Ensign Nolen Hobart - Finding One's Groove

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((Deck 1, Captain’s Ready Room, USS Arrow))

 

Hobart: ::firmly:: Captain, whatever else I may be, I will never be the weak link in your chain. Whatever breaks, sir, I can fix it, I’m confident of that.

 

Shayne: Very well. When this mission is concluded, we’ll discuss some of Arrow’s more interesting upgrades, along with Mr. Dewitt. For now, join me on the bridge. 

Shayne sharply moved past Hobart, leading him onto the bridge. Standing to meet them was a blond-haired officer in Science blue. Clean shaven. Lieutenant Commander's pips. 

 

Collins: Captain. New...person?

 

Shayne: This is Ensign Hobart of the Engineering department.

 

Hobart: ::barely a whisper:: Science, Commander, no beard...

 

Quentin visibly brightened, and Nolen looked up to see the face casting sunshine from within the ship's hull.

 

Collins: Ah! Excellent timing, Ensign. I'm Quentin Collins, Chief Science Officer. Apologies for leaving the welcome wagon packed up. It's been...a day. 

 

oO I knew that one. Oo

 

Shayne held up a hand- he disliked being so rude, and apologized to Hobart with a contrite look, but pondered on with the job of being a senior officer. Nolen silently wondered if the Captain was done with him, and took a half-step back to give the senior officers space to speak without him looking or listening over their shoulders.

 

Shayne: Report, Mr. Collins. 

 

Collins: Yes, actually, a few things, sir. Firstly, Con-...Mister Dewitt has a plan to bring down the facility's dampening field. Something to do with a specialized phaser pulse attuned to the resonance field. 

 

Shayne’s eyes narrowed. Hobart's eyes widened, and he took a full step forward. A phaser pulse, tuned to the right frequency could overload the target inhibitors, but it could also overload the ship's power systems. Especially the dedicated feeds to the phaser banks. Especially on a ship this age, which clearly already has EPS issues. If one wasn't careful, one might take down the dampening field and then be stuck relying only on torpedoes only.

 

Shayne: Tuned phaser pulses don’t have much functional range. How do we get close enough?

The redundant lines would catch it, first, Hobart knew, but if the pulse continued in that state, those would get burnt out, too. Hobart's head cocked involuntarily. If they rigged emergency switches to alternate at the pulse frequency, and reduced the power output...

 

Collins: That's where I come in hopefully. Using a move from the Oddas Aria Playbook. ::he said with a sly grin.:: A "shield cycle". A cascading, randomized feedback loop across the deflector and kinetic array, making the whole shell refractory. Just long enough for us to get close enough to poke out that comms block and possibly drop a team to the surface.

 

Captain Shayne grunted at the mention of Oddas Aria, but it was too brief a reaction to register with Hobart who by this point was so deep inside his own head in thinking about dampening fields and pulse-tuned phaser arrays and blown power junctions and redundant switches, that by the time his name was mentioned it was as if he was splashing blithely at the bottom of a well, and a long-haired dog was barking down at him from up above. Something about shields.

 

Shayne: Hm. Very well. Mr. Hobart, when we’re done here you’ll assist preparations in that regard. Cadet Perim, do you have a lead on an approach angle that will give us the best surprise advantage?

 

Hobart: Ah, y— yes, sir.

 

Perim: Response 

 

Captain Shayne turned back to Collins. Hobart turned back to his thoughts.

 

Collins: Commander Niac and the others should have an insertion plan momentarily. They checked in earlier after we re-tasked the probe for a better look at approach.

 

Shayne: Good. Commander Niac will be in command of the bridge for this operation. We’ll converge with him on plans. 

 

Hobart by this point had envisaged the precise locations in the ship's jefferies tubes where he'd need to access the primary redundancy switches, a component whose name never struck him as strange until just now, as something the Captain and Commander said caused it to sprout a giant beard in his mind.

 

Hobart felt a faint unease in the room, and his black eyes quickly darted around to make sure it wasn't something he did. He watched the two senior officer’s faces, carefully.

 

Perim/Collins: Response

 

Captain Shayne looked around the assembled group expectantly. Hobart felt torn in two directions, first by the urge to say something, and second by the urge to say nothing at all. The former won out.

 

Hobart: Sirs, how recent was the Arrow's last EPS overhaul?

 

Collins/Perim/Shayne: Response

 

Hobart: It's just that... ::diplomacy engaged!:: ...on a well-exercised power system, creative uses of the phaser banks could result in not having phaser banks for a while, which could be, uh, inconvenient.

 

Hobart wondered if the Captain noticed the lights in his ready room.

 

Shayne: Response

 

Hobart: ::nodding:: I'll address it to the Lieutenant, sir.

 

Tag/TBC…

 

———

Ensign Nolen Hobart

Engineering Officer

U.S.S. Arrow (NCC-69829)

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