The Other 3 Had A Baby?

Posted on Sat Mar 9th, 2019 @ 6:14pm by Commander Rita Paris & Lieutenant Commander Mnhei'sahe Dox & Lieutenant Mona Gonadie

Mission: Gaia Reborn
Location: USS Hera, Deck 3, Upper Flight Deck
Timeline: 2396

Ideas and plans were on the mind of Commander Rita Paris, as they tended to do when trouble loomed. Captain Telvan had taken the chair to free her First Officer up to chase those crazy ideas of hers and make something happen. On the way off the bridge the lost navigator had grabbed Ensign Mona Gonadie as she departed, bringing her into the turbolift with her.

"Deck 3. Ensign, I understand you've been working on upgrading those Scorpion small deployment fighter craft," Rita said as the short ride ended and they began to stride aft to the upper flight deck.

"I have. I was able to re-equip them as you desired with specialized Starfleet turrets and replaced the computers with something more friendly for us. The flight interfaces are essentially the same still, but I've overlaid a MACO HUD on the canopy to help with that for now." Mona paused a moment before continuing. I also started building a variable mode armored version... It looks a bit funky..."

The excitement in the old-school officer's eyes was unmistakabale, and she practically grinned ear to ear. "This I have GOT to see. Miss Gonadie, you might just be my favorite mad scientist ever." Tapping her abundant left breast, the curvaceous commander called out. "Paris to Dox, would you be so kind as to meet us on the upper flight deck at your convenience?"

From her office in he Flight Control Office, Dox was deep in thought reviewing the maintenance reports on the Runabout Thor and crew rotation changes caused by a minor injury with a faulty grav unit when her comm badge chirped with Rita Paris' message.

After listening to it, Dox saved her files as she grabbed her work PaDD and stood up from her desk. "On my way Commander. I'll be there in two minutes."

"Excellent. So, what exactly does 'funky' entail. Miss Gonadie, I am curious?" While her legs were shorter than Rita's, Mona's height gave her some compensation, and she could keep up with the martial-paced commander with just a little effort. Which made for a sight- the two minidress-clad buxom women moving at a steady clip as they stepped out onto the upper flight deck together.

"It's a bit smaller what with only one seat and it's currently in a walker configuration so..." Mona motioned to a six meter tall, roughly humanoid shaped mecha suit with folding winglets for arms and legs and the fully sealed canopy for the body. A large sensor and phaser turret hovered on the top like some sort of head. Under one arm was a vastly oversized TR-116C. "Yeah, I got as far as I could with the simulations so I asked Ila for some replication requisitions."

In her head, Rita hear swelling strains of music, though she couldn't name the tune right now. But time slowed a bit and the world took on a bright and hazy glow, and she could swear there was just a hint of lens flare. Big blue eyes wide and slightly glazed, Rita reached out to touch the experimental combination of an EVA suit and a fighter craft.

"It's... beautiful..." the ancient astronaut murmured, transfixed by the sight.

"I am so glad I got here in time to see that." Lieutenant Mnhei'sahe Dox said with a smile as she walked across the deck towards the pair briskly from the access ladder from the lower deck. "Ensign Gonadie has outdone herself considerably here, wouldn't you say?"

'Smoke Gets In Your Eyes' continued to play in Rita's head for a few more seconds until she realized that Lieutenant Dox was talking to her. "Huh? Ah... well, it certainly looks impressive so far. Is... is this rated to fly yet...?"

Mona looked nervous for a moment before answering. "Technically yes... Fly... I haven't finished the stabilization systems for high speed maneuvers or walking yet though. I mean... It can walk... But only on perfectly flat and level surfaces like a flight deck. And the high speed flight systems are disabled in walker mode, but the high speed scanner and target acquisition systems are enabled. The holographic flight control systems are ready though."

"She's still very much a work in progress, Commander." Dox added, "But I've been astounded with the progress Ensign Gonadie has made in such a little time. Especially considering how quickly she got the rest of our little fleet of Scorpions up to your specs."

"Mmmm," Rita reached up to pat the experimental craft with the love only a pilot can show for a spacecraft. "Later for you then, my lovely. I must sau, I'm very impressed with the progress you've made, Ensign, and I will continue to monitor this with considerable interest. You have my attention, to be certain." Patting the prototype one more time, then caressing it lightly with her fingers, Paris turned, all business again.

As she regarded the flight control officers, Paris raised both eyebrows. "So which of the triplets were sacrificed to craft this one, and what are we looking at in their upgrades beyond our accomplished areospace architect making them fly Federation friendly?"

A grin as wide as was possible with her chubby cheeks spread across the red-headed Romulan's face as she looked over at her Miradonian assistant for a moment. Then looking back at Rita, Dox pilled out her PaDD and pushed a few buttons as she spoke. "Well, my primary contribution at this point has been in approving the time and allocation of necessary resources for Ensign Gonadie. As such, I think I'll let her take the proper credit for what she pulled off here."

"Thank you, Minay," Mona smiled lovingly to Dox before walking over towards the first of the three rebuilt scorpions. "After replacing the computer systems and tearing out the cloak, I scanned for any leftover surprises the Romulan Republic might have left in there, just in case. I found a control override system so I removed it as well and replaced it with our own so it can be remote piloted from the FCO sims."

"As for the systems themselves, the general controls themselves aren't bad, so I left the bike handles mostly alone and just improved upon them. The system is now in common and has a functional autopilot and computer-assisted targeting array. I've put in triple redundancies for life support. The canopy HUD overlay is straight from the MACO armor so it should be familiar. It'll also interface with MACO armor and integrate the canopy HUD with the armor's HUD. As for the flight stabilization system, I've been able to boost maneuverability about seventeen percent on the horizontal plane."

"And now we get to the turret systems. As per your request, I replaced them with a phaser turret, sensor turret, and multi-role turret. I've also added a tractor turret to the landing gear strut on all three."

Still beaming for Mona, Dox added, "Plus, Ensign Gonadie removed the existing seats and replaced them with modular designs that will scan and adjust for the proportions of the occupants. So a tighter seat for a pilot in a standard uniform, or expanded seating to account for our EVA armor and attachments."

"But we still have our fleet of three. Gold, Crimson and Teal for each department all intact and functional." Dox ran her hand along the leg of the walker they were still talking in front of. "Ensign Gonadie scratch-built built this baby, reverse engineering from her scans of the Scorpions. It took some juggling to get the material matter requisitioned, but I think once she's complete she will pay off on that investment in incalculable ways."

"To be fair, Yeoman Dedjoy had a set of plans for a variable frame superiority fighter in the Section 31 database they never got to work that I borrowed ideas from... But yes. Scratch built." Mona was beaming a bit now.

It wasn't always easy separating her love for Mona as a mate from their professional relationship as colleagues, but in this moment, that veil was even thinner as Dox could feel the warmth of Mona's happiness from two feet away through the still rudimentary empathic bond that was still forming between the two. But Dox did her level best to keep her own emotions in check. "So, Commander. Would you like to inspect the Scorpion triplets?"

"Very, very impressive Miss Gonadie. Excellent work so far, it is abundantly clear that you are designing according to the mission requirement paramaters that I set and you are taking the designs above and beyond my requests as you see needs and are fulfilling them within the design structure. I am very impressed, and I will await further developments patiently. Yes, by all means let's see Huey, Dewey and Louie," the comely commander turned to see where the trio of small fighter craft were parked.

Knitting her eyebrows slightly at the antiquated reference she had never heard of, Dox pulled up her PaDD again to punch in some instructions. As she did, from across the deck, the power turned on the three reformatted Romulan Scorpion fighters.

"There they are. The Variable threat assessment, research, and reconnaissance vehicles." As the trio of officers stepped over, all three cockpits hissed and then slowly opened for inspection. "Your 'Getaway Driver' in Gold, our more offensive Crimson lady and the blue science equipped recon ship. Flight rated and ready for field testing."

Then Dox folded her arms behind her back as she continued. "But I felt the ship jump to what I'm assuming is maximum warp a couple of minutes ago. So something tells me we might be moving those field tests up sooner rather than later, Commander?"

Mona cleared her throat to interject. She had been on the bridge when the orders had come in and input the coordinates herself. "With luck, the Thunderchicken will be ready for her maiden voyage upon our arrival. If you need her, of course."

"As much as I would love to test her out, this is a serious and critical mission this time around, Miss Gonadie," Paris explained. "Better to use this as the opportunity for a shakedown cruise of the trio and establish what they can do rather than take a risk... too many lives are at stake. I'm gonna name you Curiosity," Paris interrupted herself to name the Science blue vessel. "Enhanced sensor and analysis package in Curiosity here I presume?"

Smiling at the re-christening, Dox answered. "Aye. She only has the most basic weapons for defensive purposes and cutting. Her turret is loaded with a massive sensor pack. The cannon is designed to fire an array of different probes and there are retractable arms for sample gathering as well. The extra space we got from removing the cloak here goes to a much larger central on-board computer to process and analyze data. Sonak has a set up in here with nearly as much functionality as his bridge station."

"I tried to pack an entire mobile science lab into it and I'll have to give Yeoman Dedjoy a bit of credit for designing the pod on that one," added the brightly plumed Miradonian. "As for the engineering one with the multi-mission pod, it comes with a grappler and a workbee mag-coupler for cutting, welding, and moving hull if needed. I believe it would be well suited to search and rescue."

“Mmmm, well done, well done. Miss Gonadie, were you not so averse to rank I’d promote you for this. As it stands, we’ll just have to find some sort of citation for superior engineering and design. I am very impressed with your work here, on all three of the specialty vehicles. We may well be starting a trend amongst Starfleet to pare down from full runabouts to smaller exploratory vessels that can be customized for mission-specific needs.” Turning to eye the Miradonian pilot, Paris fixed her with a proud smile. “You’re quite possibly looking at the future of terrestrial exploration here, Miss Gonadie. And you will have been the one to bring it about. This may well be an historic moment, judging from the functionality and appeal of Getaway Driver, Curiosity and… Cherry Bomb, here. Do they still have torpedo launching capability?”

Mona grinned and nodded. "The ah... Cherry Bomb has two full-sized photon torpedoes while the other two have a loadout of twenty micro-torpedoes each. The Thunderchicken has a payload of forty micro quantum torpedoes."

Putting her PaDD over her mouth, Dox stifled a chuckle at both the name 'Thunderchicken' and how perfect 'Cherry Bomb' was. She may not have warmed much to Earth culture during her few years there, but did take away a strong love of Hard Rock and Heavy Metal, so it was a rare reference that Dox understood and loved.

“Microtorpedoes… let’s substitute one of those launchers for a class 10 probe on the Curiosity, since she has the sensor suite for it and it’ll just give her that much greater versatility and information-gathering capability- essentially a remote exploratory drone,” Paris mused as she walked slowly around and between the sleep small craft. “That should make the science team even happier, and reinforce that she’s an exploratory vessel who happens to possess offensive capability. Perhaps some increased shielding for her as well, so that she can be used in scientific investigations such as solar storms and such.” While it might be viewed as critique, instead this was Paris appreciating Gonadie’s forward thinking and capitalizing on those ideas to move forward and push those boundaries further.

“As for the Thunderchicken… I suspect she’ll have quite a few mission specialty packages, but I admire your choices for standard armament thus far, Ensign. Versatility and flexibility will be the watchword of this design, I feel.” Eyeing the prototype across the deck, there was a merry twinkle in the eye of the first officer. “The future of exploration indeed…”

"Those can be swapped in easily," Mona replied, pulling out a small PaDD and making a note of it.

"Which raises the question, at least for me, of what we're prepping the girls for? What's the mission, Commander?" Dox still hadn't been briefed on what Rita and Mona were on the bridge for and was becoming concerned.

“The titan Gaia has awakened, and begin terraforming planets at a speed nothing short of miraculous. We might be a bit less concerned save that she is seeding them with flora and fauna that are hostile to humanoid life, and at her present course she is going to encounter planets that are inhabited… such as Trill. We’re not certain if what she’s up to will overwrite existing life, but we’d rather not find out.” Leave it to Paris to have a succinct briefing prepared off the top of her head.

“That’s where these three will come in,” Rita gestured broadly to the colorful small craft that had been occupying the flight engineer’s time for the past week. “We’re going to stop off at a planet that she’s terraformed to study it, get some readings and answer questions we haven’t formulated as yet. After all, I don’t think anything like this has been seen before.”

Mona tucked her PaDD away and pressed shoulder to shoulder with Dox to share a bit more of their bond together. "Well, there was the Genesis project. It was classified, but you don't exactly keep the terraforming and catastrophic destruction of a planet secret for long. People ask questions."

“The who what now?” the throwback officer asked. Having missed 13 decades of history, she was notorious for not knowing galactic events and history that others took for granted as old news, as it tended to be news to her in the moment it was brought up- such as this one? “Genesis project?”

"Gaia?" Dox looked somewhat taken aback, with just a hint of fear in her voice. "Wasn't Gaia where that shard of consciousness from the Holodeck came from? The one I..." the red-headed Romulan was suddenly a little more anxious again as she trailed off. But she quickly collected herself thanks to Mona's calming energy, and got her mind back on task.

"I barely remember hearing about the Genesis project... we may need to do a little research on that. But the plan we have now sounds solid. If we can get enough data to determine how she's doing what she's doing, it may open up ideas of how to prevent it."

"Yes, THAT Gaia. As for the Genesis Project..." Rita muttered as she tapped at the PaDD in her hand. When the answer was not forthcoming, given a clue she would fill in the gaps in her education by researching. "Why would they... oh, terraforming moons and dead planetoids, sure. Okay, I can see why seeing that as a weaponized application would certainly cause an uproar... protomatter… well, good for the Klingons, I object on moral grounds myself... genesis torpedo... oh you have got to be kidding me." Looking up with a slightly upraised eyebrow, Paris sighed. "All right, now that I have some vague idea what we're talking about, this just keeps getting better. We need readings from at least one of the planets she has terraformed, and that may give us some insight into how and why she is doing this. That'll be the first mission of these three."

Pulling up her own PaDD, Dox started entering data rapidly as she spoke. "Then we better make sure they are ready to go. Ensign Gonadie, can you get those revisions made to the Curiosity before we arrive at our destination? I'd recommend an emphasis on those shield modifications first and foremost since time crunch is a major factor. If we're dealing with anything even remotely involving Protomater, shielding will be critical."

Mona nodded. "Consider it done. I already have the work order in and my team will have the parts replicated and installed within the hour."

Logging the information into her own PaDD, Dox nodded with a light but professional smile. "Thank you, Ensign." The young department Chief worked hard to separate her personal and professional relationships with her Miradonian partner.

"Who will be assigned to each ship, Commander? Pilots and support?" Dox added, keeping her head on the assignment.

“Indeed, good to hear, Miss Gonadie, although we do have some time yet. One pilot, one sec/tac officer per vehicle. The piloting will be handled by thee and me and Mr. Sonak makes three,” Paris confirmed. “Scans of the planet, thorough deep scans including atmospheric, seismic, botanical and so forth. All three ships is a bit redundant I know, but better to have the backup there than not is my logic. While I have confidence Mr. Sonak could handle this alone, I would prefer for him to have rapidly deployable assistance on hand.”

"I agree, Commander. Plus, since we don't know what potential threats are down there yet, We may need to run interference for Lieutenant Sonak. It will enable us all to work faster and more efficiently at the same time." Dox added with a nod.

“Indeed. Additionally, it will enable us to test fly the new upgraded Scorpions… hmm, that name won’t do at all. While the base frames may have been Romulan Scorpions, these bear little resemblance to that model any longer. Hmmmm…” the throwback officer took all of five seconds of consideration before declaring, “Cyclones. These are now Cyclone rapid response search and rescue vehicles. Because by the time our Miss Gonadie is through with them, I suspect they will bear only a passing resemblance to Scorpion fighter craft at best.”

“Point being, this will be a good test flight for them, and not quite so envelope- pushing as the Thunderchicken. She’ll get her moment, but for now, we’ll stick to ‘modified’ rather than ‘completely experimental’ no matter how badly I want to try it out.” Paris grinned at her own admission, then drew herself erect, in that command pose that both flight control officers knew from experience indicated the Commander planned to bring the meeting to a close. “Anything else we need to address?”

Already deep into planning for the specifics of the mission in her head, Dox shook her head lightly. "No, Commander. I think we've got the mission parameters set and good to go. The Cyclones will be mission ready with time to spare."

Nodding to the two flight control officers, Paris spun on her heel as she departed, waving over her shoulder and speaking as she did so.

“Of that, I never had a doubt. Miss Dox, Miss Gonadie… carry on.”




https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2di83WAOhU