Deflection, Part 1

Posted on Mon 28th Oct, 2019 @ 3:14pm by Captain Torrog & Lieutenant JG Artyom Mikhailov

1,099 words; about a 5 minute read

Mission: A Diplomatic Affair
Location: FTS Sovatax
Timeline: MD 12, 1230

When Artyom had gotten the call that the Ferengi Transport Vessel Sovatax had requested ... or rather, demanded ... station support for some sort of technical matter with their main deflector, he'd been sorely tempted to take that moment to grab a lunch. Dealing with Ferengi was one thing, especially when carrying a bag full of valuable engineering equipment inside one of their vessels. While Artyom had never worked on board a Ferengi vessel before, he knew people who had. And they strongly suggested that he keep a close eye on his bag at all times. Remembering to duck between the bulkheads was another, particularly for someone who stood at just over six foot.

Nonetheless, Artyom's conscious couldn't bring himself to conveniently happen to be unavailable. And from how it sounded, the Ferengi Captain of the Sovatax was being quite insistent. So he took the call, and learned the valuable lesson of ducking before he could even make it past the airlock.

"Haha... stupid hu-man needs ." One of his Ferengi escorts chuckled in his native language, seemingly unaware of uncaring of the fact that Artyom's universal translator would serve its intended purpose. The Russian rolled his eyes while the Ferengi was looking away, dodging the next bulkhead they passed even though the Ferengi had looked particularly interested in seeing whether Artyom would smack his head again.

"Where's that Starfleet engineer we called?" Captain Torrog roared out to his engineering officer. He might be short in stature, compared to humans, but his voice carried as if he were two meters tall. "They want us off the base, but they can't expect me to go with a dysfunctional main deflector. At superluminal velocities, with all the space debris lying out there, we'd never survive. The least they owe us is deflector help."

The even shorter Ferengi bending over the puzzling array controls stood up straight. "Haven't seen him yet, Sir," he answered. "I can fix this, but it will take me longer to do it. Federation mechanics here fix a lot more of them than I ever will." He frowned slightly. "I hope he's coming. Hoo-mans are not very dependable."

Torrog snorted, "You aren't telling me anything new, Pixon. Rule number 9, let me remind you. Opportunity plus instinct equals profit. You watch this hoo-man engineer and learn what you can from him. You'll be doing his work in short order. Say, did you go out and take a look at the force beam generator dish? Maybe it's just knocked crooked."

Pixon nodded, as if his captain was the wisest of the wise and replied with Rule 22. "A wise man can hear profit in the wind. And you are a very wise man, captain." He chuckled in the slightly hiccuping way that Ferengi do. "I did check, and both the low power shields and the high power beams seem to be connected properly and should work, but they weren't after we got close to the starbase. Do you suppose they did something to them to get more latinum out of us?"

Torrog was about to answer when the clomping of feet interrupted him. "Sounds like the hoo-man has finally arrived."

There was another audible thunk of thick skull against immovable bulkhead, this time one that Artyom had convinced himself as being unavoidable given how low and sharp the corner into the bridge was. Looking at his surroundings, Artyom found the layout to be a bit suffocating as he placed his hand innocently over his kit should a Ferengi feel opportunistic. "Uh, Privetstvuyu..." Artyom greeted in his native Russian by mistake. Even though he was confident that their universal translators which Ferengi wore in their ears would compensate for the discrepancy, he followed up with a second translation into Federation standard. "My name is Lieutenant Mikhailov."

Artyom couldn't tell which one was the Captain, but he figured that would be determined soon enough.

"Mikkelov? What kind of hoo-man are you? I never heard of such a name," Torrog snorted. "Well, no matter, no matter. We have a problem and you Starfleet officers always think you know everything, so I called you to fix it. Go on, Pixon, tell him what it's doing ... or not doing, more accurately," he ordered his own engineer.

"Well, uh, you see, it's the main deflector dish," the engineer began nervously. Somehow, he had to keep anyone from finding out what he'd been doing ... what he'd been ordered to do. "Something's not right. I checked both the low power shields and the high power beams. They're connected properly, and at the right angle, and should work, but no, it isn't, ever since we got in range of the base. What did you do to my ship?" Pixon asked, both puzzled and as confrontational as he felt comfortable being. After all, Ferengi were allies of Starfleet. Torrog might want to start a battle with them, but Pixon didn't!

Artyom stifled a groan. He didn't much enjoy having to deal with false accusations... particularly from a Ferengi seeing as how they were so good at twisting facts to suit their interests. He kept his expression neutral so as not to illicit an undesired response, however. Given that Pixon was claiming that the deflector had been working prior to their arrival at Starbase 109 -- (coincidence was no substitute for proof) -- he started there as part of his troubleshooting process.

"I understand your frustration, and understand that being without a functional deflector array is a major navigational hazard for a starship. We'll definitely want to get this working again, yes?" Arytom began, clearly ignoring the accusation that had been laid out at his feet. He pulled a PaDD and initiated a connection with the Station's sensor logs. "Now you said that your deflector array was working normally until you arrived here in the Asuran system. Can you tell me more about the problem? What is the deflector array doing... or rather, not doing... exactly?"

"For one thing, it didn't deflect several pieces of space trash," Pixon said indignantly. "I can show you the dents on the outside, and look right here!" He pointed to a very tiny speck on the bulkhead that might have been a dead gnat. "That one came right through the bulkhead after we docked. It's small, and it was automatically sealed, but it shouldn't have happened at all. Especially in the docking area! You have your own deflectors out here, so why aren't they working to protect us?" Rule 28 was the first one Pixon had ever memorized: A good offense is the best defense.

 

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