Posted by Lieutenant Commander Nivor Rhansi (Executive Officer) in Pre-Sim - Science Labs: Scientific Progress Goes ‘Boink’
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Nivor nodded. “Good thoughts. Make the necessary changes for the shift rotation switch,” he said. “And we can do a personnel review to replace your lab leads, certainly.”

This was an idea that she’d been talking with to the whole department and specifically working on already with the lab leads. Sharah was never one to leave things to the last minute and although a four shift rotation sounded good in theory, she had wanted to make sure the labs could be manned sufficiently with such a schedule change, before proposing it. So at this point it was only a matter of posting the new schedule. Personnel reviews would take longer. “Thank you Cmdr.”

“I’m glad you have mentioned getting along well with your colleagues,” he said, segueing. He cocked his head to one side. “Any insight you could give me on any of them?”

XO Rhansi

Sharah was a mostly transparent person. She was very good a pushing on through the noise, pain, headaches, distractions, etc., but that didn’t mean it didn’t show on her face. His question surprised her. Why would he ask her that? Did he expect her to have a better insight than say, the counselor, into the staff because of what she was? Was he looking to see if she was trustworthy? It wouldn’t be the first time someone had accused her of being a risk and testing her loyalty to Star Fleet and the crew. Under less spur of the moment circumstances, Sharah might have asked Joseph about it. She could attempt to use her telepathy to determine how genuine the question was, but she wasn’t like that. She might be unable to stop herself from ‘hearing’ the thoughts but that didn’t mean she had to ‘listen.’ And for a telepath of Shara’s capabilities it was very significant distinction. She sipped her water contemplating her answer.

“Lt Cmdr Trainor is quick to respond whenever the services of his department are needed. So far that has not been a single thing that he can’t find at a moments notice, at least for my department. He was fantastic in helping the civilian scientists in setting up the hydroponics bay. Other than senior staff meetings though I haven’t had the opportunity to work with him much. Lt Miz’uki and I haven’t really worked together yet. But she is quick to send an engineer when we need one and equally quick to request a science officer when the need arises. Lt zi’Indrai is very good at her job. I find her thoughtful and never quick to jump to conclusions.” Saying more about zi’Indrai would be divulging information about her own sessions and she was neither inclined nor required to do more. She’d worked at length with Lt Marshall. As a doctor Sharah had strong opinions about medical staff in a general sense. But she considered Hayley her friend and felt that any assessment would be skewed. She also felt it best to leave off another officer other than the Chief of Security. Should Rhansi ask specifically about them she would answer, and maybe not providing information was equally bad. In the end she opted for honesty. “As for Lt Marshall and Lt Rainns, any insight I could provide about them would be terribly skewed.”
Lt jg Fayth, CSO

Rhansi nodded, unconsciously touching the end of each breather with his tongue. “I assume that’s because you have personal relationships with them?” he asked, oblivious to Sharah’s inner turmoil. “That’s a good sign, to me. Makes for a better team, a better sense of trust” he said, tugging on his uniform top. “I hope that’s something I can engender in the crew as well,” he admitted.

“That’s correct commander. The three of us served on Challenger together as cadets.” Sharah supposed there was no harm in telling him the nature of those personal relationships. Much like Joseph, Sharah didn’t like sharing her personal life, but Rhansi was going to find out one way or the other. They were private but it wasn’t a secret and better to honest. ‘Joseph, the new XO is here doing his rounds. I’m happy to give you the details later, but just so you know, he is aware of our relationship.’ The thought traveled down one deck to Joseph sitting in his office. She wanted him to hear it from her, first. “Lt Marshall is both my very close friend and my preferred physician on board. Lt Rainns is my fiance.”

Nivor’s eyebrows rose. “My congratulations,” he said, nodding his head. “May the stars shine brightly on your union.”

Fayth was slightly embarrassed, that was probably the first time she’d actually referred to Joseph as her fiance to anyone, and, of course, with her luck it just had to be to the new XO of the ship. “Thank you, Cmdr.”

“Any interesting experiments running right now?”

XO Rhansi

“I’m afraid Cmdr that is a loaded question to a scientist. All experiments are interesting to the one conducting them.” She set her glass on her desk and stood moving toward the door and then turning left. “General labs 1-3 are currently working on setting up the environmental controls in the arboretums. They have an idea to filter all the ship’s air supply through one of the three arboretums to help recycle and purify it rather than using the ship’s systems. Plants do this naturally planet side and with the extensive size of Ark Angels arboretums the process could save significant power if the need should arise.

Rhansi followed her from lab to lab, glancing at displays and nodding to scientists as they passed. “Forgive me, as I’m an engineer,” he said, cocking his head to one side. “Would that not be dramatically slower than existing systems? What is the potential power savings from it?”

Sharah stopped, oh right, her penchant for rambling on and on and not explaining. She back tracked her thoughts a bit and answered his question. “It’s not meant to replace our current processes, but to support the emergency shelters on the ship in the case that we are on low power reserves. It would use a system similar to old HVAC systems on Earth using fans to pull the air in and then push it out. It can be run on the back up power supplies. It’s meant to be for emergencies. We are a long way from the Federation and we’re trying to find small ways to support us when resources are low. We considered just making the arboretums emergency shelters but they can’t hold enough people. And to be truthful we aren’t sure we can run on that alone for the number of people on board, but the Arboretums provide an abundance of natural air. As for speed, plants do this naturally at an incredible rate. It’s a symbiotic relationship, they produce oxygen for those that breathe it and they need our carbon dioxide. As for power conversions…” she stopped and pulled up the results of the last simulation, “we are sitting at 49.98% power savings. And the back up power supplies are estimated to run a week with this system. But we hope that the Boridium power supplies will last longer. They are more pure and should allow us to run for longer.”

The Exobiology labs are studying and experimenting with cellular samples the Elder One provided us and trying to determine how life in this sector of space evolved. Astrometrics is of course running scans and of the area. And upper and lower Stellar Cartography is continuing En Weir’s work of using pulsars to determine our location and tentatively map major locations on a way home. And of course adding information we’ve gathered from our contacts we’ve made so far.” Fayth continued walking the deck, “And lastly for this deck we have planetary sciences. They are running long range scans of nearby systems, and analyzing data already given to us. We have managed to collect from flora and mineral samples to see if anything is compatible with either or engineering needs or,” and her eyes lit up. This was her area of expertise, the reason Andone had recruited her to Ark Angel originally as a botanist, “to supplement our medical needs.” Her department ranged down to the next two decks and partially near engineering as well. When he was ready she would take him by the rest of the labs.
Lt jg Fayth, CSO

He allowed a grin around his breathers. “You have an excellent department running,” he said, looking around the lab complex again. “I’ll discuss the mineral samples and their engineering possibilities with Lieutenant Miz’uki or one of her officers later. What sorts of medical properties are you examining the native flora for?”

He was always quite intrigued to see novel uses of materials, and it sounded like Sharah had those in quantity.

XO Rhansi

“All medicines have a basis in naturally found materials. Now with science of course we can produce lots of synthetic ones, but the creation of medicinals hasn’t changed for thousands of years. I developed a program that allowed away teams to search for, find, and adapt plants and minerals to usable medications, weak, but usable, if they were caught away from medical aid. In the field the medicines are weak but in the lab on board we can make them at full strength in the labs. The program allows officer to go past just basic first aid. This program is similar. Really we are looking for the same chemical compositions that we already use, but this far from known space things are different. So we are analyzing the flora samples we were given to see if we can use any of them.” Fayth went on for some time into the technicalities and specific chemical compositions they were looking for, how to extract and refine the parts they needed. She stopped suddenly. “I warned you Cmdr, to a scientist their work is very exciting, if only to themselves.”
Lt jg Fayth, CSO