll get together with the Major and work out a patrol routine, I'm sure we'll come up with something". She inputted the information onto her personal PaDD, "As I thought, a godforsaken end of the universe".

Naxea simply nodded. "Will do, Captain."

"When we hit the Void, no shuttles or fighter craft will be allowed out of our shuttlebay. No EVA's will be permitted. No external repairs or maintenance."

Looking back up at Phoenix, Lia raised her hand. "Can I suggest we do a complete exterior check on all sensors, before we enter the Void. As we won't be able to do anything once we're in the damn thing, with luck if anything needs fixing or replacing we'll pick it up then?"

Kara spoke up. "I've already put it on my top priority to-do list. I'll examine every inch before we proceed anywhere near the void. I don't want anything going wrong." She looked up from her Padd to stop typing. "Engineering will ensure we're in peak operating efficiency across the board, if anything goes wrong, i'll be damned, if it's an engineering issue."

Glancing at Kara, Lia smiled. "I thought you might, but no harm in mentioning it. I wouldn't dare to hint that you can't do your job, but thank you Kara".

"Also we will be passing through Cardassian Space and they have requested all ships check in and check out of their space so, be prepared for Cardassian Ships to shadow us through. Operations, Engineering and Science, I want out sensors at full for the trip through the Void. The more information we gather each time a ship passes through assists other vessels." Phoenix then looked at Varis.

"I will have our sensors linked to your departments computers Mr Varis. I am sure the Temporal anomalies will be of great interest to you and your team."

Varis had been absentmindedly listening, in truth he had not been paying much attention. The mention of his own name brought him into the meeting. "Hmmmmm, Yes... Yes I am sure the anomalies will be a unique find. I am more interested in keeping the temporal information away from Cardassian eyes."

Arri spoke. "Captain, I'm not certain I approve of this. The void plays havok on ships and equipment. I'm not certain we'll learn more than the probes we've launched into that place."

"Believe me Arri, I don't much agree with this either but we have been ordered to do this. Arguing with the messenger is a bit of bad form right?"

That part of the mission Naxea didn't like one bit. She wouldn't put it past the Cardassians to try something. Despite wanting to comment, she decided against it.

Lia glanced at Naxea as she spoke, "Due respect Captain, but there are certain areas on this vessel which are off limits to species like the Cardassians. Do we have your permission to prevent their entry to those areas, both the Security Section along with the Marines will be forced to react if they attempt to force the issue". She had no love for the Cardassians, and she certainly didn't want them snooping around the ship.

"The cardassians will not be boarding our ship. They will merely follow us through their territory." Phoenix replied. "I for one am not going to let them on board anyway, but in this case they are no where near us."

Kara chimed in. " Regarding our sensors, There is potential for us to be able to learn new things, that the previous probes and ships may not have. With the new computer upgrades that were installed for the QSD, I might be able to boost our sensor scanning resolution. Not just that, if I'm correct, we might even be able to boost sensor range, inside the void by nearly forty percent than previous. We may be able to see more, than any other ship has before, with a little work. Of course, it's not guaranteed, but we should expect to at least have an extended sensor range, better than nothing." She did not however mention the opposite might also be true, if the sensors were not correctly modulated, their sensor vision would be horribly restricted.

"Forty percent, that could come in very useful". Lia made a note on her PaDD, "Sorry Captain, am I keeping you waiting?"

"But what will we be able to perform and analysis upon?" Arri mentioned. "Even from the probe data we've studied. We've only picked up trace amounts of sub-stellar matter, background radiation, low level gravimetric anomalies, and a unusual form of subspace shearing that plays havok with our warp drive and EPS grid." Arri mentioned. "However, if you desire me to, I can perform an analysis on the subspace anomalies found in Commander Albright's soul and relabel them as the Void Survey Starfleet wants. Then we can go study the Gravitational shifts of the Black Cluster." Arri gave a soft, yet snarky grin.

"I am sure you will find plenty to do Arri." Phoenix sighed. "Once we are through the Void starfleet wants us to proceed 200 light years distant from that point and commence mapping and surveying. Our trajectory, is towards the last known location of the Caretakers Array, destroyed by Voyager."

Kara sighed lightly, as she took notes on her padd. Pausing for just a moment. ~Captain Janeway, Sometimes I think Starfleet would have been better off without...HER.~ Kara had read and learned about Voyager like most in Starfleet eventually do, but for some reason she disliked Janeway, for a reason she just couldn't understand or explain.

"Captain, the technology behind the Caretaker Array is centuries beyond even our most advanced technologies. Too advanced for the Cardassian Union or even us." Arri mentioned.

"Believe me, Starfleet knows. They are also well aware that even with our new drive it will take YEARS to reach that location. Decades even. But they want us to start mapping and deploying probes."Phoenix replied.

Lia sat quietly taking notes, then looked up at Phoenix. "And just how are supposed to survive against both the Borg and species 8472, along with the Kazon to add flavour to the mix?" Lia had studied Janeway's voyage back very closely, she knew there were other species who had a bone to pick with the Federation. "We're walking into trouble, and completely unsupported. This mission requires at least two Star Ships, and Kara. Some of that new tech your so pleased to be playing with, you have Janeway to thank for it". She placed her PaDD down and took a deep breath, "We have an Ojnas Envoy on board, has the Federation asked their permission to send one of their Officers on this mission?" She now looked around the room, "Who ever thought this mission up didn't think it through, due respect Captain but even Janeway stated we shouldn't return to the Delta quadrant until we're much better prepared".

"Where do you guys get the thought that I have a say in the missions we are assigned?" Phoenix asked looking at the ceiling. "I am just following orders, which, is exactly what we are going to do. We are going to be commencing mapping of the route. We are not going to make it to the Delta quadrant. Lets be reasonable. Even with the QSD, it will take us years, and as we will not be using it as it is mapping, the likely hood of us reaching the delta quadrant is about as likely as .. well extremely unlikely."

Phoenix looked around and found no one had a comment. "Ok, All departments are to bring themselves into departure readiness by 14h40. Line up for your implants and lets get moving people."

OFF