Heading Out

Posted on Sat Jul 2nd, 2011 @ 3:54pm by Lieutenant JG Toshie Minamoto & Lieutenant JG Paul Akron & Lieutenant JG Elizabeth Marion & Lieutenant JG Ryan Rose

Mission: Too Close for Comfort...
Location: Main Bridge, USS Arizona
Timeline: 12 Hours after 'Saddle Up'

Toshie paced back and forth in the turbolift as it carried her to the bridge. She was doing something she never really felt comfortable doing, commanding the entire ship. Sure, she had done it a few times on the Endurance, but that was different. "Just Gamma shifts," she muttered to herself as the turbolift came to a halt. After a deep, calming breath, she stepped forward into the chatter of the bridge preparing for departure. It was much cleaner then before, but there were still a few signs of the turmoil from before.

Her eyes looked around as she walked over towards 'the chair'. "Status report."

Ryan Rose, a young human Marine stood at Tactical. "Shields at 50% capacity, primary phaser coils will be online within the hour, secondaries are still offline. Torpedo bays report ready. Captain."

"Impulse engines and warp core are powered up and on standby," Ensign Akron replied as he called up the status on the various systems.

Lieutenant Marion looked back and gave the young Lieutenant a warning look as she drew closer to Commodore Cowell's center seat, "I wouldn't sit in the old man's chair if I were you..."

Toshie looked down at the chair and gave a small smile, "I don't intend to. I'm just standing next to it." Indeed, she had her hand on the chair as she looked around the bridge, nodding to the various systems statuses. Finally she touched the controls on the armrest. "Starbase 900, this is Arizona, requesting permission to get underway." After a moment the reply came through, "Arizona, this is Starbase 900, permission granted. Smooth sailing."

"Thank you, Starbase 900. Arizona out." Her attention faced back towards the helm and viewscreen. "Clear all moorings, ahead thrusters. Take us out, Ensign."

Ensign Akron nodded and pressed the requisite commands on his console. Within the span of no more than two minutes, the ship had been freed of her bonds and began gliding under her own power in the void of space once more.

"We've cleared the repair dock, all systems are reporting go for full impulse," Lieutenant Marion remarked from her station.

As the vessel juddered into impulse Ryan's hands danced across the tactical console, a low priority diagnostic confirmed the weapons systems were below the ideal threshold, however the targeting sensors flickered on with the green light, "Request permission to align targeting sensors."

Toshie nodded to Ryan as she sat in the XO's chair off to one side. "Go ahead, Lieutenant. We'll do that before we engage warp. I want us as prepared as possible for this." She looked over to the helm, "Ensign, take us to full impulse power away from the station and standby warp drive."

Both Ensign Akron and Lieutenant Marion exchanged looks before Liz turned around, "You do realize Archadia III is only about an hour away at full impulse, right? Engaging warp drive in a star system like this one is a bit on the dangerous side..."

Ryan fired a series of target buoys and triggered the alignment subroutine which fired several precise bursts from the phaser array and three spreads of low yield torpedoes. The viewscreen was briefly alive as the buoys exploded, or redundant torpedoes self-detonated in the distance. "Fireworks." Rose commented smiling to himself at the novelty of it - his first shift on the Bridge and he had managed to fire all weapons.'

"That's why we're going to the edge of the system. I want to test it out since we just did a complete rebuild and didn't get enough time to test it." Toshie shook her head as she leaned back in and watched the testing of the weapons. "That looks promising." She looked to the helm, "Take us in a micro-jump at Warp 1 to the outer edge of the solar system, then lay in a course to Archadia III at full impulse power. That will give us time to get everything squared away."

"Ah," Ensign Akron said, turning back to his console, "Engaging warp drive." The ship responded to the Flight Controller's inputted commands, and the view screen showed the assembled officers the proof of that when the stars made the transition from static to cascading. The Arizona had just enough time to get 'comfortable' in warped space before the Ensign collapsed the warp field and brought them to a stop.

"We had a few power surges in some of the ancillary systems surrounding the replaced plasma conduits on the lower decks, but otherwise it wasn't too bad of a trial run," Lieutenant Marion reported when the ship finally settled back into full impulse speed.

"Reports are coming in, DC teams have responded." Rose announced. "Weapons, ready."

Toshie growled a little as the damage reports came in and rested her face against clasped hands. "Good, I want that damage repaired before we enter orbit of Archadia III. I have a bad feeling and I want us to be ready for anything." She leaned back in the seat again as she fought the urge to go down there and fix it herself. Once an engineer...

The bridge had sat in silence for ten minutes or so in deference to the Chief Engineer's frustrations. Rose was the first to break the silence. "DC teams report mission accomplished." Ryan reported closing down the open internal communications challenge. "OPS can you verify?"

"Very well. Helm, best possible speed to Archadia III." Toshie looked over at the OPS station, then at Rose, "Status report on all systems, please if you would, Mister...?" Then back to the helm, "What is our estimated arrival time?"

"Twenty one minutes," Ensign Akron reported.

"All systems are back at operational readiness," Marion confirmed, "We shouldn't have any other issues, at least for now."