Lieutenant JG Christopher Caldwell: Guess Who's Back? (PART 1)
Chris M
((Main Bridge, Deck 1, USS Astraeus))
Caldwell: I think you’re right but there must be some other factor at play here rather than just age surely? How would age make someone more or less susceptible?
He didn’t expect Matthews to have the answer but maybe Tasen might be able to find something. Neither he, nor Charles, were scientists or doctors. Physiologically speaking there were no doubt a lot of differences, lots of changes, brought about by age.
oO But how would any of them make someone more at risk of or even immune to whatever assimilation method this is? What are they, ageist nanoprobes? Oo
((Time Skip, Five Minutes))
Mei’konda: Engineering is clear; Lieutenant Ral and his teams should be able to retake their stations. What do you haave for me, Lael? Ensign Tasen?
Rosek-Skyfire: ::shakes her head:: According to the scans, it’s not good, Captain.
Tasen: I assume the Borg situation did not just happen to us sir… the fleet at Sol Station… they…
Mei’konda: The fleet… the whole Home Fleet is attacking Sol Station. If that staation goes down, Earth’s planetary shields fall… Matthews, Caldwell. Do you haave an estimate for how long Sol Station can hold up under that kiind of attack?
Matthews: Fifteen minutes, Sir. Twenty at best.
Caldwell: If the station itself has been compromised it’s definitely going to be on the lower side of that estimate. For all we know half of the station’s population are Borg trying to take the station down from the inside.
Unlike most adversaries they could face, the Borg wouldn’t mourn the loss of any of their own drones that would be lost if Sol Station were destroyed whilst there were Borg actually on it.
oO Nothing more than resource management for them. Oo
Mei’konda: Then we haave eight minutes to regain control of this ship. One to maake it to Earth. And under another eiight to evacuaate as many as we can from Sol Station. Perhaaps, on the way, we can fiind some way to reinforce Earth’s shields usiing our own power sources. Opiinions?
He started calculating course options, they were on the outskirts of the system, just over 30 AU from the station.
oO I think I’m going to have to do what you’re not meant to do and perform an in system warp. Oo
Generally speaking ships did not travel at warp within star systems, well, not when travelling into a system. At those speeds and with the concentration of stellar matter, including planets, the risks were high. This wouldn’t just be warping closer to the centre of the system though, this would be warping into Earth orbit which was absolutely littered with artificial satellites and facilities, not to mention the titanic Sol Station and the entirety of the home fleet. If the calculations were even slightly off, bye bye Astraeus.
oO I’ll just have to be sure my calculations are accurate. Oo
Rosek-Skyfire: With most of the Borg contained in the Brig and other secure areas, it’s just a matter of getting systems back under our purview. I’ll keep working with the respective department heads. ::pauses:: As far as more effective means for neutralizing the Borg elements– ::to Caldwell and Matthews:: Isn’t there a way we can gather larger groups rather than a couple at a time? A way to boost the transporters?
Matthews: Maybe alter the parameters of a cargo bay transporter. Boost the targeting scanners so they can pick up signals from more than one location in just one beam out. Once they materialise, send them straight to Brig.
Caldwell: Since it’s younger members of the crew being compromised by the Borg we could cross reference the manifest and sensor data to more quickly identify and target those that are under the Borg’s control.
True he wasn’t entirely sure how to do what he had just suggested but he was sure someone could figure it out. They knew who was aboard, they knew their ages, rather than waiting to use data from others sources to identify Borg for transport, they could instead let the computer narrow down potential candidates, that would speed up their process of identifying the Borg by making those checks more targetted.
Mei’konda: The common aspect is … Their age?
Matthews: Yes, Sir. All those reading as Borg signatures are under the age of thirty.
Rosek-Skyfire: Response
Tasen: It makes more sense with what is going on at Sol Station… pretty much every ship has several young crews, right?
Caldwell: This all started when we detected that system wide signal, it must have been the trigger or a means of control.
Mei’konda: Then… we must fiind a way to block that signal. No matter what it takes. If we can prevent that siignal from penetraating our hull and reaching our people, can we stop it from affectiing them?
Rosek-Skyfire: ::pauses:: I would suggest the Reskari, sir, but we couldn’t possibly coat the hulls in time. It would be an exercise in futility.
Tasen: Changing the modulation of the scanners worked against the signal that we were getting the interference from… If we could do something similar with the jamming the frequency or something…
Matthews: When analysing the Borg countermeasures, there did seem to be an aversion to frequencies in the higher EM band, weapons and shields were more effective. Could it be applied to a signal blocker?
Caldwell: Would we be able to block it? Nothing we have so far has proved a hindrance.
Mei’konda: Clearly, it haas no trouble penetraating our hull, our structural integrity field, and our conventional energy shielding. What if we change our modulaation? Alter the frequency of our metaphasic shielding? Ensign Tasen, can your analysis be used to fiind a counter frequency?
Tasen: ::nodding thoughtfully as she shifts her arms to her side, her eyes shifting to the screen.:: Yes sir, I believe so. I have the work done at least for the sensors. It would be adapting the data.
Matthews: Tie Science in to Tactical, Ensign. Maybe the countermeasure data can help with the adaptations.
Caldwell: Could we just disrupt them with a directly competing signal?
He wasn’t quite sure how it would work but if there was a Borg signal saying one thing, then what would happen if there was another signal saying the opposite thing? If the Borg signal told those under their control to turn right and another signal said turn left then what would happen? Would that be easier or more likely to succeed than traditional jamming?
Rosek-Skyfire: All good suggestions. Anything workable?
Tasen: Something like a jamming signal maybe? Blocking it best we can… but sending something out towards the epicentre to inhibit it from affecting our ship maybe…
Matthews: Could work, Ensign.
Caldwell: But won’t they be able to adapt? If they can connect trillions of drones spread across the galaxy, they have to be pretty adept at getting around signal jamming?
Mei’konda: It’s a staart, anyway. Other suggestions?
Rosek-Skyfire: My only other thought would be to determine the frequency of the signal to see if we could also possibly cancel it out with radio waves. A double measure. Redundant, but redundancies can’t hurt at the moment. Not when we want to be extra sure this works.
Matthews: ::gesturing:: The Commander and Ensign are likely on the best track, Sir.
Tasen: I think we are on similar thought processes, Commander. Though what if we turned that signal internal instead of external? Send the counter frequency within our ship to disrupt the signal to our crew.
Caldwell: How much resource is this going to tie up? If we’re trying to sure up a starbase? ::He let his voice trail off::
Rosek-Skyfire: ::nods:: Right. We’ll have to be careful about power expenditures. We’re going to need all of it we can get it we’re going to face off against a fleet of our own ships. The Astraeus is a tough old bird, but some of those ships are armed to the teeth.
Mei’konda: Agreed, then. Lieutenant Caldwell, get us to Earth as quickly as you can.
Here goes nothing. He’d checked his calculations with the computer several times. If this worked, he would be successfully warping the Astraeus right off one of Sol Station’s secondary docks, close enough that none of the compromised Starfleet vessels currently attacking the station would have a line of sight.
oO In fact with all this weapons fire being exchanged, they might not even detect us on sensors. Oo
He swung the ship out from behind Neptune, hitting the waypoint he’d set for his warp jump.
oO Here goes… quite possibly everything. Oo
Before he keyed in the command to execute the warp jump he spotted a new contact on sensors.
Caldwell: Sir! There’s another starship coming in! ::double checking his readout then turning to face the Captain:: It’s a museum ship?
Lieutenant JG Christopher Caldwell
Helm Officer
USS Astraeus, NCC-70652
A240101CC1