Putting Theory Into Practice

Posted on Tue Sep 24, 2019 @ 11:28am by Lieutenant Martha Cusack & Master Chief Petty Officer Thomas Barnes

Mission: The Nanjing
Location: Main Engineering
Timeline: MD1; 09:45

Martha walked into main engineering with a PADD in her right hand. She didn't end up there very often - but today she was hoping to speak to Thomas about potentially putting an idea she'd been working on for a while into practice. After looking around for a couple of minutes she finally found the man she was looking for.

"Excuse me Chief. I was hoping to speak to you about something if you have a few minutes?" Martha asked.

Tom, who was hard at work reviewing the schematics of the recently installed ablative armor to ensure the untested system was functioning according to specifications, looked up to see Martha standing there. "What can I do for you, Lieutenant?" he asked, thinking this would be about the upcoming mission of doom that could very well be their last.

Martha turned on the PADD she was carrying and offered it to Tom before she started speaking.

"I was wondering if you could offer some advice and assistance with an idea I've had. I've been looking at ways to reduce the time it takes for the phasers to recharge and believe this can be achieved by fitting anodyne capacitors. What do you think?" Martha replied.

Tom accepted the padd while still monitoring the schematic before him. The moment a progress bar appeared during a diagnostic, he looked down at the information the device contained. "Anodyne capacitors?" he asked. "I suppose it's possible, but we can only replicate the parts for them. The actual assembly and installation would be by hand. I'm not sure how long that would take. Triumphant has... I forget how many phaser banks." He looked over to Martha, hoping she could provide that number.

Martha replied. "There's nineteen in total Chief...so we'd need a lot of capacitors. I've not had a chance to run any simulations yet but my calculations suggest an improvement of around 25-30%...although I should probably run some simulations to see how accurate they are"

"Given our timeframe, I don't think testing is really an option," Tom admitted, handing the padd back to Martha. "The Triumphant is supposed to be leaving dock in fifteen minutes, and we'll be in the Badlands in less than an hour. Best we can do is get a couple of the smaller phaser banks set up, but we're going to need all of the tactical crew. I can only provide so many engineers at this point. I'll contact Ensign sh'Paveress and get on creating the components."

Martha accepted the PADD back from Tom and held it against her right side. She already had an idea of which of the phaser arrays would be reconfigured to trial her upgrade - two of the six dorsal arrays on the saucer section.

Martha nodded. "Thank you Chief - I suppose we'll have to do our testing in the field and keep our fingers crossed. I'll get my team together to start work - would you like me to send some of them down here to help you and Ms sh'Paveress out with producing the parts?"

"The sooner the better," Tom said, waving his fingers against the holographic display to send it down to another technician at the table. He then called up the schematics for anodyne circuits so he could quickly familiarize himself with them. "Let's just hope this works."

Martha replied. "Fingers crossed Chief. I'll head up to the first phaser array now and send a team down here to help you with replicating the required parts. Thank you for your help - I can appreciate you've got a lot on down here but I think this could be a game changer"

"Anything I can do to help us live for another day," Tom freely admitted. "Let's get to work."

Martha nodded and smiled at Tom before making her way out of main engineering and up to the first phaser array. She instructed a team to head down to engineering to help Tom whilst two more were instructed to head to their respective phaser array to begin work. With the help of Tom and his team Martha was confident the combined efforts of the Tactical and Engineering departments would have the task completed before the Triumphant arrived in the Badlands.