Ensign Ysatch Tori -- There's probably a word for this in Chess

[Patrick Hogan]

((Onboard the MFT Maximum Thrusters, Outside the Temurian Trading Post))

A wave of relief washed over Tori as the ship settled onto the ground. If nothing else, they'd done their job and gotten the other teams in place.

sh’Sonora: Any landing we walk away from, amirite? ::She claps her hands together.:: We have officially landed, Sir.

Foster: Good.  ::he let out a breath he didn’t realize he was holding. Despite the good performance, Wyn wasn’t used to a ship with so much extra movement while it flew.:: Alright, I’ll let the crew know we have landed.  Make sure everything is secure.

Tori spared a quick glance at the status readouts.

Ysatch: All systems look green on my end. And whatever they're doing with those power cores in the lab hasn't exploded yet.

sh’Sonora: ?

Foster: Alright, while our teams get out and get moving we have work to do. We need to figure out what those mines are protecting. Do we still have contact with those probes?

A quick scroll back to the remote sensor hookup Commander McLaren provided him showed it was still transmitting data.

Ysatch: Yep! In fact they've continued to mark potential mine locations this whole time.

sh’Sonora: ?

Foster: Mi’sh – I’m giving you remote control capabilities on one of the probes. You should be able to pilot it like a long-distance vehicle. Tori – I’m routing the sensor data on that probe to you.

Ysatch: What are we looking for?

sh’Sonora: ?

Foster: There are a lot of asteroids out here, most of them are moving, and I’m not seeing any evidence of a lot of explosions. That indicates that the mines are either only attracted to certain things like… I dunno possibly warp signatures or power emissions of some sort – or they can be turned ‘on’ and ‘off’ by whoever put them there.

It made sense the more Tori thought about it. The system was a mess of cosmic debris. If the mines were on a proximity trigger, statistically speaking several would have blown up just in their short time in the system. So either they're looking for something else, or they had not be turned "on" properly yet.

Ysatch: I think I see what you're getting at. We could use the probe to simulate some of these conditions in a way that looks like a natural phenomenon. Something a controlling intelligence wouldn't want to waste their ordinance on. If the mines activate, we know what sets them off. If they don't activate, we know someone's got their hand on the wheel.

sh’Sonora: ?

Tori leaned back in his chair and began to idly flick at his earring the way he tended to do when thinking.

Ysatch: So what are potential detonation conditions? Like the captain said, warp signatures and power emissions are big ones. There's also biodata -- scans for life signs. Any others?

sh/Sonora/Foster: ?

A bunch of possibilities crowded into Tori's mind all at the same time, elbowing for attention. He forced them all to stand back and wait in line. One thing at a time.

Ysatch: Power emissions seem an easy one to start with. We can set the probe's core to run hot and dirty and the lieutenant can pilot it on an arc out from one of the wrecked planets that clips the edge of the danger zone.

sh'Sonora/Foster: ?

Ysatch: It's kind of a double-reverse decoy. An automated system would flag it as a potential threat, but a good ops officer would see a radioactive meteor that's not going to hit anything and isn't worth the effort. ::looks around awkwardly:: At least that's what I'd do.

sh'Sonora/Foster: ?

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tags/tbc
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Ensign Ysatch Tori
Com/Ops Officer
StarBase 118 Ops
O240303TY1