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Day 02 [1830 hrs.] Size Matters

DAY 02 [1830 HRS.] SIZE MATTERS

[ CPO Liam Herrold | Fighter Assault Bay | Deck 16 | Vector 02 | USS Theurgy ] Attn: @Hastata-Nerada
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On the flight deck, Liam Herrold had been making sure his deck crew of weapons technicians were prepared for the extra demands of the Valravn fighters. Many of the technicians had spent the past hour scanning, opening and calibrating phaser coils on the new fighters, and after they had finished, they were using the opportunity to visit the deck's starboard lounge - the extended Alpha shift ended. Like weary soldiers, they caught some rest there and replicated their evening meal. The emitters, fore and aft, on both wings of every fighter had been checked. Since Starbase 84, the mechs had gone through a lot, and they deserved some respite. Chief Herrold remained on the Flight Deck, however, reading through the results on his PADD.

Often, he came to think that Fighter Bay Ops were the hardest working people on the ship.  While the fighters were on patrol, they barely had time to stop and breathe in-between preparing the fighters and taking care of them once they returned. He also knew that back when the Resolve entered battle, the situation got even worse.  However, once any battle was over, the worst of it began, where they were called in to repair all the fighter crafts. Downtime was somewhat better for Fighter Bay Ops, but even then, they had to catch up with upgrades and regular maintenance and somehow fit in the regular drills and courses in between.

But now? They had prototype fighters on hand, with last generation starship-grade phaser emitters that hadn't been fully tested and calibrated to work efficiently in their miniscule housing. He had the results of the scans and calibration, but when he looked at them, he felt he had to speak with someone from Engineering about the findings before he gave his report to Chief Covington.

Thus, with a concerned frown and his PADD in hand, he left the Fighter Assault Bay and went to fetch a turbolift to the Vector's engineering area, ten decks up.

[ Auxillary Engineering | Deck 06 | Vector 02 ]

Entering the area, Liam looked around and saw the back of a tall man not far away. He walked up to the man and cleared his throat.

"Pardon me? Do you have a moment?" he asked, trying to be as humble in his approach as possible. He had known the Resolve crew well enough, but a lot of the faces on this new ship were unknown to him. Once he made eye-contact with the man, Liam realised that the engineer's quite stellar behind - which he had noticed in passing - belonged to a quite handsome face as well. He almost forgot what he meant to say, blinking a couple of times, but then remembered himself. "I'm Chief Herrold, heading weapons maintenance and armaments down in the fighter bay. We have eight brand new fighters from the Orcus down there, and... I could use some help looking over the scans. Just... verifying what I am seeing, really, since none of the people down there knows anything about the Valravn Program."

Turning the PADD over in his hands, he attempted a smile to the tall man of clearly Asian heritage. "I can come back later, if that's better, or do you know someone else who has the time?"

Re: Day 02 [1830 hrs.] Size Matters

Reply #1 –
[ PO1 Morgan Song | Auxiliary Engineering | Deck 06 | USS Theurgy ]
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Morgan sighed as he looked around the engineering bay. For as much as he was a living, breathing being, his head was surprisingly devoid of any thought. Not that this was a particularly strange occurrence, for Morgan often had very little actively going on in his head aside from observations around him. He lived in the now, and preferred it that way. He placed his hands upon the railing of the barrier separating the individual sections of the auxiliary engineering bay and leaned forward, taking in the sights and sounds that bustled on around him. Compared to earlier, it was relatively peaceful, a welcome lull in the business and chaos which had preceded not much earlier in engineering and on the outer hull. He looked down and reminisced. For as much as he preferred to live in the now, the recent events which had unfolded warranted a degree of introspection. Poor Nolak. Shredded by the chaos and discord which had surrounded him. The poor man will be dearly missed, as soon as his various er… bits could be recovered.

Morgan’s thoughts were interrupted by a sudden voice, which called out to him from somewhere behind where he was currently located. With a slight flush to his face, he straightened up, having realized that his posterior was sticking out (albeit clothed) well in the view of anyone who might happen to walk by him, and turned to see who it was. And as it happened, the voice belonged to a young and attractive blonde man. "Pardon me? Do you have a moment?" he asked. The man seemed to appraise him for a few seconds, and then he introduced himself as Chief Herrold, in charge of armaments in the fighter bay. It seemed that Herrold needed some help verifying what he was seeing on the scans of the new Valravns which Morgan had heard about.

Morgan’s face remained passive as he responded. “Oh, no, now is plenty fine actually. What exactly can I help you verify here?”

Re: Day 02 [1830 hrs.] Size Matters

Reply #2 –
[ CPO Liam Herrold | Auxillary Engineering | Deck 06 | Vector 02 | USS Theurgy ] Attn: @Hastata-Nerada
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Liam was glad to hear he was not imposing on the Petty Officer, since even if he had a slightly higher rank, he really was in no position to use it to get what he needed on a brand new ship on the second day since he arrived. Actually, he had not operated that way on the Resolve either, being quite laid back about such matters when speaking with other enlisted officers. He really only needed it to make his deck crew do what they were supposed to, so outside of the Fighter Bays he served in, he tried to be a good guy first and Starfleet officer second.

"Thanks. Well, the new fighters are prototype crafts, with starship-grade phaser emitters mounted on them - inside the wings, actually." He came to stand next to the tall Engineer with the handsome face and leaned against the railing. He indicated the conduits inside the wings on the PADD and how they connected to the main fuselage. Then, he highlighted the forward and aft facing emitter coils. "Based on what I have learned so far from the Orcus pilots, these emitters haven't been fully tested and calibrated to work efficiently in their miniscule housing yet. Here's the results of the scans and calibration my team and I made..."

He swiped the screen to show the data from all the different tests, and with a few taps, he had highlighted the readings that had to do with the emitter coils, the phaser conduits and the guts of the fuselage that had anything to do with the power output. "When I - personally - look at these readings, it looks like the power output is accounted for in all calibrations of the conduits themselves, making the energy transfer work just fine. But when I look at the connectors of the emitters..."

He swiped back to the former view, and tapped the back of the four phaser emitters on the fighter, making them shimmer. "...these, after opening the maintenance panels on the wings, all eight fighters had discolourations in the housings, as if the power output is heating up the connectors more than the readings suggest they should."

Having shown the issue, he handed the PADD over to the engineer. "What can I be missing? Is there some other factor of the emitter temperature that isn't accounted for in these specific readings?" he clarified, and then realised something. He chuckled, cleared his throat and briefly put his hand on the guys shoulder. "Where are my manners? Unless you couldn't tell, I came aboard from the Resolve. I have yet to meet everyone. I wouldn't ask for for this kind of help unless I knew someone better. What's your name?"

Asking this, Liam put his hand back on the railing that he was leaning against, his light blue eyes on the tall engineer and his smile remaining... quite stupidly... for some reason. He found himself having a hard time focusing on anything else than this tall guy from the Theurgy. He had already decided that he defintiely knew where to go if he needed help in the future.

Re: Day 02 [1830 hrs.] Size Matters

Reply #3 –
[ PO1 Morgan Song | Auxiliary Engineering | Deck 06 | USS Theurgy ] Attn: @Auctor Lucan
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Morgan studied the schematic of the fighter carefully as Liam spoke. From what he could tell, whichever moon-blinked fool had designed the fighters had taken the most powerful phasers he could find and jammed them into the wings, bugger the consequences. It was amazing that they didn't explode in a shower of nadion radiation and neutrinos.  What was curious indeed was the discoloration of the housings within the wings, something that needed to be attended to by the maintenance crews, and guess who that would be?

It was Liam's next words which caught him off guard, and Morgan realized that he had never introduced himself to this handsome engineer who stood before him. Morgan briefly studied his appearance before realizing that he was speaking to a chief petty officer, and he quickly straightened his posture and stood at the ready. He hoped that he would not fail to make a good impression on one of his new higher ranking crewmates.

"Oh!" Morgan replied. "I'm so sorry, my name is Song, Petty Officer Morgan Song to be exact." He grinned stupidly and then did his best to wipe the expression from his face. What are you doing Song, he asked himself. There was no denying that this was clearly an attractive and friendly engineer. It would be interesting if the two could... He pushed the thoughts from his mind and tried to shift his focus back to the display before him.

"Uh, right, so..." He scanned the readout with his eyes as he spoke. "It seems to me that a mix of the nadion reactions in the phaser emitters and the heat discharges are resulting in the matter in the housing beginning to transmute to carbonized matter and discolor the housing itself." He said, as he gestured to the relevant elements of the readout. "It may be that you will need to replace the housing altogether, or find a solution to the rate of carbonization. Unless of course there's not enough time to replace the housing, in which case it should be good for a while longer until it becomes too brittle to maintain proper structural integrity."

Re: Day 02 [1830 hrs.] Size Matters

Reply #4 –
[ CPO Liam Herrold | Auxillary Engineering | Deck 06 | Vector 02 | USS Theurgy ] Attn: @Hastata-Nerada
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Finding himself looking at the lips of Morgan Song when he spoke, Liam almost didn't catch on to what he actually said. Only when the word 'carbonization' came up, Liam mentally shook himself into focus and the implications dawned on him.

"So the housing is transmuting from the close-vicinity phaser emissions when the Valravn is firing?" he asked, sighing. He pushed away from the railing and put his hands on his own head, raking his short hair back in thought. He should have seen that possibility, known that the material of the housing might not have been the best choice for a sustained fire solution in that kind of cramped space. The housings were, of course, ideal for their purpose, but not when the phaser emissions from the opposite side of the wings filtered into the winds. Two Type VIII phasers had never been operating so close to each other before. Certainly not when they were mounted on old Constellation class starships. It was madness, but a brilliant kind of madness... if this transmutation flaw could be fixed.

He rounded on Morgan and walked back to him. He reached out to tap his finger against the PADD that the tall Engineer was holding. He had to stand pretty close to him when doing so, and for a moment, the scent of the other man made Liam's thoughts stray, and he looked up into his slightly bearded face. The alternatives for a solution were at the forefront of his mind, however, and they made him look back at the PADD. He cleared his throat and spoke up.

"So it is either switching out the housings on all the emitters on a regular basis, or at least when the fighters have been firing them, but keeping the original design and material choice. Or, we have to find some means of protection for the temperatures, adding something to cool the inside of the wings. The long term solution would, I guess, be to find replacements with higher heat tolerance, right?"

On the screen, he had typed in the three notes about solutions, but in regard to the first one, he turned back to the engineer, who would know better than he did what to expect. "The tactical logs suggested that the Valravns had not been dealing sustained fire with their emitters until the battle at Starbase 84, merely test-firing forward or aft emitters at Luna Base without putting them through ttheir paces. The transmutation was noticeable now, today, after this battle, so it raises the question about the longevity of the current emitters, and at which rate they need to be replaced. Do you know anything about how hard things can get when it's hot... I mean how fast this material might get carbonized?"

He wasn't entirely sure where his mind had strayed, but it made him a bit self-conscious when standing so close to the Morgan Song. Where's my mind at? Damn you, Liam, this is a serious matter...

Re: Day 02 [1830 hrs.] Size Matters

Reply #5 –
[ PO1 Morgan Song | Auxiliary Engineering | Deck 06 | USS Theurgy ] Attn: @Auctor Lucan
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Morgan nodded as Chief Herrold confirmed what he had said just prior. Morgan's eyes lit up slightly as Liam raked his fingers through his hair, like wind parting a field of wheat, the way Morgan had seen it do on his first trip to Earth. He found himself wishing his own hands were there instead, and quickly caught himself and refocused to what Liam was saying as his cheeks reddened ever so slightly. Clearly whoever designed the Valravn fighters was a mad genius, who had somehow managed to make the phasers fit in the housings which they were held in. Was he a selenite? Probably a selenite, Morgan reasoned, only Luna could produce such mechanical geniuses.

Morgan's heart skipped a beat (although he didn't show it) when Liam came and stood next to him. Morgan was so close now, distracted by the presence of the other man before him, lost in his blonde hair and blue eyes. So much so that Morgan almost didn't notice Liam typing a few notes on his PADD.  "...You know anything about how hard things can get when it's hot... I mean how fast this material might get carbonized?" Liam was saying. Morgan blinked twice as his thoughts came back into focus.

"Um... No, not precisely," Morgan replied, "Though looking at the rate in which the transmutation is occurring, the nadion radiation and carbonization should only render the housing unusable in... oh..." He paused slightly as he ran some numbers in his head. "I'd say two or three more battles like the one they've already gone through? Maybe? I mean that's assuming that it occurs at the same rate in which it did during the previous battle."

Clearly a lot had happened since Morgan had gone under, he reflected. He also reflected on how close he was to Liam, and shuffled his feet slightly as if nervous. Why so nervous? He wondered to himself as he looked over the plan for the Valravn.

Re: Day 02 [1830 hrs.] Size Matters

Reply #6 –
[ CPO Liam Herrold | Auxillary Engineering | Deck 06 | Vector 02 | USS Theurgy ] Attn: @Hastata-Nerada
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It was a relief to hear that the Valravn fighters' phaser emitters wouldn't be compromised too quickly, at least not from what could be assumed by the readings. Still, it was a source of concern, and a high-maintenance issue that Liam didn't like. He was certain that the benefits of the phasers were important in battle, but he and his crew were not the people using the emitters, they were the ones that were supposed to keep them working. He felt that the last thing they needed were prototype fighters on a mission such as theirs, with no means to complete the testing phases of the weapon systems. Then again...

"I suppose the Tactical CONN officers and Covington's deck crew will have to finish the work they started on Luna Base. The conditions are not ideal for the Valravn Program to continue here on the Theurgy, but we'll simply have to make do with the time and resources we have available. My work is definitely cut out for me though," he said and chuckled, lowering the PADD to his side and turning towards Morgan. "I will have to have spare emitter housings replicated during the Gamma shift and then spend the day tomorrow replacing the ones that have begun to carbonise. We can't trust the emitters to remain functional with his kind of issue, and make sure to change those housings after each time the emitters have been used. That is, unless we can find some kind of insulation. A solution we can rely on."

Having turned towards Morgan, Liam realised he hadn't stepped back, being in the man's personal space. He looked up into the face of the engineer with a sudden realisation that he was very attracted to him. His mind did a double take, the transition from work-related issues to wanting Petty Officer Song for more than his expertise giving Liam mental whip-lash. He cleared his throat, unsure if it was best to step back or not. Doing so at that point, the silence having come to linger between them, would surely just draw attention to the fact that there was more going on than Liam could explain.

"I'll just," he said, and cleared his throat, the sudden tension between them undeniable and making him nervous, "I'll just head back to finish my report. But... thank you. Now I know exactly whom to go to if there are any other issues with these fighters. You've been a great help. I hope I can be able to help you too some day."

Ideas about what kind of help that would be imposed themselves upon Liam's mind, but he certainly didn't suggest any of those out loud. Should I just turn away and leave now? Would that be rude? Come on Liam, just step away from him. You have Neko staying in your quarters, and until you know where things stand between you and her, you can't be having these ideas about any of the Theurgy crew you happen to meet...

First Chief Ji and her attempts to seduce him - or at least he believed that's what she'd been doing - and now this tall, strong Petty Officer who just... He was so... Stop it, Liam!

Re: Day 02 [1830 hrs.] Size Matters

Reply #7 –
[ PO1 Morgan Song | Auxiliary Engineering | Deck 06 | USS Theurgy ] @Auctor Lucan
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Morgan nodded as Liam replied to him. "Indeed." He said. "I can probably talk to Chief O'Connell and see if he can approve some extra resources for you. Maybe." Morgan reached up and stroked his unshaven chin in thought. "An insulator would be a good idea..." He continued. "Maybe some form of anti-nadion alloy of some kind. I can look into it if you'd like, maybe send the idea to sciences." He had heard that there was a new chief of sciences, one from another ship, the Resolute? No, not the Resolute. The Resolve? Yeah, that was it.

Still, Morgan felt somewhat... distracted. By what, he wasn't sure, his thoughts kept wandering to... the other engineer standing next to him. Standing so close to him, within range of a simple kiss if he so wished. He would love to pin Liam against a wall and passionately run his fingers through Liam's hair and intertwine their tongues in a sensuous dance. Morgan blinked a couple of times. What was he thinking? What was this? He had no business thinking such thoughts about a superior. It was clear that he wanted Liam for more than just a solution to a problem now, but still, a part of him made him hesitate.

As the silence that lingered between them began to set in, Morgan too cleared his throat and backed up a couple of steps to attempt to make the situation less awkward. "Uh, right." He said, after Liam had finished his speech. "No problem, just let me know if you need help again. And uh, and if I ever need help I'll be sure to call you and let you know." And with that, Morgan backed up and departed, perhaps to clear his thoughts somewhere.

FIN
 
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