Okuda Away Mission

Posted on Wed Jul 18th, 2018 @ 5:19pm by Captain Tim Williams & Lieutenant Commander Jean Reynard & Lieutenant Ryan North

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

"Highlander to Okuda." 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?"

"We're just reaching our start point now, captain," Jean said from his position at the Okuda's operations station. He was still getting used to the unusual layout and technology of the little ship, but so far he'd been fairly impressed by its capabilities. "We can begin at any time."

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

"Jeffries is receiving five-by-five," Holt's voice said over the comm-link. 

"We're loading the algrorhythm search patterns now," Ryan said, as he tapped commands into his station. "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 vocie said over the comm. "Let's get started."

"Here goes nothing," Ryan said, mostly to himself. 

In theory their idea should work. However, Ryan had read enough papers and precipated in enough experiments to know that in theory occasionally lead to a lot of explosions. That shouldn't happen this time. Well, he really hoped that wouldn't happen this time.

A large portion of the screens around the runabout came to life, orchestrated by the program that had been initiated to do most of the heavy lifting of the search pattern. Screens dedicated to other functions such as helm and defensive systems remained as they were, but all three of the runabout's crew members had data start coming through their displays, recording everything deemed of import to the search procedure in an ever-expanding sphere around the small ship, before reaching the Okuda's newly-extended maximum range.

Keeping an eye on the sensor returns, as well as those of the other ships, Jean eventually said, "Sensor returns are looking good. Nothing so far, but I'm not seeing any gaps in coverage between the ships so we shouldn't be missing anything that's out there. We'll start proceeding to the next search waypoints."

"Altering course for the next waypoint," Ensign Deakin confirmed from the helm, standing in for pilot duties on the Okuda for the mission. She hadn't had much of a chance to get involved in any away missions yet, but had made a considerable effort to restrain her usual enthusiasm, given that she was sharing the small craft with two of the ship's senior officers. "This search pattern is likely to take some time, Sirs," she said, turning in her seat slightly so she could see the others.

Ryan blinked several times. He knew their sensor idea was a long shot but he would have they would have found some sort of return by now. He switched through the filters several times, just to make sure that he hadn't really missed anything.

Deakin turned back to her console and focussed on flying the craft. It wasn't an overly complicated search pattern; the two support craft were mostly just acting as extensions of the Highlander's sensor systems, so their course was largely going to shadow that of their mother ship, but even so, there were still various patches of radiation or space detritus that had to be navigated around, so it wasn't like she could just sit back and put her feet up. As the Okuda flew along, she tried to make some sense of the data that was coming in on the scanners. Most of the technical data of the planets and moons that it was whizzing through went above her head, at least without more time to study them, but she could recognise enough of the general markers to form a picture in her mind's eye of the planets the sensors were describing. 3000km diameter; lots of carbon dioxide; probably a class-a geothermal planet covered in volcanoes. 13000km diameter; very little water, but oxygen and a high number of metals detected; probably a class-h desert planet. She took to playing this game as the hours flew by, distracting herself from the fairly monotonous task at hand.