Drawing Board

Posted on Mon Jul 25th, 2011 @ 7:25am by

939 words; about a 5 minute read

Mission: Mission 76 - Home comings
Location: Hollowdeck, USS Yourktown

Trisha stood in the large vacant holodeck on board the USS Yorktown. It was larger than a normal ships holodeck and had more holographic arrays. Apparently at one time, this ship had been an R&D vessel and it showed in places like this. "Computer, create Utopia Planitia laboratory from section one subsection J." The lab shimmered into existence. A beautifully functional -and solitary- place filled with readouts, holographic design tables, workstations, experiment platforms andtool kits of everything she'd need, and it was mercifully free of people.

Trisha sat heavily in one of the chairs at a design table with a sigh.

The crew of the Yorktown had been friendly enough but she still had that out-of-place feeling of being a new crewman who'd joined an old crew. People were nice, sure, but you were on the outside looking in. Not apart of the cliques, friendly banter, or party to the inside jokes. She was a stranger to these people, and they to her. Though it was hard, she took on odd comfort in the fact that the Sutherland was attached to the starbase she'd be serving on. Her father's ship She still felt it was his, even though he hadn't sat in the center chair for a long time. He'd commanded it while she was practically a toddler. But still, she couldn't help but think of it has his.

Knowing that she'd be near it, and that it would watch over the starbase made her feel calm and light inside. She couldn't help smiling when she'd seen in moored at the starbase. The proud clean lines of the nebula class. She had memorized it's systems inside and out as a girl, and had listened with rapt fascination to her father's war stories...

Trisha brought the design table out of standby, and brought up the plans of a delta-flier class shuttle. It was an excellent design especially for the circumstances in which it was constructed. She'd been designed by a crew who'd been stranded a long way from home. Yet, they'd still managed to make a beautiful craft like this. She couldn't help but admire them for it. The best way for pay homage to them would be to improve upon it.

She'd heard that a few years ago the Enterprise D had engaged the derelict USS Hathaway in a war game, and had been attacked mid wargame by the ferengi. They'd used the Hathaway's nearly depleted dilithium crystals to micro jump the vessel when it was fired uppon making it appear as if it had been destroyed. That had been brilliant. It also had modern potential.

If a small shuttle like the flier has an automatic micro-jump system tied in with it's sensors and shielding, it could effectively dodge even a capital ships fire for an extended period of time. Not to mention confusing the heck out of their weapons sensors.


"Okay, let's see..." She said to herself as she looked over the design. "The micro-jumps would of course have to be computer controlled, so, how would it know when to jump?" Of course the collision sensors would be used, but she'd have to refine the algorithm to know when to jump and when not to. But, one thing at a time.

"Computer, create mockup of Delta Flier interior, and add the specifications to the OS that I uploaded earlier."

The lab faded away and a copy of a Delta Flier's interior replaced it. She sat in the plot;s chair, smiling eagerly.

"Run program."

"Delta Flier," came a voice over the subspace comm, "you are ordered to power down your engines and prepare to be boarded." Trisha didn't bother replying. The computer had pitted her against a Nova-class vessel. Not a bad choice really. Big enough to pack a punch, but as a science ship, it had better sensors than most, so if her design was flawed, the Nova would be able to track her faster than say a Galaxy class. It loomed above her, still as it waited on point.

Trisha launched a torpedo at the Nova's port warp nacelle to skip the negotiations. "Standby micro-jump systems." She said, feeling the sweat at her hair line forming already. "Systems online." The computer responded.

The Nova wasn't in a playing mood. It fired a spread of torpedoes at the dorsal side of the Flier, and she had to fight the urge to do an evasive maneuver. She watched the torpedoes track her, their red glow growing gradually larger in the windscreen just above her head. "Warning: Torpedo impact imminent." The computer reminded her coolly. "I know," She said. "More importantly so do you."

One second before the scheduled impact, there was a flash of light and suddenly, the novas class was on her right, and she was watching an explosion in the distance. The torpedoes had exploded where she'd just been.

"It worked." She said with a sigh of relief. The applications of this tech would be-

The Nova fired a phaser volley, and the shuttle micro-jumped again.

"Warnining: Shieds down to 86%"

Ah, there was the flaw in the plan. Phasers. No matter how fast the shuttles OS could micro-jump when when a torpedo got close, it still couldn't do it at the speed of light. At lease part of the phaser stream would have hit the shuttle before the micro-jump could occur. No matter how many micro-jumps there were, eventually a larger ship could whilttle the shuttles shields down. But the jumps would buy time, but it wasn't the pure solution she'd hoped for.

She stood and sighed. "Computer end program."

Back to the drawing board.

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