Long Range Sensors

Posted on Mon 29th May, 2017 @ 2:24pm by Colonel Horatio Drake & Commander Zachary Hunt & Lieutenant Ricardo Shepard & Lieutenant Colonel Brooklyn Wellington

861 words; about a 4 minute read

Mission: For The Uniform
Location: Deck 12: Main Operations
Timeline: MD-01: 0800 Hours

For the first time since serving on Vanguard, Hunt, Drake and Winchester had all been in Ops, at the same time, for more than the past fifteen minutes. Hunt was over at the Intel part of the Ops, talking to Lt. Kiralbi. He hadn't seen her for a while, so went over just to say hello and the general niceties which came with it. She had told him that the new Chief of Intel had also settled in well in the department and was doing a good job. Winchester had cornered some poor Lieutenant and was giving him a hard time after his team had misaligned the power ratios on some type II phasers they had been recalibrating. Drake was perched in what Starfleet called the 'command centre' of Main Operations. It was a collection of chairs, consoles and holographic display areas where anything from a single shuttle mission to the movements and tactical operations of entire fleets, could be monitored from. He had been going over the damage to the USS Indefatigable from a mission some months ago now. It had been severe and she had been sitting in the depths of Vanguard, untouched, since. Some of the parts for the old Oberth class couldn't be replicated these days - it was in the balance as to whether Starfleet would give the go ahead for such repairs to be carried out. Was it worth it for such an old ship? A part of Drake hoped they would give their approval - after all, it was a piece of history.

An alarm sounded somewhere towards where Hunt was - not your average alarm, but more of a high pitched warning notification. Drake saw that he moved down a few consoles and stood behind the Andorian who was at the console in question.

"Colonel, we've got something coming into sensor range... it's on the very edge of our long range sensors." Hunt said.

Drake didn't respond, he simply nodded in Hunt's general direction. A thousand things came into sensor range every day, why was this one any different?

"I believe it's some sort of ship... she's adrift."

Now he had Drake's attention. "Can we get a visual?"

"Not at this range... but if we boost power to the sensor array and..." His voice was lost as he reached beside the Andorian and started tapping away on the console. "We should now be able to get a partial holographic image, sir."

Drake had no idea how the technology worked... it had been a number of years ago when holographic communication had come into its own. For some reason it could reach further and give better quality at that range, even when not being sent as part of a data package.

Hunt quickly moved into the area Drake sat and again, tapped on a console. Within moments an image flickered into life, seemingly floating in the middle of the command centre. There was no mistaking what it was.

"That's a... Miranda Class" Drake squinted at the image as if finding it hard to focus on.

He could just about make out the tiny lettering on the small image that hovered in front of him, "USS... Bretagne?". He frowned for a moment, "I'm almost certain that's not an active service ship."

"It's not... and they're unresponsive to hails" Winchester had now joined in the party, overhearing what was going on. Very few would take it upon themselves to open hailing frequencies without being ordered to do so... Winchester was inexorably part of the very few!

Drake stared at the image and started tapping the side of his chair with his fingers... faster and faster. He felt an excitement welling up inside of him which he had been a stranger to for years.

"Chief..." He said, inquisitively, but was cut off mid-stream by the Irish man.

"Yes, the Warpsite is ready for her shakedown cruise... No, you shouldn't command the mission yourself... yes, it's a waste of time me telling you this." He stared at Drake and raised both his eyebrows as if inquiring as to whether he had missed anything.

Drake opened his mouth to protest but instead just gave the Chief a big grin. They had known each other too long. Winchester knew that if he strongly protested then Drake wouldn't have gone... but he would have weighed up all the potential dangers by now and had probably already decided upon an amount of Marines that would be going with him.

"Drake to Wellington"

"Wellington here."

"We'll be taking the Warspite out for her shakedown cruise tomorrow. She'll be dropping a few of us off somewhere and then continuing on. I think a fighter escort might be appropriate?" He asked, knowing she'd probably jump at the chance to undertake something other than training.

"Aye, sir. I'll have a flight of Valkyries ready for the escort mission."

"Very good, Captain"

Drake then glanced across Ops to Shepard, who had been attentively listening to what was happening. "Lieutenant, I think it best if you come along for the shakedown as well, in case there are unforeseen issues with the ship"

"Understood, sir"

 

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