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R & D Day 1

Posted on Tue Apr 16th, 2019 @ 12:27pm by Lieutenant Commander Mnhei'sahe Dox & Ensign Briaar Gavarus & Lieutenant Mona Gonadie & Ensign Fiona O'Dell & Ensign John Carrott

Mission: Detours
Location: USS Hera, Deck 3, Upper Flight deck
Timeline: 2396

Bouncing out of bed, the tiny test pilot sat on the matter reclamator, reading through the orders of the day when a whoop was heard from the small room. Running into the living room of her quarters, the little lass the called ‘Leprechaun’ took a victory lap around the small room, arms raised in triumph as she simulated a cheering crowd sound. Diving through the shower and practically leaping into her blue and white flight suit, the picayune pilot scrambled to get her boots on.

Because today, the USS Hera Research and Development team was mustering for the very first time, and Fiona Mary Margaret Josephine O’Dell was not going to miss a moment of it. Skipping breakfast, she raced out the door to run for the turbolifts as fast as her short legs could carry her. Arriving on Deck 3, the upper deck of the Flight Deck a half hour early was preferable to her, because she was determined to enjoy every second of this momentous day.

The day started with much less aplomb for Ensign John Carrott, who had spent the night with his wife Mary bemoaning her aching back and ankles, an understandable byproduct of being in her third trimester of pregnancy. Carrott had done what he could to ease Mary’s pain, including late-night replication of increasingly odd food combinations.

As the lanky man read his orders, he was a bit confused.

What the heck do I have to add to an R&D team? Although I guess if worst comes to worst, I can at least keep them alive until the EMH arrives he thought. The lack of sleep was making Carrott a bit maudlin, but he did his best to put on a smile to greet the day.

After checking that his bright red hair was not too unruly, he headed to the Flight Deck, enjoying taking in the sights of parts of the ship he did not often frequent. Upon entering the upper deck, he greeted Ensign O’Dell with a smile and a wave.

“Morning,” he said with an approximation of confidence, “How are you today?”

“Móra na maidine duit, shipmate!” the bright-eyes and energetic little moppet replied, hustling over to greet the new person in Starfleet blue, which indicated science or medical. Stepping into the edge of the man’s personal space, the wee person looked up at the tall lanky redhead with a mischievous grin. “Well ain’t you the tall drink’a water! I’m Fiona O’Dell. I’m the test pilot fuir this project! Nice ta meetcha!”

Sticking out (and up) her child-sized hand to shake, the top of the irrepressible imp's head came up to perhaps the sternum of the nurse.

Carrott felt his customary slouch deepen as he reached down to shake the diminutive diva’s hand, but he smiled at her infectious good cheer. “Nice to meet you too,” he intoned.

“Aye! So are ye medical or science, man wi’ noo name? I’m curious which departments they drew upon to assemble our bright an’ shiny new department,” the brogue-bearing babe asked, making it clear that she was neither the shy nor quiet type.

Blushing to match his hair, Carrott said, “Oh, uh, medical. I’m a nurse. And the name’s John Carrott. I guess I’m not making a very good impression huh?”

“Nae, dinna ye worry!" the picayune pilot expressed breezily. "Compared to our resident engineer, ye’re positively sociable!”

That was when the two meter tall Tellarite junior engineer, Ensign Briaar Gavarus, walked in. Her frizzy platinum blonde hair pulled back into a tight ponytail, she looked around the room, checking names off with the PaDD in her hand. The assignment was a result of her recent working relationship with the pixie pilot, Ensign O'Dell, but Gavarus was reluctant to feel even half comfortable in the setting and stepped in and to the side, waiting.

“Oi, Ensign Gavarus!” O’Dell called out, inviting the towering Tellarite to join in the conversation. “Come be social w’ our new teammate, ye great brooding behemoth!”

Rolling her eyes and letting out a purposefully loud groan, Gavarus walked over to the pair of redheads. "Fine. This is me being social."

Bulging her deep-set eyes slightly, the porcine engineer smiled as broadly as her thick jowls would allow in an exaggerated manner before letting her face flump back to her normal, default expression of exasperated irritation. "There. That's was my max. I'm Ensign Gavarus. Engineering." She offered her hand to the teal-clad nurse somewhat perfunctorily.

Carrott guffawed a hearty laugh and proffered his hand to Gavarus. “Ensign John Carrott, nice to meet you. I do enjoy working with people who speak their mind, so it seems I’m in the right place.”

Once everyone else was there, Mona finally came in, carrying a small case of PaDDs and a medical case and set them down at the head of the conference table. "Good morning everyone," she said cheerily as she headed to the replicator to get a cup of iced tea.

"Welcome to the official first day of the Research and Development Department. You've all been selected because you've all shown outstanding aptitudes and qualities in the areas I need for the projects I work on and after the Thunderchicken dance video made its way to the Captain... Ahem... My department request was finally approved. Tentatively. So... Does anyone have anything to add to that? Or should we go around and introduce ourselves?"

“Um, I don’t mind introducing myself, although I’m not entirely sure what aptitudes the CMO saw in me,” Carrott said with a mirthless chuckle, “Ensign John Carrott, nurse, Starfleet Medical Class of 2394. Gotta say, never expected to see half of what I have so far on the Hera, and I’m looking forward to seeing some more.”

"Ensign Fiona O'Dell, test pilot and Thunderchicken dancer," the small sprite with the mop of bright red curls grinned cheerfully as she raised her hand slightly. "Blame et on Ensign Gavarus. She asked fuir a jig, and that was the closest I could come. But ye give me a week or two and I'll make her sit oop an' dance fuir sure!"

Sighing slightly at O'Dell's energy, her pig-like partner in crime chimed in. "Well, I suppose that was my cue. Ensign Briaar Gavarus. Engineering assistant."

Mona grinned happily, enjoying the fact that she finally had her own team of specialized people that seemed to be as different thinking as her. "And I'm your new department head, Mona Gonadie. Pilot, inventor, and mad scientist. I'm the one that's created almost half the crazy things on this ship and the one missing from our new group has created the rest. Unfortunately, Yeoman Ila Dedjoy can't be with us today as she's having a new body built, but she'll be our support liaison of sorts. Any questions before we discuss our first order of business?" As she looked around the table, one hand rested on the medical case and the other rested on the small case of PaDDs.

The miniature maverick raised her hand. “New body built? I dinna ken that was an option fur Starfleet personnel…?” The note in her voice was one of intrigued interest, rather than the disbelief one might expect.

The brightly plumed Miradonian didn't see any need to hide the truth from them about this, so told them the simple truth. "Because of the manner of her untimely demise, she was able to occupy the android body she was building. With a little help, the rest of it is being built now in one of the classified labs in the pod."

The tall Tellarite's eyebrows peaked slightly as she listened. While the story sounded horrible, she was a natural born engineer and was seriously curious and hoped to be able to look at this body under construction herself. But she also noticed O'Dell's odd curiosity and leaned in, whispering. "I can make you robot legs if you want to be taller, but you have to take 'em with piggy feet. I only work in piggy feet."

“Ye kiddin?” O’Dell whispered back. “If I’m goin in fer legs I may as well get a whole chassis rework oot of it. I could be built like… well, half the women on this ship, ye know?”

Carrott sat there blinking for a solid 10 seconds before saying, “Wait, Yeoman Dedjoy? Um, I didn’t know her death was temporary. That’s… that’s really something. Wow. Does Doc know?”

Then, as if he was a train picking up speed, Carrott rushed to say, “If Doc doesn’t know, can I tell them? I’ve always wanted to deliver life-altering news to someone… well, the good kind, you know?”

Mona nodded in approval. "I'm not sure if they know yet, but as long as you limit it to senior staff and those in this room, yes that's fine. It's still a bit of a secret. Any other questions?"

"Are we g'win ta focus on the Thunderchicken or will we be workin' on the Cyclones as well, concurrently or on a timeline? Are there more projects like this? Hae we established testing parameters? Did ye install that manual gearshift betwixt the walker mode an' vehicle? Can we add subsidiary systems as redundancies in the Cyclones? Are... we..." O'Dell realized that her mile-a-minute questions weren't exactly what Ensign Gonadie had in mind, and she smiled sheepishly as she blushed.

"Ah, sorry, Ah get a bit excited soomtimes..."

Standing just behind O'Dell, Briaar Gavarus let out a snort of a chuckle as she looked down with a cocked eyebrow, "Sometimes?"

The brightly plumed Miradonian chuckled softly as she opened up the case of PaDDs and handed them out. "Those are all questions that are answered in our first official briefing. Our first official projects are the Thunderchicken and the Cyclones. Yes, the gearshift box has been redesigned and the new one installed. The upgrades for the redundant and relay controlled systems in the cyclones to match that of the Thunderchicken are ready to be installed and tested. And... We have about six other projects to test, including a new neurolink pilot control system that we need a medical professional to look over." With that, she slid the medical case over to Carrott. "The prototype is a pair of stick ons, but the final model should be a tiny implant, if all goes well."

“I’ll review the notes we have on Lieutenant Dox’s first attempt with nanobots. I’m sure there is something that I can extrapolate from there. Um, and I’ll need O’Dell’s most recent brain scans of course.” Carrott spoke evenly, but the way he was biting his nails occasionally spoke to a touch of nervousness with the idea of implanting things in someone’s brain.

"Better be a tiny implant, I only got a tiny head..." O'Dell muttered as she started flipping through the briefing materials, ooh-ing and ahhh-ing as she did so. "This is all dead exciting! What're we doin' first, or izzit all... oh wait, timeline, right..." The excitable little pilot slowly settled down a little as she stopped flipping and started actually reading the materials, occasionally nudging the engineer to point out another exciting technical specification or project goal.

Rolling her eyes, Gavarus muttered back, chuckling slightly, "I have a PaDD too, O'Dell. I can read."

"They taught ye to read? If Ah kin teach ya ta sing, we'll make us a fortune!!" the short smartass shot back, still taking in the material, eyes darting to and fro on the tablet. "M'guid wi'medical waivers and alla that if there's consent forms, I volunteer and alla that. Ach! Yuir recommending redundancies in the flight suits too, as well as additional insulation! Fire suppression too? Ach, bless yuir heart! Thermal heaters... ye're actually buildin' a flight suit, this is a lot more than joost the EVA armor, aye? This looks more like a survival suit..."

"Specialized for the Thunderchicken and the Cyclones for now, but a general use survival suit would be the ultimate goal after that." Mona replied to the suit inquiry. "As for medical waivers, they shouldn't be necessary, but that and more is where our medical expertise comes into play. You're scheduled for a test flight in the Thunderchicken simulator tomorrow morning using the new interface if Ensign Carrott can clear you and the tech. And you'll have to use your mind to move it."

"Joost me mind? Nae me hands and me skills?" For the first time, O'Dell sounded less enthused about something.

Mona chuckled softly. "The goal is to use both in synch with each other, but we need to test the neural interface first. There's no input side, it's all readings. The suit's HUD will relay any information. And that's why we're trying it out in the new simulator with non-invasive implants first."

Leaning over her diminutive friend, Gavarus commented, "It's all about your skills, Leprechaun. Brains and hands. Just don't forget to bring both."

The concept was intriguing, and while internally O’Dell doubted she had the brain power to make a neural interface work very well, she had confidence in the Thunderchicken. Overall, she was far more excited to continue learning to pilot the unique vehicle than could be dampened by nerves, so she maintained an open mind. After all, if she could use her own reflexes and seemingly unintuitive grasp of the spacecraft, she could work wonders, she felt confident.

“Aye ma’am, we’ll make her kick up her heels and showgirl, joost ye wait!” the enthusiastic Mariposian replied with a thumbs-up.

Thumbing quickly through his PaDD, Carrott looked up, bright-eyed and said, “Based on the information from Lt. Dox’s scans before and after Doc’s nanobots, I think I can see what we need to do here. But O’Dell’s brain chemistry is a bit different, and her baseline electrical potential is lower, so I need to know how many volts she’s putting off, so to speak. Got anything down here to register that with? Otherwise we can always stop by Sickbay and plug her in.”

"There's a small med unit assigned to us a few doors down that should have what you need." Mona pulled up a holographic map of the facilities they had been assigned. They weren't much, but there weren't many of them. "We have this conference room, two offices, one tech lab, one med unit, one simulator, and the work bays that the Cyclones and Thunderchicken occupy. Anything else we need, I'll have to coordinate with the other departments."

“Nanobots? I missed that in the briefing, what’s that all aboot?” O’Dell started flipping through pages looking for what was developing. This was rapidly becoming less of a piloting exercise and more of a medical experiment, which while she was trying to be enthusiastic, it was starting to worry her now. Aerospace test pilot did not usually mean medical test subject, and her stomach was tightening up quickly as she tried to get a better idea of what she was signing on for here.

“Nothing I’m going to try to replicate,” Carrott chuckled, “Something the boss did for Lt. Dox to help her use some new-fangled helmet that Ensign Gonadie came up with. It worked, really well actually, but it had some side effects, so that’s an ix-nay,” Carrott said, referencing pig-latin without stopping to think if his audience knew the vernacular.

“But it gives me a starting point for how to establish neural contact. I’m thinking a couple of probes at your temple, just to link up to the computer. Sound ok? That way you can rip them off if you wanna.”

“I guess… alreet…” The little test pilot’s enthusiasm at realizing that the project was much different than she had imagined was immediately putting her in unexpected and unexplored territory, and she turned to studying the materials more intently. What had started as excitement to put her skills to use was turning into something very different very quickly, and she was wondering if she was in over her head in the first five minutes.

Looking down at O'Dell, Gavarus squinched her face slightly. "Hey, O'Dell. Look at.this?"

The tall Tellarite held her PaDD down lower. "With this interface improvement, they're estimating a reaction time improvement of 6% in the Sims testing. Don't you think that if we bypassed the secondary torque regulators on the hip joints here with a magnetic slide connector, we could get that up to 10?" She was hoping a bit of creative problem solving might help lift the tiny test pilots spirits back up.

"No one is using nanotech," Insisted Mona as she shut off the map. "As for magnetic slide couplers, if you can get them to work without interfering with the gyros or overloading the SIF generator in walker mode, then you'll have proven why you're here. I'm an inventor and a flyer, not an engineer." Mona finally sat down, slumping onto the table as she did so. "This is one of the reasons I've been pushing harder for my neural interface to be tested - so we can actually do proper stress tests on these systems. So far everything we throw at them causes zero stress."

“Soooo… alla that spinnin and yankin and sooch I did on the flight deck didn’t strain inny of the systems a’tall, despite the speed I was jerkin the stick around? And the Cyclone oot there fried and dead in space dinna put inny stress on the system either? Seriously?” O’Dell clarified. Being told everything she’d done so far hadn’t accomplished anything wasn’t doing her confidence a world of good on top of the previous conversation.

“If it helps, I’m a little stressed,” Carrott said in an attempt at levity.

"The filament was extenuating circumstances. Other than that, the numbers have been amazing and we need to find the limits of those numbers. The current interface isn't adaptable enough to allow us to do that." Mona looked O'Dell over for a moment. "And you're the only one I trust for this as we create a new set of stress tests for our new department." Coming from Mona, that was deep praise indeed - she considered herself the best pilot and flyer in the galaxy and had made no qualms about grinding other scores in the sims to literal dust.

“Well, I been told I am stressful,” the puny pilot chimed in as she studied the materials. “So me brain power needs to be measured so I kin try to break the spacecraft, am I gettin' this noow?”

"That's basically our first goal for the prototype interface, yes," Mona confirmed. "We want to stress things enough to break."

Keeping her face and tone as purposefully neutral as possible, Gavarus leaned down to her Mariposian friend. "Oh, this assignment is going to be extremely fun, Leprechaun. You get to break things and I get to fix them. At this rate, you may see me smile on the regular if you're not careful." Then she repeated the creepy, toothy smile from earlier.

Carrott chuckled again and said, “Well heck, if we just want to break things, I can go replicate a sledgehammer. But in all seriousness, I just need a few basic readings and I will have an interface ready in a few hours.”

“Well, what are we waitin’ for then? Let’s get started!” The diminutive daredevil declared. “What’s first?”

"Sledgehammer wants to break things?" Gavarus added, smirking at O'Dell. "My schedule says I've got to start putting the Cherry Bomb back together... apply some of these adjustments. Aw, and I wanted to watch Carrot look for your brain."

“Ah dinna want to break things, she WANTS me to break ‘em. Nivvir been in that position before- usually, the job is to push it while keepin’ it in one piece, but I’ll do what I’m told. So, brain measurin’ then?” O’Dell looked around, eager to begin.

"Brain measuring,” Carrott said, rising to go with O’Dell. “Let’s see what we have in our med unit, shall we? Betcha I can find a lollipop for when we are done. Heck, I’m finding two. I want one also.”

"Before we all leave, our last order of business..." Mona prompted, holding up a finger. "Who wants to be the assistant chief? Any volunteers?"

“Not it!” chimed in the chirpy ensign. “Ah dinna want inny more responsibility than joost testin the capacities of the ships, thankye. Make Gavarus do et!”

Looking around, Gavarus raised an eyebrow. "Well, I love ordering people around."

"Sold! Dismissed!" Mona downed the rest of her tea and set her cup back in the replicator as she headed for the door.

"Well, we've got our orders, then. I'm on the Cherry Bomb, you two have a brain to scan and we can meet back here for the sim tests of the new interface first thing." Gavarus added.

"Ahh... delicious power. Fly, my monkeys! Hah! *Snort*


 

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