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CH02: S [D03|0600] Another Leg of the Journey

[LCdr Blue Tiran-Ducote | Early Mornings | Who Sleeps Anymore? | Running on Twinkies and Energy Drinks]
@Griffinsummoner @DaValle @SummerDawn  @Doc M. @Jmjs7125 @uytrereee




The cans spread out on her desk spoke of a problem.  Every time Blue moved some fucking piece of shit on her desk one .. two.. sometimes three fell to the floor in a cacophony of metal hitting metal.  It sounded like a fucking parade was coming through which would cause the over tired, over stimulated, and broken hearted Engineering Chief to run through a collection of cursing the likes that the deck had yet to see before.  She was most definitely educating them in the ways of cursing and sometimes there weren't even too many actual curse words.  Blue had a talent for turning generic terminology into curse words with her sheer tone of voice and the cutting gleam in her eyes.  However, despite what some might expect, Blue Tiran did not often drink liquor or alcohol, no, those weren't the kinds of cans that populated the desk, floor, and any other surface flat enough to balance a cylinder on momentarily.  They were energy drinks, from the last several days, since the blast in the lounge, there were some fifty various colored cans of the same brand. 

SMASH!!

The sugar content alone was enough for people to taste diabetes and she might have had to disable the safety protocols that Ducote had set into place when they had determined that she consumed far too much sugar.  Luckily for her, and unluckily for him, she was an excellent hacker and it had taken all of twenty seconds to bypass the safeties put in place.  Now, it was all about whatever she wanted, whatever she needed to keep herself awake, functioning, and trying desperately to dodge the feelings raging in her gut that bespoke of the horrors that awaited her in Sickbay.

[Miss Blue, it is 0559 hours, you told me to inform you.]  The voice of her robotic family member, Albert, came from a corner, he was half-blocked by cans but he could take off at any point and find himself a better vantage point.  Oddly, since Ducote had gone down Albert had been stuck to her ass as though she had put him there with paneling glue.  However, she knew what the fuck he was doing, he was monitoring her vitals and he was watching her.  And she knew why but she wouldn't say that shit out loud.

“Good.  Lets get these fuckers up and fucking working, those lazy mother fuckers don't know what the fuck they're doing out there fucking off when we have a fuckton of work to be doing.”

[The engineering deck is in good shape, Miss Blue.]

“Fuck you know about it you tin fucking can, shut the fuck up, I'm the one that determines that bullshit.” she grumbled as she tore out of her office.

Stepping out on the deck, her eyes were wide and blue and it was clear that there had been breakdowns over the last three days.  Rumors abounded that she hadn't left the deck for any kind of rest.  She would go up, talk and visit Ducote, and then come back down, hibernate in her office with blaring rock music for an hour to hide the sounds of her tears and sobs and then she would down a ridiculous amount of sugar before tearing the deck a new asshole for whatever she could put her finger on at the moment.  However, this morning they actually had a fucking purpose and it was one that would give Blue a direction to flow in.  That was what she needed.  Direction, to be busy, to have something to do.  She tapped her Combadge. 

“All on duty Engineering fuckers, report to main engineering console a-fucking-sap.  Team meeting.  Fuckers that don't show, won't be able to shit out their assholes for a month when I'm done tearing that shit apart.”

Blue made her way to the main engineering console and put her PADD down in front of it.  Her fingers moved with practiced ease over the console in front of her bringing up the schematic of the slipstream engine and all it's counterparts.  She would have to wait for everyone to come in and she wasn't the sort to sit around doing nothing.  Blue had lost weight over the last three days, and her eyes were rimmed with angry red bags that showed that even though she was here on deck and working her fucking ass off she grieved the man in Sickbay.  Every time she asked, and every time they said, there wasn't anything they could do.  But she had a backup plan, maybe.. maybe Echtand.  All her hopes were pinned on Moby but right now she had to get them moving along, so they could reunite with the Erudite, so she could ask the fucker. 

Focus time. 

Re: Day 03 [0600] Another Leg of the Journey

Reply #1 –
[ PO1 Scruffy LeBlanc | NCO Quarters | Deck 22 | Vector 3 | USS Theurgy ] Attn: @BZ

0600.  Scruffy's alarm went off even louder than usual, shocking him awake as reached over to manually turn it off. 

He had had a restless night, too much weighing on his mind over everything that had happened the last 48 hours. So many lives cut short, his own nearly joining them.  He still hadn't fully processed everything that happened to him.  Sickbay had given him a clean bill of health, but he swore he was still sore in several places from his injuries.  But even more were the initial reports of shipmates lost.  The senselessness of the whole thing loomed behind him like a predator.  His thoughts were disjointed, split (scattered?) between here and Earth, images of family and friends (living AND dead) dancing behind his eyelids.

Groaning, he rolled himself out of bed just as a familiar flinch-inducing voice cut through the air.
[All on duty Engineering fuckers, report to main engineering console a-fucking-sap.  Team meeting.  Fuckers that don't show, won't be able to shit out their assholes for a month when I'm done tearing that shit apart.]

Scruffy sighed, holding his head as he crossed the room to the replicator, pulling his uniform along behind him.  Using the wall to steady himself, he struggled to pull on his uniform as he ordered.  "Double-serving of coffee, extra caffeine, hint of vanilla, hot, in a closable container."  He grabbed the tall cup when it appeared, popped it open, and took a long swig, sealing it back up and setting it in the replicator as he finished closing his uniform.  He grabbed the cup and made his way to the door, slipping on his boots.  He stopped just at the doorway, turned back and quickly walked over to the replicator.  "Breakfast burrito, small, eggs, potato, sausage, cheese."  After it appeared, he grabbed it in his other hand and stumbled out into the hallway, quickly munching on the burrito as he walked down the hall, a definite tilt to his body, finishing the burrito before he got to Engineering.

By 0605, Scruffy walked into Engineering.  He stayed near the back of the assembling group, holding his thermos in both hands as he sipped at the coffee, waiting for the meeting to start.  Seems like Blue was on the warpath today and he just wanted to get his assignment and get out of there.

Re: CH02: S [D03|0600] Another Leg of the Journey

Reply #2 –
[ Lt. Kala Marika | Main Engineering | Vector 3 | Deck 25 | USS Theurgy ] Attn:
[Show/Hide]

[0550] [End of Gamma shift]
Kala was looking forward to the end of shift. True the night shift was usually the quietest shift on the ship, and she'd spent the last eight hours doing not much more then watching the core and the EPS feeds, making sure this beast of a warship remained operational and in one piece.  Sipping her coffee, she watched the core, the object of her attention most of the shift. Usually she'd be crawling through a jefferies tube doing some sort of diagnostic, her petite size made her a natural for the maintenance crawlways, including a few spaces too narrow to be called crawl spaces. But she'd drawn the monitoring straw this shift so had spent the shift parked at this chair except for the odd break to stretch legs, grab coffee, and a bite from the replicator.

[0600]
Kala was just beginning to log out of her workstation when she saw Blue's message on her screen followed very closely by the women herself storming from her office. Kala was technically off duty as of about 30 seconds ago, but she also knew she wasn't 'off' duty until she was out of uniform in her quarters enjoying a quick bite of breakfast. That though, it seemed was going to be delayed today, exactly how long she didn't know. A quick stop at the replicator, and she joined the growing crowd waiting for Blue to explain why they were having an all hands meeting.

Re: CH02: S [D03|0600] Another Leg of the Journey

Reply #3 –
[LCdr. Blue Tiran-Ducote | Ants Come Marching One by One | Hu-Fucking-Ra | All That Shit]
@Auctor Lucan @SummerDawn @Griffinsummoner




The came out of the fucking wood work, well if there was any fucking wood, which there wasn't, but they all came from various avenues as they filtered towards the main engineering console while she stood there waiting for them all to get their asses into gear.  When Blue was in a mood, your regular pace wasn't good enough, it was fast as fucking possible, or don't fucking bother.  Most people knew this by now, some people didn't actually care, and others seemed to thrive on the fact that her fist was near constantly rammed up their asses in order to get shit done.

For a moment Blue stood there, arms crossed, as those blue orbs of hers cut through the center of every fucker that stood up there waiting for her to spout the shit that was worth calling a meeting for.  Blue wasn't big on social gatherings and she sure as fuck didn't go around calling meetings for no fucking reason.  Course anything to give her something to do, anything to avoid the ocean of emotions that were flowing through her petite and exhausted frame.  No, Blue Tiran was the Queen of dodging her emotions and right now she was on fucking top.

Her eyes did a mental count for who the fuck was on shift, and who wasn't.  She noticed that Kala had stuck around even though her shift ended right as Blue stormed out of her mess of an office.  Blue was impressed that she decided to stay around and face the bitch of Engineering instead of go home to her Quarters and take her shift off.  That was the kind of gumption that Blue could get behind when she wasn't trying to avoid any an all emotions in life.  Her eyes continued shifting around noticing others and taking mental attendance until in the ba-

Is that Le-fucking-blanc?

Her brow rose as she noticed that none other than Scruffy fucking Leblac was tanding in the back sipping a fucking girly fucking thermos of .. what she probably figured was orange juice or some other lame ass shit, but he was actually present.  Though she didn't see his little counterpart Kiki, that bright yellow sunshine thing could stay the fuck away right now because Blue might throttle the life out of her if she said the slightest thing hell bent on uplifting the Chief engineer out of her darkness. 

“I know you fuckers have been working hard, kudos to you for doing your jobs.  I don't like to fucking babysit you and when I don't have to have my ass out here coming down on you fuckers it means you're doing shit right.” she stated and brushed a stray curl out of her face and back among it's mass of others.  “This morning, about twenty fucking minutes ago I ran a level one diagnostic and was shown some unfortunate read outs.” she stated looking at the expectant engineers.

Leaning forward she pulled up a holo image of the benamite crystal that they had used to make the first jump, and the hope was, more than that.  But, those that had been working closely the fucking crystals would know that it had deteriorated, and thoe that hadn't would know that the fucker wasn't perfect by any means. 

“The scan proved that after the first fucking jump, this fucker, the crystal provided to us by the Savi, has deteriorated to the point that we will only likely be able to make one more fucking jump.  That said, depending on how the fucking mission goes at this point we may need to jump more than one fucking time.  The rate of deterioration has remained at a stable percentage giving us just enough to make another jump but most definitely not enough to make a third one.  The unknown fucking factor here is as the weakened crystal continues to deteriorate, is it going to fade faster than it has up to this point or will the benamite continue to stay stable.  WE don't have a wealth of these fuckers, we have this one.  So, we need to figure out some fucking solutions.  The obvious being ask the Savi for another fancy rock, however, they're really fucking busy right now on their mission.  So, any other ideas on where we could scrounge up another one of these fuckers?  The discussion table is open for actual ideas only>”

Re: CH02: S [D03|0600] Another Leg of the Journey

Reply #4 –
[ PO1 Scruffy LeBlanc | Main Engineering | Deck 25 | Vector 3 | USS Theurgy ] Attn: @BZ

As an NCO (junior of the junior officers), Scruffy tried to keep his presence as small as possible.  He was here to get his assignment and do his job, not attract attention to himself.  He sipped at his coffee, his head starting to stabilize as he leaned against the bulkhead.  He briefly flinched when Blue started her speech, but quickly got it under control as: 1) she wasn't directing it at him and 2) she actually seemed pleased.. For Tiran.  Of course, he felt a little guilty after missing most of the last 36 hours due to his injuries.  Another reason he had made sure to be here (mostly) on time this morning. 

He briefly glanced up just as she tucked some stray hair back, a slight smile on his face before he really took in her disheveled appearance.  He couldn't even imagine the depth of her pain right now.  He was still processing what had happened, himself.  "Would anyone ever miss me that way?"  He had seen her fight to control her rage (rather than her casual annoyance/displeasure) enough times that he could see the emotional struggle, and knew this work was as much for her as anyone else.

When she began talking about the benamite crystal, he switched his coffee to one hand and reached behind him with the other, pulling his PADD out of his back pocket.  He pulled up what was available to him from her diagnostic results, as well as what little non-classified info he could get on both the benamite and the slip-stream drive.  Cross-referencing the crystal's structure, molecular and physical, with the quantum effects of the jump, he hoped to get some insight into the nature of the deterioration.  "It is way too early for this much thinking.  Especially after a night of heavy thinking."  Was this an erosion effect on the crystal caused by the reactor or some subatomic decay accelerated by the reaction within?  He certainly wasn't foolish enough to make suggestions here without a better understanding of what was going on, in case he was barking up the wrong tree.  Also wouldn't do any good to figure out the problem if he couldn't at least have the general concept of a solution.  He kept thinking back to his lessons on warp-travel and dilithium decay.  That problem had been solved in the early 24th century, but could it be used as a model for this?  And did the ship otherwise have the power output to scale up that solution even if it was theoretically possible?  The QSD used vastly more power than the warp drive; it would stand to reason that such a solution would require vastly more power, too.  But if it was something that could be done between jumps, rather than mid-flight like dilithium...
Maybe.  Would be nice if he could check with a material fabrications expert, he thought absently.

Nevertheless, he continued working at his PADD, one-handed, as he sipped his coffee, half-listening for other suggestions to come from the assembled team.

Re: CH02: S [D03|0600] Another Leg of the Journey

Reply #5 –
[LCdr Blue Tiran | No Good Ideas | Fucktards, the Lot of Them | Get Me a Fucking Idea, You Mother Fuckers!]
@Griffinsummoner




After she finished.

It was like fucking crickets had taken over her fucking deck.

Everyone was just fucking standing there staring at her as though she had grown an extra head and they weren't exactly sure how to break the news to her.  She knew she looked like shit run over, baked twice, and ground to a fine powder with a pumice stone, but that didn't mean her questions were any less valid than they had been when she spewed them from her lips.  These fuckers were standing there enjoying the fucking side show that was Blue fucking Tiran Ducote at the moment.  She thought about what she ought to do, she needed to get these fuckers to actually start thinking about a fucking solution.

"You're all fucking fired." she said throwing her hands up in frustration as she raked them through her long sable curls for a moment.  "Did that get your fucking attention.  I didn't ask you all to fucking stare at me like the fucking side show at the fucking circus!  I need fucking ideas!  Solutions!  I need some fucking shit to stick to the fucking wall so we can get this fucking ship on the mend before it all comes down around out fucking ears!"

"Replication!" came a voice, a young pixie thin young thing, human probably, stepped forward.  "Could we replicate one?" she asked with her big brown eyes showing how scared she was to speak up.

"If we could replicate the fuckers we would, but at least someone is finally fucking trying." she said looking out around the deck.

"We could scan for benamite deposits on nearby planets and maybe we could harvest our own?" called a deep voice from a dark skinned Klingon.

"Better." she said looking around.  "Go see if you can get some scanning bull shit together, take a team of three with you." she said as she looked over at the rest, waiting for any others to speak up.

Re: CH02: S [D03|0600] Another Leg of the Journey

Reply #6 –
[ PO1 Scruffy LeBlanc | Main Engineering | Deck 25 | Vector 3 | USS Theurgy ] Attn: @BZ

Scruffy continued sipping at his coffee, his notes beginning to take shape on the PADD in his hand. 

"You're all fucking fired!"

Scruffy looked up at the outburst, but quickly read that it was meant to prompt some response from the team.  Not like there are Engineering teams standing by to replace us, anyway, at the moment.

"Replication!"

Scruffy snorted in response, his own thoughts mirroring Blue's response.  Even Engineers can be overly reliant on that technology, without understanding the limitations thereof.

"We could scan for benamite deposits..."

Scruffy grinned a little, looked up, took note of the Engineer who had spoken up, and sent them a message to reference the benamite's energy signature when coordinating with Astrometrics.

When he next looked up, he saw Blue's menacing stare gazing out over the assembled Engineers, daring (begging?) someone else to offer a solution.

"Well, I have an idea," he awkwardly said from the back of the room, prompting several heads to turn who hadn't even realized he was there.

Her eyes swiveled over to the speaker and found Scruffy Fucking Leblanc speaking. "Nice of you to join us. What, pray tell, do you have?" she asked, radiating a dangerous calm.

"Well, I was thinking that the unstable subspace fields combined with the high-energy beam being channeled through the Benamite might be accelerating the already-high decay rate of the compound."  He realized that might have been obvious, but he was still focused on his notes as he leaned against the bulkhead.  "If the decay is molecular, we might be able to set up some sort of reassembly matrix using recaptured waste, akin to the dilithium recrystallization system.  That would also work if the decay was causing accelerated erosion after getting caught in the energy stream.

"Was the condition of the crystal monitored during the jump, or do we only have the before/after measurements?  We'd need that data or analyzing a waste sample to determine whether there was any erosion in addition to the decay.  Additionally, if the instability of the field is further accelerating the decay, we might be able to make our supply last longer by doing shorter jumps, ending it before the fluctuations start to bloom."

He finally looked up, noting the look Blue was giving him.  "Umm... we will probably still need to either find our own or ask for more, but we should be able to make our next supply last longer.  Maybe even scrape a couple micro-jumps out of what we've got left.


OOC: Thanks to @BZ for the Tiran-snark.

Re: CH02: S [D03|0600] Another Leg of the Journey

Reply #7 –
[LCdr Blue Tiran-Ducote | Lazy Fuckers Need Not Apply | Who the Fuck Invited Scruffy | What the Fuck Kind of Name is Scruffy Anyway | Parents Hated that Fucker]
@Griffinsummoner




She would never have imagined that Scruffy Fucking LeBlanc would have anything to fucking offer this whole conversation.  The fact the fucker was here at all was a mother fucking miracle because the fucker never showed up for shit.  Maybe when his bell got rung he finally decided to get his shit together and fucking become and actual fucking officer.  Blue's eyes shifted around but she didn't see Scruffy's litter fucking counterpart, the little yellow dressed freakball that was always fucking about around him like the most annoying little fucking gnat with the attention span of one to boot.

Blue's eyes shifted back to Scruffy as he began to actually lay out his little thought process.  Blue stood up straight, her back ram rod as she folded her arms under her chest waiting for him to get on with it.  He began talking about the subspace fields and high energy beams only deteriorating the fucking crystals faster than they had thought was possible.  Blue rose her brow, they already fucking knew that, mostly, but she needed fucking ideas on what to do next and it didn't include spit balling shit they already knew.  So she waited, since he seemed to have more to say. 

His thoughts continued on a molecular level.  Blue's brow lowered to it's neutral position as she listened to him talking about how they may be able to set up a system so that they could collect the molecular waste and essentially recycle it back into some kind of working system.  “Not a terrible idea.” she stated.

That was as good as anything he was going to get from her at the moment.  He wasn't finished explaining his plan asking if they had monitored the crystals during the jump or just before and after.  “Of course we fucking monitored it, that's our fucking jobs.” she stated as she waited for him to get to the point.  The fact that he was even being useful right now made her want to spin her head and check for hidden cameras or some fucking thing, she felt a bit twitchy and a wee bit paranoid and now she was wondering if maybe she had had one too many energy drinks. 

Nah, that was impossible.

When he finished, looking up at her as he said his last piece, she rose her brow.  Tilting her head at him slightly causing her hair to frame her face a little bit with the lovely curls that had not been washed in a bit too long.  With a sigh she drummed her fingers on the upper arm of her crossed limbs.  “Did you get a fucking brain transplant that I didn't fucking know about?” she asked, some chuckled as though she was joking but she was dead fucking serious.  Scruffy had never yet been a fucking useful part of the fucking deck until he was replacing rivets and even then he fucked that up with his naps and goofing off with the little Annoying Sunshine one.

“Well shit on a fucking cracker on Sunday.  Lets fucking find out if that shit will fly.” she said as she looked around.  “If none of you other mother fuckers have better ideas, you go brainstorm and do your shit, and lets see if we can get this fuck-boat to sail a little longer.” she stated.  Dismissing them she worked her way over to Scruffy looking up at him still curious about this whole... having ideas thing.. that he had going on.

“Lets look over the numbers.” she said as she tossed him her PADD with the information pulled up on the deterioration of the crystal.

Re: CH02: S [D03|0600] Another Leg of the Journey

Reply #8 –
[ PO1 Scruffy LeBlanc | Main Engineering | Deck 25 | Vector 3 | USS Theurgy ] Attn: @BZ

Scruffy winced a little when she so bluntly stated that the crystals state had been monitored during the jump.  It was what he expected, both the monitoring and the bluntness, but he didn’t have access to that information yet.  When he looked up he saw her mildly surprised expression, which turned analytical as she stared at him.  Still, her hair always did soften the impact of her expression, especially when it looked like it was starting to curl on itself a bit more than usual.

”Did you get a fucking brain transplant that I didn’t fucking know about?”

Scruffy hunched his shoulders a little, and slipped his PADD into his belt before he reached up and scratched the back of his head.  “I know how important this system is, both generally and immediately, and I didn’t have a lot else to do yesterday than read reports, Commander.”  He knew that he had been more than a little unreliable in the past, but he didn’t want to feel so replaceable or immaterial anymore.

When Blue dismissed the others and started toward him, there was definitely a “deer in the headlights” look on his face, practically pinned against the bulkhead but not daring to try and make an escape.  He couldn’t help but notice the way she weaved through the crowd, though, as if taking her time, probably to think about something, but he couldn’t help the feeling of being cornered by something dangerous, which she definitely was.

When she tossed him her PADD, he dropped his, fortunately empty and sealed, thermos in his haste to catch it.  He quickly swept it behind him with his leg, not hidden, just out of the way.  He looked at the data she gave him quickly, and pulled out his own PADD.  He compared some of the models he had worked out about the deterioration rate with the data before him.  None of it was a perfect match, but there were definitely regions where some models lined up better than others.

“It looks like the expected molecular decay dominates in the early part of the jump, accelerated by the energy stream, but about here,” he turns halfway, his face appearing focused and relaxed, showing the PADD and pointing to a point in the jump, “the decay takes a sharp increase, probably the beginnings of erosion becoming a dominant factor.  A good sign, if we can figure out how to recrystallize the waste particles.  But then here, near the end of the jump, just as the fluctuations start to cascade, the decay enters an exponential growth.  Probably the ultimate cause of the destabilization of the slip-stream. 

“If we lower our threshold for ending the jumps under standard procedure and keep our jumps shorter, we should be able to make our future supplies last much longer.  Of course we could use the old threshold for emergency situations, but it’d probably reduce the downtime between jumps, too, since it would be easier to flush and restabilize.  Basically we could establish a ‘cruising speed’ jump versus a ‘maximum speed’ jump.”

He turned his head to look at her, his face immediately losing the calm visage it had held as he realized again who he was talking to.  He had more, but it was a secondary idea, so he transferred his modeling data to her PADD and handed it back to her sheepishly.

Re: CH02: S [D03|0600] Another Leg of the Journey

Reply #9 –
[LCdr Blue Tiran | The Worthless Worthwhile | There's a Fucking Camera Somewhere Isn't There? | Fucking Useful Ideas | Fucking Odd Sources]
@Griffinsummoner




She kept waiting for some fucker to pop out of no where.

Some shit to fall on her head.

Some kind of fuckery that was coming she was fucking certain of it. 

This couldn't be fucking real.  There was fucking Scruffy standing there with good fucking ideas and not that dope faced bull shit going over his face.  She was shocked, and she was waiting for it to all be a fucking joke.  Someone gave him a fucking script to knock her off her game when she was at her weakest.  It must be something like that because there was no way that some fucker could just one day decide to turn their fucking life around and be of fucking use.  Was this shit always hiding underneath the lazy mother fucking exterior?  Because if so she was almost even more pissed that he had squandered his actual fucking talents in the company of some waste of air, like Kiki Stevens.

As she tossed him her PADD he went to catch it and then his thermous hit the ground with a resounding thwang of metal.  She gave him an arched brow as he kicked it out of the way but didn't pick it up. Well he's still fucking in there somefuckingwhere. 

He began to tell her about shit that she knew.  When the crystals were deteriorating and how they peaked and when.  She let him speak his piece though she really wanted to tell him that this was fucking shit she already knew as she had been combing through this fucking shit for a while now.  But, she let him figure it all out she knew that some people needed to work shit out loud so they could figure it out a little bit better.  She wasn't one of them, it was needless noise, she was more internal when she did her planning and shit but who was she to say he was doing it wrong.  Well... she would have told him but she was tired as fuck and trying really fucking hard not to be a total bitch at the moment.

“So what we need to do is see if Thea will be able to use a customized beam that we could program to actual weed the fucking molecules of waste out and transport them into a container that could be sued to process them into one fucking crystal again.” she thought as they stopped inside the crystal chamber and looked up at the deteriorated stone.

“If we can take the beam and make an anyonic system that will allow us to find out if there are fucking parasites we should be able to create a system that will allow us to recycle the fucking waste from this fucker.” she said.  “You're also right, shorter jumps would also help.  The other problem though is the fucking cool down.  The reason we go so fucking long on a jump is because it takes us fucking days to recharge.  So we need to come up with a better fucking system for how to recharge our engine without blowing the fucker to smithereens.  Does a shorter jump time equate to a shorter down time?  Is it worth it?  We need to see it in math.  Do you math?” she asked looking over at the man beside her.

Re: CH02: S [D03|0600] Another Leg of the Journey

Reply #10 –
[ PO1 Scruffy LeBlanc | Main Engineering | Deck 25 | Vector 3 | USS Theurgy ] Attn: @BZ

Scruffy tried to keep his eyes on his PADD, a slight tilt to his head as he focused on her words, rather than trying to read her expressions.  He was briefly caught off-guard as she started walking without saying anything, but he followed behind her as she walked toward the crystal chamber, trying to pull something useful out of the waste data.  “At the very least, a graviton beam should be able to separate the waste molecules from the eroded crystal molecules, centrifuge-style.  Maybe the crystal molecules have a polar magnetic property we can take advantage of, too.  From there, the decay waste could be expelled and the reclaimed molecules reassembled with the seed-crystal, like growing rock-candy on a stovetop.”  He was also looking around the crystal chamber, imagining if there was room for a particle beam for recrystallizing in here, or if they’d have to do it in one of the engineering labs.

He looked back at his PADD when she called attention back to the cool-down window after each jump.  “Well, less waste buildup from the shorter jumps will allow us to flush the system faster and get it mechanically back into shape more quickly,” (mechanical maintenance was his forte, after all).  It definitely takes more power to initialize than maintain the jump, but the power-banks should recover faster if we don’t tax them as much.”  He arced his brow at her ”Do you math?” question, but through sheer willpower managed to avoid eye-contact.  He threw a rough model of the energy discharge and recovery periods and adjusted some of the variables to represent shorter jumps.  “We probably couldn’t cover as much territory in the same period of time with several shorter jumps compared to a few long jumps, but the crystal supply would last longer.”  ‘Another similarity to the “cruising speed” metaphor,’ he thought.  “As it is, just the transition to and from slipstream uses enough power that it takes us 12 hours to recover, but beyond that it should be a straightforward tradeoff of jump time and recovery time.”

He gave a shaky smile as he looked up at Blue.  “Though I’d probably need to coordinate with someone in Ops and get my calculations checked first before I could be sure of the feasibility.”

Re: CH02: S [D03|0600] Another Leg of the Journey

Reply #11 –
[LCdr Blue Tiran | Plans in Motion | Figuring this Bullshit Out | What Time is Break Time? | Anyone Got a Twinkie?]
@Griffinsummoner




Blue stood in the crystal chamber and looked at how it had been constructed.  The brain child between the Federation and the Savi.  When she was crawling through the ventilation system and starving to death on the Versant she had never dreamed of working with the white headed fuckers.  She had always toyed with dreams of making the ship explode, implode, back and forth for eternity.  Maybe stick them in some kind of fuckery time loop shit storm where they come back to life and die over and over and over again until the universe just pulls in on itself and the whole fucking space around the Savi just ceases to exist.

There were still sometimes dreams of such.

Right now though, she had to marvel at the hard work of the two very different, very opposed forces, joining together to get shit done in a timely and quite stable fashion.  Now if only they could tweak this shit a bit more and make it better.  There wasn't a whole lot of additional space in here and she didn't have a fuckton of time to sit here and make something in micro that they needed like yesterday.  Limited time, was what they had to get this shit idea up and running so they could fucking get it working right.  They needed every ounce of crystal that they could get, and that meant getting this shit up and live right fucking now.

“We'll need to get the molecule collector installed ASAP.” she said looking over at Scruffy still wondering when someone offered him a head transplant that he took up on the offer with.  “Then we'll have the shit beamed from the molecule collector to the Engineering lab, to reform the crystals, if we have it in a low threshold for transport, it'll happen more often, quicker, and solidify faster with small amounts than in one large chunk.  Like you said, crystal rock, and all that shit.” she said brushing a hand through her mess of curls a moment.

He admitted that he probably needed someone to go over his numbers as a back up and she gave a nod dropping her hand to her side, it smacked against her thigh with the rate of drop.  She sighed softly.  “Go do that, let me know what you find.  While you do that, I'll start working on a design for the molecule collector.  It'll be crude as fuck for now, but it'll function while we work on something better.”

As Blue turned to leave the man, she paused.

“Keep your shit straight Scruffy, it's nice to see your brain for once.” she said and then left, probably as good a compliment from Blue Tiran as he was ever going to get.
 

Re: CH02: S [D03|0600] Another Leg of the Journey

Reply #12 –
[ PO1 Scruffy LeBlanc | Main Engineering | Deck 25 | Vector 3 | USS Theurgy ] Attn: @BZ @Auctor Lucan

Scruffy couldn’t help but get a bit of a smile on his face as Tiran seemed to actually take his idea for reassembly and build upon it.  He watched her brush her hair aside and relax as if some of the strain of this crystal dilemma was coming off her shoulders.  It gave him a measure of confidence that maybe he could do this.

Which was immediately blown away as she walked out of the chamber and complimented him.  He suddenly found it difficult to keep his footing.  He couldn’t recall ever hearing such a soft tone from Tiran directed his way, let alone a compliment that wasn’t pure sarcasm.  He stood there for a minute catching his breath, before he pulled himself together and walked out of the crystal chamber.  He sent off a message to Ops asking if they could spare someone to go over the power consumption of the slipstream.  He also made a note to himself to go over dilithium recrystallizing in greater detail after his shift.  Tiran said she would get a crude collector and reassembler immediately, but if he could figure out a stable arrangement to present for approval later that’d save some time.

As he collected his assignment for the day and walked out of Engineering, he didn’t forget to stop by the station he had started the morning at, picking up the thermos to return to the replicator.

~FIN~
 
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