Lt. JG Lyra Voss: Personal Record
Sarah Terry
((Stellar Cartography, Deck 3, USS Aurora-A))
Having a new system at her fingertips made it easy to push through any lingering tension in the room. How could she focus on anything else? There were literally stars in her eyes.
Voss: I have an idea! Let’s really see what these sensors can do. I want to send a message… ::randomly entering a set of coordinates in the Gamma Quadrant and finding a small, lonely planet, far away from any known habitable area:: *there.* I don’t care how long it takes to get there - I just need to plot the path for the signal, taking into account stellar and planetary bodies, black holes, gravity waves - anything that might interrupt it during the 70,000 lightyear trip. Can we plot a safe course?
Lorana: You’ll need to configure it to avoid all the communication relays to the Gamma Quadrant :: smiles :: Can’t make it too easy, Lyra!
Ysatch: I'm guessing then that the worm ... ::pauses to correct himself:: ... the Celestial Temple of the Prophets is off-limits as well?
She noted the correction with curiosity, but it certainly wasn’t an appropriate time to say anything about it, so she just nodded.
Voss: Yeah, old school. No temple, no relays - just subspace and a dream.
She was standing at the center of the console, so she started inputting the beginnings of a path for the signal as she scanned through the regions of space between the station and their lonely planet.
Ysatch: There's a charted type 3 pulsar at G-237. Those are known to naturally amplify subspace signals if you get the timing of the lighthouse effect right.
Her eyes widened as she narrowed in on the pulsar.
Voss: Ooo okay, yes, if we line up the signal with its magnetic pole at juuuuuust the right… got it!
Their subspace message bounced off the pulsar with new force from the beam of electromagnetic radiation and continued on its way to its final destination.
Lorana: Not a bad job.
Ysatch: Nailed it!
Voss: A clear shot to the finish line. And at 52,000 times the speed of light, the message should get there in… yeah, about 1.3 years. Not bad for ignoring the wormhole and relays! Maybe we can – ah!
She couldn’t help a little yelp of surprise as the holoprojectors suddenly shut down, the console went dark, and the lights above their heads gave a pathetic little shudder. There was half a moment of silence as the three each waited to see exactly what might happen next, but then Tori seemed to have an idea.
Ysatch: Oh! I think I know what this is!
Voss: ::with a slightly nervous laugh:: Broke the ship day one. That’s a personal record for me.
Lorana: ?
Tori immediately dropped to his knees and crawled under the console to pop open a maintenance panel.
Ysatch: ::muffled from under the console:: When you have a ship that's overpowered like the Aurora, sometimes the systems overdraw power when at rest and trip a safety shutdown. We did a case study on the Defiant class at the Academy, it had a lot of similar problems at launch.
Lyra knelt down next to him so she could see what he was doing.
Voss: So it just needs a manual reset? I’ll have to see if Alok or A’Mayri have a free moment to install another regulator to help mitigate that for the future.
Lorana: ?
Tori slid the configuration card back in and hit the reset button, which seemed to do the trick. An easy enough solution, but Lyra pulled out her PADD and quickly submitted a low-priority maintenance request. When they stood back up, Tori got a bit of a faraway look in his eye.
Ysatch: I've actually been wondering about this. An advanced ship like the Aurora, with engines so powerful ... what kind of missions does Starfleet have in mind for us?
Lyra rested a hand on the console.
Voss: Yeah… I wonder. She’s almost a science vessel - I mean, the lab specs are amazing for a ship this size! But with those engines and sensors and hull plating...
Lorana: ?
Voss: ::with a growing grin:: I like that. Hopefully we’ll really get to do some exploring. With a science lab we don’t have to bolt down a few times per trip.
She couldn’t help thinking of their mobile lab on the MFT during the last mission. They’d just barely gotten everything in place before Mi’sh was dodging asteroids and flinging them all around, and then they had to beam equipment into Kiro’s lab, which meant it all had to be bolted back down again for the return trip.
Ysatch/Lorana: ?
Voss: It’s funny… I always envisioned being stationed on a starship, but when we went to 118 for our final practical… I mean… *fifty decks* of science labs? I fell in love. Getting to live on the base, but still having a chance to take off in an incredible, brand new ship? This has to be the best of both worlds, right?
And sure, the events of the last twelve or so hours had given her quite the pair of rose-colored glasses for the world, but it was hard to deny how exciting this moment was and how lucky she felt to be there.
Ysatch/Lorana: ?
Voss: Well! ::looking at Tori and Luxa with a bright smile:: What should we check out next?
Ysatch/Lorana: ?