Evaluating A Fair Shot

Posted on Thu Jun 16th, 2022 @ 8:51pm by Lieutenant Commander Nyx Valentine & Lieutenant (Junior Grade) Jasmine Evalli

Mission: Mission 2: Chasing Shadows
Location: Hanger Bay
Timeline: Intermission

The two women walked into the shuttle bay at a fast pace, the short blonde one having to skip every other step to keep up with her boss. That particular tall brunette had a serious scowl on her face as she walked quickly over to the two fighters that were sitting apart from the rest on the deck. "Jeez, Nyxie, wait up! I'm short!" The blonde Ensign squeaked with a high pitched voice that was obnoxiously called 'cute' by the new Chief Engineer whenever she'd heard it. The woman with a dragon draped around her neck just shot her a worried look.

The two took a quick walk around both fighters before ending up in front of the one that had been unceremoniously dumped on the deck, the obvious rescue effort for the pilot with the discarded canopy and Nyx sighed deeply as she idly stroked the drakeling’s body with one hand, “There wasn’t anything on the sensors that impacted with the silly thing, so I’ve got no real clue as to what happened. That’s why I brought you, Jazz, you’re my best Officer for small craft damage and evaluation, I know Matt’s more senior, but I like you more, so… Congrats, more work for you.”

“Thanks, Boss.” Jasmine stuck out her tongue at Nyx, but also pulled out a tricorder before her boss as well, beginning a slow walk about on the fighter as her eyes flicked from the ship to the tricorder and back, about once every two seconds, trying not to miss anything at all. “So what I’m seeing in front of me is a piece of salvage. I’m getting absolutely zero return from any of the internals and they’re solid-state in several places… More resistant to damage, but also difficult to replace, but the trade off is usually pretty good… These are bricks. Okay, sure, I could replace them, but then we’ve got the rest of the damage! I’m not seeing what hit where, but this wing is out of kilter,” She reached out and small as she was, she still moved the wing.

"I see..." Nyx tapped the PADD in her own hands, then climbed onto the still solid wing of the craft and started a minute search of the craft, "Check out the other one while I take a look?"

"Rightio!" The small woman basically bounced her way over to the other craft and started the same basic walkaround.

Meanwhile, Nyx kept her eye on everything, going inch by inch, starting around the cockpit. She'd watched the video of the rescue attempt, the slow-motion impact of the fighters, how it buckled parts of the hull, because she wanted to be sure that she didn't make any sort of mistake. She was back towards the aft of the cockpit when she saw part of a compromised hull plate from the crash, which she'd initially dismissed, but something about it caught her attention and she didn't know why...

But with a closer look, she noted that part of the plate had been punctured, the initial survey had assumed it had been from the impact of the two fighter craft, but this wasn't that sort of damage. Nyx hauled herself up onto the top of the craft for a better look when Jasmine cleared her throat, "Good news on that one over there, it caught a bit of some sort of electro-magnetic pulse, but mostly just the edges of it. We can have her brought up to spec in an hour or two structure is well within spec, just the normal wear and tear, it’s just mostly resetting the circuitry and running diagnostics and all that sort.”

Nyx gave a loud mm-hmm as her response, totally focused on what she was doing and looking at, then felt the drakeling shift again as it maintained balance and she sighed. “Gigi?” She got the familiar chirrup and gave a three toned whistle and pointed to Jasmine, Gigi slithering around to the pointing arm before unfurling her wings and leaping towards the younger woman with a single flap of her wings. Jasmine’s eyes brightened and she expertly slid her PADD into a pocket then extended her arms in a welcoming gesture. The eight-pound little dragon impacted on her arms and swarmed up them to begin cuddling and preening Jasmine as the girl laughed, unaware that it was in part due to the golden hair on her head.

On her own part, Nyx chuckled and got back to the impact point, withdrawing the sensor probe from her tricorder and activated it, less for the actual sensor data it would provide, than for the light it emitted. She reached into the divot and extended her fingers desperately gripping the probe into the hole that was smaller than her hand could fit, peering in and pursing her lips as she saw the internal damage. "Lost power, but..." She raised her head and noted some scratches on the hull, glancing around, three sets, one fainter than the others. She ducked her head and reached back for another of her tools, a plasma cutter, right after she replaced the tricorder probe blindly.

A couple minutes later, lerd that armor was tough to cut, and a large enough hole for her hand and a light was inserted into the hole. "Jazz?" She called out, "How dead was this fighter when it landed?"

"Dead, dead." Jasmine's high-pitched giggle came from the ground side, "As I said, it's now a piece of salvage that we can get piece by piece into an industrial replicator regain some useful function for the material it's made of. Electronics are totally dead and those are important for a fighter."

"Right... Right..." Nyx was distracted as she half-ignored the young woman and returned her attention to the insides of the fighter. Sure the impact of the projectile, and there's no doubt there was one, had done some minor physical damage to the insides, but not enough to downcheck the fighter permanently. She reached out and tried to dislodge one of the internals, but it was fused into the framework as if... "An EMP, but with enough power to partially melt things in here... Thermal aspect to whatever it was? The components themselves were at a higher temperature for operating, but not high enough for self-damage. Going to have to do a bit of research into that..." She took a holographic scan of the area and then slid off the fighter, impacting lightly on the ground.

Jasmine had Gigi in her arms again, rubbing the creature's belly as the dragon just reveled in the attention she was receiving. Nyx shook her head slightly at the sight, "I've got what I needed from it. Bring the beastie and I'll show you another trick she's learned while I get a report written up for the skipper." Nyx smiled brightly, "Just replicate some marshmallows, graham crackers and chocolate."

"And the fighters?" Jasmine squeaked, glancing over at the craft as the dragon kicked at her with one of her hind legs playfully.

"Leave them for now. We'll get Matt on the first one, the second?" Nyx shrugged towards the young woman, "As you say, it's scrap."

For a few seconds, as the two began to work their way back towards Engineering, Nyx began to figure out how to word the report. 'Captain, my investigation of Lieutenant Scott Mitchell's fighter shows me that he was engaged against an enemy that shot him with a projectile that caused a high energy EMP in direct proximity to the internals of the craft. Fragmentation caused minimal damage and it is my belief that this wasn't intended to cause physical injury, merely the disabling of the craft. I'll perform an analysis of the fragments to see if they are a unique alloy or if they can be traced. The craft is a total loss, the second craft will be up and available within a couple hours.'

She rolled that around in her head for a few minutes and nodded, yes, that would do as a preliminary report. She'd have that rolled up in a few minutes, then... S'mores.