Spectre's readiness

Almost an hour had passed since the briefing Summers had held with the Senior Staff, he was sitting in his ready room just meditating and thinking about the near future that could and possibly will change the face of the galaxy forever, when he was interrupted by the ops officer on the bridge, "Captain incoming message"

"Put it through in here Ensign thank you"

"Aye Sir"

"To all ships; a situation has arisen. The Artemis and the Alsea are sent out immediately to intercept a Romulan dreadnought on course towards our position. USS Lotus, USS Specter; hasten your preparations. If the Klingon's fancy to do the same, we need to find out real quick and be ready. USS McKenzie; we don't need to have the Horizon Children capitalize on this situation... move out as soon as you can."

Summers felt his heart sink to his toes just as it always did before a battle especially one as large as this one. He immediately opened a channel to the ship "Attention all senior staff please report to my ready room immediately Summers out"

Daniel sat and hoped that the Klingon's were farther away to give the Specter the time it needed to get its final preparations finished and checked before launch, he also hoped the Lotus was ready as well.

Daniel walked out onto the bridge "Ensign open a channel to the Lotus immediately"

"Aye Sir, channel open"

"USS Lotus this is the Specter please respond" as Summers awaited a response he sat in his command chair looking intently at the view screen.

The reply was almost instant. *Gould here Spectre, we just monitored that last transmission as well and are preparing to exit station at the time, hows your situation captain?*

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David entered the bridge and found Captain Summers at his center seat engaged in conversation with someone on comms. Slightly surprised, but none the less resolute, Rogers crossed behind the tactical station and went to his own seat beside Summers' chair, handing his PADD to the captain before sitting down.

Rogers PADD contained the complete synopsis of the ship's readiness, from a completed level one diagnostic to the load out of the forty Kenada fighters in the Spectre's huge flight bay. Each fighter had a full load for their micro torpedo launchers along with a pair of mark twenty-five photon torpedoes mounted out board. Also listed was the fact that all ten workpods and the six shuttle pods had been swapped out to the star base and replaced with another six fighters, similarly loaded as the ship's squadrons. This left the four Danube's and two of each of the type six and seven shuttle pods. Other items of note were the readiness of the down-loaded LaForge Program and the full availability of reserve power for the metaphasic shields and DYCEP armor for the Spectre.

In short, the Spectre was ready to launch.

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Sparks fell around the engineering team as the finished installing the last structural support of the first backup reactor. O'Conner stood back and watched with a smile. "Commander O'Conner to the bridge. On my way sir."

O'Conner then turned to Kurt Eriksen. "Kurt while I am on the bridge I need you keep me update on the process."

"Of Course sir." The young engineering officer replied as Lieutenant Noor and majority alpha shift continued their fierce work the reactor.

As O'Conner left the cargobay he tapped his commbadge. "Commander O'Conner to Lieutenant Corrett. How goes the refits?"

"My boys have retrofitted 5 fighters with a third reactor and upgraded to metaphasic shields. They should fly like a dream through the Horizon. Oh and call me Rikki, bossman. " The sassy female officer replied. "

Grinning O'Conner replied. "Keep up the good work Rikki."

Minutes later, upon entering the bridge O'Conner when to his station and pulled up Kurt's latest report. "Sir, the first of the fusion reactors is up and running."

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"Well Captain Gould, as you can see by all the reports I am getting we are just as ready as we can be, our fighters will need to be finished along the way, but that shouldn't take too long I hope" Summers responded to the Lotus Captain as he glanced at O'Conner as he mentioned the last part of his statement hoping for a similar report from his Chief Engineer or at least some type of time frame

"In the meantime Captain, if there is anything we can do for you please do not hesitate to ask" Summers responded with a smile on his face

*Good to know Captain Summers* Gould replied. * My ship will take sentry position on one side of the station, I recommend you do the same, it will double our detection and response time to any attacks conducted under cloak. In the mean time I'm going to see if I can get any more detail on our situation, it just doesn't 'feel' right to me.*

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O'Conner paused a moment to do quick calculations. Taking in account the shorted and smaller shifts requested by the XO and not taking engineers away from key duties or the main reactor installs he figured he could get another 25 out. Alpha should be able finish off another 5 before going off shift, then hopefully the other shifts could possible get 5 each and perhaps another 5 from Rikki before the Klingons showed up.

Going by the engineer standard of under promising and over deliver, O'Conner replied. "Sir, I can get you 25 Kaneda ready to fight in and around the subspace tears, by the time we arrive at the Horizon."