Commander Dal - Funnel
Jamie LeBlanc
((Meeting Room 27, USS Narendra))
Ishreth Dal had been triple checking the marine roster and the bomb squads. He had picked the best support staff possible. The people who had the least ego, the best track records of working together quickly and efficiently, the ones who were unsung heroes – ready to put their heads down and work without causing drama.
In so many ways he was relieved to have been ordered on the Narendra and not to the bridge of the Rahuba. He knew that technically the Rahuba was being kept in dock because it was considered a target for Terra Prime and Admiral Hauke didn’t want to risk an exacerbated altercation with the volatile group. And it made sense.
But moreover, he wasn’t ready to sit back in that chair and have that weight on his shoulders. Worse, if ordered he would say yes. He would do what he needed to do. And he would continue stacking guilt and blame upon himself if – or when – anything went wrong. He was only starting to process the trauma of the first Terra Prime mission, sifting through the past and finding some answers. Some, but not all.
He was more comfortable leaning on Sal Taybrim’s command and following orders. Evacuation was one of his comfort zones. Something where he didn’t second guess every leadership decision he made.
He entered the meeting room with a quiet, reserved expression.
Dal: Doctor Trovek, Doctor Bailey. ::He greeted politely.::
Bailey: What you got? ::Straight and to the point::
Trovek: The way I see it, we have several difficulties, and not all of them are purely technical. One of my main concerns right now is how to avoid a lockdown and still be able to differentiate between operations-critical crew and passengers.
Dal: The Belladonna does have a comprehensive listing of crew and passengers. One of the benefits of being a chartered Federation vessel. But, of course, that doesn’t perfectly account for off duty crew who panic and want to evacuate with the passengers.
Fear was a very strong and very understandable element in an evacuation. And this wasn’t Starfleet. None of the crew on the Belladonna were soldiers. This was a relationship between employer and employee and nothing about a terrorist bomb threat was in their job description.
Bailey: What about issuing the crew to go on lock down in their quarters? It may make isolating them for transport easier.
Trovek: The problem with a lockdown in their own quarters is that we will be less likely to be able to get this over with quickly. Small batches, quarter by quarter, would take far too long. The other issue is that we assume there are still Terra Prime members on the Belladonna. A lockdown might alert them, and they might detonate the bomb prematurely.
Dal: And at present they have not been told about the threat. That information needs to be presented carefully to prevent pandemonium. The more chaos there is with the passengers, the more likely something goes wrong.
Bailey: We may have to make that sacrifice.
Trovek: I would rather not sacrifice anyone.
Ishreth slowly drew in a breath, looking between the two.
Dal: We will not sacrifice anyone. I would rather use anesthetic gas or a large scale stun to render the entire 23,500 souls onboard unconscious and carry them to the transporters than to risk premature detonation.
He was quite adamant that they needed to plan a strategy that did not allow for sacrifice. He had already had enough of watching people die by Terra Prime. He had no tolerance for more.
Bailey: Okay maybe we don’t have to sacrifice anyone.
Dal: While some of the possibility of escalation is out of our hands because we cannot control what the saboteur does – I will remind you that they way we approach the problem equally affects our chances of success.
He said that with confidence. Confidence that was slowly returning. Confidence that was still fragile – after all he approached the fight with Osben intelligently, choosing strong tactics that were defensive and played to the Rahuba’s strengths. And everything had gone well… until Osben had pulled out a weapon that no one had any intelligence on and could not have possibly predicted.
Still, the Rahuba did survive. The fact that they had a casualty list that was still burned into his mind hurt. But that list was also short enough to burn into his mind. The majority of the crew survived. In the small bright moments where he gave himself credit, he understood that the survival of the ship and the majority of the crew were due to those smart, careful tactics and an initial approach that valued defense and positive outcomes.
Bailey: What about grouping people into a few central locations and beaming them out that way? It may scatter the Terra Prime members so they don’t all get beamed up at once. What is the capacity of our transporters?
Dal: We can do a simultaneous emergency transport up to 36 people at one time. If we shunt all available transporter power away from the main bays and into the two emergency sickbay transporters which are safer for quick transportation of sentient biological species, we could have two available landing platforms and initiate a transport of 36 every ninety seconds. On a two landing cycle that would give each group two and a half minutes to clear the transportation area, which is a tight turn around.
He was already doing the mental calculations. It was unlikely that they would be able to run the cycles at maximum speed with only two landing areas, but it would far safer to use only the two focused emergency transport systems rather than the regular transporters or the cargo transporters for a large scale evacuation.
Bailey: Alright. We are going to have to consider critical groups of people as well. ::in an embarrassed whisper:: Though you already knew that naturally.
Trovek: Actually I hadn't - who do you mean with critical? I was thinking that we need crew on board to keep the Belladonna functional, is there something I am missing?
Dal: The Belladonna will need crew onboard – but not many, especially as we start the evacuation. I would consider it a priority transportation list.
Bailey: It’s your call.
Trovek: My first impulse is to say that it's not possible, but looking at it, what I really mean is 'it's more work'. I don't think the famous 'women and children first' qualifies here, but I am open to suggestions.
He considered this with his background and started to think about the process logically and mechanically.
Dal: If you want the evacuation to proceed as quickly as possible we will need to group the passengers by mobility capability. Remember – the safest way is to use the sickbay emergency transporters. This means we have two transporters, two major drop off locations and a cycle of 90 second or more. That means the faster the evacuees can disembark from the transport area, the faster we can evacuate another group.
Bailey: Response
He tipped his antennae to one side in a ‘no’ sort of gesture.
Dal: It adds variables, increasing the risk and decreasing the safety margin to switch the destination coordinates. We’ll have enough problems keeping a steady connection with the Belladonna within her warp bubble without trying to reprogram the transport every cycle. It is preferable to keep the transport locations the same and move the people in and out of them.
Trovek: How many vessels will we have available, what capacities are we looking at?
Dal: We have two. The Narendra and the Prophecy. The Narendra can take 10,000, the Prophecy is a Galaxy class and can take 15,000.
Bailey: Response
Trovek: Medically, unless there is an issue adding to what we already have, I think we'd be most concerned about panic after passengers have been beamed to other vessels.
Dal: Commodore Taybrim indicated that he would like a team to join the Prophecy, to work with them on the evacuation. I believe that is where my orders will take me.
Bailey: Response
Trovek: Well, that, and transporter issues. The Belladonna is massive, we're looking at 25,000 people, transported in batches.
Dal: Again, with the issues of getting a ship into the Belladonna’s warp bubble – we can’t have both vessels in transporter range of the Belladonna at the same time. In fact, the Narendra, while smaller, is built for better maneuverability. It was initially a warship, and made to move around in difficult conflicts. The Prophecy was built for long-range exploration, and it can endure longer durations at warp – but it steers like a proverbial tank. Knowing this, it is best to plan on keeping the Narendra within the warp bubble and having the Narendra being the only vessel transporting evacuees out. And then transferring evacuees from the Narendra to the Prophecy.
Bailey/Trovek: Response
Dal: That is true. It is a matter of negotiating risk. Getting inside the Belladonna’s warp bubble is risky. But the Narendra has a far greater chance of doing so successfully than the Prophecy. My recommendation is to lower the amount of warp bubble approaches to the bare minimum. As a support ship, the Narendra has extra short term evacuation capacity. My recommendation is that we stretch the Narendra to its limit on the first evacuation and pull 15,000 passengers off, then leave the warp bubble, rendezvous with the Prophecy, beam those 15,000 over, and then return alongside the Belladonna to remove the remaining passengers and crew.
Was that the only solution? No.
Was it the best solution?
He didn’t know. But it was his working theory.
Bailey/Trovek: Response
Dal: Captain Sef is an experienced command officer, and from what I understand he’s ready to follow our plan. I don’t think there will be any resistance from the Prophecy. But as Doctor Trovek noted, there may be resistance from the passengers.
Bailey/Trovek: Response
Dal: We’ll want to prepare the landing area for evacuees and make sure it is as easily accessible and the evacuation route out of the area is open without any bottlenecks. We need to funnel a large amount of people out of the entry port quickly.
Bailey/Trovek: Response
~*~
tags/tbc
~*~
Commander Ishreth Dal
Marine Liaison Officer
~Julian Beck
E239010ST0