Mission 4:Oh it's you, again
May 27, 2006 16:17:17 GMT
Post by singh on May 27, 2006 16:17:17 GMT
Singh walked back down to engineering after the briefing and explained what had been decided. It raised a few eyebrows amongst the engineers. 'During testing, have there been any unexpected results due to the slipstream drive?' Singh asked 'I've not seen any mention of any ones recently and since you've been here longer, I wondered if anyone else had seen them but forgot to report them.'
'Not at all, Mr Singh' came the reply from one lieutenant. Singh recognised him as the power systems specialist, but he didn't know the staff well enough to be able to recall names right now. Something with a 'z' in it, he remembered... Jozovskis, that was it.
'Then why does the pilot think it doesn't work?'
'No idea. Last time we went into spacedock, Elron only turned it off to avoid people finding out. He seems confident enough with it.'
'Hm, odd...' Singh mused
'What was the rest of engineering's job...?' Jozovskis prompted
'Oh yes, he wants to mask the shields dropping by using a barrage of antimatter mines.' singh explained
'But that's a waste of antimatter, it's not exactly easy to generate. Anyway, it's a totally different reading, even Mike could tell the difference.' Jozovskis said loudly, facing partially at the core maintenance specialist to say it.
'HAR HAR' came the sarcastic reply.
Singh interrupted the friendly rivalry. 'Either way, it's not going to work. I need the shield man to disconnect the bridge interface to shields. When the mines are fired, disconnect the projector from the generator. The shield energy readings should remain the same but the shields will drop. To be on the safe side, Stan, I want you to boost the navigational deflectors to near breaking point. The sensors might pick up our shields are doing something odd, but they won't show exactly what. I'll ping you when the shields need to go up again.'
'Why don't we just tell him?' someone asked, who Singh suspected was the shields specialist.
'We're the engineers, they're the bridge. I've spent a long time doing engineering and I know when it comes down to it, the engineer isn't credited, only the designer or architect who had the first idea. So let them have their 15 minutes, but make sure the engineers know and are ready when they want to try it again. We will know what we have done and that should be enough for us.'
With that slighty bleak but accurate testimony to engineers, Singh made his way to the bridge. When up there, he sat at his console and quickly reprogrammed one of the buttons to send a comm badge chime to the shields man and Jozovskis.
'Fire the spread. Lower our shields'
Bip-beep, went the badges. The shields dropped whilst the navigational ones overpowered.
'Reraise the shields Ensign'
Wrong ensign, Singh thought and pressed the buttons again
Bip-beep, and the shields were back.
Well done, engineering, Singh thought. No wonder Elron was so proud of the Tulip and why it had been chosen to test the slipstream. With an engineering team like this, little could go wrong. They had even refitted the primary systems with various failsafes and backups which other ships simply didn't have. Otherwise, it wouldn't have been possible to reconnect the shields so easily, but the system had been put in so the various parts could be replaced quickly and whilst in combat. All it appeared that Singh needed to do was to tell them what was needed. They seemed far too competant to need any more management than that.
Then came the news that Goodspeed and Johnson had been injured. Singh had rather expected that several of the pilots would come back injured or not at all. They were taking on dedicated fighters in transport craft. They were braver than Singh was to have even tried that, it was just as well the hostile pilots appeared to be badly trained due to how many they lost. He could see that Saberwyn was saddened by the news, but they hadn't died and so there was still hope. Singh wondered if Saberwyn was the type to remember hope or not...
'Not at all, Mr Singh' came the reply from one lieutenant. Singh recognised him as the power systems specialist, but he didn't know the staff well enough to be able to recall names right now. Something with a 'z' in it, he remembered... Jozovskis, that was it.
'Then why does the pilot think it doesn't work?'
'No idea. Last time we went into spacedock, Elron only turned it off to avoid people finding out. He seems confident enough with it.'
'Hm, odd...' Singh mused
'What was the rest of engineering's job...?' Jozovskis prompted
'Oh yes, he wants to mask the shields dropping by using a barrage of antimatter mines.' singh explained
'But that's a waste of antimatter, it's not exactly easy to generate. Anyway, it's a totally different reading, even Mike could tell the difference.' Jozovskis said loudly, facing partially at the core maintenance specialist to say it.
'HAR HAR' came the sarcastic reply.
Singh interrupted the friendly rivalry. 'Either way, it's not going to work. I need the shield man to disconnect the bridge interface to shields. When the mines are fired, disconnect the projector from the generator. The shield energy readings should remain the same but the shields will drop. To be on the safe side, Stan, I want you to boost the navigational deflectors to near breaking point. The sensors might pick up our shields are doing something odd, but they won't show exactly what. I'll ping you when the shields need to go up again.'
'Why don't we just tell him?' someone asked, who Singh suspected was the shields specialist.
'We're the engineers, they're the bridge. I've spent a long time doing engineering and I know when it comes down to it, the engineer isn't credited, only the designer or architect who had the first idea. So let them have their 15 minutes, but make sure the engineers know and are ready when they want to try it again. We will know what we have done and that should be enough for us.'
With that slighty bleak but accurate testimony to engineers, Singh made his way to the bridge. When up there, he sat at his console and quickly reprogrammed one of the buttons to send a comm badge chime to the shields man and Jozovskis.
'Fire the spread. Lower our shields'
Bip-beep, went the badges. The shields dropped whilst the navigational ones overpowered.
'Reraise the shields Ensign'
Wrong ensign, Singh thought and pressed the buttons again
Bip-beep, and the shields were back.
Well done, engineering, Singh thought. No wonder Elron was so proud of the Tulip and why it had been chosen to test the slipstream. With an engineering team like this, little could go wrong. They had even refitted the primary systems with various failsafes and backups which other ships simply didn't have. Otherwise, it wouldn't have been possible to reconnect the shields so easily, but the system had been put in so the various parts could be replaced quickly and whilst in combat. All it appeared that Singh needed to do was to tell them what was needed. They seemed far too competant to need any more management than that.
Then came the news that Goodspeed and Johnson had been injured. Singh had rather expected that several of the pilots would come back injured or not at all. They were taking on dedicated fighters in transport craft. They were braver than Singh was to have even tried that, it was just as well the hostile pilots appeared to be badly trained due to how many they lost. He could see that Saberwyn was saddened by the news, but they hadn't died and so there was still hope. Singh wondered if Saberwyn was the type to remember hope or not...