RP: SNV Gam'trosha [Prologue] The Gathering, and Launch?

Erm'olai's ears went flat and back as he viewed the interior of the panel. Sure, it wasn't as bad as what was outside it. However, Erm'olai could already identify quite a few things he didn't like about how the interior was organized.

Who would just use tape to secure wiring!? Why not proper ties or even a clip to the interior of the panel!? Growling a bit, the perfectionist decided he would have to go through all of the work done to his precious systems.

However, for now, he needed to get this working. After all, he'd rather not die due to having an inoperable mainframe. First, it was connecting that thrice damned power transfer box properly! That was as simple as bolting it into place and making sure the connections were all aligned and secure. The wiring could be done later (when there wasn't an emergency) and even then, the Midnight-furred Laibe would probably have to shutdown the power to the area to work on EVERYTHING.

With that secured, it placed the panel back on and poperly secured it as well. He didn't bother warning anyone this time around since he knew where the breaker was. So instead, he pulled off the panel for D-18 and activated the systems around him.

Bridge

Def'leor was doing her best to maneuver the ship as best she could to avoid traffic. As she did so she was constantly checking the engines, and thinking of what kind of trajectory she would make should they decide to give out as suddenly as the main computer had.

Conduit

The systems around Erm'olai gradually began to come online, a few struggled for a moment but fell in line. He would hear the 'hum' of the power relay behind the panel he had just closed coming online.

Beneath the circuit breaker were a long series of cables that ran into the wall, these had the words 'data transfer' atop that could be seen through the transperent panel, they were black when Erm'olai came in, but now shone a light bluish color after he had flipped the switch.

More hums could be heard now, all Erm'olai would have to do is go to the Mainframe and bring it back online.

Bridge

The warning display on Def'leor's console disappeared, activated by Sa'kira as she read the text message sent to her. It was a message indicating that the squadron had tried to contact their ship, but got no response and instead sent a text message.

A worrisome smile appeared on the edge of Sa'kira's face. "Seem's no one is sure what it is we are being scrambled for, there is speculation from some shipmasters that it's terrorist raiders, other's seem to think it's a pirate. While one shipmaster is insistant that it's nothing," she sighed and shook her head. Talk about miscommunications, why hasn't command stepped in to straighten things out? Is everyone at HQ's on a coffee break or something?

"Until the mainframe comes online, we can't patch into the sensor probes and investigate ourselves." She looked ahead on the display to see how Def'leor was flying and got up from her chair and walked up behind him. "C'bar, slow the ship down a bit, so that we don't get ahead of the pack. Once the mainframe comes online, commense a wide-area scan of the space ahead of us and try and get in-touch with the defense forces flagship. It 'should' be the NSV-Laious."

She continued to stand there, hoping that this was just a false scramble order that someone initiated or that it was just a terrorist or pirate ship.

Finally, something was working at least a portion of how it properly should. Policing all of the tools in the area, which weighed down his belt quite a bit, Erm'olai scrambled down the maintenance conduit and back to the mainframe room. There wasn't enough time to put the tools away in their proper place (let along find a new place for all of the misplaced tools), so the midnight-furred Laibe settled for keeping them in his belt until he could properly bring the mainframe online.

Speaking of the mainframe, Erm'olai settled in front of the formerly non-functional device and began to power it up. This time however, he was going to carefully nurse it until he reached proper functionality.

Mainframe

The mainframe slowly came back online, lights flickering on and the hum of the computers gradually increasing. At first, only the bottom row of the mainframe came to life, red lights appearing that quickly shifted to orange and then to green, before pulsating in and out to indicate activity. The row above that soon came to life, and the rows above it as well.

Things went smoothly, though a few error windows appeared warning Erm'olai that there were currently faults the mainframe's memory and main cores, how they were caused was unknown though.

Engineering

With the mainframe coming online, Keri would notice the additional systems that relied on it starting to come online as well.

"Well let's hope it won't blow up in our faces Shipmistress," Shar responded and moved away from the crate. Tite'Yanus was already gone, which was good thing. It was nice to seem him not lingering around when he could be doing something important. Shar headed for engineering with smile and her scanner at the ready.

Gam'trosha Engineering Bay

Keri'cruen frowned softly -- what Xeui was saying did not entirely add up. The Neshaten military didn't promote its members right after basic training without cause -- though she at least seemed sincere in her confusion as to the cause, so the young engineer ceased his prodding down that particular line of questioning -- for the time being at least. He softly shook his head softly as his features regained his trademark, sunny smile. As the ship broke even farther away from the planet's surface, gravity in the Engineering Bay began to decrease.

"Regardless... it's good to see you. I hope after this present 'adventure' we're about to embark on we'll have the time to catch up properly -- its been a while since I've seen you." Keri added warmly. His attention briefly turned from their conversation as Ermo'lai got the ships mainframe back online.

"The main computers back up -- look's like Ro'sario did it. Restoring primary systems to full functionality." The engineer opened a communications channel to the Gam'trosha's bridge. "U'Cet -- this is Se'verem down in the Engineering Bay. It appears that Ro'sario has gotten the mainframe back online. We'll have the rest of the ships systems up and running in short order."

Drifting slightly beside the engineering terminal in Zero-G, Keri'cruen began activating the ships long-range sensors and comms, inertial dampeners, and other systems which up to that point were unable to operate.

While the Kit in Engineering was reporting the Mainframe as Online, Erm'olai was fuming over how sub-par the system was running. Faults in the memory and the cores!? That was sheer BLASPHEMY in the Laibes book. Maybe he should write one and demand the engineering academies accept it as a textbook, since the current courses seemed to be using books written by incompetents!

Diagnostics were in order and a quantum computer could easily run a full diagnostic program in the background while supporting the vessel's systems. Diagnostics were what Erm'olai pulled up and executed. Setting the system up to warn him on when the diagnostics were done (as well as to warn him if anything should go wrong), the midnight-furred Laibe began to occupy himself by organizing the tools back into the kit to be stored back in its proper place.

Bridge

While Sa'kira waited for Def'leor to perform the long range scans and contact the flagship, she occupied herself with checking the systems that were coming online. Things seemed good, at least in her own opinion, but what was really on her mind was wanting to know just why a brand new ship suffered such a failure as that shouldn't have happened.

She rubbed her chin for a moment before addressing the two engineers. "Bridge to Keri and Erm'olai C'bar, would you two please explain to me why our mainframe wasn't functioning properly?" she asked, her face appearing on two seperate holographic displays by the two crewmembers in question.

Gam'trosha Engineering Bay

Slightly uncomfortable under the shipmaster's waiting gaze, Keri'cruen was the first of the two engineers to respond to the U'Cetrinal's querying.

"Though I haven't physically seen the condition of the mainframe or the surroundings yet myself -- judging from what Ro'sario C'bar has said, it appears that one of the engineers assigned to work on that section during construction did a rather... haphazard... job. So far, there also doesn't appear to be any signs of deliberate sabotage that I can detect from here -- which isn't that surprising as if one was going to go about sabotaging a ship, you'd at least make the attempt to hide your dirty deeds from the ships diagnostic routines. To be certain, I'd expect we'll have to physically inspect all the ships critical systems for anything out of place... or any other shoddy work that might get us into trouble later on."

"Haphazard is an understatement," Erm'olai stated bluntly as he finally looked up from his work at putting tools away.

"Panels not properly put into place, tools strewn about the maintenance conduit, loose power transfer box, wiring taped in place rather than fasteners...." the Software Engineer seemed to drone on in a more droll tone, though his ears being pulled back spoke volumes of his emotional state.

"And to top it all off, there are still faults in both mainframe memory and cores that I have to diagnose and repair. Quite frankly Sah, whoever was assigned to this section while in dock was an incompetent and a disgrace. Even in an emergency situation, an Engineer should calmly make sure to secure his equipment and his systems. He should not shove things into place like a farm hand." that last bit had some definite emphasis in tone.

Def'leor eased off the speed of the ship. It made sense, until they had all systems slower was safer.

"Ma'am looks like the mainframe is recovering, I am going to attempt to link to the net but I am keep an eye on the manual monitors."

Bridge

Sa'kira nodded at Def's statement. "It shouldn't take long for the network to recover, hopefully," she looked up at the viewscreen, "we'll get a better picture of what's out there. Also, with the mainframe up, the ACI system should be online now so you can get a better view of the area around us," she said.

She thought about what Erm'olai said, it didn't impress her that an Engineer assigned to this ship before they took command of it had done a rather sloppy job, and worse yet a job that could've gotten them killed before they even had a chance to do anything. "I would like you two to look through the maintenance logs, find out who was put in charge of servicing the Mainframe along with any other areas that you had to fix in order to get the mainframe back online," she didn't say this in an authoritive tone, but rather more of a suggestive one despite her want and desire to get a name. "Also, if any of the logs require an officers authorization, which they probably will, just send the request to the bridge and I'll authorize it." Right now, she was more concerned with figuring out 'who' had nearly got them killed.

With that worry now out of the way, she sent a status request to her marines, requesting how the search through the ship was going.

Outside

Outside of the ship, Levia's defense forces had started to spread apart a bit, giving everyone some breathing room. Someone had apparently taken command of the disorganized force, fighters that had originally been going nose to nose with the starships now broke off into seperate groups escorting each and every starship in the area.

In the midst of the reorganization, the fleets flagship, the NSV-Laious was attempting to contact the Gam'trosha.

Deck Two

As Tite'Yanus concluded a sweep of Deck Two, he compiled a report on a nearby terminal which he then transferred to his Data Crystal. The second deck seemed a lot tidier than the first, but he still felt that there were a few areas that required additional scanning. Satisfied, he set off to find Shar.

Shar was quite surprised as she walked in to Engineering and suddenly her feet left the ground. Apparently some wiseass turned gravity off. She reached out with her hand and caught closest thing she could to steady herself. It was not her first time, but she was no 0G swimmer. Also sudden change of gravity made her stomach rumble. She had to force herself to not throw up. She sighed and wished she could have a smoke.

As she started scanning the engineering she moved forward checking machines and computers, doing her best to not be in a way of engineers. She also kept eye on any strange behaviour. Then she received request of status report.

"C'Baruce Lu'Man here. I am in middle of scanner sweep of main engineering. I did not find anything or anyone suspicious so far. Only that crate in cargo hold. I can hurry up but then you need to decide if you want this to be done right or if you want it to be done fast." She wrote up and sent up. She had not time for something like this. Whoever was screwing up with a ship might be using this time of confusion and sabotage to put bomb somewhere.

Bridge

Def relaxed some seeing as more of the sensors were coming on line and giving her stable data. She adjusted her speed and angled toward a area of low traffic.

She noticed a flashing light on her display. "Ma'am incoming transmission from the NSV-Laious. Putting it on speakers."

Def entered the commands and opened a channel to the command ship.

"NSV-Laious, this is Vail'ant C'Baruce of the Gam'trosha. Hailing frequencies open, our Ship mistress is standing by." she called out on the radio.

Engineering

Quin looked up from her terminal, curiously thinking about something as Shar entered. "Something wrong C'bar?" she asked before a holographic warning display appeared beside her and Keri.

She flipped through the systems and found the issue. "Keri-C'bar, we have a malfunctioning containment unit, unsure which one," she looked at the reactor questioningly for a moment before continuing. "We have eight in here, four on top," she pointed upward at the ceiling, "and four on the bottom," she pointed toward the base of the reactor. "I'll inspect the top, you inspect the bottom, try and figure out which containment unit is malfunctioning," she said in an orderly fashion. Glad this place is Zero-G, makes checking these units far easier.

Bridge

"Get it done right please," responded Sa'kira to Shar's message. Then quickly looked at the other report from Tite she got and gave a nod.

With a slight shake of the head, mostly because of the problems they were having, she sat there for a moment to think on what the flagship wanted.

The forward viewscreen snapped and a picture of a My'leke Shipmaster appeared. ~"This is Shipmaster J'Yura Jyu'na of the NSV-Laious, Gam'trosha what happened? You appeared on our sensors as an unknown vessel.~" she started but then shook her head. ~"Nevermind, you includ it in your report later. We've got a problem, we are blind to whatever is headed out way. Sensor Outpost 21 was supposed to relay information on the unknown, but we lost contact with the outpost fifteen minutes ago."~

"Do we know what the object is and how far out it is, J'Yura?" asked Sa'kira curiously.

The My'leke thought for a moment then said. ~"Considering we lost an outpost, there's a strong concensus it's a pirate or a terrorist ship trying to make a run at the planet, as for how far out, we can't be certain but last estimates show it's about fifteen to twenty minutes out~"

Sa'kira mulled this over for a moment, then asked. "What's the plan Shipmaster?"

~"One the ship is in range, open fire and-"~ the My'leke stopped when one of her officers got her attention. She looked at the officer and talked with the person for a moment then looked back at the screen. ~"Ok that's not what we were expecting it to be..~"

On the viewscreen, the image of the My'leke flickered off, then the screen changed to show an image from another ship located in the far distance, it showed a white object with trailing white particles behind it. "C'bar, please tell me that is not what I think it is....?" asked Sa'kira, her normally calm voice had the hint of worry in it. Whatever the object was, they wouldn't know more until it was scanned.

Few beeps and scans and Engineering was clear. There was no explosives in the place. It was to be expected sine Engineering was one of the most secure places of the ship. Shar shook her head and headed for Mainframe, which was next on the list. She flew in and saw lonely Laibe, she met in the restaurant at a work station. Work station in mainframe. One station that could pretty much control whole ship. Then she reminded herself that most of the trouble was set and done before they even boarded the ship and at the time she was with him.

"Hi," she said as she flew in. "Hey I got to check this place too. Is it safe to use the scanner? I would hate to fry any of the computers." She said and waved her hand-held scanner at him.

"Understood, Sah," Erm'olai replied to the Shipmaster before the channel was switched. The investigation would have to be later though, since he wanted to figure out the faults before --- the thought was cut off with the visit of the Marine from the meeting.

"You do what you have to do." he replied before pausing a moment. "The scanner should not affect any mainframe systems, so it should be fine." the midnight-furred Laibe continued before closing up the tool kit and replacing it back in its lockbox.

From there, it was back to his station to check on the diagnosis program's progress. It would be a few more minutes until he got anything definite, so he decided to check the mainframes storage architecture to see if there had been any faults in critical areas of data storage.

Shar proceeded with screening, looking for any volatile compounds with her scanner, but also using her eyes. She a little sorry that her smell was so bad, because she knew some explosives leaves certain scents. As she moved through the area she also looked at Laibe working in the mainframe. She did not get to talk with him much in restaurant before, but he seemed like your normal arrogant Laibe. But looking at him now, he at least seemed like capable person.

"Say," she said trying to start a conversation while she was scanning. "You can do a lot things with the ship from here can't you? I wonder does it keeps traces who was logged here before you? Also any chance it could tell you who was on the ship before we boarded and what he did and where? If all the troubles are not because of clumsiness, but because of sabotage we need to hurry up and find who did it."