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Stephanie stepped out of the observation lounge after the meeting had been completed and the officers dismissed. She stopped by the lift and was approached by Commander Rodgers as she waited for the doors to open.

“Commander, do you think I could borrow a few people from your team to help modify the probes?” she asked pointedly.

 "Ah .. uhm, ... sure Lieutenant. Contact Lieutenant Andrews and tell him what you need. I am sure we can find you the people you need"

She tapped her combadge and spoke as she stepped onto the turbolift heading down to her office. “Deck 8, Decatur to Danglars.” She said calmly.

Lieutenant Danglars, Assistant Chief Science Officer, was sitting in the officers lounge on deck 4, half way through his morning meal. He wasn’t scheduled until Beta shift. “Yes, Ma’am.” He responded.

“We need to have a briefing in my office, who’s on duty right now from Astrometrics and Stellar Cartography?”

“I believe Ensign Morcef is leading astrometrics this shift…and Mondego is on duty as well.”

“Great, have them meet us in my office in ten minutes.” She said as she tapped her PADD, still making notes and ideas on how to proceed with the Captain’s orders. As soon as the channel went dead she tapped her badge again, “Decatur to T’mur, I need you in my office in ten minutes.”

“Of course, Lieutenant.” Came her Vulcan friend’s curt reply.

A moment later Stephanie stepped off the lift onto Deck 8 and began walking to her office, her head down, tapping away notes into her PADD. She almost bumped into a security crewman and hastily excused herself.

She entered her office and sighed as she looked her office over, wondering why they had granted the science department such a large office. Then again on a ship this size, she figured, they could afford the space. The desk near the far wall was built into the left wall with enough space between it and the back wall so that she could sit behind it and her chair would be able to turn to allow her to either sit or stand working on the computer panels behind her desk against the far wall. She also had a built-in computer interface at her desk, two in-fact so she could multi-task. She was grateful for that. Along the left wall, about 1.7 meters from the desk was a long couch, that spanned the length of the room. The bench of the couch was broken up by a foot-wide arm-rest. There were three sections of couch, each about 3 meters long. Each of the sections were designed to fold out into two beds should emergency space be required.

Opposite that wall, there was a single three meter-long couch built into the walls facing the opposite direction. There was enough room between that couch and the desk built against the same wall to fit two chairs so the CSO could have a small meeting with just one or two officers in comfort if the need arose. Stephanie took a seat behind her desk and began plugging the numbers from her equation to outfit the probes with nanites. It was one way to deal with the telemetry degradation, and she knew that it would be the easiest for T’mur and the engineering team.

T’mur was the first in the office, not two minutes after she arrived. No sooner had the Vulcan greeted her than Lieutenant Danglars entered, “Good Morning, Ma’am.” He said as he walked to her desk.

Stephanie nodded and gestured to the seats in front of her desk for the two of them to have a seat. Both officers complied, and looked at each other curiously, wondering what was going on. T’mur was the first to speak up as both Ensigns Morcef and Mondego entered. “Lieutenant, why did you wish to see us?”

Stephanie looked up to see all four officers looking at her. She jumped right into the problem for them to solve. “The Captain has tasked us with coming up with a way to gather data on distant locations simultaneously using long-range probes.” She began, “We need to calculate trajectory for the probes with spacing at the final point so we don’t miss anything as well as trajectory for some relay-probes to ensure signal clarity with how far out we’re sending them.”

T’mur again was the first to speak, being comfortable already with her department lead, “An reconnaissance mission utilizing probes….interesting, and what does he want us to find?” She asked.

“Anything,” Stephanie said, “Everything. We need to upgrade the probes sensor palates to give us full spectrum as close as we can to the Phoenix’s own telemetry. I have a feeling he wants to use this more than once, so let’s plan on doubling up our work and modifying more than we need.”

“What kind of distances are we talking about, Ma’am?” Danglars asked, knowing the challenge they were being presented with.

“The maximum range at warp 8 for a Class IX probe is 39.256 light years, and that would take 14 days. I think realistically, with what we have to work with, we can stretch our pattern to 20 light-years and still be able to retrieve the probes. More than that just isn’t possible, unless we want to forfeit the probes…” Stephanie said, “The 20 light-year range gives us a seven  day search pattern as opposed to more than a month letting the ship do the same search pattern on it’s own. Let’s give the old man options, calculate for both 20 Light Years and Maximum Range. I also want figures on both options at conical Ninety degrees, One-hundred eighty degrees, Two-hundred seventy degrees, and of course, a full three-hundred-sixty degree sphere. Remember the probes have to be spaced to provide complete detailed telemetry coverage on long-range scans. And just for as an added option, let’s calculate how far we could get them at warp 7. It will take longer, but we should be able to push the maximum range to close to 70 Light Years though it will take much longer.”

“At those ranges, the Captain should have the option of using Class VIII probes for the relays…. and still retrieve them with relative ease….unless he wants us to fire and forget…in which case we’re going to go through probes quickly.” Ensign Morcef said with her musical French accent.

“If we team up with engineering and equip all the probes with enhanced subspace transceivers and nanite upgrades we can maintain manual control of the probes and ensure a nearly perfect telemetry link.” T’mur added, already thinking about the logistics required.

Stephanie looked to Danglars who nodded, “It’s doable, ma’am.” He said doing some quick estimation in his head, “We can reasonably space them out about twenty four light-years apart, though the delay in telemetry is going to be about an hour between scans at the probes location…probably another few minutes for the transmission and relay back to us…Still, we should be able to pick everything up clearly enough that we’ll know what’s out there.”

Staphanie looked to the only officer who had not offered an opinion, Ensign Jordan Mondego, who had been watching the shorter Chief Science Officer for the entire time. “Well?” Stephanie asked directly after a moment.

“Why hasn’t anyone thought about using the shuttles as launch-platforms?” Jordan responded, her arms folding across her chest, as if annoyed to have to think of it herself, “At maximum warp for our 6 type 11 shuttles, We can add range at 1 light-year per day the Captain is willing to wait.” She said, contributing finally.

Stephanie nodded and smiled as if she had an inspiration. “Jordan, what about piggy-backing two class IX probes?” She said excitedly, “We can literally double the range if we modify one to carry the actual scanning probe to the half-way point of 20 light-years and still retrieve them from the full 40 light-years. And it will still only take 14 days per scan.”

“That’s a stupid idea, Ma’am.” Jordan replied curtly, The other officers turned to give her a look of disbelief, T’mur’s eyebrow arched, as if she was wondering what the fellow ensign was thinking during the outburst. Jordan merely sighed, “The change in mass and shape would mean the first probe couldn’t sustain a warp-field, and even if we modified it, the change would cause it to burn through anti-matter much faster.” She said as if it were simply impossible. “Other than that the plan is flawless.” She added sarcastically. Stephanie for a moment looked as though she didn’t know what to say…she hadn’t met Jordan before, and wasn’t how to react to her lack of tact.

After a moments silence Eugenie spoke up, “We could see if engineering can lend us a warp-field specialist to recalculate the warp field and a fabrication engineer to help us modify the carrier probe. If we strip it and modify the anti-matter chambers on the carriers we can probably get close to the original range, and still use them for relays.” Stephanie gave him an extremely grateful look as he helped her save face by not leaving the silence lingering. She found herself dreading the journey with an officer like Jordan to deal with. T’mur simply nodded her consent, “Mathematically it is possible, Lieutenant.” Stephanie knew that this was the Vulcan’s way of telling her that now would be the logical place to give an order.

“All-right.” She said, straightening her jacket at the hem. “I have to finish inspecting our science labs, “Ensign Danglars, you’re leading the team. I want a report by 10:45.” She stepped away to leave her office as he responded, “Aye, Ma’am.”

As the doors slid shut behind her, Jordan shook her head and spoke her mind, “Why would anyone make her an officer?” She asked the others. “She’s got no confidence.”

Danglars had opened his mouth to rebuke her but Julie spoke up first, her French accent adding to the irritation in her words, “You certainly helped her with that, didn’t you?” The looker she was giving Jordan exactly what she thought of her actions.

“What do you-“ Jordan began, shrugging but she was cut off by Eugenie.

“Enough. She’s your superior officer, and mine. She gave an order, Now get to it. T’mur, run the calculations for placement of the probes in a 90 degree cone and in a 180 degree half-circle. Julie, get it done for the 270 and I’ll take the full sphere. You know the ranges from point of origin, 20, 35, 40, and 70, 80, and 140 light years. Full coverage and relays at 20 every light-years for maximum signal gain….Mondego, you’re going to get down to engineering at see if the Chief can give us some personnel to modify probes and if we can borrow a warp-field specialist.” He checked the time, “We’ve got just over one hour, let’s not waste it.”

*             *             *

Stephanie stepped onto the bridge at exactly 11:02, only a few short hours after the senior staff briefing had adjourned. She had in her hand her science PADD. The PADD was connected to her CSO office terminal and the corresponding terminal in her quarters. The set-up allowed her to have triplicate backups of all data independently and continuously synched to each set of files. When she edited or modified something or received a report on one system, the other two were automatically updated. Her own mini-cloud if you will.

She crossed the bridge briskly, nodding briefly to the officer in command as she made her way to the door of the Captain’s ready room. She tapped the wall-console beside the door causing the audio-speakers inside the captain’s office to chime, alerting him to the presence of someone asking permission to enter.

Hearing the chiming of the Ready Room door, Captain Syntron noted the time and then announced "Enter" with a deep resonating voice.

After the word was given and the door slid open, the diminutive trill Lieutenant entered the room briskly and began to ramble nervously, “I’m sorry I’m late, Captain.” She said as she tapped the PADD electronically delivering her report to him as she began speaking. “Sir, my formal report is available for your review. However, my recommendation depends on the specifics of your plan. Is the assumption that your goal is to pre-screen the surrounding space ahead before warping—or engaging the QSD blindly?” She asked, being intelligent, she was almost certain that she was correct…after all, it’s a logical course of action, and one that any scientist would want: Information was always key.

Leaning forward, the captain engaged his computer terminal and retrieved the CSO's report as she mentioned it. He perused through it promptly before he looked up and responded.

"Our intent is two-fold Lieutenant. To pre-screen to this uncharted region for security purposes as you indicated, but also to test out the level of effectiveness of our enhanced sensors coupled with your nanites. We will be using probes to extend the range of these sensors and our readings. The quantum slipstream drive, is a separate project that currently is not yet ready for even initial implementation. The teams are still resolving issues indicated through a series of simulations and developing solutions to these obstacles. So it will be the warp drive that will get us closer to our destination and the probes that will be entering into this region first."  

“Sir, I think we’ve come up with a plan that will maximize the search radius without causing undue delays.” She said having to exhale the air that was building up in her lungs and take another breath as she rambled on. “We should be able to modify some class 9 probes to function as relays and strip them of everything except the transponder and control circuitry, adding space for more anti-matter fuel to extend their range. This first set of probes won’t be carrying even a standard sensor pallet, but engineering has assured me we can modify their warp-field to enable them to carry another class-9 probe out to their maximum retrievable range. We’d stop these relay probes and they would then launch the second scout probes. We can again modify these probes with some extended fuel by taking everything out but the sensor platform and telemetry guidance system. The first ‘carrier’ probes should be able to relay the information gathered from the scout probes and enable us to remain in remote control of all of the devices. If you’ll excuse the human expression: This ‘piggyback’ system effectively doubles the retrievable range using a class 9 probe without sacrificing additional time or resources. It will take them between 15 and 20 days to reach maximum range, depending on how much extra anti-matter we can actually get onboard, and another 15-20 days for recovery if we’re stationary. We can of course cut retrieval time down to about five days by utilizing the Phoenix’s warp engines.”

She paused and took another breath, but before he could speak she had to get something off her chest: “Captain, I cannot in good conscience recommend a fire-and-forget system with this. Class 9 probes house advanced warp technology. If one of them fell into the hands of a non-warp-capable society….the potential damage to the culture and evolution of that society….” Her voice trailed off, “Sir, I cannot accept such a violation of the Prime Directive and the moral foundation of the Federation.”

With a slight nod the captain replied "I concur with your recommendation and your rationale Lieutenant.  In addition, logistics would dictate that we would not capriciously squander a collection of probes unnecessarily. Begin preparations for these probe modifications, and consult our COO for any additional recourses or personnel required. We want these probes completed and available as soon as possible."

Syntron then looked at the CSO and inquired "Are you using nanites to enhance the performance or efficiency of these probes in any capacity Lieutenant?"  

“Not currently, Sir. To save time the initial set up will be void of nanites; I plan on having T’mur work on another set of nanites to enhance the probes as soon as we’ve ensured the networks of nanites we’ve already installed on the Phoenix is running at peak efficiency.” She said as quickly as she could ramble out. She wasn’t sure if he would be upset that they were leaving efficiency on the table, but she knew that he wouldn’t want to wait the month or more it would take to even begin the process, and the several months it would likely take to perfect the development of a system of nanites for the probes.

 "Logical" the Vulcan captain responded. "Proceed as planned Lieutenant, and keep me updated on your team's progress."

"Aye, Captain." She said, taking a breath and a look crossed her face as if she was debating about saying something. After a moment she simply turned and left the room as quickly as she had entered. She wasn't sure how to bring up the problem of Ensign Mondego in her department...but was sure that the captain would want her to handle the situation herself at this point, it certainly wasn't to a point of needing to involve the first officer or captain, at least not yet.