Joint Duty Log: Refractive Shielding Test

Posted on Sat Feb 6th, 2021 @ 4:59pm by Lieutenant Thea Queen & Lieutenant Laurel Lance
Edited on on Sat Feb 6th, 2021 @ 5:00pm

1,510 words; about a 8 minute read

Mission: Where do we go from here?
Location: Holodeck 1

Start Joint Duty Log: Refractive Shielding Test
By: Ens. Laurel Lance, and Ens. Thea Queen

Thea found Laurel at one of the engineering consoles, "Ens. Lance, if you have a moment, Felicity suggested I work with you on my refractive shielding idea." Thea addressed the Assistant Chief of Engineering and held out the PADD with her idea on it so that Laurel could look over the information. "I figured we could work on it in the holodeck so we could test it as well." She added.

Laurel looked up and turned as Thea called her name and took the PADD with the information. She quickly perused the data and smiled, "This is quite ingenious. I think a little time in the holodeck would be well spent if your idea pans out." Laurel signed off the console and walked next to Thea as they headed out of the room. "I like that this type of cloak would not require us to drop shields in order to return fire. I've always thought that was the most problematic part of those cloaking devises."

Thea gave a nod as they walked out of Engineering together towards a Lift that would take them to deck 11 where they could use one of the holodecks to work. "We have abrasive armor so clearly that's not a problem when it comes to fighting, but Refractive Shields would make it so we wouldn't need to fight should we find ourselves in a similar situation where we shouldn't exist," Thea explained. "Deck 11," She said as the lift closed behind them.

"Making us invisible to scanners as well as to the eye," Laurel said with a nod of her head, "Which current cloaking technology has a bit of a problem with because of distortion. Have you determined how we would combat that?" The Lift stopped and the two women walked towards the holodeck.

"That's what these tests are for, if I'm correct though then the algorithm will encompass the whole of our ship just as the shields already do so there shouldn't be any gaps or wavering like with cloaks," Thea explained.

Laurel stopped at the entrance to the holodeck and nodded to Thea, "Well, it sounds great to me. Shall we see if your theory will work? After you?"

"Computer recreates the Roddenberry-A in holodeck 1 Engineering section please," Thea said to the computer.

The computer beeped before responding. "Recreation complete program is running."

The doors slide open and Thea walked into the engineering bay of the USS Roddenberry-A and moved to the console accessing the shield generators to begin the algorithm sequence for the refractive shielding.

Laurel entered behind Thea and moved to the console to stand beside her, "So, let's see how this works." She was very interested to see the results of this simulation.

"Ok so I've added my algorithm, let's see if this works." Computer activates the refractive shielding and run a simulation where the ship fly near suliban ships use data scans from our last encounter and extrapolate a scenario." Thea said looking at Laurel a little excited.

The computer beeped and a scenario started to play out. The shields registered as being on and Thea moved to a second console to see then suliban ships off the starboard side. The ship was on a course back to the wormhole.

"Alright so here goes nothing," Thea said looking to Laurel.

Laurel nodded, "First pass, let's see how close we get." She held her breath as the simulation began.

"There's a fluctuation in the shield grid I'm attempting to compensate," Thea said her fingers moving over the console adjusting the algorithm accordingly. One of the Suliban ships moved towards them. It seemed for a moment that they might have seen them but then they moved past. "So far so good." Thea let out the breath she didn't realize she was holding.

Laurel let out her breath as well, "So far, although I wonder if that fluctuation was why they moved in this direction in the first place. We'll have to make sure that doesn't happen."

She watched carefully as the simulation continued, watching for any reaction from the Suliban vessels in the area.

"According to sensors when the shields fluctuated there was a momentary hole in the refractive shields I've corrected the fluctuation and the algorithm seems to be stable. however, I'd like to direct the ship to travel along side this suliban ship to test and make sure that the fluctuation is corrected and we can get close enough to hide right under their nose." Thea said mainly asking permission from the assistant chief.

Laurel nodded, "Let's see how close we can get to them and still stay hidden."

Thea gave a nod and used the console to change the direction of the ship's flight pattern to fly along side the suliban ships. She held her breath and waited.

Thea frowned as an alarm went off. "I'm getting a gravitational pull from one of the ships, no make that multiple ships." Thea said, "Computer run a scan on the Suliban ships for the cause of the gravitational pull." Thea ordered as her fingers moved over the console. "I'm backing us off it's destabilizing the shield modifications."

"Scan's completed," The computer beeped a few more times.

"This is odd, these ships shouldn't be giving off a gravitational pull of any kind, but three of them have red matter cores on their ships powering their systems. That means that some of the Suliban ships have red matter cores it would explain why the three ships we faced earlier exploded so easily under fire." Thea frowned at this. "We won't be able to get close to them. the gravity field that gives off will affect the refractive shielding we'll need to keep several meters out of the effect of that field." Thea sighed, but that shouldn't be a problem for the Roddenberry.

Laurel frowned slightly, "Unless we can compensate for that gravity pull it's going to be hard to get the heck out of Dodge as they say." She looked at the simulation for a moment, "What if we reduced our speed?"

"We can try." Thea frowned and thought for a moment before saying, "Computer reduce speed to warp 6."

Laurel watched again as the Roddy moved closer to the Suliban ships. It looked like it was going to work, but then right when the Roddy was in the middle, the cloak fluctuated wildly. "Damn! Still get caught!"

"The refractive shielding is destabilizing attempting to compensate," Thea said her fingers moving quickly, yet gracefully over the console working on the algorithm. she was working on an equation for the gravitational pull to adding an opposite polarity. similar to how magnets react to each other pushing or pulling closer. the gravitational pull was trying to pull their shields towards it. this will cause a push that will prevent the pull but wouldn't knock the other ships away it would just stabilize the shields. "let's see if that works."

Laurel moved to another console that would monitor the exact moment that shields fluctuated, if they did, and what specific forces caused it. "Go ahead, try it again and I'll watch for any other triggers."

Thea nodded and with the new algorithm in place started the simulation over again.

"You know, if this does work, "Laurel said with a small smile, "You could advance cloaking abilities on Star Fleet vessels."

"But it's not a cloak not really but it is similar to it." Thea smirked, "Ok here's the hard part," The ship was following the same path she'd programmed earlier so it was flying near the suliban ships now.

Laurel watched the readings carefully as the Roddy got close to the Suliban vessels, looking at the simulated readings carefully. "Getting an increase in gravity from one of the port side vessels," She stated calmly, "I think they might be preparing to move out."

"It's possible, how are the shields I'm not seeing any fluctuations with the new algorithm."

"They seem to be holding for now," She replied, "You might have to stay at the controls when we do this. Look, that ship, it's moving away as predicted."

"Yeah it's moving away from us, we haven't been detected though." Thea said knowing that this was going to work this time. "we'll need some fine-tuning in the end, but I think we've got it this time."

Laurel smiled, "Don't you mean you've got it? This is all, you Thea. I just wish I had thought of it."

"You helped me fine-tune it, but I think we're good to put the algorithm on the actual shields however I'd like to take this new data to the Captain first for approval before actually installing it. And Lt. Smoke too."

"Lt Smoke first, after all, she's the Chief and if there is anything we missed, well," Laurel shrugged slightly, "she'd be the one to tell us. But let me say this first, this is damn good work!"

"Right, Thank you for your help, Laurel."

-------------- End Log -------------

 

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