Star Trek: Theurgy

Day 07 [0635 hrs.] Door knockers

December 22, 2021, 08:05:13 AM

[Lt (JG) XamotZark zh’Ptrell (Lt. Zark) | Mess Hall | Deck 13 | Vector 01 | USS Theurgy]

It was early morning in the Mess Hall and it was early by ship board time, 0635 to be exact.  The watches weren't due to switch over for a few more hours, so one Lt. Zark, found herself relatively alone at a table nursing a mocha raktajino with the wreckage of breakfast that she had inhaled after her morning work out routine.  Normally, she'd drink a breakfast tea, but today was a treat after the past week of mischief that she'd gotten herself into.  Sitting in a t-shirt, shorts, and casual shoes, her figure and bright smile would normally have attracted attention from someone to strike up conversation, but the bruises and remains of a split lip gave her a aura of danger that caused most of the other breakfast takers to find spots elsewhere.  She didn't really notice as she idly stared out the viewport and rubbed the side of her mug as she contemplated the Security Departments current predicament. 

The security department had seen more action than a Starfleet ship normally saw and they taken a battering in the process.  She'd have the look it up, but she was getting the sense that the there was a steadily dwindling supply of security personnel.  Sure, there had been some replacements, but that process felt somewhat haphazard in nature, as in, the ship would get into a fight, then pick up replacements as survivors. Not the most reliable source indeed. Most of the actions that security was being called upon should have been handled by the Marines, or MACOs in the older days.  This showed the generally varied combat quality that the security department was demonstrating.  Leaning back for a second to sightlessly stare at the ceiling, she revised that estimate somewhat.  Most of the poor performers had already been lost at one point or another.  What was left was generally better than most ships had, but still..........

A wry smile creased her lips as Lt.Zark mentally snorted at that assessment.  She wasn't exactly paragon of warrior virtue either since she had been shot and if the Infested Ambassador on Breen hadn't gotten too fancy, she'd probably be dead too.  Cobalt knuckles turned white momentarily as Zark gripped the mug's handle tighter for a moment before her hand relaxed.  Zark picked up her mug and was about to take a sip when the cup stopped at her lips and her eyes narrowed.  There had been those pair of turrets that Vasser had setup.  They'd defineitly made short work of a lot of the crew of the Eirene.  There was something to that idea.  The cup tilted as she took a sip of the liquid and let the flavours of coffee and sweet chocolate sweep away the nightmare that still haunted her sleep from time to time. Still, Theurgy was effectively in a state of war with the Infested and their puppets.  Unconsciously tapping the scab on her lip, Lt.Zark realized Something Had To Be Done to increase the effectiveness of the security department.  Arisaka had the right idea, but his implementation was terrible to say the least.  The Andorian's head shook suddenly as she reminded herself not to lambaste the dead.

Smiling ruefully, Lt.Zark grabbed her mug and got up to leave.  First she'd change into her uniform, then find a nice quiet place to start looking into this little project she'd given herself.  Maybe the library had something that would give her some better avenues to pursue.

Re: Day 07 Door knockers

Reply #1 – January 02, 2022, 07:25:34 AM

[Lt (JG) XamotZark zh’Ptrell (Lt. Zark) | Personal Quarters | Deck 8 | Vector 02 | USS Theurgy]

It hadn't taken long for Lt.Zark to head back to her quarters and change into her duty uniform.  She didn't anticipate having to go off the ship today, so she figured today could be a skirt kind of day.  Grabbing the appropriate clothing out of the closet, she laid it all out on her bed and gave it quick inspection.  Seems acceptable. the Andorian thought to herself as she examined a few parts more closely.  There seemed to be some lint in a few areas, and a bit of brushing removed these offensive bits.  She smiled and snorted when she came across a few cat hairs that Saucer seemed to have left behind and she made sure to have these removed as well. Grabbing the clothes, Zark crossed to her mirror and began to change.  Standing in front of the mirror in her bra and panties, she mulled over all the fighting that had happened recently.  She tentatively pressed on several bruises that were still prominent and winced at the residual pain.  Sighing, she pulled on the various bits, taking care to not move too quickly in some of the more abused sections of her body. With her dressing complete, she stared at her desk and wondered for a moment if she was becoming paranoid, for on the glass surface sat a Type 1 Phaser.  As a security officer, she generally had more latitutde on what weapons she could keep around, but even considering taking it along troubled her a bit.  Twitching her lips back and forth in thought, Zark sighed and decided against it instead turned towards her pet cat.

Zark spent a few minutes checking on Saucer, who was fast asleep, before making sure his food and water bowl were full.  She also made sure that his favourite toys were left out.  Everything seemed to be in place, so it was time to start digging.  Grabbing a PADD and stylus for her notes, she gave Sauce a gentle stroke on his head, which elicited a content sigh from the sleeping feline, and headed out.

Heading to the Library and Research room didn't take long and she gave polite nods to several people she knew along the way.  Entering the room for the first time, Zark felt as if she'd taken a trip to a deliberate anachronism.  Shelves and shelves of books covered various section of the room, broken up here and there with reading areas and research terminals.  I wonder what titles they keep in paper here?  she wondered as she made her way deeper into the room finding a free Research Station.  Taking a moment to open a cabinet, she ran her hand along the various hard copy titles, a smile tugging at her lips as she enjoyed the sensation of running leather, cardboard, and plastic under her fingers.  The only thing that seems to be missing is the musty smell of old books.  Zark mused to herself as she found a free terminal and sat down before setting down her PADD and logging in.

The Andorian Combat Medic's brain began to cycle through the problem as she began to draw on her own experiences thus far.  At various points, she'd been shot, bludgeoned, and generally tossed around in all manner of unpleasantness.  The search parameters pulled whatever after action reports were available. I guess writing wasn't really necessary when you've got all of Starfleet, the Borg, the Klingons, and everyone else gunning for you. Zark thought to herself.  Taking a moment to sit back in her chair, Zark rubbed the tip of her nose as she tapped on the desk.  When cross referencing the number of actions with available reports there were a lot of gaps in the history.  The decision tree for what she was thinking of doing next caused her mouth to twist and shift as all the implications took hold.  Her fingers stopped tapping when the decision was made,  she'd read what was available, then time allowing, start seeing if there was video available on what had transpired during the gap periods.  Hopefully, she'd be able to come up with something for this little side project.  Lives could depend on it.

Re: Day 07 Door knockers

Reply #2 – January 13, 2022, 03:24:13 PM

[Lt (JG) XamotZark zh’Ptrell (Lt. Zark) | Library and Research Room | Deck 15 | Vector 01 | USS Theurgy]

@SummerDawn

Lt. Zark stared at the computer screen and felt her eyes start to cross.  She blinked rapidly before bringing her hands up to her face to scrub out the fatigue.  This wasn't working so well either.  Taking a deep breath, Lt. Zark reached over to a tea mug that she'd prepared some time ago and took a sip of the now cold liquid before pinching her face and setting the cup back down.  The sigh that came out was deeper as a hand went to her temple and began rubbing it in an attempt to disperse the now forming headache.

The pressure ebbed a bit, just enough to allow her to think about other things.  As the Andorian laid her hands in her lap and leaned back to stare at the ceiling, she let her mind chew over all the information she'd accumulated so far.  She turned exhausted eyes to the PADD and picked it up to stare at the notes and data she'd picked up so far and blew air out her lips as her mind munched over the same problems.  The worst part is I'm sure the answer is somewhere in all this crap.  The problems were many, and the resources few.  It was a classic of problem solving.  One thing she'd considered was re-training the entire Security Department.  That was discarded as a non-starter.  A lot of them weren't Marines at the end of the day and they hadn't really signed up for it.  She supposed they were doing pretty well under the circumstances.  The main thing though was that they were mainly aboard to defend the ship.  Maybe she'd have to bring up the standard of accuracy.  She'd definitely need to to talk to someone high up in Security about it.  Lieutenant Commander Blue Tiran being killed in friendly fire was definitely a low point.

Drawing a blank, her hand reached out to the team mug and her eyes soon followed.  It was a fairly standard metal mug sitting on a saucer that held a couple of empty honey packets.  As she swung the cup back and forth, her mind wandered, much like a motor running, the cup served as a focus for her thoughts.  As the cup spun round and round, her mind took a break and began inserting sound effects that came to mind for her entertainment.  Breet, breet, beep, beep, pew pew.  Her thoughts hiccuped at the little game of make believe she had been playing.  Wait a minute, it can't be that simple?  Can it?  Replaying the visit to Breen in her mind, the combat medic unconsciously gripped the handle of the tea mug harder as she mentally skipped ahead to the portions after she'd been shot and had to take on the turrets that the Infested Ambassador Marian Visser had used to cover her doomsday weapon.  Zark stared at her hand momentarily and forced her hand to relax and wiggling the fingers before taking a breath to refocus on the task at hand.

Taking the stylus, she began tapping on the PADD in an idle as her thoughts gathered.  A personal deployable turret didn't need to be too complex, or even too powerful.  It would be great if it could be placed as a really hard fixture, but I think the key here is mobility and deployability.  Maybe more utility hmmmmmmm.........  The stylus began twirling between slender fingers as Zark leaned back in the chair and stared into at the ceiling, her mind's eye working to bring together her vision of new piece of kit.  The stylus stopped spinning the combat medic almost vaulted forward to lean towards the computer again.  "Thea, bring up drawing mode"  It was a little old fashioned, but she needed to get this idea down before it disappeared.  As the blank screen appeared, cobalt hands began to sketch out what iced jade had seen in the air and something new began to take shape. Flipping through a couple of other windows, she began getting the dimensions of the various bits and pieces that could make the project work.  Phaser emitters from Type 1 and Type 2 phasers, sensors, power source, material specs, the list started to seem to go on and on.  As she began dumping data to her PADD, the magnitude of the contraption began to dawn on the Andorian.  Shelat, there's usually a whole R&D team that works on this sort of thing.  I need an engineer for sure.......and I'm going to need to talk the Master at Arms to let me have the parts........oooooh, this is going to be more complicated than I thought. Still, it'll be fun, especially when I can tie this thing into my exosuit. Hmmmm....magnetic clamps for the base, grenade ejectors, hmmmmm,so many uses.

Looking at her sketch, it reminded her of a multi tiered hexagonal cake.  Uhh, I wonder if an engineer can make this thing smaller.  I guess there's only one way to find out.  I wonder if I should ask the Klingons for help on this one......maybe not yet, no telling what will happen to it afterwards.  Checking the time, Lt.Zark realized that she'd missed lunch and her stomach reminded none too gently by rumbling and squeezing her abdomen a bit.  Zark winced and made a silent apology to her biology.  Maybe she could catch dinner with and engineer and kill two birds with one stone.  "Thea, where's Ensign vanVinter?" "Ensign vanVinter is currently with Lieutenant Madsen." The Andorian's antennae and eyebrows shot up at this information.  Smiling a little smile, she composed herself before moving on to the next person that came to mind.  Lt. Arnold was out of the question, he had too much to do as is, though..... The humour shifted to herself suddenly and a blush suffused her cheeks as a wry grin pulled at her blue lips. "Thea, where's Lieutenant Kala?"

"Lieutenant Kala is currently in her quarters"  the computer obediently replied.  Lt. Zark tapped her lips for moment before committing herself.  Tapping her combadge , it chirped for an open channel.   "Lieutenant Kala, it's Lieutenant Zark. Would you be willing to join me in the Whetstone Lounge for dinner around 1930?  I have an engineering problem I need your help with."

- FIN