New Parts for the Machine

Posted on Mon Oct 16th, 2023 @ 9:14am by Captain Shran dh'Klar & Lieutenant Inara Senn & Lieutenant Wyatt Steele & Lieutenant JG Vienna Steele

Mission: Damn Dirty Apes
Location: USS Washington

As Shran sat reviewing the limited information coming in as they waited for any contact updates from the away team. A yeoman walked over and handed him a PaDD. Shran looked it over, seeing that several new crew members had beamed aboard, and a shuttle was requesting permission to dock with a new Chief Science Officer aboard. Shran stood and adjusted his tunic, and then looked back at the tactical station, "Lt Logan, you have the bridge." He made his way to the turbolift with the yeoman in tow and as the doors closed, he told the yeoman to have the newly beamed aboard officers meet him in the shuttle bay.

Inara was busy moving her belongings from the shuttle when a crewman who was moving a large crate plopped one on the ground. "Be careful crewman, one of those contains a Tholian Silk robe."

"How on planet earth did you get Tholian Silk?" Inara looked at him. "I walked up to a Tholian merchant and said please and thank you." She noted.

"They are incredibly Xenophobic, They usually shoot at us."

"Then you have to learn the fine art of calming people's fears, Crewman, and to do that, you have to address what you think is impossible. Now be careful with my wardrobe and belongs. If you break my paintings.. I will transfer you to the Science department." Inara noted.

"That doesn't sound so bad." He noted.

"Just wait until I assign you to exobiology. You'll be begging to leave before the first day is over." She gave him a smirk, "With an emphasis of Xeno-excrement Analysis. Part of Biology is understanding exosystems." Inara noted. "You'll be staring at shit for the rest of your career."

"Uh.. I'll be careful with your wardrobe ma'am." He noted.

"You might be a smart enlisted man yet. If anything from me, you'll learn not to enrage the officers."

Wyatt stood alongside and watched the exchange with the crewman and a new officer in dressed in medical teal. She certainly had a way about and it was clear she accepted nothing but the best from those around her judging by the exchange. She wasn't rude, not at all. She was polite but firm and to the point of what she expected.

Shran walked into view of everyone looking a bit stressed. "Tholian silk robe sounds fancy, but you'll find many female officers have such luxuries crewman, especially Betazoids. You'll note that Commander Celes has several. I have gifted such things to my wives as well. You'll learn to seek out such luxuries as gifts to females you care for as you get older." He looked at the science officer and then glanced at the two command officers who were standing to the side. "So StarFleet has gifted me new officers and feels you are important enough to have you sent to us rather than meet at a starbase. I hope you are all prepared to work immediately" he said in his usual commanding voice.

She met his eyes, evaluating the Andorian. "I see a situation has developed, as it has stressed out a Starfleet Captain, and that's saying something. I'm at your service, Captain. I just need to deal with one detail briefly and We'll be on our way." She turned. "Crewman. I need my belongings moved from the shuttle, to my quarters. Don't worry about unpacking everything, I will do that myself, and do be careful, there is a Katana and a Wakizashi that has seen service to the Federation very recently. As well as several paintings painted by myself that I believe would be inspiring onboard this vessel." Inara noted. "Do this for me, and you'll earn my gratitude. This may appear trivial to you, but I assure you; I remember who earns my gratitude. But do this carefully. I don't want anything to be broken. If something is heavy, use your mind this time to understand what you need to do to accomplish the task."

Wyatt thought now was a good time to make introductions. "Excuse me Captain. May I present ourselves? I'm Lieutenant Wyatt Steele and this is my wife Vienna. We're your new strategic operation officers. We are most honored to be here,"

Vienna nodded politely as she looked towards Shran, and Inara. “It’s nice to meet you both.”

"Command must indeed have a sense of humor sending me all you lieutenants, especially you two for strategic operations. And here I thought wartime conditions concluded with the defeat of the Dominion." Shran stopped and let out a stress breath to calm himself and refocus. "Apologies if I sound overly brash. The current situation has left me agitated. We have an away team on the surface attempting to rescue two of our crew from the local populace who while primitive compared to us, do have weaponry comparable to WWI Earth era. Our technology is being negated by a massive EM field that renders transporters useless and minimizes weapons, sensors, and communication extremely limited. Only because of Commander Celes' workaround do we have any sort of ability at all with this planet. Lt Senn, I want you working on this issue. I want more than these small 30 second transporter windows. See if you can expand upon what Celes already did using probes. She's on the planet, otherwise I'd have you work directly with her."

"An EM Field you say?" Inara noted. "Interesting that a society with World War I technology could conceive of something that could generate such an EM field. It can't be artificial. Perhaps an aspect of the planet's magnetosphere? If it is artificial, and it's disrupting the systems on our ship, it might not end well for the inhabitants of this planet. Do you know what happens when one places two magnets together? But I digress, We might be able to generate a EM Field of our own, that could act as a conductive Faraday Cage." She noted. "A Faraday field. Instead of trying to repel this field, we will use it. I need to laisse with your chief engineer. But odd... a society like this generating an EM field that can disable one of our starships, and our ships are designed with shields and even hull plating resistant to such radiation. I feel there's something else happening here."

"They aren't generating it; it appears to be a natural phenomenon. That is why it is such a problem" Shran replied bluntly.

"Hmm.. I have an idea how this might be happening." Inara moved towards one of her boxes of belongings and retrieved what appeared to be a small compass. The results were intriguing. The compass was spinning non-stop. "Well, this is unexpected, and certainly unprecedented."

Vienna gave Shran a curious look. “I might be able to help with the retrieval of the missing crew Captain, I am an infiltration specialist.”

"The thing we need at this point is use of the transporters and clear sensor information. Without that, nothing else matters" Shran replied.

Vi nodded and looked towards Wyatt. “Is it possible the planet has natural magnetic properties? That would certainly interfere with a compass and mess up our readings.”

"I would say that it is more than possible Vi. I think it absolutely does have magnetic properties. We need a plan of action to counter that. A strong magnetic field of different polarity could disrupt the planet's EM field.' Wyatt replied.

"Yes, but we don't want to do something that alters the nature of the planet" Shran offered.

"Of course, not sir." Wyatt smiled somewhat indulgently.

Inara spoke. "This planet is something different, hypothetically. I wouldn't know how unless I was permitted to perform a geological analysis, and I imagine our sensors are having issues. But I have a solution for the EM. Several in fact." She noted. "I simply need to test a few hypotheses. But rescuing our crew from a planet with an industrial Revolution era society is one thing. The buzzards from Headquarters will descend on us to decide if the Prime Directive has been violated, and who will pay for it." She noted. "In this life, you have to expect the Spanish Inquisition." She smirked with one of her amusing quips.

"No one expects the Spanish Inquisition" Shran replied with a wry smile. He looked over at Inara, "I'm well versed in ancient human entertainment jokes. Part of your training if you serve under Admiral Carroll, as I did. Once we have our people back safely, I'll be happy to let you dig in the dirt and perform as many surveys of the planet as you see fit. But I need my crewmen back safely first."

"Captain, the Geological analysis I spoke of is essential to understanding our predicament. Most planets have molten iron cores that generate its magnetic field. This one seems to be unique as it's generating massive amounts of EM flux, according to this compass, magnetic north is shifting itself at a rate I've never seen before and in order to hypothesize any effective countermeasures for it. I must know what's happening in this planets core."

Shran furrowed his brow in thought. "How would you like to make that assessment considering the current situation? Are you suggesting an away mission to what should be one of the polar regions?"

"That depends on what you define as 'Polar Regions.' Captain. According to this simple instrument, Polar may not be in the same place as the planet's axis, it's shifting constantly. We can't rely on the Washington's sensors to tell us much as the EM field is having a detrimental effect on the ships systems. Hmm, strange... As I was coming in with the shuttle, I did notice a slight disruption of the EPS Grid. And even if I could get a scan from the ship's sensors, the EM would make the results random and disrupted. I need to get planetside, Skipper."

"Skipper?" questioned with a raised eyebrow. "You take some liberties lieutenant, but you do hit the ground running as the humans say. Gather whatever gear you require, and take these two with you as tactical back up. A transporter window should be opening up soon to get you down to the surface. Avoid the locales at all costs."

Wyatt bristled at the comment 'these two' as if Vi and he were the hired help. However, he kept his mouth closed and merely waited to hear what Inara thought they needed to take with them.

"C'mon you two, time to go do some science. We'll have to create a hidden lab on the surface, and destroy it when we're done. Science and destruction; who knew we'd use those two words in the same sentence in Starfleet?" She smirked. "What did that one poet say? We always destroy that which we love?"

“It’s just a saying thankfully” Vienna offered a smile as she offered Wyatt a calming smile. “Looks like we’re spare parts for now so we might as well make ourselves useful.”

"Not spare parts, simply new parts for the machine. And your arrival was timely" Shran noted.