Warming up the engines

Posted on 2026, Wed Jun 10th, @ 9:38am by Lieutenant Commander Jep Fallo & Commander Cormac Situs & Corporal Roy Fitzroy

1,347 words; about a 7 minute read

Mission: Episode 1 "Operation Iron Justice" USS Halo, Star Base 113, USS Vigilance
Location: Main Hangerbay
Timeline: MD-3

Roy entered the hangar bay control office, looking for Commander Jep Fallo. Roy looked around, then said,"I'm looking for Commander Fallo."

"He's right over there, with that group of jocks." A Petty officer said pointed to a. redshirted Grazerite commander.

Having never seen a grazerite before, he tried not to notice the large protruding Nazal ridge. He really did try not to stare, but looking at it, this one would give any Klingon an inferiority complex.

Still trying to ignore the shipping hazard on the commander's face, Roy said," I am here to prep the SAR shuttle I've been assigned to. I want to run a few simulations and get to know my pilots. Who is flying with me?" Roy tried to look at the mission board, but kept looking back at the commander.

"Well, it looks like you'll be flying with Lt JG Smythe. He's a good pilot. And it will be a long range patrol, so make sure you got everything that you'll need for approximately 10 days." Fallo said as he moved around the bay, trying to make sure that everyone was ready for the mass deployment they had planned.

"Corporal." Smythe nodded, as he was on the pilots in the crowd. He smiled at the fact that the Corporal viewed him as 'his pilot' and that Smythe would be "flying with him' and not the other way around. The Corporal was just a Tizzo, or Tactical Systems Operator, and the Lt would be the one doing the actually flying.

Roy came to attention, saluted, and then said," Good morning, Sir. I will be your JASO. As the TSO, I will be living on caffeine and adrenaline. Ignore any bloodshot eyes, I will not be turning into a vampire."

"Duly noted." Smythe smiled.

Looking at the highly modified runabout, Roy said, "I will grab 5 cases of emergency rations, just in case we end up out for longer. My backpack is an extreme survival kit, just in case. Call me paranoid, but I think the survival exercises back at the Academy were case studies..."

"It's a search patrol Corporal. I'm sure we'll be fine."

"Oh, and Smythe your bird will operating as command and control for the driftward deployment. The XO will be joining you, he'll be in charge." Fallo added before adjournment the last minute briefing.

"Yes sir." Smythe tried to not let his disdain show. But he was never fond of hauling around senior officers.

Roy heard that the almost cramped was now going to handle two people and all the bandwidth that the sensor system was sending him as well as all the comm chatter that the pilots love to send. It was like communication discipline was a mere suggestion, not a guideline. Roy didn't care; it gave him something to distract his conscience while his subconscious and fingers did all the grunge work. Roy walked into the runabout, set his backpack by his console. Turned to go grab a case of officer rations and 5 cases of emergency rations. Noting that the rest of the crew was busy loading the ships with supplies. Grabbing the cases of rations, Roy noted the sticker on the side that said not fit for officer consumption. Back onboard roy stowed his backpack and the cases of rations in the many storage compartments.

Roy started configuring the center consoles to fit two people facing each other. Roy gave the larger of the two seats to the Executive Officer, and configured them facing each other with the heads up holo display centered between the two operators. The XO's would display from forwards facing, left to right. Roys would display backwards, right to left. That way the XO would see any data on Roy's side without having to take time to flip some data that he wanted to read.

Knowing that the XO would probably change just about everything, Roy was not worried about the final configurations. Roy hollored up to the Pilot, " Hey Boss, when do we get our guest?"

"We're expecting more?" Cormac asked as he was letting his duffel drop to the side of the entrance hatch. The air inside the runabout didn't sit right with him. "Mister Fallo, Corporal" he greeted as he sat in one of the chairs of this highly modified configuration. "I'm surprised you're not on the helm of the Halo for this one mister Fallo. Is this configuration your handiwork?"

"Oh I will be flying the Halo Commander. Lt. JG Smythe will be your pilot for this mission, as for the configuration, we figured we would outfit as many runabouts with scout/sensor modules as we could." Fallo pointed to the redshirted young officer seated in front of the cockpit of the runabout.

"Well since the Commanders here I guess you 3 are all ready to go, so I'll leave.you. to it."

"Pre-flight check is complete. We are 5th in line to launch, so we got a few minutes." Smythe announced.

Roy sat at his Operations sensor station, watching the two main streams of data. The first stream was from the swarm of Starfleet patrol/rescue/scouts, or whatever you wanted to call them. The second and more complex stream was from the USS Halo Science/Operations Computer. It did a lot of the druge work removeing back ground static, noise, and background radiation. The first problem was that he typically used background radiation to hide his signals and comm traffic. The second problem was, that any good comm technician who was worried about getting his signal intercepted and analyzed. Just like Roy was hoping to do the suspected opposition, bad guys, or what ever the enemy...

Roy was picking up tons of static; his bandwidth was about half of what he normally got, but with the XO controlling the movement of 30-plus ships, Roy was happy to get half.

"We're next to launch. Should be on our way to begin our patrol route shortly sir.")

Roy highlighted three different bands that were full of background static, which looked suspicious. The Data Stream that came back from the USS Halo highlighted, flagged, and noted the same three, plus about 20 other frequencies. Roy put the three main ones up for the XO to see on his side. Roy then began automated decryption routines. The computer could run hundreds of algorithms in the time it took him to do one. You never just assumed the computer would or could see all. Sometimes the human brain would add two and two and say holy cow, there is something there. Which meant either you stumbled into a pot of gold or just had egg on your face. Roy let his subconscious do its thing, his hands began tapping a musical rhythm, and his feet were soft, shuffling a different beat, and his head bobbed to a synth beat only Roy could hear.

"And here we go." Smythe announced as he kicked in the throttle and the sleek Arrow Class runabout soared out of the Halo's rear bay.

Roy watched the data stream expand as the fleet of ships spread out, each ship providing a larger area of sensor coverage. The computer highlighted several areas of multiple dense artificial signals. Probably patrols and other fleet operations. Tagging the new areas on the display, Roy added the new content to the XO's display. Roy just looked at this data as just one more puzzle piece of a 5-dimensional puzzle.
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"Let me know if you find anything we should take a closer look at Corporal." Smythe said as he confirmed the search grid section they were assigned to and set a course.

An hour later a green and purple swirling sphere of a small wromhole maw burst into life less the a quarter of a light year ahead of them.

Though Smythe tried bring the ship about the attaching vessels were too fast, and were only them within seconds. Curiously they had fired their weapons only to drop the shields of the runabout and them they were snared in a tractor beam and drawn into a large bay.

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