Lieutenant Amelia Semara - String Telephone

[Max]

(( Bridge, Deck 1, USS Khitomer ))

All the cool kids had their legendary space battles with ridiculously skewed odds in nebulas for a reason.

For one, there was the simple visual appeal that made adaptation dramatic holo-retellings that much more engaging. Then there was the way they messed with sensors or weapons that made them legitimate, (normally) naturally occurring and defensible bastions where a smaller force could hold off a larger one with a bit of cleverness.  Amelia probably shouldn't have been entertaining even a single thought of negotiating the rights for the real-life adventures of the Khitomer, but the transient musing was just another in a long line of (admittedly amusing) distractions.

It made her wonder if the Sheliak or the Tholians had notorious captains with multiple entire over-dramatic holo-docuseries of dubious accuracy about their exploits.

She shook the tangent off.  If they were going to be firing torpedoes, this plan needed her full attention. 

Semara: Counselor, we're gonna need to coordinate with the Velithari to make the other piece a' your plan work.  A sufficiently dramatic reveal a' the size and power output a' their ship oughta make the Alliance panic the way you wanted, don't you think?  :: Beat :: We can cover 'em with our Sencha Deflector Array, but it ain't gonna be enough.

Zerva: ::beat:: Then we’d better hurry. Sensors show the Leviathan class vessel has begun to accelerate its impulse speed. It would appear they’ve gotten even more erratic and impulsive with their efforts trying to locate us or the Jorogumo at the very least. Fortunately their indiscriminate attacks haven’t hit much beyond parts of the nebula. If this thing is indeed alive, I can’t imagine the nebula likes it very much.

Morda: Torpedoes ready, Lieutenant.

That was fast.  Amelia gave him a nod and an appreciative smile.

Her eyes flit to the Counselor, who had something compacting under its own weight inside of him.  She could guess what he didn't like about this.

th'Vrosa: ::With a rather lamentful tone:: I know this was my idea, but in my professional medical opinion… this blows.

Amelia could still clearly picture the Sheliak prisoner of war she met on Alpha Trionus.  The way it recoiled from her in its too-hot cell, laboring to breathe.  It was a minor miracle Doctor Melville-Kilpatrick managed to help the low-level Sheliak officer.

At the same time, she felt the place in her chest where a piece of her own daughter still lived.  Did Tori ever know the Velithari, or was their species simply one casualty of many in her timeline?

Amelia hummed softly, and let the comment slide - th'Vrosa was completely right, but he didn't know the half of it.  This disaster needed to end.  But it wasn't going to stop here or today, not without more bloodshed most likely.

Semara: Once we make our first attack, that'll force 'em to be more tactical with their assault and work to our timin'.  We'll make our best impression of General Chang, and keep 'em guessin' with when and where we'll be next. :: Beat :: The more tense we get 'em, the better our grand reveal will be.  :: Beat :: 'Fore I call the Cap'n, can we make it work?

Two blank faces out of three.  She shot Ezra a look as if to say - "Really?"  The junior officers needed to learn the history behind their ship's name if they were going to suck up to their superiors.  Captains especially got quite attached to their ships like that, and there was a lot of mileage to be had out of that kind of knowledge.

Zerva: We would need to be close enough to the nebula's border to make this work. Firing too deep from inside the nebula means we have to take into account the filaments and possibility of injuring a potential life form. 

Morda: If you can feed me an approximate range, I’ll see if I can tweak the torp engines a bit to give us that lead time between firing and them being detected.

She nodded.  That was a good tweak.

Semara: We ain't gotta fire in a perfectly straight line, either...  Set 'em to fire five degrees off-axis and start trackin' on the target as they leave the nebula.

This was starting to sound like a good plan.  Amelia didn't exactly expect even quantum torpedoes to do much against a Lattice Alliance Leviathan, but a mosquito made a Kurack's tail twitch in annoyance...

Semara: What 'bout navigation?  Don't wanna get shredded on the filaments the moment we move.  Brief said somethin' 'bout pacifyin' the nodes with harmonics.  Can we do that here?

The Andorian gave the kind of smile of a student who really didn't want to be called on.  Fortunately for him, Ezra was on a roll.  Those science texts she recommended to him must have really been paying off.

Zerva: Harmonics? Good idea. If we use the same harmonics like we did on the bridge and transporter room two, but on a much larger scale, we can use it to direct a path to navigate through the filaments. It would allow us to get close enough without having to leave the clouds cover and make the helmsman’s work a lot easier.

th'Vrosa: ::Supportively but without any scientific certainty:: Sounds right enough to me?

Amelia had to work double-time to keep her lips from curling in amusement.  She knew that tone of voice: an Ensign trying to sound good fresh from the academy.

Zerva: It’s worth a shot ::looking over to Morda:: Ensign Morda, if you would bring up the collective data we’ve got on the filaments and how it reacts to the harmonics please?

Morda: One moment … on screen in a moment.

Amelia turned to the screen, taking a moment to work out what she was looking at.  So this was what the crew was working on while she was off playing First Officer on the Jorogumo...  Programs for visible light to reveal the semi-alive filaments, and, well, music to pacify them.

Her eyes cast to the docile mesh of the 'spaghetti' in the bridge.  There was one report of sensing sadness...  It made Amelia curious to try for herself to see what she might read from it with her telepathy.  She reached out through the short space just far enough to feel a fuzzy, vague impression somewhere in the background of her mind - it weighed little more than the intersection of two threads of a spiderweb, but it was most definitely alive.

Heavens, she missed her old job sometimes.  The subject of another whole lifetime of study right there in front of them, and the only question was how to get it out of the way...

Semara: Alright, how do we use this outside the ship?

Zerva: I know the engineering team is currently working on the problem of removing the filaments from inside the Khitty. All we have to do is figure out how to make this work on the filaments that live in the nebula outside the Khitomer once they do. I don’t think Gunnery Sargent Martz’s speakers will do the trick.

Amelia's eyebrows lifted.  What was a marine weapons specialist doing with speakers?  Nevermind that - how did they make it work outside?  Her hip popped out to one side as her eyes bounced to Morda, who offered the next suggestions.

Morda: Tenuous as it is, there is a medium in this nebula. It can convey pressure waves of a sort to affect the filaments.

That would mean tuning into deflector control...  It was a good idea, but the list of ship systems they needed working was growing quickly.  That, and Connor's warning about the SDA was still jangling in her head.  Using the main deflector wasn't exactly the same, but Amelia was wary of reconfiguring it when the best odds of covering the Velithari rested on one, maybe two pulses from the dish.

th'Vrosa: If the external filament structures are connected to the ones inside the ship, could we play Kathputli with them?

The Thaan's voice dug her out of her whirring thoughts.  His gloved hand motioned spider-like.  Amelia's lips parted, feeling the weight of wooden dolls tugging downward through strings wrapped around fingers.  An empathic after-image had bridged the language gap...  But Amelia was used to that.

Instead, her excitement had everything to do with the fact that the Ensign had just solved something, perhaps unwittingly, that had been bothering her inner scientist.

Semara: :: Pointing :: Ensign, that's genius.

She refused to expound.  Instead, she sat down at science station two, and started to input a series of commands, needing to simply get the idea down before it ran away from her.

Morda / Zerva: Response

th’Vrosa: The Engineering Team might buck a bit at it, but if we can figure that out maybe that might be a simpler approach than harmonics?

Semara: :: Holding up a hand. :: No need to be botherin' engineerin'.  :: Working busily :: When we start movin', we'll naturally tension the filaments lodged in the hull, pullin' on their neighbors, pullin' them tight too.  Any harmonics we set up in the hull, the fillaments'll pass those signals to their neighbors, tellin' em to relax and let go so we can pass.  Ain't gonna have much range, but enough.  :: Beat :: I bet that's how the Velithari do it, only their hull's organic and prolly even naturally self-heals and even feels return vibrations like it's hair on skin...

She caught a glance.  Right.  She was rambling speculations out loud.

Morda / Zerva: Response

A shrug said it all.

th’Vrosa: Though I will admit I’m talking out of a very limited understanding. Let me be the first to express this is entirely out of my wheelhouse.

She paused to look over her shoulder.

Semara: None of y'all ever made a string telephone as a kid?

Morda / Zerva / th'Vrosa: Response

She shook her head and turned back to the console.  A few more commands, and she was able to get a program to establish rudimentary vibration set up in the hull - the same harmonics as they were playing throughout the ship.  She sent it to the screen for appraisal, and so they could see what the heck she was talking about.

While they looked, she needed to make a call.

Semara: =/\= Semara to Naxell. =/\=

She waited for the affirmative beep of a connection.

Semara: =/\= We got an idea.  We can use the tractor beam to pull the nebula into a retreat, but we gotta know where the Alliance will shoot.  We can draw their fire where we want it with torpedoes from the nebula's cover, and drag all the gas can with us when we vacate the premises.  We oughta be able to keep that up until the Velithari are innoculated. =/\=

Saying it like that, it was some idea.

Naxell: =/\= Response =/\=

Semara: =/\= We think we can navigate the nebula safely if we transmit the same sleepy harmonics through the hull, and let the filaments lodged there transmit it to their friends.  I'd like permission to test that theory first. =/\=

Naxell: =/\= Response =/\=

Semara: =/\= Then there's the last bit.  We got a Leviathan-class out there.  We'll need the Jorogumo to make an appearance - the more dramatic and frightenin' the better.  Any luck, they'll turn tail when they see our's is bigger.  If not, we only got one shot, maybe two from the SDA to cover any attack the Velithari make. =/\=

It was an even more conservative estimate than Connor gave her, but Amelia wasn't prepared to meet a second as-yet unborn daughter.  One was enough.

The best situation is if they never used it at all, but the Alliance was nothing if violently tenacious.

Naxell: =/\= Response =/\=

She looked at the officers around her as they listened in, letting her breath slow as she cracked a smile.  It was hard to not be full-to-bursting with pride.

Semara: =/\= Aye, sir.  I'll be in touch. =/\=

(( OOC: I'm going to take a minor liberty here and assume Naxell will at least let us test out navigating, but wait to see what else he approves. ))

She closed the commlink.  First things first...

Semara: Alright, let's test our theory out.  Zerva, engage the hull harmonics program, then keep an eye on the sensors.  I wanna know if the Alliance sees us movin' around, or if the nebula takes issue with us.  Counselor, kindly take the left seat and watch damage control especially - we shut it down the moment there's a sign it ain't workin' right.

It made sense to put the counselor there.  That's where the counselor sat.  Left of the captain's chair.  But that meant...

Amelia stared at it a moment, eyes narrowing to a glare before she caught the empathic brew of three other officers staring at her...

Morda / Zerva / th'Vrosa: Response

Oh, heavens.  Fine.

Amelia sat in the center seat.

It helped to think of it as warming up the leather for Naxell, assuming he came up here.

Semara: Alright, Ensign Morda, thrusters gently, please...  Ready to stop on a moment's notice.

Morda / Zerva / th'Vrosa: Response

Tag / TBC...

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Lieutenant Amelia Magnolia Semara

Intelligence Officer

USS Khitomer - NCC-62400

A239710MA0