Post by Captain_Quintus on Jul 20, 2017 0:55:33 GMT
"Reconnaissance of Gorn Cruiser"
The bridge was dead silent; save for the hiss of Atton's breathing, which could only be heard inside his own Enviro Suit. The ship continued its uncontrolled spin at a steady rate, providing usable gravity for the away team, even if it wasn't easy on the stomach for anyone who looked out a window. In what he presumed was the captain's chair was a dead Gorn. The young Ensign had never seen one in the flesh before, and even the holodeck training in the Academy didn't do the creature justice. Massive and powerful, the chair was so large to accommodate him that sitting in it would've made Jetrel look like a child. His...that was presumptuous...It's face was contorted, baring large fangs in what he could only guess was a death grimace as it took it's last breath of fleeting air. He glanced around at the rest of the bridge, which wasn't in much better condition. Several bodies were strewn about, and nearly all the consoles had been completely blown out, the only light being provided by an extremely faint emergency light in the center of the ceiling, and his only suit mounted headlights.
There wasn't much he could do at the moment; Ensign Roakos was currently trying to find the computer core, while Ensign Thorton was attempting to restore some power to the ship. He couldn't say he had an overabundance of confidence in Travis's abilities. He'd never worked with the Ensign before, and there wasn't exactly a standard Starfleet manual for repairing alien technology. He would've liked to search the ship extensively with his entire team, but Cunningham had messaged him that the Aquarius was ordered to re-deploy as soon as her engines were repaired. It forced him to split up his team on a ship that wasn't 100% safe, there was always the possibility that some sections hadn't decompressed, and there might be giant lizards crawling around. All he could do was order constant comm checks and hope for the best. After a bit the bridge lights slowly came on, along with several consoles. One quickly shot sparks and died; though the rest stayed activated, though none looked very stable.
Thorton's voice shot into his ear through the comm. "I have secondary power online. Not enough for shields, weapons, or engines...but most of the ship's operating systems should be online now."
"Good. I want you to search engineering for anything worthy of note. If not, try and do a run through of the ship. I want to know where our weapons did the most damage, incase we run into them again."
"Understood, Thorton out."
The bridge was now lit enough for him to see without the suit lights that glared in the sides of his vision. For a couple minutes he just walked around the bridge, trying to make sense of the alien language and figure out what did what. The captain's chair didn't seem to have any sort of access controls on it; it was simply a slab of metal in the middle of the bridge. Not exactly comfortable, but it had faired far better then the plush leather of Quintus's chair. Instead, Atton moved to what looked like Helm. He pulled out a utility padd, designed for computer interface and diagnostics. Nothing on the console looked like it could interface, leaving him little in the way of options. He drew his phaser, and made sure it was set as low as it could go. Very slowly, Atton began to literally melt away the side of the console, exposing the inner circuitry, along with singeing the floor...and on an accidental slip of the wrist, completely frying the main view screen. His task complete, he began to sift through the wires and circuit boards, searching for something to connect to. Gorn and Federation technology were decidedly not similar, but most races followed the basic laws of computing, it was just a matter of finding the equivalent.
He connected the padd to a port and activated it, praying for the best. After several seconds, the universal translator completed its work and he had a mostly accurate translation for what buttons did what on the console. He did some calculating before pressing the desired button, causing the ship's spin to increase slightly and stabilize, and producing near Earth norm gravity levels. The movement thrusters identified, he began to sift through operational logs on the console. Most importantly, he wanted to know where this ship had been, and where it was going next. Navigational data was useless at best. To Atton's expectations, most of the data was wiped clean. Probably immediately prior to their attack on the Aquarius, incase this exact sort of thing happened. Starfleet ships had redundant computer cores, and all sorts of fail-safes to ensure accurate record keeping, but civilian ships, especially pirates like these liked to keep their whereabouts secret.
He exited out of the logs, deciding that if anyone would find anything useful out of them, it would be Roakos down in the computer core. Instead, he brought up the ship's schematics, and determined where his next point of interest lay.
--
Atton was now in the forward "nose" section of the ship, where the massive cluster torpedo launcher lay. He purposely saved this for last, quite sure that if he'd checked it out first he'd be there until the end of the time limit. He was right. This was the kind of thing he prayed to see since the Academy, and now he didn't even know where to start. If the Aquarius's launchers were like rifles, slinging the torpedo along mag lines into space, this thing was a shotgun. From what he could tell, six small launchers resided in a circle around one large one.
He quickly flipped his headlights back on, and activated the camera on his helmet.
"This is Ensign Jetrel, mission feed. Onboard disabled Gorn encountered in battle on Stardate 10812.08. I'm in the forward section of the ship, where the "cluster torpedo", for a lack of a better word resides. Hull visuals and internal schematics would suggest that this was once the forward docking port, one of those forward nose ports that a lot of civilian ships have."
He waved his tricorder around the launcher, while walking around, recording everyone nook and cranny on the device.
"Initial scans...inconclusive. The tricorder is unable to determine the alloy the launcher is composed of, though it appears super dense." Atton panned the camera around to show the entire device once again. "Damage in the room is extensive, and the power grid feeding the device is completely blown out. From the internal damage, and the condition of the bodies in the room, I'd guess that the explosion killed everyone in the room but the launcher remains completely intact. Whatever it's made of, it's tough."
He looked around the room, showing the death and destruction all around him before moving into a side room attached. "Ah, here it is. There doesn't appear to be any type of loading mechanism for the launcher. Given the number of bodies, and the launchers configuration it looks like the torpedoes have to be manually loaded each time to fire, though, with the Gorn's heightened strength hauling a torpedo wouldn't be that difficult." He pointed to the torpedoes secured to the wall. "As I suspected there are two different types of torpedoes, the large ones, for the center spot in the launcher appear to be comparable size to standard Federation torpedoes, while the smaller ones appear about half to two-thirds regular size."
They didn't look like average torpedoes though. Silver in color, they added an odd sort of beauty to the otherwise lacking room. Atton walked up to one of the large ones, providing an up close look on the mission feed. "Scanning now. We wont be able to determine the complete composition, and more importantly, yield until we get one back to Aquarius for a proper analysis...hold one."
He checked his tricorder scans again in disbelief. "Scans...scans show that the outer casing is comprised of platinum. Platinum is much denser then the materials Starfleet uses for their ordinances. In theory...with a denser torpedo casing the explosion within the device would be contained for moment longer, causing the energy back onto itself, increasing the yield. If these torpedoes function on the same Matter-Antimatter detonation that Federation torpedoes do, this device could easily be 30-50% more powerful then our torpedoes. Given the damage to Aquarius in the battle, this seems a likely estimate."
"The smaller torpedoes are also comprised of platinum. Again, proper yield tests will have to wait until the armory crew can tear these things apart, but I think the picture has already been painted well enough."
He glanced down to the countdown his chronometer. "I have twenty minutes before rendezvous and beam out. I will be tagging all the large torpedoes and several small for dissection and analysis back on Aquarius. This video feed will be submitted with my report. Ensign Atton Jetrel, signing off."
The bridge was dead silent; save for the hiss of Atton's breathing, which could only be heard inside his own Enviro Suit. The ship continued its uncontrolled spin at a steady rate, providing usable gravity for the away team, even if it wasn't easy on the stomach for anyone who looked out a window. In what he presumed was the captain's chair was a dead Gorn. The young Ensign had never seen one in the flesh before, and even the holodeck training in the Academy didn't do the creature justice. Massive and powerful, the chair was so large to accommodate him that sitting in it would've made Jetrel look like a child. His...that was presumptuous...It's face was contorted, baring large fangs in what he could only guess was a death grimace as it took it's last breath of fleeting air. He glanced around at the rest of the bridge, which wasn't in much better condition. Several bodies were strewn about, and nearly all the consoles had been completely blown out, the only light being provided by an extremely faint emergency light in the center of the ceiling, and his only suit mounted headlights.
There wasn't much he could do at the moment; Ensign Roakos was currently trying to find the computer core, while Ensign Thorton was attempting to restore some power to the ship. He couldn't say he had an overabundance of confidence in Travis's abilities. He'd never worked with the Ensign before, and there wasn't exactly a standard Starfleet manual for repairing alien technology. He would've liked to search the ship extensively with his entire team, but Cunningham had messaged him that the Aquarius was ordered to re-deploy as soon as her engines were repaired. It forced him to split up his team on a ship that wasn't 100% safe, there was always the possibility that some sections hadn't decompressed, and there might be giant lizards crawling around. All he could do was order constant comm checks and hope for the best. After a bit the bridge lights slowly came on, along with several consoles. One quickly shot sparks and died; though the rest stayed activated, though none looked very stable.
Thorton's voice shot into his ear through the comm. "I have secondary power online. Not enough for shields, weapons, or engines...but most of the ship's operating systems should be online now."
"Good. I want you to search engineering for anything worthy of note. If not, try and do a run through of the ship. I want to know where our weapons did the most damage, incase we run into them again."
"Understood, Thorton out."
The bridge was now lit enough for him to see without the suit lights that glared in the sides of his vision. For a couple minutes he just walked around the bridge, trying to make sense of the alien language and figure out what did what. The captain's chair didn't seem to have any sort of access controls on it; it was simply a slab of metal in the middle of the bridge. Not exactly comfortable, but it had faired far better then the plush leather of Quintus's chair. Instead, Atton moved to what looked like Helm. He pulled out a utility padd, designed for computer interface and diagnostics. Nothing on the console looked like it could interface, leaving him little in the way of options. He drew his phaser, and made sure it was set as low as it could go. Very slowly, Atton began to literally melt away the side of the console, exposing the inner circuitry, along with singeing the floor...and on an accidental slip of the wrist, completely frying the main view screen. His task complete, he began to sift through the wires and circuit boards, searching for something to connect to. Gorn and Federation technology were decidedly not similar, but most races followed the basic laws of computing, it was just a matter of finding the equivalent.
He connected the padd to a port and activated it, praying for the best. After several seconds, the universal translator completed its work and he had a mostly accurate translation for what buttons did what on the console. He did some calculating before pressing the desired button, causing the ship's spin to increase slightly and stabilize, and producing near Earth norm gravity levels. The movement thrusters identified, he began to sift through operational logs on the console. Most importantly, he wanted to know where this ship had been, and where it was going next. Navigational data was useless at best. To Atton's expectations, most of the data was wiped clean. Probably immediately prior to their attack on the Aquarius, incase this exact sort of thing happened. Starfleet ships had redundant computer cores, and all sorts of fail-safes to ensure accurate record keeping, but civilian ships, especially pirates like these liked to keep their whereabouts secret.
He exited out of the logs, deciding that if anyone would find anything useful out of them, it would be Roakos down in the computer core. Instead, he brought up the ship's schematics, and determined where his next point of interest lay.
--
Atton was now in the forward "nose" section of the ship, where the massive cluster torpedo launcher lay. He purposely saved this for last, quite sure that if he'd checked it out first he'd be there until the end of the time limit. He was right. This was the kind of thing he prayed to see since the Academy, and now he didn't even know where to start. If the Aquarius's launchers were like rifles, slinging the torpedo along mag lines into space, this thing was a shotgun. From what he could tell, six small launchers resided in a circle around one large one.
He quickly flipped his headlights back on, and activated the camera on his helmet.
"This is Ensign Jetrel, mission feed. Onboard disabled Gorn encountered in battle on Stardate 10812.08. I'm in the forward section of the ship, where the "cluster torpedo", for a lack of a better word resides. Hull visuals and internal schematics would suggest that this was once the forward docking port, one of those forward nose ports that a lot of civilian ships have."
He waved his tricorder around the launcher, while walking around, recording everyone nook and cranny on the device.
"Initial scans...inconclusive. The tricorder is unable to determine the alloy the launcher is composed of, though it appears super dense." Atton panned the camera around to show the entire device once again. "Damage in the room is extensive, and the power grid feeding the device is completely blown out. From the internal damage, and the condition of the bodies in the room, I'd guess that the explosion killed everyone in the room but the launcher remains completely intact. Whatever it's made of, it's tough."
He looked around the room, showing the death and destruction all around him before moving into a side room attached. "Ah, here it is. There doesn't appear to be any type of loading mechanism for the launcher. Given the number of bodies, and the launchers configuration it looks like the torpedoes have to be manually loaded each time to fire, though, with the Gorn's heightened strength hauling a torpedo wouldn't be that difficult." He pointed to the torpedoes secured to the wall. "As I suspected there are two different types of torpedoes, the large ones, for the center spot in the launcher appear to be comparable size to standard Federation torpedoes, while the smaller ones appear about half to two-thirds regular size."
They didn't look like average torpedoes though. Silver in color, they added an odd sort of beauty to the otherwise lacking room. Atton walked up to one of the large ones, providing an up close look on the mission feed. "Scanning now. We wont be able to determine the complete composition, and more importantly, yield until we get one back to Aquarius for a proper analysis...hold one."
He checked his tricorder scans again in disbelief. "Scans...scans show that the outer casing is comprised of platinum. Platinum is much denser then the materials Starfleet uses for their ordinances. In theory...with a denser torpedo casing the explosion within the device would be contained for moment longer, causing the energy back onto itself, increasing the yield. If these torpedoes function on the same Matter-Antimatter detonation that Federation torpedoes do, this device could easily be 30-50% more powerful then our torpedoes. Given the damage to Aquarius in the battle, this seems a likely estimate."
"The smaller torpedoes are also comprised of platinum. Again, proper yield tests will have to wait until the armory crew can tear these things apart, but I think the picture has already been painted well enough."
He glanced down to the countdown his chronometer. "I have twenty minutes before rendezvous and beam out. I will be tagging all the large torpedoes and several small for dissection and analysis back on Aquarius. This video feed will be submitted with my report. Ensign Atton Jetrel, signing off."