Part 2: Meetings an Unstoppable Object with Limited Force

Posted on 30 May 2020 @ 9:18pm by Captain Jonathan Reynolds & Lieutenant Commander Aidan Datari & Lieutenant JG Lilura Karakalakss & Lieutenant JG Rosaline Belikov

Mission: Mission 4 - Race against the machine
Location: Deck 5: Science Lab - Configured for Weapon's yields
Timeline: MD3 - 1420 Hours
1644 words - 3.3 OF Standard Post Measure

ON:

DECK 5 - Configurable Lab 0504 - Setup for Weapon Yields and Material Impacts

Lilura just listed her three ideas of: 1. Overloaded Phasers 2. Overloaded Photons 3. Kinetic Missile using tractor and wormhole effect. The assembled personnel are brainstorming and adding their own ideas and thoughts to the discussion on best approaches for taking out the planet killer.

Michael spoke up, "The third idea sounds rather like a biblical story of David and Goliath, and it might work. However, instead of a large asteroid, we could find one that is more aerodynamical in shape. A smaller object could also create enough kinetic force, to affect the giant we are currently facing. When David went against Goliath with his sling, he was rather particular in the sort of stones he used. "

Lilura hrmmed in her chest, then replied, "Well, we don't have any air to affect the asteroid, but a smaller one could be potentially thrown with more force. However, we need enough mass to create a wormhole affect when it is whipsnapped towards the planetkiller so that it tracks and collides with the thing. Hmm, however, what if we create a wormhole affect remotely by using a runabout anchored to the asteroid and triggering it when it gets close to the planet killer? We need it to hit without a chance of the planet killer doing a maneuver away from the incoming asteroid."

"Maybe we should try and use the deflector instead of the tractor to try and push it into that monster," Aidan countered, "Dragging a huge rock will probably ask a lot of the engines, not to mention our hull integrity?"

Lilura tilted her head to the side, "Well, we would lose the ability to keep the asteroid away from the ship by using a tractor, and also whipping it towards the planet killer to gain momentum and activate the wormhole effect. However, that idea could have merit if we strap the runabout to a smaller shaped asteroid and use its warp engines to one shot it towards the planetkiller at a high speed, and remote control to home in on that beastie. What do you think, create a high speed kinetic projectile with a runabout and save stresses on the ship? Of course, that would be third as we would want to weaken the baddie first with trying enhanced phasers, then overloaded quantum torpedoes. What else can we add to this?"

"the smaller the asteroid, the more precise the calculations need to be. We have three starships at our disposal, not to mention the dozens of shuttles and runabout. I would recommend looking for a larger asteroid with a dense core, perhaps iron or some other heavy element" Rose said

"Or we use all options, take smaller asteroids with a shuttle and a larger one between the starships. Tow it with the tractors but I do recommend shooting it using the deflectors." Aidan felt ill at ease in this meeting and it was evident on his face, clearly he felt out of his league here.

"Whatever we end up doing, it is very important that we do not sap too much energy from the ship. If we strain the Andromeda too much we are going to be at a rather big disadvantage, if we need to try to get away from that planetkiller." Michael said.

"well, we have a few starships here, could we move the planet killer with tractor beams? possibly neutralise it's own engines" Rose asked

"If a planet killer does infact have engines," Ron interjected. "Nothing has ever penetrated the hull. How do we know its not some form of life or something else entirely."

"What if we send a high yield torpedo into the mouth of that thing?" Aidan suggested.

“Judging by the Intelligence I have managed to dig up, that will succeed in destroying it, but the only time that was successful it turned Galorndon Core from a pleasant class M planet to something more akin to a Class L”

"And that isn't something we want to do to the other planets that are nearby." Michael stated.

"Could always somehow lure it away from planets... or if all options end, near an uninhabited planet. Better an L class than people without homes, right?" Aidan ventured, offering a helpless shrug.

Lilura was listening to all suggestions. This was a brainstorming session, and there were many good ideas. She thought for a moment, then said, "First, an unknown. That thing can fire a blast out its maw that can destroy a planet. That means in one or two hits, if that, it could take out any one of our starships. In order to jam something down its throat, we need to get an idea of how often it can fire its weapon. Once we know that, we can plan for getting something inside. But, to do that, we need to provoke it. Also, to lead it away, we need to provoke it. We have multiple good ideas to go with here. One other thing, on the tractors, the planet killer is huge. One of our starships can fit down its maw, I am not sure we could hold it, or even for long. However, we should be able to hold it in place long enough to jam something down its throat. So, here is what I propose."

Lilura took a sip of her coffee, then listed out a possible list based upon the ideas presented.

"1: We send out some engineering crews with two shuttles for smaller asteroids, a runabout for a larger asteroid, and have them start rigging them up as kinetic missiles. Also, we need to plant anti-matter charges on them to make them into spectacular very large anti-matter/matter bombs."

"2: We need to lure that thing away from here. What if we use the phaser idea to try and soften it at first and provoke it to follow us out into deeper space? We need it to fire on us to start tracking its firing rate. If we have starships crossing in and out of its front firing arc, we should be able to minimize getting hit, or at least, a glancing hit, giving us a chance to continue our plan."

"3: To provoke it further and keep it after us, and buy time for the engineering crews, we hit it with quantum torpedoes next, at the same spots we hit it with phasers. Lets see if we can rattle it and keep it chasing us, and firing on us."

"4: Now that we have timings down we attack the previously hit spots with the large and one small kinetic missiles. We use two ships to use their deflectors to push to keep those missiles readily apparent to the planetkiller, while having the third small kinetic missile tractored and hidden behind a starship. Right after it fires a beam from its own weapon, we then have the starship tractoring the kinetic missile rush towards its opening and then veer away, launching the kinetic missile right down its throat and hopefully such a large blast would take its insides out. At the same time, the other two starships tractor the planetkiller to keep it in place long enough to make sure that kinetic missile gets inside."

She smiled to the group and finished with, "What do you think? And, any other ideas or comments? All is welcome."

"Anything else i can say would be this, most important thing to do is try to have it as simple as possible." Michael stated.

“There’s a lot of ‘ifs’ in that plan. Not a great deal of room for error” Rose commented

"Yes," Ron said. "Its going to require some on the ball coordination too. I assume we will be running some holo simulations?"

"I should hope so," Aidan said, "because to not do so would be utterly daft. We'd be wasting resources, and possibly lives if we don't."

Lilura gurgled gently in her chest and replied, "Well, to be fair, at our end, we can do what we are planning to do. The ifs are with effectiveness against the planet killer, and I don't think we can clear those up until we actually try our strikes and record what happens. And, yes, we will definitely be running holo simulations. If something we are planning to do doesn't look like it will work, we scrap it. Again, this is brainstorming to figure out best guest ways to take on that thing, and now we act on what we have agreed upon."

Lilura finished her coffee, then asked, "Okay, who here can start on holo simulations? Anybody up for scouring information on any culture or background mentioning the planet killers to get more of a profile on how it will react? At my end, I am going to start creating plans and procedures for the phasers, quantum torpedoes, and what is needed for our kinetic missiles with a partial matter to energy explosion added in for good measure. As this is a lot to do, anybody else have expertise to take on any of these tasks?"

"I can resume my search for information on the Planet Killers, though i'm not sure what else I can find. Most of the information we have came from other ships that encountered this thing and none of them turned out well" Rose said, giving a shrug.

OFF:

●○ Lieutenant JG Lilura Siana Karakalakss
Assistant Chief Engineering Officer
USS Andromeda

● “ Ensign Michael Hawkins“
Chief Operations Officer
USS Andromeda

Ron Bumble
NPC Jonathan Reynolds
Chief of Science USS Europa

●● Lieutenant Aidan Datari
Chief Science Officer/2nd Officer
USS Andromeda

○● Lieutenant JG Rosaline Belikov
Intelligence Officer
USS Andromeda

Captain Vern Keading
PNPC True Keading

Cmdr Melody Jones
PNPC Amelia Fox