Jeffries Away Mission

Posted on Wed Jul 18th, 2018 @ 5:19pm by Captain Tim Williams & Petty Officer 1st Class Mizatan Fij & Lieutenant Commander Vincent Holt

Episode: The Deuterium Argument [Rebooted]
Location: USS Jeffries
Timeline: MD02 1700hrs

"Highlander to Jeffries." Tim's voice came through the runabout's speakers with the slightly tinny quality that hadn't yet been eliminated from supspace transmissions yet. "Are you all set to start your search pattern?"

"Jeffries here Highlander, we are ready as we can be." Holt advised, getting comfier in his chair as he keyed in the final checklist information. 

"We're linking you in with the Okuda," the captain continued. There was a pause as he spoke to the Okuda's crew and the connections were bridged. "Everyone here and coming through good?"

"Jeffries is receiving five-by-five," Holt said instinctively.

"The connection to both the Okuda and Highlander are stable, Commander," Fij confirmed from his position at one of the stations to the side of the ship's cockpit. His screens were filled with diagnostic information on their computer uplink and downlink, as well as status checks on the newly upgraded sensors. "I've loaded Lieutenant North's search pattern into the computer. We are ready to begin on your command."

"Operation Sniffer-dog is a go," Holt said to no one in particular, "Time to earn your keep Lieutenant."

"We're loading the algorhythm search patterns now," North's voice said, coming over the shared comm line. "Ensign Vega will also be monitoring from astrometerics... program loaded. Ready, when you are."

"All right, let's see how good this search pattern you two have come up with is," the captain's voice followed up. "Let's get started."

"Initating search program," Holt said, supressing his enjoyment of piloting the Jeffries.

As the search program was activated, the majority of the screens around the Jeffries command area came to life, orchestrated by the search program. Only screens with a dedicated fuction such as helm or tactical were spared as displays began to show the masses of data being fed through the newly upgraded sensors, as the catalogued everything in a sphere around the runabout up to its newly improved maximum range.

Looking to the screens, Vincent was amazed at the influx of data, but had to keep referring to his PADD for the key of what the data represented. Astrometrics and Spatial Phenomenon were classes that he scraped by in. 

"Alright time to spread out this net. Start your search patterns as outlined in the briefing. This will take some time, report in every 2 hours," Holt said, banking the craft towards the next navigation marker.

Fij silently nodded his acknowledgement of the commander's orders, and focussed his attention on the computer systems. Although linking three ship's computers together to synchronise a search pattern wasn't a new problem by any stretch of the imagination, the distance needed between the ships for the search pattern to be worth it meant that the systems always needed a bit of care to ensure that they were kept in sync and didn't raise any red flags. Thankfully the Jeffries was built as a Captain's Yacht, and so had a very impressive communications suite and computer core for a ship of its size, so hopefully his only troubles for this mission should be how long and boring it was likely to be - he suppressed a chuckle at the thought of how bored and restless Rhodes would get if he had been assigned to one of the away teams instead.

As the time ticked by Holt realised that he really should have pulled the 'I want to pilot' card when there was an interesting course to follow. Watching the markers on the course fly past, before adjusting for the next was almost as bad as watching paint dry, and he knew, coming off a substantial time at Utopia Planitia. 

He snapped out of his bored thought pattern, he was in the Delta Quadrant, a largely unexplored region of space, teeming with First Contact possibilities and exciting new planets to visit. Bringing up a informational overlay he cross referenced his location and course through the Voyager database, and got reading. Thankfully, space is vast as Holt had to adjust his course several times as he was distracted by further reading. 

A tone on the scanner scope brought him back to the task at hand. Unfortunately it only turned out to be a stray neutrino emission, nothing exciting. 

"Okuda to Highlander," came the voice of the Okuda's pilot over the comm. "We've got something on our scanners; Lieutenant North believes it looks like a warp trail. Are you picking this up too?"

"Just about, Okuda," the captain's voice came over the channel. "It looks like it's more in your neck of the woods than anyone else's. Jeffries; adjust your course to help triangulate. We'll do the same. Okuda, see if you can hone in on the trail in the meantime. Once we have a bearing, rendevous with the Hi."

"Copy that, changing course and speed," Holt said with more enthusiasm than he was expecting. Banking the Jeffries hard and increasing to full impulse.