Star Trek: Theurgy

Re: Day 18 [1900 hrs.] Bread, Salt, & Wine

Reply #25 – May 03, 2023, 05:09:49 PM

[Lieutenant Commander Frank Arnold | Main Engineering | Vector 03 | Deck 25 | USS Theurgy] Attn: @P.C. Haring

Considering the scale of what they were going to pull, Frank didn't see any point arguing with Reggie over another set of clothing.  When she made her request and he saw what they were, his mind couldn't help but work to visualize how that would look on the attractive Wolf.  He shook his head as then got his mind back on the plan at hand.  Reggie's additions were another thing altogether as he worked to setup the programming for what could quite the memorable jaunt for the returning squadron commander.  At the mention of another piece of music, Frank's eye brows furrowed together. "I can't say I've heard of it.  Computer, play Chariots of Fire."  The computer beeped and the instrumental began to flow over the speakers.  About a minute in, Frank smiled and his eyes twinkled. "Got it.  That's certainly going to set a mood.  What do you think about broadcasting the music over the squadron comm net?  Everyone can join in the fun."

As Frank continued hurriedly programming, his subconscious floated to other ideas.  "We also need a plausible reason to be there. Hmmmmm......" While Frank let the program get compiled and tested by Thea, he began searching for something distracting and one of the returned ideas was ancient, and had huge potential. "Reggie, come take a look at this."  Pulling up the images of something known as nose art on ancient air breathing aircraft, especially those on military aircraft during one of humanities ancient conflagrations, Frank's metal working mind began fusing the idea.  "I don't know if you've been to the diplomatic office on deck 2 recently, but I put in piece of metal art a couple of weeks ago, and I think we can do something similar with Commander Rel's fighter." 

Frank punched in several parameters and the options that were returned were hilarious and intensely florid.  "You know. I'm making an assumption that he's a hetero male here, but have you heard the story of Lazarus?  He's supposed to be one Earth's mythical figures was raised form the dead by another one, also quite mythical, but there's more evidence to suggest he existed, but that's not the point.  Since Rel is coming out of stasis, which is sort of like coming back from the dead, we could use something like this on a metal plate and weld it to the nose of his fighter." The image was one of a buxom, ravishing dark haired woman arching her back as she got out of a stylized cockpit coffin.  Her far hand was pushing her hair back, while the other one held a scythe.  Below cockpit in a banner was the word Lazy in a ebullient and curvaceous cursive font.  "It would give me a decent excuse to be down there since I need a deck hand to help attach the thing, where as you need a reason to be in the cockpit....."

A chat window popped up with Thea as the sender.  "The program should do what you have specified........Is this wise?"

Frank considered this for a moment before typing back a reply. "In the traditional sense no since we're modifying a manned spacecrafts operating procedure, but it's harmless in general, easily corrected, and most importantly flashy and funny as hell."  With that, he hit send.

The screen blinked for a moment before a reply came back that prompted the Engineer to snort in amusement. "I will include a warning of what to chip to pull should he enter a red alert situation. I will also watch this situation unfold with great interest. Thank you."

"Interesting indeed now that Thea's in on it."  Frank shook his head once more.  "Any other changes you want to make?  What do you think of sticking a charm of some sort in his cockpit to get you in there?"

Re: Day 18 [1900 hrs.] Bread, Salt, & Wine

Reply #26 – August 21, 2023, 11:04:56 PM

[Reggie Suder | Main Engineering | Vector 03 | Deck 25 | U.S.S. Theurgy ] Attn @RyeTanker‍ 

Reggie watched over Frank’s shoulder as he cycled through the various patterns for nose art.  As a pilot, she was well aware of the tradition and some of the Starhawk Squadron’s Peregrine fighters had seen similar decor.  When Frank settled on the choice of of the scantily clad buxom woman the betazoid stiffled a laugh.

“Oh that’s perfect.”  An idea struck her and she stepped up to adjoining station and keyed in a sequence of her own.  The image morphed from a human woman, to a Cardassian woman in the same pose.  The display then split, showing both versions side by side. 

“What do you think?  Cardassian or Human?”

After their deliberation and choice, Reggie saw the pop up from Thea and watched the conversation with her own interest.  She knew Thea was a new form of Sentient AI unique to the Theurgy, but her experience with artificial life was limited. 

“I don’t know her well enough yet,” Reggie commented as she and Frank worked.  “Does Thea understand the concept of a prank or a practical joke?” 

The Betazoid avoided the word ‘hazing’ given it’s negative connotations, but she suspected the term could apply.

She considered Franks idea of a charm in the cockpit and immediately liked the idea.  “Yeah I think I can replicate a horseshoe for him.”

Once Frank had finished compiling everything Reggie loaded the program into a simulation and called up the output.  She watched as the Valkyrie performed and their tricks responded, keeping an eye on the simulated telemetry as she did, making sure that nothing seemed out of whack.  From her perspective nothing should be, but she wanted to make sure that she didn’t see something that Frank might have missed.  Everything came back green save for one thing.

“Have the smoke contrails cut out as soon as the fighter penetrates the atmospheric forcefield on final approach.  I’m not sure we should smoke up the entire flight deck.  Also,” she paused as she considered.  “Yeah… also, instead of having him pull the chip in an actual crisis, can you program the sequence to immediately stop if he goes to red alert?  I don’t want him turning into an attack while he’s trying to fumble for Isolenear chips.”

Re: Day 18 [1900 hrs.] Bread, Salt, & Wine

Reply #27 – August 28, 2023, 08:41:31 AM

[Lieutenant Commander Frank Arnold | Main Engineering | Vector 03 | Deck 25 | USS Theurgy] Attn: @P.C. Haring

Frank considered the choice of human or Cardassian and decided he didn't have enough information on what the revived SCO would consider funny to come to a decision. Deciding it didn't hurt, he pulled the open synopsis of the Wolf's personnel file. The Engineer didn't make it a quarter way though the file when he said "Human, definitely human." a big finger tapped the species line of the file saying Bajoran-Cardassian. "There's an understandable amount of bad blood between the two still, so let's not take any chances."

Frank then opened next opened a drawer and pulled out a small PADD.  Taking a few moments to pull up a design program, he loaded the parameters for the charm before passing it to Reggie. "There's a selection of styles and shapes for horseshoes including metals, and any other details you'd like to include."  The Chief Engineer deliberately decided to tackle Reggie's question about Thea till after as he put in the new parameters for disabling the joke.  This gave him a few moments to think about it.  "I don't really know if Thea really gets it, but she's willing find out what makes our sense of humour what it is." 

The computer and AI cores were the purview of both Engineering and Operations, though more the latter, but being in charge of so many critical systems had granted Chief Arnold a lot of data and he'd boned up on it quite a bit, especially since his chief assistant was in love with how Thea had developed.  "I understand the AI has had several experiences that were the purview of biological beings, so maybe she's looking to learn the wider range of emotional responses.  We just need to include the caveat that everyone has a different sense of humour."

Frank thought for a minute about how they were going to pull this off and he added a couple final touches to the design then brought up the relevant section of the schematic.  "This thing isn't going to be too heavy, but it will be noticeable. Anyway, I'm going to transfer this item to the industrial replicator in the FAB and when we get there, we can activate the replicator.  We'll cart it over to his fighter and use the hand tractor to attach it to nose." Frank took a moment to grin at the design.  "After it's attached, we just need to pull off this tab.  The chem catalyst compound will activate and molecularly seal the art to the nose."   

The grin turned neutral as he considered the next problem. "The smoke pots are a bit harder since we don't want him suspecting his plane has them.  So they have to be inconspicuous. Maybe disguise a couple of the missiles as the dispensers?  Or should we swap out the ECM launchers?" 

Frank pulled out a stylus and tapped on his desk for a moment before turning back to the Wolf. "The squadron is due to have an all up exercise soon.  Is there someone on the FAB crew that could help us with this?  Maybe swap out the fighters loadout so the smoke dispensers get attached before the exercise starts?"

Re: Day 18 [1900 hrs.] Bread, Salt, & Wine

Reply #28 – September 08, 2023, 10:35:06 PM

[Reggie Suder | Main Engineering | Vector 03 | Deck 25 | U.S.S. Theurgy ] Attn @RyeTanker‍ 


Reggie continued working dutifully as Frank set in his instructions.  She didn’t know Thea all that well and by the sounds if it, she wasn’t sure if Frank knew her any better.

“It will be interesting to see what she thinks of this.”

A pop up window appeared on her screen:  I WILL SHARE MY FEEDBACK WITH YOU IF YOU WOULD LIKE

Reggie suppressed a grin.  “Thanks, Thea,” she said, not entirely sure how she had been heard.  “I would love that.”

The pop up disappeared.

She continued her work, running the simulations as Frank tweaked the program and providing the relevant feedback until they came to the subject of the smoke pods.  Of course, as a Wolf herself, Reggie was well aware of the all hands flight drills that had been scheduled  and while she wasn’t entirely sure she actually needed the drills herself, she understood their purpose and so had remained quiet on the subject

“Lets check the duty Roster,” she suggested as an answer to the question about whether or not they could get a confederate from the Deck team to help them out.

It came as no surprise when practically the entire deck crew was scheduled for duty during the pre-flight hours ahead of the All Up.  But when she crossed referenced the duty roster against the roster of who was on duty tonight, one name popped immediately.

“Hmm…” she said to no one in particular.  “There is someone who could probably help us.  But he’s usually pretty by the book.  Maybe we could convince him to help us on this.  What do you think?”

She motioned for Frank to take a look at her screen where a single name had been highlighted.

ENSIGN LIAM HERROLD

Re: Day 18 [1900 hrs.] Bread, Salt, & Wine

Reply #29 – September 18, 2023, 06:43:05 PM

[Lieutenant Commander Frank Arnold | Main Engineering | Vector 03 | Deck 25 | USS Theurgy] Attn: @P.C. Haring

Frank didn't know the Ensign that well so Reggie was going to need to take the lead on this one. "We'll see, maybe we can talk him into it as a good cause."  Frank grinned for a moment as he thought about for a moment like this was a spy novel or a political thriller.  "Does he have any vices that we can exploit?  I really shouldn't be thinking that."  Thinking it over, Frank came to a decision.  "Let's see if he has a good sense of humour about it and we'll be straight with him.  It shouldn't be too much of an issue since we're not making a total hash of his fighter." 

Turning a humorous smile on Reggie, he held his index finger and thumb just slightly apart. "Just a minor change.  Heck, we can take mercy on him and just swap out one ECM dispenser."

Turning back to his computer, Frank pulled the design from Reggie's PADD and sent the entire order to the replicator in the FAB. Shutting down the terminal and getting up, he was about to head to the the nearest turbolift when he had a thought and detoured to the replicator in his office. "Computer, one bottle Tomintul 21 Caldos Distillers Edition.". The alcove lit up and Frank pulled the box out and opened it to reveal a dark green bottle of scotch inside.  Taking a moment to pull the thin card inside, he programmed a welcome to the SCO and slid it back in its holder inside the box. "It's a welcome back gift that'll probably buy some forgiveness."  Frank explained before placing it under his arm and heading to the turbolift.

"Deck 16, Fighter Assault Bay. Port side." The computer beeped and the loud artificial whine of magnetic drive kicking filled the as the car sped through the ship.  Frank thought bemusedly about what they were going to do "Protocol on the industrial replicator is that it'll make a notification noise and turn on a light showing that something is in the bay, so the package is going to engender some confusion when it arrives and someone sees it."

The pair had barely stepped out of the turbolift when his communicator beeped. "Chief Arnold, this is Ensign Herrold.  We have a crate here with your name on it.  Is it supposed to be here sir?"  Tapping his own badge to activate the link.  "This is Chief Arnold, and yes it is.  I'm almost at the FAB, and we'll explain it shortly."  There was a brief and very confused pause. "Yes sir. Herrold out."  Frank gave Reggie an 'Oh Boy' look as he made his way to the locker room as if he was totally supposed to be in the FAB and paid no one any mind. 

"Now to find his locker...." Frank trailed off as he entered the bays of lockers that held numerous flight suits and the showers.  Pausing for a moment, he thought he heard something and headed in that direction only to see a familiar Andorian crawling in to the Jeffereies tube. She in turn stared back at the Engineer and Pilot that had clearly caught her sneaking out. "Uhmmm.  Lieutenant Zark.  What would you be doing here?"  The medic stared at the other pair and twisted her mouth from side to side deciding what to say. "Uhmmm, well, I could ask you the same thing sir, bottle in hand and everything, but in my case, I'm doing a friend a favour." There was something not quite right with her tone since it was totally innocent, but couldn't be.  On the other hand, she was rather mischievous herself, so if she was here, it was likely for shenanigans as well, except she'd gotten overly complicated with her execution.  Considering she was wearing a leather catsuit to pull off her stunt gave an farcical air to the whole thing.  "I see. Well, tell you what, you help us find the locker to Lt. Commander Jaru Rel's locker and open it and we'll have no idea who was here in the first place. Deal?"

Deciding she didn't have much choice, plus spotting the bottle of Scotch, figuring it couldn't be a bad thing, Zark agreed.  Frank's eyebrows did arch at one point as she pulled out a device that popped open the locker.  "We were never here. Now if you'll excuse me for my super sneaky dramatic exit.  Have fun you two."  With that, Zark practically dove into the Jefferies Tube, smiled and winked a long white lash before closing the tube door.

Frank shook his head at what had just occurred as he deposited the scotch then turned to his accomplice in the whole affair.  "Ready to face the music Reggie?"

---

Zark is making an appearance for a reason since @Dumedion  asked for it.