YE/D05 & 06 - Science Labs

[Paul]

==

[Riley Wright]

== Post-Mission ==

== Ensign T'Varen - NRC ==

Ensign T’Varen arrived at the Yeager’s science labs with quiet precision. The doors parted as she approached and sealed again behind her with a muted hiss.

The compartment was compact and purpose-built: workstations laid out for efficiency, equipment strapped down for shipboard motion, displays streaming diagnostic ribbons and sensor summaries in steady, unemotional lines.

Vulcan—unmistakably, at a glance. The restrained geometry of her features. The controlled neutrality of her expression. Ears tapering to a disciplined point—neither exaggerated nor softened for human comfort. Her dark hair was practical, pulled back and secured with nothing loose enough to catch on cabling or instrumentation. Nothing ornamental. Nothing accidental. Even stillness, in her case, had purpose.

She wore the sciences division uniform as regulations intended—pressed, precise, unadorned. Yet there were tells that didn’t belong to the lab.

She moved like someone who respected blind angles.

Not theatrics. Not paranoia. Habit—subtle and ingrained. She paused at the threshold just long enough to register exits, lanes of movement, the placement of bodies and equipment, then committed deeper into the room without ever obstructing an active station. It was the kind of awareness that came from a primary track that hadn’t started in research.

As she stepped in, a smaller deviation surfaced.

Midshipman Riley Wright hadn’t appeared in the corridor, nor at any junction T’Varen had passed. The last assignment record she’d reviewed placed Wright here. Under normal circumstances, a greeting would have been… probable.

She filed it away without allowing it to touch her expression.

Deviation from expectation noted. Cause undetermined.

Lieutenant Commander Arwen Qi was easy to identify as the senior presence. Not by volume or performance—by the way the room subtly arranged itself around his workstation. He occupied the primary console at a slight angle to the displays, posture balanced in the particular way of someone long accustomed to cramped workspaces: comfortable, not careless.

Trill—unmistakably. Dark brown spots traced along the sides of his face and continued down his neck, briefly visible above the uniform collar when he shifted. And there were other markings too—ink rather than pigment—glimpses of tattooed script along his forearms when his sleeves rode back with movement. The sciences uniform was worn correctly and kept neat, but it read as working attire, not something curated for inspection.

T’Varen approached without cutting through anyone’s active lane and stopped at a respectful distance. Hands folded behind her back, spine straight without stiffness, gaze steady.

“Lieutenant Commander Qi,” she said, voice calm and precise. “Ensign T’Varen reporting as ordered.”

She let the silence stand—acknowledgement on his terms, not hers.

Then, with a smooth, minimal motion, she produced a PADD and extended it. The display had been arranged with clinical efficiency: transfer orders to the USS Yeager, current clearances, departmental acknowledgements, and a concise service history—most recently the USS Erebus, a small-crew posting where adaptability wasn’t optional.

Security qualifications sat prominently among the entries, flanked by secondary certifications that made her placement in a lab less anomalous than it might first appear.

T’Varen did not comment on any of it. She simply offered the documentation and waited, expression unchanged.

Authority acknowledged. Parameters pending.

“I am prepared to receive department orientation and begin any assigned priority,” she added. “If calibration work is pending, backlog triage is required, or there are irregularities needing initial review, I can start immediately at your direction.”

She fell silent again—attentive, composed, ready to move the instant she was tasked.

== Tag Qi ==

[Arwen Qi]

The Yeager’s Science Lab was impressive, but it wasn’t home yet. Qi had been spending too much time on the Bridge to properly leave his mark. On the Geronimo, the pile of PADDs on his desk had been infamous. He knew that some of the ensigns took bets about how many there would be at the start of each shift.

The mountain, as they’d come to call it, contained a variety of distinct biomes, which changed with each passing day. A novice hiker could get lost for days in post-war Gamma Quadrant poetry, never realizing that they’d made a wrong turn at sensor diagnostics. As chaotic as it had seemed, it wasn’t clutter. A clean desk was like a sheer cliff face looming stoically above his head — the scattered thoughts around his workspace gave him a trail of landmarks to follow.

Qi’s gaze swept over a report of spatial anomalies in the Wairara system. He nodded, planting a flag in that thought before returning to the task at hand. His workstation aboard the Yeager was more of a bluff than a mountain, though it still would have earned him a stern warning on most ships. Thankfully, he had some leeway in his own lab.

“Lieutenant Commander Qi, Ensign T’Varen reporting as ordered.”

An unfamiliar voice pulled his focus. He turned in his chair to greet it. She was Vulcan, somewhat severe. There was a certain elegance in her rigid posture. Qi didn’t detect any nerves at all. He rested his elbows on his desk, smiling warmly as she handed him a PADD.

Interesting background. More varied than most, he thought, skimming the document. His lips pressed together thoughtfully as he passed the security qualifications.

“Welcome aboard. Happy to have you.” Qi said, his voice soft and confident. He was in his element here. He placed the PADD between them gently, focusing on the person in front of him rather than the words on the screen.

“I am prepared to receive department orientation and begin any assigned priority,” she added. “If calibration work is pending, backlog triage is required, or there are irregularities needing initial review, I can start immediately at your direction.”

Qi smiled, his dark eyes glittering. He was glad to hear that his new assignee didn’t mind routine work — those tasks made their research possible — but he wouldn’t learn much about her based on how she formatted a data chip.

“I’m sure we’ll have plenty of that,” he replied, “but let’s start with something a little more exciting. We just collected a ton of data from the Wairara system: astrometric, biological, linguistic — take your pick. What field draws your interest?”

He shifted comfortably in his chair, studying her.

== Tag T’Varen ==

[Riley Wright]

== Ensign T'Varen ==

T’Varen did not respond immediately. The question was framed simply, yet preference implied personal inclination, and inclination was rarely operationally relevant. She evaluated before answering.

Her gaze remained steady on Lieutenant Commander Qi while her thoughts aligned in structured progression. Astrometric modeling offered defined parameters: gravimetric fluctuation curves, stellar drift projections, plasma displacement vectors. Biological analysis introduced broader tolerances. Linguistic interpretation required extrapolation from incomplete cultural context. Of the available options, astrometrics provided the cleanest foundation for hazard prediction.

“Astrometrics,” she said at last, voice even and measured. “Specifically, any irregularities within the system’s gravimetric harmonics or stellar drift patterns.”

Her posture remained aligned, hands folded behind her back.

“If the Wairara system generated significant data volume, a mass displacement or subspace distortion event is statistically probable. Structural instability would precede secondary biological or environmental disruption. Establishing drift deviation baselines would therefore provide the most reliable predictive model.”

Her eyes shifted briefly to the bluff of PADDs on his desk before returning to him. The stacks were uneven, layered without discernible indexing structure. Several leaned into one another at inefficient angles; others remained partially open, suspended between review and archival.

She assessed without haste.

Retrieval dependent on positional memory increases error probability over time.

Proximity suggested priority. Orientation suggested recency. The system relied on cognitive mapping rather than formal classification. While adequate under immediate recall conditions, it lacked redundancy safeguards. If interrupted, displaced, or replicated by another officer, integrity would degrade rapidly.

Scalability: limited. Transferability: minimal. Audit resilience: insufficient.

The method functioned. That was observable. Function alone, however, represented baseline competence—not optimization.

Efficiency without structure is temporary.

The critique did not surface in her expression. Cultural variation did not exempt a system from analysis. It simply contextualized it.

“My Security training favors environmental threat modeling,” she continued, tone unchanged. “Structural instability precedes cascading failures. I would begin by isolating sensor discrepancies requiring manual override confirmation. Automated filtering systems frequently suppress statistical outliers that later prove operationally significant.”

Her gaze remained steady.

“Once drift models are established, I can cross-reference biological or linguistic findings to determine correlative impact and risk projection. That sequencing reduces analytical contamination between datasets and preserves interpretive integrity.”

She inclined her head slightly—acknowledgment, not concession. Silence followed, deliberate and controlled, as she awaited directive parameters.

== Tag Qi ==

[Arwen Qi]

“My Security training favors environmental threat modeling. Structural instability precedes cascading failures.”

Qi followed the Vulcan’s gaze to his collection of PADDs. He nudged Romulan cryptography into a sturdier position underneath Navajo code talkers, preventing a small cascading failure of his own. He guessed that his system horrified her though, to her credit, she didn’t show it on her face.

“I would begin by isolating sensor discrepancies requiring manual override confirmation,” T’Varen continued. “Automated filtering systems frequently suppress statistical outliers that later prove operationally significant.”

His hand went automatically to the flag he’d just planted in spatial anomalies, then followed the trail down to sensor diagnostics. He handed the stack to T’Varen, along with a history of local star charts, for good measure.

“See how far you get with this. I’ll check in on your progress at the start of tomorrow’s shift,” Qi instructed. “Though I’ll caution you against reading too deeply into sensor discrepancies. Keep in mind that the ship is literally mashed together from spare parts. It works somehow, but it’s a miracle that both sides go to warp at the same time.”

He let the thought breathe for a moment, confident that he’d made his point. Any officer serving on the Yeager would need to be comfortable with some amount of mess.

“Can I ask, by the way,” He said, putting both elbows on the desk between them, “why the department change? Not just for my own curiosity, but so that I know what kind of work you’re interested in.”

== Tag! ==

[Arwen Qi]

== Mission timeline ==

<<<< Science Lab <<<<

Qi sighed as he shut the drawer to his desk. He’d done his best to tidy up, but he knew that the lab still wouldn’t pass a formal inspection. Starfleet regulations prioritized uniformity and order, with little care for how science was actually performed in the field.

Sometimes a little chaos is necessary, he mused. That gave him an idea.

“Computer, display a map of the area around Starbase 214. Highlight any nearby bodies that are larger than a class 3 probe.” Qi prompted, resting a palm on the tabletop holographic display. He had a plan to run by Jadaris when he arrived.

== GM Input: Are there any known bodies (asteroids/moons/space junk) that would be large enough to hide a probe behind? ==

[GM-01]

There were several bodies behind which a probe might be concealed. The diminutive size of a probe (roughly two meters long by half a meter wide and half a meter deep) meant that it took up an infinitesimal amount of space, when considered on a galactic scale.

The issue would be where to hide it where it could actually get a good look and be able to broadcast its finding without being detected. For that, there were a few options, but would require some extra fine-tuning of the probe's guidance systems to be effective.

The easiest option would be to set the probe's sensors to passive only, launch it through the system on a ballistic trajectory, and recover it at the other end.

[Jadaris]

Jadaris entered the science lab, making a detour to the geophysics lab to run a calculation, before heading over to where Qi was generating his simulation.

"Any luck Qi?"

Jadaris walked over to the simulation, looking at what Qi was doing.

"Were you running an asteroid composition simulation so we can baffle any active sensors with a sensor cloak, or something else?"

==tag Qi==

[Ris'maeriiffa Qab'ataar]

A steady baritone voice came over the comm.

[Midshipman Qab'ataar to Lieutenant Commander Qi. I'm on board, where would you like me to meet you, sir?]

== Tag Qi ==

[Arwen Qi]

Qi greeted Jadaris warmly. The towering Gorn seemed well-suited to the ship’s cavernous engineering bay. The lab, by comparison, seemed a bit like a child’s playhouse as he hunched through the doorway.

“I was hoping to find an asteroid that we can hitch a probe onto. That way, we can take advantage of any blind spots on the Cardassian side while collecting information about what’s happening on the other side of the blockade,” Qi explained, moving a seat to the side to make room for his colleague. “I think our best option is just to hurtle something through the system in passive mode and hope that they don’t notice. Unless you have a way to collect more data?”

[Midshipman Qab'ataar to Lieutenant Commander Qi. I'm on board, where would you like me to meet you, sir?]

Qi’s mouth opened. Was this really the best training mission for a new midshipman? Most cadets don’t dream of skirting up to the line of war.

Might as well get it out of the way now. Welcome to the Yeager, he thought with a sigh. He tapped his combadge.

“Welcome, Qab’ataar. Cdr Jadaris and I are running some simulations in the lab. Join us here once you’ve stowed your luggage.”

== Tag Jadaris/Qab’ataar ==

[Ris'maeriiffa Qab'ataar]

[Understood, sir.]

[Ris'maeriiffa Qab'ataar]

<< Crew Quarters <<

Ris entered at a calm pace as the doors opened in a susurrus of air. His eyes went a bit wide at seeing the large form of Commander Jidaris.

A Gorn!? In Starfleet!? I must have missed that memo! Usually rumors of that nature even reach the Academy. This is quite the surprise.

His antennae reacted on their own, going into "alert" mode, panning back and forth swiftly, and he was simply unprepared for such a surprise that his breath caught.

"Mid-Midshipman Qab'ataar reporting as directed, sir. Gear is stowed in my quarters."

[Arwen Qi]

Qi pulled his focus away from the computer terminal. For a moment, his eyes were blank, still lost in the problem at hand. He blinked away the maps and diagrams, eventually seeing the tall Andorian standing in the doorway. There was a look of hesitation or nervousness on the young crewman’s face. Qi couldn’t tell whether it was typical nerves, or an instinctive reaction to the sight of a hulking Gorn. Either way, Qi’s job was to put him at ease.

“Welcome aboard. You can call me Qi. This is our Chief Engineer, Jadaris,” Qi replied. He preferred not to use ranks in the lab. Hopefully, this new academy graduate would adapt quickly.

“We’ve been trying to hash out a bit of a problem,” Qi began, considering how much he wanted to reveal. This was a sensitive matter, but good science was about seeing the full picture. Candor won out. “The Cardassians are blockading a starbase. The details of why aren’t important. What is important is that we want to get a good look at their ships — and what’s happening on the starbase — without drawing too much attention to ourselves. Any thoughts?”

He let the holographic image of the starbase hang in the air, giving Qab’ataar a moment to think.

== Tag Jadaris/Ris ==

[Ris'maeriiffa Qab'ataar]

“Welcome aboard. You can call me Qi. This is our Chief Engineer, Jadaris,”

The soft voice helped serve as an anchor for Ris' focus, and drew his attention to his Department Head. “We’ve been trying to hash out a bit of a problem," he continued. "The Cardassians are blockading a starbase. The details of why aren’t important. What is important is that we want to get a good look at their ships — and what’s happening on the starbase — without drawing too much attention to ourselves. Any thoughts?”

Okay, that's a good problem to focus on. He narrowed his eyes a bit and pondered the holographic image floating in the air.

"Well, sir, do our probes have the capability to mask or change their IFF signal? Make it look like a friendly, or at least a neutral? Barring that, what about making one probe really loud, figuratively speaking, to draw their attention in one direction and send in a couple others much quieter from the opposite direction."

Ris hesitated a moment.

"Something I've learned is that sometimes the 'why' is the most important data point, as that informs their motivations and/or their goals, sir."

While not addressing him directly, Ris' eyes moved to glance to Jidaris, albeit briefly when he made his last point.

** Tag Qi/Jidaris ==

[Jadaris]

“I think our best option is just to hurtle something through the system in passive mode and hope that they don’t notice. Unless you have a way to collect more data?”

Jadaris sat down in thought, manipulating probe locations, and then Qi's new midshipman reported in. By the time the midshipman was in the science labs, Jadaris was still running computations.

"Well, sir, do our probes have the capability to mask or change their IFF signal? Make it look like a friendly, or at least a neutral? Barring that, what about making one probe really loud, figuratively speaking, to draw their attention in one direction and send in a couple others much quieter from the opposite direction."

Jadaris looked over at Ris and said,

"A good insight. The Cardassians will be suspicious if they detect a spoofed IFF probe however, since they keep track of what's transmitting and where. They'll probably send a ship to investigate the probe's signal if its detected, so stealth probes are our best option in that case. I believe I can get a sensor cloak working however, since we do have a smaller sensor signature, and I can make the necessary modifications to baffle any sensors. Masking our energy signature, running in passive mode, but then there's getting any probes we have into the system. If we use a class eight probe as a....what do the humans call it....piggy back carrier, then we could load several class threes onto a single eight, have it warp in to the edge of the system, detach the threes and have them relay any sensor data to the eight, and then bounce that probe's data stream to us, either by a tight channel, or by different means such as a compressed data pulse."

He looked at the Andorian that had spoken up and added,

"Commander Jadaris, Doctor of geophysics from the Vulcan Science Academy, QSD specialist and Chief Engineer. I don't bite or spit, and I'm in charge of keeping this ship from falling apart at the seams. I'm just worried about the Cardassians having a trick up their sleeve to interrupt our Quantum Slipstream Drive that'll let us get into the system. A sufficiently large graviton pulse could knock us out of QSD with severe damage, which was what happened to the Callisto when we were assigned as part of the Pathfinder expedition to the Delta Quadrant in pursuit of the Borg."

==tag==

[Ris'maeriiffa Qab'ataar]

The imposing Gorn faced Ris and directed a verbal response to his own non-verbal response moments ago.

"Commander Jadaris, Doctor of geophysics from the Vulcan Science Academy, QSD specialist and Chief Engineer. I don't bite or spit, and I'm in charge of keeping this ship from falling apart at the seams. I'm just worried about the Cardassians having a trick up their sleeve to interrupt our Quantum Slipstream Drive that'll let us get into the system. A sufficiently large graviton pulse could knock us out of QSD with severe damage, which was what happened to the Callisto when we were assigned as part of the Pathfinder expedition to the Delta Quadrant in pursuit of the Borg."

Ris felt the chagrin creep up his neck, seep across his face, turning his normally powder blue complexion a darker shade of blue, and continued on to the tips of his antennae. As part of his physical reaction, the tips of the antennae curled slightly inwards, like fingertips.

"Four years at the Academy with all of its diversity still didn't prepare me for this. I am sure it's a common reaction, Commander, but I offer my heartfelt apology." A momentary beat of silence briefly appeared. "Regarding the probe situation, the use of a larger probe to act as a mothership for the smaller ones seems a good place to start. My focus in the Academy was EM radiation, so perhaps I can assist with tuning the smaller probes' sensors and output."

He paused a moment in thought.

"My only knowledge of the Cardassians is what's taught at the Academy, and interpecies relations wasn't my focus. Given what you know of them, would making the Class 8 probe a little more obvious help or hinder our information gathering efforts?"

As he started "tucking into" the situation at hand, Ris' body language showed a return to a calm, relaxed state.

== Tag Jidaris/Qi ==

[Ris'maeriiffa Qab'ataar]

== Apologies for misspelling your name in the tag, Jadaris. Missed it both times I previewed the post, too. ==

[Arwen Qi]

“Using the class 8 probe as a red herring is pretty sneaky. I like it a lot,” Qi said, nodding toward the new crewman. “Then we should be able to establish a sensor net with the scattered Class 3 probes while they’re operating in stealth mode.”

Qi entered a string of commands into the simulation, watching as a dot representing each probe appeared on the holographic display.

“I doubt that the Cardassians will hesitate to destroy the big probe once they detect a warp signature, but they’ll have their guard up from that point forward if we think we’re trying to get one over on them. That might hinder our ability to keep a low profile.”

Qi untied and retied his hair, twisting the cloud of curls behind his head. Paranoia was ingrained into every level of Cardassian culture. Trying to pull the wool over their eyes was a fool’s errand, but they may be able to create enough confusion to buy themselves some time.

“I think we would be better off piggybacking the class 3 probes onto something that will catch their attention without telegraphing our intentions. I think we should try to make the Class 8 look like something that’s been floating in space for a long time, rather than something that we launched today. We can spoof some of the data and bang it up a bit to help sell the idea that it’s been running autonomously for years.”

Qi shrugged. He’d always been a good liar, though he hadn’t quite expected that skill to come in handy.

== Tag Ris/Jadaris

== GM Input: Are there technical issues with using the class 8 probe to distribute the class 3 units into strategic locations? ==

[Ris'maeriiffa Qab'ataar]

“I think we would be better off piggybacking the class 3 probes onto something that will catch their attention without telegraphing our intentions. I think we should try to make the Class 8 look like something that’s been floating in space for a long time, rather than something that we launched today. We can spoof some of the data and bang it up a bit to help sell the idea that it’s been running autonomously for years.”

Ris nodded slightly as his brain chewed on the problem.

Maybe I should have paid better attention in the classes on interspecies relations, especially those powers that are antagonistic towards the Federation.

Peering over the holographic display, his antenna bobbed back and forth very slightly - more of a sway, really - Ris narrowed his gaze slightly. As the seed of an idea germinated within, he slowly stalked around the projection to gain differing vantage points.

"Commander, sorry, Qi, can you run this through a backwards and forwards loop so we can see how the various celestials will be positioned around the time frame we want to deploy these probes?" His brow furrowed slightly as his focus increased, and his antenna locked forwards. "Bringing in the Class 8 behind a moon, or something similar, might be just the edge to get the Class 3s into position without the Cardassians noticing. That will also help us figure out just how much EM spoofing we'll need to do."

== Tag Qi/Jadaris ==

== GM Input: within the time frame of probe earliest Class 8 probe arrival into the system plus seven Earth standard days, which of those seven days would put the celestials (planets, moons, asteroids) in between where the station is and where we want out probe package to arrive? ==

[Jadaris]

"Four years at the Academy with all of its diversity still didn't prepare me for this. I am sure it's a common reaction, Commander, but I offer my heartfelt apology."

Jadaris nodded back, "No apology necessary. Its hard for a lot of people to get past the fact that my species is known for their past atrocities against Federation citizens. If you'd like, we can discuss the reasons why a Gorn is in Star Fleet over a cup of hot tea in the mess hall when our respective off-duty shifts align."

“I think we would be better off piggybacking the class 3 probes onto something that will catch their attention without telegraphing our intentions. I think we should try to make the Class 8 look like something that’s been floating in space for a long time, rather than something that we launched today. We can spoof some of the data and bang it up a bit to help sell the idea that it’s been running autonomously for years.”

Jadaris turned back to the projection. "The problem is the class threes are short range probes, meaning we'd have to get the class 8 in close to the Cardassians. However, a three stage booster isn't out of the question. A class 8 to boost them into the system with the wear and tear of a long range probe launched by the starbase, that we program its home base and point of launch to be the starbase, and we attach a class 5, which is a probe designed to collect planetary samples and has a higher sublight thrust rating to avoid subspace sensors, but is loaded with partial planetary samples we can replicate as being from one of the planets in the system, and then a pair of ancillary class threes that act as the scanners we need, and can get into position. We'd have to use the warp engine on the class 5 to generate an alteration in the warp harmonics so that we can expand the warp bubble around the two class threes, but its possible to do. And making the probes 'dirty' would lend credibility to them having been launched as part of a long term mission in case they're discovered. We could also load smaller planetary samples into the class threes in case they're discovered and captured by the Cardassians."

He pulled up a class 8 design on the holographic viewer and made some exterior modifications. "If we use breakaway mounts on the class 8, we can replicate asteroid collision damage, which would give the probe some credibility that it was on its way back and suffered asteroid damage that prevented it from attaining high warp speeds to return home with."

"But this still doesn't solve the issue of disguising ourselves, and I'm still wary of the Captain's order of us using the Quantum Slipstream Drive to get there, because I have a sneaky feeling that the Cardassians want us to use the drive, to test some countermeasures of their own against it. Gravity waves are one of the few ways to disrupt a QSD tunnel, and the last time that happened, we almost lost the drive."

==tag==

[GM-01]

==Qi==

Though it was possible to piggyback three Class Three probes on a Class Eight, it would have several adverse effects - the Class Eight would be effectively blind until the other probes had been disengaged, it would be unable to maneuver beyond its initial programmed course, and the energy drain would significantly reduce range and operational duration. The latter two issues could be overcome by launching the probes in a dormant state, only coming online after a predetermined amount of time, but that would carry its own risks.

==Qab'ataar==

Depending on how close the probes wanted to get, and whether or not the probe needed to land on a surface or coast through space, there was no specific day that would be any better than the other. The closer the probe got to the base, however, the easier it would be to detect and the more it would have to navigate around other objects in the system - something that would be far more difficult if the conglomeration of probes being recommended was deployed.