Making Plans

Posted on Sat May 21st, 2022 @ 5:05pm by Executive Officer Jake Ford & Chief Engineer Michael Burnstein & Chief Operations Kendra McIntyre & Chief Helmsman Kalahaeia t'Leiya & Nollel Livaam (*)

Mission: Mission 15: Adrift
Location: Formal Centre
Timeline: MD 03 17:00
2320 words - 4.6 OF Standard Post Measure

Nollel frowned as she looked around the formal centre and for a moment was lost in her own thoughts of dreaming of wearing that fancy dress they had found and swanning around the place when it had been something more than a huge dust gather. It would be 100% better than the boiler suit she had on and her hair tied up out of the way. She was pretty sure she looked horrible having only just woken up from her the massive session of organising supplies over the last 48 hours.

Where was everyone? Jake had said 17:00 and yet there she was and no one had arrived yet for the catch-up.

"Sorry I'm a little late," Burnie said as he rushed in. "I wanted to check in on Liha monitoring the shuttle, make sure she wasn't running on just pure Romulan stubborn." He paused and looked around, surprised at Nollel being the only one there. Not that being alone with her was ever a bad thing. "Wow, place to ourselves." He smiled. "How do you manage to look so good in a boiler suit?"

Nollel grinned at surprised look on his face. It was the same look she had, had moments before when she had found herself alone. “You need your eyes checked Michael.” She laughed and held out a hand to him. “Fancy a dance?”

"My eyes are just fine," he said, taking her hand and pulling her into a dance hold. "Might as well take advantage while we can, eh?"

Nollel grinned and decided against answering him back and allowed him to spin her around for a moment before noise distracted her. She looked over to see everyone else arriving but she did not pull back from Michael.

"Are we interrupting?" Jake asked from the doorway, arriving with the rest of the cohort of expected guests. He motioned over his shoulder at Kali and Kendra with a grin. "Not that I'm spoiled for choice when it comes to dance partners myself."

“Completely but I am sure that does not stop you.” Nollel answered smiling at everyone. “Interesting space to pick though Jake.” It was a lot warmer than the cargo hold. Maybe she could move sleeping by there.

An almost two century old ship required almost constant supply of quick remedies held together by warm wishes and luck. Kendra was very familiar with what could be considered original equipment and she was getting better every day with the current tech. She had been caught up in a repair project on a leaky water pump. She was afraid to admit it out loud, but the technician on the set of tutorials that were accessible through her PaDD was extremely helpful. However, she lost track of time almost missed the meeting in her rush to make herself presentable. As she walked through the door, Kendra gave a friendly smile and found herself checking out the surroundings.

“Ah, so this is where we're hiding all the heat!" Kali, in a thinsulate-lined black and silver leather jacket more normally worn in the chillier Freecloud weather, rubbed her hands together; while this space wasn't exactly her preferred indoor temperature either, it was at least a definite step up.

“Seems to be.l though I would have thought the observation lounge was warm to sleep in.” Nollel said with a small smirk. The lounge was one of the smaller compartments compared to the cargo deck.

"Anything can be warm enough to sleep in with the right blankets." Kali gave a hint to the reasoning behind the truly impressive number and fluffiness of the blankets and comforters she'd dragged down there. "It's when you're awake you have to give more thought to it. Trust me when I say it's slowly been getting colder in the cargo bay today."

“Definitely something we need to consider as people need sleep and cold spaces do not allow that for most of the crew.” Nollel reminded with a frown. If only they had, had more time to gather stuff to accommodate.

"Definitely. Life support feels like it's been slowly getting less and less effective all day. Burnie - any thoughts on that?" Jake asked.

"Given current power levels, you can have heat or some margin on oxygen to get us through this." Burnie shrugged. "Personally, I'm fond of breathing so I prioritized that."

"I'll refrain from comment on the grounds that I'd be one of the last people to pass out from oxygen deprivation and one of the first ones to freeze to death." Kali said drolly and shrugged, ending her teasing comment to Burnie with a more serious one. "I grew up in Boston. I know how to handle myself in the cold if I have the right gear, which I do. But I'd be careful with Cassie and Liha, if they don't and if we keep bleeding heat." She paused for a moment in thought. "Beya too. Orions aren't great in the cold either."

"We could move you all here for extra warmth," Burnie replied slowly. "...of course, I'm not sure that's less risky than the cold. Liha and Cassie get along fine, but Beya isn't Divash and...well, have you and Liha actually stopped suspecting each other of nefarious stuff yet?"

Kali rolled her eyes. "Dude. The two of us have barely met, OK? A little caution about each other is normal." And an area where an outside observer would have noted Kali seemed to 'code switch' quite well between Earth and Romulan rules; extending her trust more quickly to some of her new human shipmates like Jake (and Burnie himself, but he barely counted as 'new' since they'd served together in the past) than she did to another of her own kind.

Ignoring the little tete-a-tete growing there, Jake interrupted. "Is there anything we can do to insulate the deck plating? I know we'll need the navigational deflector to be running through the storm, and that's going to take away power that could be going to life support. If we need to put people in EV suits, how many do we have?"

Nollel winced at the back and forth between Michael and Kali and looked to Jake at his question about EV suits. She actually knew that question from where she had counted them as part of stores. "Not enough for everyone. But we could send people out to get more if they do not mind moving through the ship in the pitch black."

"Couple of flashlights or headlamps if we have some; rig up a tricorder or two to do some voice directions; I wouldn't see why we couldn't send anyone, dark or not. Or if we have anyone from any species that see well in the dark." A couple of old colleagues from various felinoid species came to Kali's mind; this would have been a pretty convenient situation to have any of them around in. "As for deck plating...Maybe? Probably not? There are some heat-reflective sealants built into some newer ships that could be applied even to an existing one, but I doubt we have any of them in the stores, and we may not have the lead time to apply them in time even if we did."

Burnie had been thinking over the problem, only half registering Kali's input though he put grabbing more EV suits on his list for a next foray for supplies. "There's the insulation we use around plasma conduits. I wouldn't want to strip any of that, but there is some spare material in storage. I could grab a couple people and get it, and more EV suits. And any thing else to add to the list if we're making a run?"

"We could circulate extra water through the traveled area," Kendra offered. It would not do much, but circulating water from the ship's water tanks into the area would offer a bit of a temperature buffer that at least would not be freezing.

Nollel nodded trying to not think of him going out there. She sat down on the deck and crossed her legs looking up at them all. “Where is it stored?” Nollel said bringing up a map of the ship.

"Most of it in engineering, but there are few caches near some other critical junctures around the ship," Burnie explained, sitting down next to her to point out the locations on the map. "I could grab some phasers and extra power packs too. Heating a mass of metal with a phaser can make a nice warm hearth-substitute for an hour or so."

"We'll need to double-check deflector control while we're at it; even on low power, we need to make sure we don't get stripped to ribbons by the ion storm," Jake said. "Cold would be the least of our problems if that went down at the wrong moment."

Nollel made a note on the PADD map of where they could double check the deflector array. “My theory is mark on map where we need to go. Plan the route so it’s easier in the dark.” She explained thinking on who they would need to go.

"I can take deflector control team, then," Jake nodded. "If you send an engineer with me?"

"Sure. Actually, I'll go with you," Burnie said after thinking it over a moment. The other engineer with the most know-how on the deflector was Liha and sending her with Jake seemed ...suboptimal. "We'll just need some others for the rest of it."

“So who can go?” Nollel asked not able to pin down who would have the right skills for that type of mission.

"I guess I should lead it since I know where everything is," Burnie sighed. He'd been looking forward to a bit of down time after all the work to get the ship rigged to survive this, but needs must... "I'll need help transporting it all, and ideally someone who can help with checking the deflector and making any adjustments if necessary."

"Can K-9 climb the ladders between decks?" Kali mused. "Bet he could carry a decent amount of stuff if you could secure it somehow."

"Not very well." Burnie admitted almost sheepishly to the design flaw. "Though he's good with Jeffries tubes. I could use him to retrieve the EV suits and the phasers. But rolls of insulation would be tough to push through and it would be too tight to carry them strapped to K-9's back that way. He can help once we have them back here, but better having people wrangle it up to this deck."

“Definitely worth using people over K9 when he isn’t needed and can be of use else where.” Nollel said protectively.

“He might be useful to guide people though as there is no direct route so will need to split up to get stuff we need.” Nollel finally said looking at the map she had up, there was no direct route to allow it to be done in one go.

"Agreed. For light, and support finding things," Jake agreed. "Is there anything else we're missing? I suspect we'll be feeling the front edge of the storm by tomorrow evening."

"True. It might be best to break up into several teams instead trying to do one long run," Burnie said, eying Nollel's map. "IF I'm checking the deflector with you, Jea can get the insulation with whoever she wants to grab for that. Someone can take K-9 to gather EV suits and if I recall there was an electric hearth of some kind in the grotto. Probably wouldn't hurt to see if hydroponics has any other edibles to harvest."

"I can go with Jea to gather some insulation," Kendra offered. Being the operations chief aboard the vessel meant that she had more experience with the wiring that most. At the least, it would hopefully keep someone from getting a rather fatal shock.

"I'll do...whatever." Kali flexed one arm with a halfhearted grin, offering herself up mostly as a pack mule since she'd rather leave the engineering tasks to those with better experience, if possible.

"So Jeassaho and Kendra go for the insulation with some help, Michael and Jake go check the deflector... Kalahaeia and... I think the only person that knows the what and where is Cassie for the Grotto and check the bridge?" Nollel asked making note of the teams so people knew the who and the what.

"Sure." Kali shrugged, eyebrows and shoudlers wiggling up and down in unison.

“Kendra can take some people from security and operations. And gather more supplies.” Nollel promoted.

"All right," Jake nodded in agreement. "Seems we have the makings of a plan. Nollel will circulate a shortlist of priority items; if you find something that might keep us alive a few days longer, then see what you can do." He looked around the group. They were looking to him for leadership, and to make the final decisions. "Rosie's still our home, and we want to make sure both she and her crew are still in one piece when he gets back. Let's make sure they are." He crossed his arms. "Anyone with any final questions?"

"Not a question but I know some gatherings are happening. People need to be careful what they drink and get some rest for this to happen in the morning." Nollel prompted already knowing she was not going to be going as she wanted to monitor things to make sure everything succeeded. Maybe she was becoming the sensible one after all.

"Agreed. Let's keep morale up, but not be stupid. Besides, if they're drinking alcohol it's going to make them colder. And we could do without that when temperatures drop," Jake agreed.

“You guys all go to it though. I’ll monitor things.” Nollel promoted standing up from the floor with the PADD.