Much ado about Romulus

Posted on Thu Jan 19th, 2012 @ 1:03pm by Captain Nathan Cowell MD & Lieutenant Colonel Anastasia DeVries & Lieutenant Xylia Lischka & Lieutenant Xishaal Idrani & Lieutenant Jasad Broca

Mission: Crises and Consequences
Location: Conference Lounge, Bridge, USS Arizona
Timeline: 10 minutes after 'Worn out welcome'

Admiral Nathan Cowell walked into the Conference Room, which constituted the rear most compartment of habitable space on the bridge. The spacious and rather well constructed table that sat in a gently curved manner conforming rather nicely to the equally gentle curve of the room itself was a welcome change from the rather small and confined table that once dominated the Prometheus-class Arizona's conference room. During the ten minute preparatory time span between the ordering of a briefing and the deadline for being in the room, Nathan had compiled all the pertinent information that the crew would need to enact the operations that were about to be demanded of them... possibly. The old man tossed a fairly large data PADD onto the table in front of his honorary position at the head of the briefing room and sank into his chair, taking note that it was almost as comfortable as his office chair.

"Alright people, here's a rundown of what we're looking at. As most of you either know or have caught wind of, we're on our way to Romulus. According to Starfleet Command's briefing material, we're going there in a preemptive fashion because some of the Senators think it might be a good idea to have as many people on tap as they can get in case something goes horribly wrong. According to the reports, the USS Yorktown is being sent to fetch Ambassador Spock, they'll be taking him to Vulcan... something about red tomatoes or something..." Nathan said as he glossed over information, getting some of it jumbled up or outright wrong as he skimmed, "What that means to us is, we've got... how long is it going to take us, Akron?"

"Three hours, sir," Lieutenant Junior Grade Paul Akron replied from his position at the far end of the table.

"Right, we've got three hours to get ready for an evacuation. It would seem that the seven ships being dispatched to Romulus with us are only the first of many, but they are the closest. The problem with this is going to be, most of them are small patrol vessels and they won't be able to get but so many passengers aboard. I ran the numbers by the computer, if we use the holodecks, the cargo bays, the shuttle bay, and every square inch of unused or underutilized space we have on this ship, we'll get about seven thousand or so bodies on board... and that's pushing it. We're probably going to need to keep sickbay on alert throughout the evacuation, and try not to crowd it with people that aren't sick or dying of something," Nathan said, his attention focused on the Bolian who was serving as their newest Chief Medical Officer.

Admiral Cowell turned his attention to the two Security officers that sat a bit closer to his position than the Flight Controller, "Even though this is only a contingency plan as of yet, we need to be ready in terms of security for the possibility of taking on civilians and all the lovely nightmares that come with dealing with panicked and scared refugees. Lord knows they won't be happy to be on our ship and they'll have their own opinions on how things ought to go. You two are going to have to play diplomats as well as sentries if it comes down to it. I want special attention paid to all of our critical areas... computer core, engineering, life support... anywhere that wondering eyes and idle hands don't need to be. Just because we're doing people a favor coming to their aid, we aren't just going to open the ship up and let just anybody go anywhere."

"Admiral, we can lock down all of the extremely sensitive areas of the ship and assign sentries and roving patrols to keep areas secure and assist where needed." Xishaal replied. "If worse comes to worse we can activate security force fields where our people are needed elsewhere."

"Security personnel will patrol the sensitive areas in person, and I'll see to it that there are people placed throughout the ship to make sure people don't wander where they aren't supposed to." Lischka stated, making some notes on the PADD she had in front of her. "As for the use of force fields, that might not be such a good idea, considering it would not only keep the people we'll be picking up out, but it would keep our own people from getting in or out as well. That would have to be a last ditch effort. Admiral... what are your commands if people begin to get unruly or downright hostile?" She had a feeling that might be the case with that many people on board. Definitely makes for an extremely dangerous situation.

"I'd prefer you use as little force as possible, but keep your phasers on stun anyway. If we have a full on riot, just put them to sleep for a few hours and I'm sure that'll get their attention. Let's just hope they'll be more worried about what they're going to do to survive than how unhappy they are to be our guests," the old man remarked.

Xishaal thought over the requirements and offered one last idea, "Sir, will we allow them to come aboard armed then? It may make things a bit slow but if we attune the transporters to scan and disable any and all weapons, we could eliminate any future threats to the ship regardless if such threats manifests or not."

"The more time we waste using transporter scans, the fewer people we'll be able to beam up. I'm not about wasting lives by wasting time. If you want to post a man on every transporter to pat people down after we get them up, that's fine... but I'm not going to sacrifice efficiency for paranoia just yet. I haven't gotten any official word we're going to be picking up any military personnel, and right now we're just planning contingencies. No one's given us the green light to start beaming people off world. Just stick with the pat downs and baggage check plan for right now. If we have a large enough number of people bringing weapons, we'll shift our strategy to compensate," Nathan said after a moment's consideration.

Nathan's attention shifted again to Lieutenant Broca, "Bronco, I'm going to need you to coordinate the conversion of the wasted space on board into shelters. If we have to replicate bunks, do it. Also, get some programs created for the holodecks, nothing fancy... maybe just recreate some barracks buildings and what have you in some nondescript location on some fantasy planet. Just enough to house them and give them some measure of comfort. If we have to, put cots in the corridors. We'll just have to work around them if it comes to that. And whatever else you think we can do to maximize capacity without sacrificing our ability to house them for a while."

Jasad nodded. Both the Cardassian and Federation navies had given him extensive training on how to handle emergency evacuations. It was standard training, and there were even math problems about it at the Academy. 'While maintaining 10 square feet of living space per evacuee, what is the evacuation capacity of a Miranda class vessel?' But there were tricks not mentioned in the Academy. He needed to apply his problem-solving skills to squeeze every last possibility out of this scenario.

"Permission to transition all officers and crew to bunk beds and three-shift hotbunking, sir?" It was a distasteful request for an abominable working condition. Each member of the crew, including officers, would have to change their normal beds for two-tier bunk beds. Then they would have to surrender those beds after an eight hour sleep period. It would let him fit the existing crew into 1/6th the accommodations, freeing up many quarters for the evacuees. It was one of the methods for maximizing capacity that wasn't discussed at Starfleet Academy because it was terrible for morale. The Cardassian military didn't discuss it because the military was generally considered more important than civilians anyway. But SOP or not, comfortable or not, it would let him get significantly more bodies on board.

"If it will save some lives, I suppose we'll plan for it. But I'm not hot-racking with nobody. I ain't a damn Admiral for nothin'..." Nathan said, adding his own disdain for such a measure just to be sure the thought wasn't in the man's mind.

Nathan finally turned to his First Officer, "Anything you think might be worth adding, discussing, addressing?"

Having remained rather silent for the majority of the meeting thus far, Stace took a few seconds to mull the thoughts over in her head before nodding sternly. "I suppose the thing that concerns me the most is the possibility of receiving injuries. I hate to be the naysayer of the whole shebang but I know firsthand that Romulan physiology is not as comparable to Vulcans as most tend to believe. If we have numerous numbers in need of treatment I'm afraid we may not have that many skilled individuals to offer aid."

Nathan leaned back in his chair and rubbed his chin, "That's a good point. I haven't done a great deal with Romulan medicine myself... We might need to get on the horn to the Romulans and asked for that sort of information. Wouldn't want to try and treat a wound and end up killing people because of it. Might even be good to have a little survey of the people we beam aboard. Get some of the medical staff sent to Sickbay in the event that we pick up some sick, injured and invalid people in the process. I'm glad you brought that up. Alright people... aside from this new issue, I think we have it all about covered. I want each of you to start implementing your individual evacuation plans immediately. And until we leave Romulan space, I want this shit on yellow alert. You're all dismissed."

Nathan pushed himself away from the desk as Lt. Col. DeVries gave the order for the ship to assume yellow alert status. They had a great deal to do before they reached the Romulan home world, and very little time to make it happen...